D&D 5E Is Tasha's Broken?

[the Jester]

It is to keep a level playing field between the various players. Stop calling that "optimization".

That +2 to your prime stat is honestly not all that important to maintaining a level playing field.

And this absolutely is about optimization. You can call a tomato a potato, but that doesn't mean it won't still make a better pizza sauce than a French fry.

Optimization is, at its most basic, asking the question, "How do I get more or higher bonuses here?" That's exactly what this is- the player is figuring out how to shift an extra +1 from one area of the character sheet to another.

 

[the Jester]

"Setting first" is meaningless. Meaningless.

That's a fine assertion, and it might be true for your game, but it's absolutely not true for mine. If it was, I wouldn't have an issue with floating ASIs.

A PC is not an average member of a race. They in no way define that race for the world.

Agreed. But the race that a pc belongs to should, and does (in my campaign), have a meaningful impact on the character.

I also, for the record, won't be adopting the new "pick your size" and "everyone lives the same length of time" stuff, either- because those are things defined by the character's race (in my game, and traditionally, too). Racial lifespan is a thing that significantly affects how the race acts and thinks in my game. Elves have a vastly different perspective than humans, and at least some of my players lean into that.

If it did, then 1 in 11 of every single race that gets a +2 could have a 20 in an ability score. Because that's the chance of rolling an 18 on 4d6 drop the lowest, plus your +2.

You're assuming that a pc is a typical representative of the race here- but that has never been the case in all of D&D's history. Pcs have always been depicted as above the curve. To project that onto rolling for stats, npcs don't get 4d6 drop one, they get 3d6 down the line, modified for race.

The flip side is that you are saying that while 1 in 11 have a 20 in some races, not 1 in 1,000, not 1 in 1,000,000, not one in the entire race could have a 20 if their ability modifier isn't +2.

...unless they're high enough level to have gained an ASI or have some other weirdness involved. Yes, correct. That's totally fine with me. It's a feature, not a bug. In fact, the aforementioned kercpa (Tiny squirrel folk) race that I have? Your maximum Str is not 20, it's 14. Other races in my game (though not the bog standard pc races) have higher or lower maximums in some stats than 20.

Because YES, you can play the outlier.

Sure. You can play, say, a gnome whose strength exceeds the gnomish normal. That is what you are doing if you have a Str of 12 or higher. And if you want to play the super strong gnome (for a gnome), you are doing so with a Str of 18. And if you really must have that 20, you can get there eventually- by putting ASIs into Str- but not as fast as a naturally bigger, stronger race.

That's part of being a gnome. You're not naturally super strong.

If you don't believe me, think about how so many people over the editions have wanted to play "the good drow" or other that plays against type.

Not having that extra +2 does absolutely nothing to stop you unless your concern is optimization.

And I'm not talking about 20 to optimize.

You quite literally are.

To be clear, I'm fine with that if that's the game someone else wants to run. Have your fun your way! But I find floating ASIs to be extremely dissatisfying. I would probably feel differently if they hadn't been used to depict how far a race varies from the human baseline for, well, the entire time I've been playing D&D (since 1981).

 

[overgeeked]

That +2 to your prime stat is honestly not all that important to maintaining a level playing field.

And this absolutely is about optimization. You can call a tomato a potato, but that doesn't mean it won't still make a better pizza sauce than a French fry.

Optimization is, at its most basic, asking the question, "How do I get more or higher bonuses here?" That's exactly what this is- the player is figuring out how to shift an extra +1 from one area of the character sheet to another.

There's levels to optimization though. I utterly detest optimization, but I really don't like playing a character who sucks at the thing they're supposed to be good at. So playing a static race-based bonus halfling druid sucks because I'll be playing with spells and effects that are 5-10% worse than say a firbolg druid. So, either I accept that my character will suck or I just don't play the character I'd like to play and instead play a druid from a race with a WIS bonus. So the fiction I want to put forward dies because the fiction the designers decided on almost 10 years ago is somehow more important. That's lame. For me it's not about optimization. It's about adding flexibility and removing race-based essentialism. Near as I can tell, both are amazing things. Flexibility is great. Not perpetuating 19th century race-based philosophy is even better. So it's a double whammy. Even if it leads to some people power-gaming, min-maxing, or optimizing...because of course it will...doesn't matter what you do, they'll always find a way...I don't care. I'll add that to the pile of negative behaviors I simply have to deal with every time we sit around the table and play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There's levels to optimization though. I utterly detest optimization, but I really don't like playing a character who sucks at the thing they're supposed to be good at. So playing a static race-based bonus halfling druid sucks because I'll be playing with spells and effects that are 5-10% worse than say a firbolg druid. So, either I accept that my character will suck or I just don't play the character I'd like to play and instead play a druid from a race with a WIS bonus. So the fiction I want to put forward dies because the fiction the designers decided on almost 10 years ago is somehow more important. That's lame. For me it's not about optimization. It's about adding flexibility and removing race-based essentialism. Near as I can tell, both are amazing things. Flexibility is great. Not perpetuating 19th century race-based philosophy is even better. So it's a double whammy. Even if it leads to some people power-gaming, min-maxing, or optimizing...because of course it will...doesn't matter what you do, they'll always find a way...I don't care. I'll add that to the pile of negative behaviors I simply have to deal with every time we sit around the table and play.

So your character being 5-10% less effective in some areas than a hypothetical different character means that your character sucks? And somehow this is not about optimization?

 

[Warpiglet-7]

So your character being 5-10% less effective in some areas than a hypothetical different character means that your character sucks? And somehow this is not about optimization?

Some people feel this way; if I am not careful I am one of them!

I have to actively remind myself how much fun I have when I let go and do something thematic and just different.

I play straight blade pact warlocks (non hex) and take weapon master sometimes! But I feel the pull…

knowing if I do X, I might be more effective….

its about your tolerance for “good enough.” My group would never drop racial ASIs though I get why some do.

 

[the Jester]

There's levels to optimization though. I utterly detest optimization, but I really don't like playing a character who sucks at the thing they're supposed to be good at. So playing a static race-based bonus halfling druid sucks because I'll be playing with spells and effects that are 5-10% worse than say a firbolg druid. So, either I accept that my character will suck or I just don't play the character I'd like to play and instead play a druid from a race with a WIS bonus.

First, let's be clear.

"5-10% worse", in this case, assuming you are talking strictly about a +2 bonus to Wis means exactly and pretty much only a -1 to your spell DCs and attacks, and a -1 to your healing. There are probably a few other effects here and there, but it's absolutely not 5% to 10% lower damage on your attack spells, or a 5-10% chance of failing to remove conditions with lesser restoration, or anything else. It's a marginal difference.

And honestly, if that +1 means more to you than your concept, I don't think your concept was for a halfling druid. It sounds to me like it was for a druid with a 20 Wis (or whatever starting score is 2 above the halfling's).

 

[overgeeked]

So your character being 5-10% less effective in some areas than a hypothetical different character means that your character sucks? And somehow this is not about optimization?

Nope. Because wanting to get a +1 or +2 to your main stat isn't optimization. Pouring over a dozen books to find a weird synergy that will break the game and give you 500 hit points at first level is optimization. Things like the coffee-lock are optimization. Wanting to put a +1 or +2 in your main stat is not on par with those.

Some people feel this way; if I am not careful I am one of them!

I have to actively remind myself how much fun I have when I let go and do something thematic and just different.

I play straight blade pact warlocks (non hex) and take weapon master sometimes! But I feel the pull…

knowing if I do X, I might be more effective….

its about your tolerance for “good enough.” My group would never drop racial ASIs though I get why some do.

For me, good enough it not making obviously bad choices. Playing a druid with bad WIS is a bad choice. Playing a druid with a good WIS is a good choice. It's not rocket surgery. It's also not optimization. Not how I see it at least. There's also group dynamics at play. A lot of optimizers and groups will simple lay into players who don't at the very least have some racial bonus to their class's main stat.

 

[Bill Zebub]

As usual this debate has come around to:

Poster A: That +2 ASI isn't really that important for what you care about, but it's really important for what I care about
Poster B: No, no, you have it backward: it's really important for what I care about, but it's not important for what you care about.
Poster A: Also, the thing you care about is an inferior form of roleplaying.
Poster B: Dang, I was just going to say that.

I'll leave it to you to figure out which side is A and which side is B.

 

[Neonchameleon]

What Tasha's showed is the many fans want a simple system and a complex system at the same time for ability scores. However with the promise of numerous variant dead at playtest, this was impossible. So only option for WOTC was to shift races away from ability scores and to racial traits.

Racial traits are simply more interesting and more relevant than roleplaying than +1s - which is what ability scores really are. WotC made the right call here.

Where WotC made the wrong call was in setting the benchmark of your primary stat at level 1 at 16 - as is shown by every single pregen having a 16 in their primary stat at level 1. They then made it physically impossible to reach that 16 when using the standard array with any race that didn't have a bonus in their primary or secondary stat. And not being able to reach the benchmarks just feels bad. This means that thanks to what is in this particular spot the poor design of the 5e PHB playing anything other than a cookie cutter race/class combination just felt bad.

This meant that in PHB 5e most races can not meet the benchmark in the majority of classes. This was exceptionally bad for table diversity. There was a really awkward patch for this by creating a plethora of subraces for 5e - but this grew messy. And for a (non human/helf) race that doesn't have subraces you can't meet the benchmark in four out of six stats.

Both 4e and Pathfinder 2e had solutions to this. In 4e the benchmark was supposed to be 16 but in practice was 18 in your primary stat. It was possible to reach a 20 through min-maxing and a synergistic race/class combo but any race/class combo could reach 18 and thus hit the benchmarks. In Pathfinder 2e the races each provide a floating ability boost so all races can make the benchmark in most classes (they of course have an ability flaw - but that means that there's one stat where they can't meet the benchmark not four out of six).

Had either the 4e or the Pathfinder 2e approach happened when 5e was published it is very unlikely that the Tasha's ability scores would have happened. But the 5e ability score implementation was flawed out of the box and Tasha's chose the simplest and clearest way of improving the game they could and this has definitely had a strong positive effect on character diversity which is entirely a good thing IMO. Did Tasha's make the right choice? There was no right choice to be made - but they made a simple choice that did an effective job of improving the game for the players because the PHB made a poor choice. As I said earlier "Tasha's was written by a team that had been playing 5e for years and understood its shortcomings and set out to both fix and expand the game" - and the way 5e handled racial ability scores for player characters was one of its shortcomings.

 

[Vaalingrade]

When will people just come together to commiserate about all of them being inferior to me?