D&D 5E Is Tasha's Broken?

[GMforPowergamers]

Gary tried that and it was a mistake.

and ten years from now people may make the same thought about race ASI

Women would also have a con bonus.

I'm not going to dignify real differences... I am WELL past that

Additionally, we only have humans to go off of and so it would be unfair on that front as well. Racial bonuses are about as fine tuned as you want to get.

no I don't want to get race bonuses... TBH I want no stat mods by race at all.

 

[Vaalingrade]

and ten years from now people may make the same thought about race ASI

From now? At least for me and others I know, that would be 'ago'.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I wonder if (some) people who staunchly defend racial ASIs secretly think there should be gender ASIs. It would logically follow. And I wouldn't blame them for keeping quiet about it.

On the other hand, if they understand and agree with the reason for not having gender ASIs, it makes me wonder why they don't extend that same logic to racial ASIs.

I absolutely don’t want that. But I also assume that physical differences between completely different species are far greater than differences between sexes of the human species. Like one human sex is not five feet taller and have twelve times the mass of the other.

 

[Willie the Duck]

On top of that, a flat bonus to a generic stat isn't the only way to represent or differentiate such differences, it's just How It's Always Been Done.

Excepting the times when it hasn't.

You prove my point with that argument. Goliaths all have +2 strength. Elves do not. An elf can roll an 18 and a Goliath can roll a 12+2 and get a 14. Generally Goliaths will be stronger than elves, though some elves will be stronger than an individual Goliath, despite ALL Goliaths having a strength bonus. A race being stronger just means that due to the strength bonus, the average member of that race will be stronger than the average member of the weaker race.

I seriously think that the character creation rules are terrible at making demographic statements in general. Let the fluff descriptors have this one. We have enough trouble defining the difference between a 16 and an 18 Wis or 8 and 10 Dex, using them to define sweeping traits of entire populations has so much noise to signal as to be nearly useless

I wonder how much this argument would have changed (or changed at all), if Tasha's had instituted a three-point system. What if:
Your Origin gives you a +1 to any stat of your choice
Your Background gives you a +1 to a fixed ability score (Adept = +1 Int, Acolyte = +1 Wis, Athlete = +1 Con, etc.)
Your Class gives you a +1 to the key ability score (Bard = +1 Cha, Cleric = +1 Wis, Fighter = +1 Str or +1 Dex, etc.)
Would this have solved this ability score issue, in your opinion, by spreading them out across the character build instead of concentrating them on "race" alone? Or do you think it would it have only exacerbated the problem, creating an incentive for players to cherry-pick all the options just to get an all-important +3 to Whatever?

I don't remember where, but I saw discussion of it all being boiled down to a single +2 (the compared to might have been Variant human or custom origin, which is why it is +2 and not +2/+1) that could go in the favored attribute of your race, class, or background. Thus anyone who wanted to play a wizard could get a +2 Int, and a Int-race, Sage-background Wizard (tripling down on being on-brand for a concept) could only be +2 int. However, an Int-raced fighter, or sage-background cleric could also choose +2 int (leaning into the ways they were playing against type).

 

[Bill Zebub]

You “wonder” if people who disagree with you are “secretly” sexist? Yeah, that taste in your mouth is straw from that strawman you took a bite of.

WTF? That was an illogical leap.

You don't have to be sexist to observe that there are physical differences between women and men (on average). Just like you don't have to be racist to observe that there are differences between goliaths and halflings. The two things are analogous, so in one sense it's curious that people make a lot of noise about racial ASIs but not gender ASIs.

On the the other hand, at this point the gender ASI debate is closed, and anybody coming out in favor of gender ASIs will likely be accused of being sexist. So if some people share the same belief on both issues, it's no surprise they keep quiet about the gender one.

Surprised I had to spell that out.

EDIT: In retrospect, I could have written the post as, "These things seem similar to me, so it seems strange that others treat them differently. What's up with that?"

 

[Bill Zebub]

I absolutely don’t want that. But I also assume that physical differences between completely different species are far greater than differences between sexes of the human species. Like one human sex is not five feet taller and have twelve times the mass of the other.

Oh, that's interesting. So it's not the inclusivity argument you find persuasive, but that the actual statistical difference between male and female is smaller than the difference represented by an ASI?

 

[Maxperson]

I'm not going to dignify real differences... I am WELL past that.

YOU brought them up! Not me.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Oh, that's interesting. So it's not the inclusivity argument you find persuasive, but that the actual statistical difference between men is women is smaller than the difference represented by an ASI?

It’s both. Inclusivity alone is sufficient reason to not track the gender differences, but it also logically follows from this that any difference we do track is greater than those. And considering that we are taking about completely different species with radically dissimilar sizes and physiologies it makes sense that they would be.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It’s both. Inclusivity alone is sufficient reason to not track the gender differences, but it also logically follows from this that any difference we do track is greater than those. And considering that we are taking about completely different species with radically dissimilar sizes and physiologies it makes sense that they would be.

Now you've got me thinking about magnitude. You (and others) frequently use the extreme example of the difference in strength between goliath and halfling.

But what about cases that aren't so obvious/extreme? How much more charismatic are tieflings? How much more intelligent are gnomes? Because if it's supposed to be proportional, then something is wrong, because goliaths are the same amount stronger than halfings as tieflings are more charismatic than...elves.

So are the bonuses just symbolic, and the amount isn't really meaningful?

 

[Minigiant]

Pretty much.

And it's very important to recognize that this was a design choice. The only reason it seems inconsistent to change it now is because we've been stuck with it for decades. There are people who still feel it is 'inconsistent' that species have the same XP table and can choose their class now because they are used to the other way.

There's no imperative for Racial ASIs to 'fit the fiction'; it's just that the d20 boom made the practice ubiquitous for a while.

Indeed.

+2 STR doesn't make you significantly stronger. It helps you in 1 of 20 Strength checks. But it make take 20 sessions before you make 20 Strength checks.

But you can easily make 20 STR attacks in a session. AND stacks on your damage.

So +2 STR doesn't enough make the lore. The number is too low. Yod have to make it +8 to make a difference in STR checks. But that breaks combat. Modern game design would do double carrying capacity, advantage on STR checks, and +2 to Strength damage.