All of this boils down to you not understanding that one is fluff and the other is a mechanic that is tied to the fluff.
So... you are trying to separate "we are tough" the fluff from "we are tough" the mechanic?
Wow... I can't even, I just can't.
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And that they each support each other. One without the other makes the whole fall apart.
As long as the racial ASI is there, the fluff is supported and logical.
As long as the fluff is there, there are significant difference between the races.
As long as there are differences between the races, you have reasons to play them.
Otherwise, everything boils down to nice little masks that will make no differences in the end. And when everything is that blend, it is no longer interesting.
Hey
@Maxperson and
@Scott Christian remember when you said that no one was saying that this was about lore, and that no one was claiming that without racial ASIs everything would be a human in a mask?
Yeah...
As for your point Helldritch, the problem is that people are using the Fluff to support the racial ASI, and then using the Racial ASI to support the fluff.
You cannot support that logically. They cannot be circular logic.
And if they are circular logic, if dwarves are tough, and therefore they get a +2 con, and because they have a +2 con they are tough.... then I can trivially change bonus. Because Dwarves being tough isn't based on anything we can point to outside of the +2 Con, which only exists because they are tough.
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Different species are actually different from each other (you probably understand that this is the case in real life) and this should be somehow simulated, and in a splat based system where you choose things like race and class the choices should actually have mechanical impact to be meaningful choices. You don't need to agree with either proposition, but pretending that you 'don't get it' is getting pretty damn tiresome.
You don't seem to understand what I'm not getting.
See, take away the racial ASI, and look at the High Elf.
They live to over 700 years old
They are a medium creature
They have 30 ft of speed
They have Darkvision
They have proficiency in Perception
They have advantage against charm magic
They cannot be put to sleep via magic
They don't sleep, instead entering a meditative trance
They speak Elvish and common
They start with training and proficiency in Longswords, shortswords, shortbows, and longbows
They start with a wizard cantrip
They learn a new language from any list
Now, take away those racial ASI's from the Lightfoot Halfling
They live to about 150 years old
They are a small creature
They have 25 ft of speed
They have the Lucky trait
They have advantage against all fear effects
They can move through the space of anyone larger than them with no penalty
They speak the Halfling language and common
They can hide even when only obscured by a medium or larger creature.
Now, you might have skimmed those lists, but go back and read them. Are they different? Do they present a different character? Is choosing one race giving you a mechanical impact compared to the other? Are those meaningful choices?
Now, how would adding "+2 to dexterity" to both of those lists make them more unique? I'm not saying you wouldn't be gaining more, it is clearly an addition, but what is the purpose of that addition? To make them more dexterous? Okay, but I was more interested in playing a Fighter. Maybe I want to expand that High Elf martial and magic mix by playing a Fighter, and since I want to use longswords and wear elven plate mail, I want a strength character. So, I would much rather get a strength bonus. And changing that dexterity +2 to a strength +2 does not erase any part of that list. That list is still there. Playing a High Elf still has a mechanical impact on my character, they are still different from the halfling.
So why is this one thing so important that it overshadows everything else?
And you know, people keep trying to use the "different species card" and it has bugged me a lot. Because, while it is sort of technically true, it ignores how similiar in build, upper and lower limit, and mental capacity all of these races are.
Yes, a Polar bear is stronger than a Golden Retreiver. But no matter how many steroids or how much training you put that dog through, it will never be stronger than a healthy adult bear. However, my halfling not only can, but can with little effort start the game stronger than a healthy orc.
So the example is pointless, because it doesn't capture the actual scenario we are working with. The baseline of every single race according the Commoner statblock is 10. The upper limit of their abilities? 20. The lower limit... well, I guess technically it is 3 for some and 5 for others, depending on the stat. But since the normally considered bad score is an 8, I don't think many people would be excited that their character was able to rise up to a 5 with their Racial ASI.
The species of DnD are so similiar, that it might be more accurate to think of them closer to different species of Trees. Oak, Maple and Hickory trees do have differences, but they are still fairly similar, similiar enough that just measuring their physical characteristics isn't going to tell a lay man which is which.
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But it's not circular, which is the point. The fluff informs the mechanic, but the mechanic does not then inform the fluff. Elves are not now and never have been graceful because of their dex bonus.
@Chaosmancer is literally arguing that because the player fluff of "I swing my sword at the orc." has the resulting matching mechanic of "roll to hit.", that fluff and mechanic are circular logic. It's absurd.
Then you could tell me what supports the fluff, right?
I've been trying to do that for the last few pages, and nothing. You defaulted back to "because of the ASI's" or "because"
If there is no reason, then there is no loss by switching the ASIs. And in fact, if the fluff is seperate from the ASI... then could I not have elves be graceful without the dex bonus?
In fact, if the fluff is so seperate from the mechanics then, losing the mechanic shouldn't really hurt them right? I can say that Dwarves are tough and not have to have +2 Con to prove it. How would I prove it then? Well, Hill Dwarves are tough because they have advantage against poison, resistance to all poisons and they have more hp per level, they literally are healthier than the other races. All dwarves are also able to run in heavy armor with no penalty for not being proficient in it.
That sounds tough to me. So, we can say they are tough, we can back it up, and we don't need the +2 con. Would it be nice? Sure, I'm not saying that I occasionally wouldn't want to triple down on dwarf toughness by getting a+2 to con as well, but I can still demonstrate the toughness of dwarves without it, and get other bonuses that I need for other parts of my character.
You're failing to see the point racial bonuses. This isn't about PCs. It's about the entire race. Elves as a race are more dexterous than humans. It's irrelevant if some individual heroic dwarf can hit 20.
You are ignoring that the designers literally said that that is not true.
They stated outright that the rules in the Player's Handbook were about the player characters.
And, as I discussed at length, NPCs are 100% under the control of the DM. If you want 99.99999% of all dwarves on the continent to have +2 con... as the DM you can do that. Despite Tasha's rules. Because Tasha's only applies to heroic player characters. The entire race is only affected if the DM decides it is
