Level Up (A5E) Just remove all racial ability bonuses and tweak the point buy system:

[tetrasodium]

I think that people complaining linking the +2 to backgrounds are treating the exploitation of a very real problem caused by backgrounds & "if you get a skill option from 2 sourced choose any skill" as a good thing rather than the problem it is. Yes it might sound cool for alice to have the "perfect" skills for her spreadsheet of an optimized character, but you can't really have meaningful skills that allow players to shine when everyone has them. Linking the ASI to the backgrounds helps ensure that siloed idiot savants are actually lacking in areas more well rounded characters can shine in. Literally every background can give your primary attrib a +1 in addition to a +1 in some other attrib with one of those being locked to a specific attrib so there is no reason to feel like the asi ivershadows anything.

Skills from background by attrib.

• Str: History, Animal Handling, Persuasion, Athletics, Intimidation
  • Noble: History, and one of Animal Handling or Persuasion
  • Soldier: Athletics, and one of Animal Handling or Intimidation
• dex: Stealth, Deception, Intimidation, Sleight of Hand, Stealth
  • Criminal: Stealth, and either Deception or Intimidation
  • Urchin: Sleight of Hand, and one of Deception or Stealth
• con: Survival, Animal Handling, Nature, Athletics, Intimidation, Acrobatics, Perception
  • Folk Hero: Survival, and one of Animal Handling or Nature
  • Outlander: Survival, and one of Athletics or Intimidation
  • Sailor: Athletics, and one of Acrobatics or Perception
• Int: Persuasion, Insight, History, Arcana, Religion
  • Guild Artisan: Persuasion, and one of Insight or History
  • Sage: History, and one of Arcana or Religion
• Wis: Religion, Survival, Medicine, Insight, Persuasion
  • Hermit: Religion, and one of Survival or Medicine
  • Acolyte: Religion, and either Insight or Persuasion
• Cha: Deception, Sleight of hand, Insight, Performance, Acrobatics, Persuasion
  • Charlatan: Deception, and either Sleight of Hand or Insight
  • Entertainer: Performance, and one of Acrobatics or Persuasion

Skills by PHB class

• Barbarian:Two from Animal Handling, Athletics, Intimidation, Nature, Perception, and Survival
• Bard: Any 3
• Cleric: two from History, Insight, Medicine, Persuasion, and Religion
• Druid: two from Arcana, Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Religion, and Survival
• Fighter: two skills from Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Athletics, History, Insight, Intimidation, Perception, and Survival
• A5e Fightersame) two from Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Athletics, History, Insight, Intimidation, Perception, and Survival.
• Paladin: two from Athletics, Insight, Intimidation, Medicine, Persuasion, and Religion
• Ranger: three from Animal Handling,Athletics, Insight, Investigation, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival
• Rogue: four from Acrobatics, Athletics, Deception. Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Perception, Performance. Persuasion, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth
• Sorcerer: two from Arcana, Deception, Insight, Intimidation, Persuasion, and Religion
• Wizard: two from Arcana, History, Insight, Investigation, Medicine, and Religion
• Warlock: two skills from Arcana, Deception, History, Intimidation, Investigation,Nature, and Religion

Every background says "+1 to $setAbility and one other ability" so problems only come up if you ask your GM to allow you to omit "other" so you can stack both in one ability or you are building everyone's favorite ultra SAD munchkin scorlock and are annoyed because you are so far into SAD that you can't possibly consider any other attribute as being worthy of a +1. The bigger problem is not restricting "choose a different proficiency" to already available options. With a good number of heritages & cultures including one or more skills there is a lot of room for skill diversity even without if offered twice

 

[Stalker0]

roblems only come up if you ask your GM to allow you to omit "other" so you can stack both in one ability or you are building everyone's favorite ultra SAD munchkin scorlock and are annoyed because you are so far into SAD that you can't possibly consider any other attribute as being worthy of a +1.

So for example, I just recently made a smooth talking, swashbuckling type pirate. I took sailor background because...duh, he's a sailor! That gave me a +1 con....but for my character dex and cha were really what I was looking for. Now it still "works"....but its certainly not ideal, and it definitely made me consider other backgrounds that would allow for a dex and a cha bump.

So that's what I want to avoid, pushing the mechanics too high above the flavor of backgrounds.

 

[Stalker0]

The other option which was been discussed on this thread somewhat already.... is instead of adjusting the point buy, just got with 2 floating stat bumps, as it appears WOTC is doing in Tasha's.

When I make my character, I pick Heritage + Culture + Background + Class + 1 stat bump + 1 stat bump (in a different stat than the first). Than there is no mechanical driver on abilities....I can have any abilities I desire, and combine it with any combinations of creation features I desire.... easy peesy.

 

[tetrasodium]

So for example, I just recently made a smooth talking, swashbuckling type pirate. I took sailor background because...duh, he's a sailor! That gave me a +1 con....but for my character dex and cha were really what I was looking for. Now it still "works"....but its certainly not ideal, and it definitely made me consider other backgrounds that would allow for a dex and a cha bump.

So that's what I want to avoid, pushing the mechanics too high above the flavor of backgrounds.

No it works perfectly fine & just as well as if sailor gave +1 dex +1 float

Even if you found a +1dex/+1cha background you will still have +2/+2. Your ''smooth talking, swashbuckling type pirate" even has ability mods amounting to +2 for dexterity constitution, & charisma setting hi aside from some other background. End result is that your background actually helps shape who your character is are rather than just existing to give skills & ignore the rest of the meaningless fluff on your spreadsheet. You are trying to justify a cold numbercrunching spreadsheet level take on character building by dressing it in a thin veneer of "role playing." what is most interesting about that attempt s that the part of my post to set you off appears to be the suggestion that you talk to your gm & see if you can work something out to go flat +2 rather than +1$attrib +1 float while cloaking spreadsheet McCrunch in roleplay to do it. Your 'smooth talking, swashbuckling type pirate" is just as ideal as some other combo & not suboptimal or anything because everyone playing in a game using the same rules for character creation is the norm. If that's not "ideal", what is?. Is it more a problem that sailor gives "Athletics, and one of Acrobatics or Perception, Navigator’s tools, vehicles (water)" rather than stealth deception & thieve's tools?

edit: Personally I would rather see a lower array with more room for gradual accumulation of magic items baked into the system than 5e's attrib=19.

 

[Stalker0]

View attachment 126597

Certainly an option, its just that the Charisma 14 is costing me 2 build order points. If I had a +1 dex, +1 cha order, I could have had:

Str: 12
Dex: 16
Con: 12
Int: 10
Wis: 12
Cha: 14

which is a touch better well rounded.

 

[tetrasodium]

Certainly an option, its just that the Charisma 14 is costing me 2 build order points. If I had a +1 dex, +1 cha order, I could have had:

Str: 12
Dex: 16
Con: 12
Int: 10
Wis: 12
Cha: 14

which is a touch better well rounded.

There you go

Spoiler: Problem solved

Although you do raise a good point about why the default array should be realigned towards odd numbers. Maybe something like 15, 15, 13,10, 10, 7

 

[Wrathamon]

I moved stat modifiers to the classes. +2 in one primary stat, +1 in a secondary. If a race relied on that special attribute bump for defining it I replaced it with an ability that made sense.