D&D (2024) Put initial stat bonus in class not background

[Charlaquin]

It oughtn’t, because not every other sorcerer can gain temp HP and move up to their speed as a bonus action a couple times per day, or remain at 1 HP when they would be knocked to 0 once per day, or carry twice as much as usual for their size. All of those make tremendously more gameplay difference than an extra +1 to a few d20 rolls.

And on this note, why insist that the biological differences be expressed via ability scores? A dwarf will always be tougher than an elf regardless of Con score because the dwarf has more HP for its Con and resistance to poison, and the elf does not.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Wrong, because now you do not deal with averages but racial maximums. An elf CON 15 vs. a dwarf CON 16 because of biology.
No way how you turn it and how trained or not trained someone is, biology has an influence.

Okay, well, if that how you feel I guess you'll just have to put that biology in your own game from now on cause WotC isn't going to do it for you... unless the surveys they get say otherwise. Who knows? Maybe there are enough people who see things like you do and WotC changes their mind?

 

[Branduil]

Then where’s the fun in playing a Sorcerer Orc if it plays exactly the same as every other Sorcerer.

Can you explain to me the fun of playing the exact same Sorcerer Orc, but with a -1 penalty every time he rolls?

 

[Yaarel]

Flavor is created by limitations; not freedom.

Each player can decide what the limitations need to be for ones own character concept. This is part of assigning a low score or narrating a flaw.

 

[Yaarel]

And? Intense training can overcome biological averages especially when you compare a trained and untrained person.
Yet the difference would be even bigger when comparing two dwarves or a human and that elf.

Yawn. A +1 improvement is a boring way to stat a race. Besides being seriously problematic.

 

[Sir Brennen]

I thought this thread was about adding the bonus to Class vs. Background?

The dead horse of "Keep it as part of Race" has been beaten so thoroughly in other threads it's just pâté now.

And you know what? IT'S NOT HAPPENING. Move on.

The Class vs. Background (vs. other options, like free-floating or baked into the Point Buy/Standard array) are at least interesting possibilities to discuss and could still engender changes based on playtest feedback.

 

[Ixal]

Yawn. A +1 improvement is a boring way to stat a race. Besides being seriously problematic.

A made up race being different than a other made up race is hardly problematic. Rather based ho how species work thats to be expected.

Can you explain to me the fun of playing the exact same Sorcerer Orc, but with a -1 penalty every time he rolls?

Thinking that not having the maximum possible value being a penalty is a minmaxer mindest WotC should not promote.

 

[Yaarel]

A made up race being different than a other made up race is hardly problematic. Rather based ho how species work thats to be expected.

Thinking that not having the maximum possible value being a penalty is a minmaxer mindest WotC should not promote.

In 5e and 4e, and maybe in 3e: race = species.

But in 1e and in inspirations like Tolkein, race really was racism.

Gygax, Tolkien, and others reimagined the spirits from various reallife folkbeliefs as if exotic human "races" − in the sense of low-magic human ethnicities.

For example, Gygax uses the word "race" to mean both the elf, and the Suloise human ethnicity. The fixation on the violet or amber eyecolor of a grey elf is no different from a reallife racist fixation on blue or brown eyecolor. Likewise hair color and skin color.

Shifting racism from reallife human traits like blue/brown eyes to fantasy traits like violet/amber eyes, seems a useful tactic to subvert reallife racism, and is arguably beneficial for that era. But that racist way of thinking doesnt age well today. It feels highly problematic. Ick. The racists of that era actually believed certain human ethnicities were slightly higher Intelligence or slightly higher Strength. The racism is both scientifically incorrect and ethically unjust.

Other novelists that indirectly inspired D&D were even more overtly racist.

The D&D term "race" came from reallife racist baggage, even when 5e does intellectual somersaults to reinvent its meaning for today.

I dont want my game to continually parrot reallife racist ways of thinking.




The best way to stat a fantasy race species, is to assign it clearly nonhuman traits, like wings or the ability to teleport.

 

[Blue]

Then where’s the fun in playing a Sorcerer Orc if it plays exactly the same as every other Sorcerer.

What would make you think an orc sorcerer would play like every other sorcerer?

Now, Orc isn't one of the 13th Age classes, but I already gave the example wizard with a dwarf wizard having +2 INT (class) +2 CON (racial) and a halfling wizard having +2 INT (class) and +2 DEX (racial).

Also, the Orc racial abilities would be very different than another race's special abilities. (And in 13th Age the races are given more design weight than in 5e, so that choice is more important in the first place.)

But really, I already explained the racial stat differences in what I was suggesting and if you have every played D&D you know about racial features, so I can't actually fathom how you could come up with your statement. Of course race X will play differently than race Y, even with the same class.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Indeed. Probably best to leave it at that.

For sure. There are enough intractable forever arguments around here as it is!