D&D 5E Removal of class-based stat bonuses?

[overgeeked]

That's tangential to the topic at hand. We're talking about tropes in games, and world settings.

You don't have to understand the world in order to watch a movie, or read a book. You do have to understand the world in order to play an immersive game.

You're confusing the dominance of Tolkien-fantasy at the gaming table with science fiction not having established tropes. Just because the fantasy tropes are universal to the point that they're mind-numbingly dull doesn't mean that other genres (especially science fiction) do not have standard or recognizable tropes. I mean, come on.

If you say fantasy we all think D&D, aka murder hobos in a Tolkien-style fantasy setting... with a lot more magic. If you say cyberpunk we all think either Shadowrun or Cyberpunk 2020, aka a high-tech future that focuses on low-life characters... with a lot of guns. If you say space opera we all think Traveller. Time travel... Doctor Who. Transhumanism... Mindjammer. The fantasy genre is a lot more limited and narrowly focused to one tiny niche of the much wider genre, granted. It was the first and is still the most popular table-top RPG style on the market, of course. But I think there's a lot of you confusing that market dominance and established knowledge of what the expectations of fantasy games are and somehow turning that into science fiction games are unknowable. Nope. That's not the case. But since we're talking about tangential to the topic at hand, basically this entire thing is irrelevant to the original discussion.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You're confusing the dominance of Tolkien-fantasy at the gaming table with science fiction not having established tropes. Just because the fantasy tropes are universal to the point that they're mind-numbingly dull doesn't mean that other genres (especially science fiction) do not have standard or recognizable tropes.

Science fiction tropes exist, but they aren't widely recognized enough that they are obvious to people outside of the hobby, and they aren't nearly as standardized.

There might be a trope for Standard Sci-Fi Setting, but if you just tell someone that a setting is generic sci-fi, that's not enough for them to know what's going on. They need to do work to figure out all of that stuff, which is the barrier to entry.

Generic fantasy settings do exist. They were more-or-less created by Tolkien, and codified with D&D, and as such it is important that we retain racial bonuses in order to guarantee that those tropes remain in effect.

 

[Rune]

To address the OP:

I think that the real reason the designers got rid of the +1 from race, +1 from class stat bonuses is because they were intent on giving the human +1 to all stats, and the only way they could make that work alongside the other races was by giving them each a +2 to something.

 

[Parmandur]

In 5E, due to bounded accuracy, optimization is not that important. Straight up, not needed to survive. The numbers are not that swingy. Optimization will increase performance, obviously, but not enough to sweat over.

And in general, it seems the reason ideas thrown out in the play test did not make it into the final have to so with the mass of survey takers nit feeling comfortable with a given change. Mearls preferred Proficiency dice over a modifier, for instance, but the people spoke against dice pooling. So dice pooling is an option in the DMG.

Dollars to donuts, though, class modifiers make it into any Unearthed Arcana book they put out.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Because half-orcs are stronger than halflings, and the rules should reflect that.

Isn't that kind of diluted by the fact that the strongest halfings are all the same strength as the strongest half-orcs, though.

I get the lore-based reasoning, and I agree with it to a degree, but then there's always the fact that the peak halfing strength is the same as the peak half-orc strength, so it seems like only a low level thing that becomes ignored as soon as the campaign is in full swing and nobody is paying attention anymore.

 

[Blue]

This is what 13th Age does. (13th Age is an OGL fantasy game with many similar philosophies to 5e that came out about a year before it.) You get a +2 to one of several stats for race, and then +2 to one of several stats for class. They can't be the same for both, very important to stop just maxing out your primary ability. This means that any race/class matchup is viable in terms of stat modifiers and you can chose what you want for your vision of your character which still keeping each race's niche.

 

[hatecraft]

Because half-orcs are stronger than halflings, and the rules should reflect that.

That's pretty close to saying "And women are weaker than men, so female characters should get -2 to to Str."

Just because something is true for NPCs in the game universe doesn't mean it needs to be mechanically reinforced via the rules. Sure, in game, the average man is stronger than the average woman and the average orc is stronger than the average elf, but it's the PC's privilege to transcend these things that makes them PCs. Carve out their own story, etc.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Isn't that kind of diluted by the fact that the strongest halfings are all the same strength as the strongest half-orcs, though.

A little bit, sure. But it requires a lot more work to get there, and that work is going to deter a lot of halflings from pursuing that path. The worldwide total of halflings with Strength 20 is going to be orders of magnitude below the worldwide total of half-orcs with Strength 20 (or greater).

And we still don't have much data to suggest that games commonly continue beyond level 12, so many games would still have the halfling paladin be 2-4 Strength points behind the half-orc paladin for the entirety of the play experience.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That's pretty close to saying "And women are weaker than men, so female characters should get -2 to to Str."

I apologize if I've offended any of the halflings and half-orcs out there in our real world

If you want to play in a game setting where women are inherently weaker than men, then you might be better off house-ruling or finding another system out there. Appeals to verisimilitude aside, the designers and the players have taken their stance on the issue, and D&D just isn't that sort of game.

Just because something is true for NPCs in the game universe doesn't mean it needs to be mechanically reinforced via the rules.

That is certainly an opinion which can be held. There are game which are designed under that premise, but D&D isn't one of them. Even where 5E suggests that you might use a simplified ruleset for NPCs, those rules still reflect the same in-game reality which is modeled using the PC rules.

The ruleset of any traditional RPG, of which D&D is the most prominent example, reflects the in-game realities of the world. Where the rules don't reflect that reality, there's a huge problem, because we have no other way of knowing what that reality is. As such, it is a true fact of the D&D world that women are not inherently weaker than men, but halflings are inherently weaker than half-orcs.

 

[Gillywonka]

I could see the argument for or against class based stats. Overall, i dont care for classes, but that's DnD. I have fun playing it and so house rule to my taste. Someone on this board said it perfectly i think, "DnD is a mix between reality and the fantastic."... a mixture of both. Being that, I prefer to let the players assign their extra stat increases as they want. Since they're PCs, they're a little more special than the average joe in the world. And because of that, they may not exactly fit into the land's racial norms (that's fine, some of the monsters or PCs i create dont either exactly). As long as they have fun and i dont let it introduce any sillyness (myself being the judge of said sillyness)