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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ART!" data-source="post: 7616155" data-attributes="member: 79926">I had a related thought recently that might dovetail with this, to the point that it might come to me while I'm typing here.So, ASIs provide a +1 and a +1 to the ability score(s) of your choice (with a cap of 20, natch) OR a feat. Given that, let's say a +1 ability score increase is worth 1 "point" (there's a flaw there, see below), and therefore that an ASI is worth 2 points. The alternative to an ASI is a feat pick, so feats much be worth 2 points, too. The thing that occurred to me was "if feats are worth 2 ability score increases, why not allow feats to be chosen in place of ability score build points during chargen?"The problem there (and arguably a flaw with ASIs) is that if you use point-buy costs, not all increases of ability scores have the same value: raising an ability score from 12 to 13 chews up 1 point-buy point, but raising from 13 to 14 chews up 2 points, etc.That's as far as I got, but it seems like equivalencies could be made. I've built 5E races using the point value analyses and break-downs of people with much more committed than I, and one of the things I learned is that assigning everything point values is at least a little arbitrary. Different things will seem more or less valuable to different people.So, I wouldn't want to get into assigning point values to every little thing in 5E.Would you give every skill the same value, or have some be worth more than others? The latter would require at least somewhat arbitrary decisions. What i think might work better is to say something like "1 rank in a skill is worth X [other thing on the character sheet]" or "1 proficiency is worth 1 ASI" or whatever, and have a "point buy" system that's really just a bunch of rough equivalencies.I think it's fair to argue that a lot of things in 5E that seem like they should be of equal value aren't, or that many things are only valuable in the right player's hands. Having built races i can say with confidence that the official races are not balanced. I feel like the feats aren't of equal value either, but then that arbitrary thing comes back into my thinking. Sure, some people will choose to run a drow elf because racial trait X dovetails nicely with class feature Y, but some people choose drow because they think drow are cool, and the latter is what 5E seems interested in.</blockquote>

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