D&D 5E The impact of ASIs

[James Gasik]

I think that ASI = Feat isn't an even trade. Yes, having a higher ability score is good to have, but you'd be better off getting there with "half-Feats" that grant some other advantage to your character than making sure you have a +5 at level 8 as opposed to a +4. This probably has more to do with Feats being optional content than any real misstep on the part of the developers.

If/When they make Feats core, I would hope that they separate the two, and grant Feats on a different scale, like "every odd level", and get rid of Half-Feats entirely, while going back to giving you +1 to an ability score every 4 levels.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, I'd rather no ASIs at all after 1st level, replace them with feats. Leave in-game stat increases to in-game circumstances.

 

[Maxperson]

I disagree with the first sentence and agree with the second. Very little is as impactful on an encounter by encounter basis as a +5% chance to hit and +1 damage on all of your attacks. But it’s also incredibly boring and I would much rather have a feat that lets me do something new, rather than doing the same things with higher numbers.

That +1 is almost entirely irrelevant. At an average of 4 rounds per combat, even with two attacks it will take you 2.5 entire combats to hit one additional time. 5 combats if you only have 1 attack. And for the few hits you do get during the combat, you are doing 1 piddly point of extra damage. The +1 is very rarely going to impact a combat. And given that the vast majority of campaigns will never see 3 attacks...

 

[Maxperson]

This is my biggest concern: you could do more character building stuff with feats.

I was asking folks in another thread about having less than 18 in a casting stat because I want some color—to do new things etc

And this is why I often default to half feat choices…

Because those +1s are almost completely irrelevant, I don't bother to try and get to 18 or 20. I mean, if I happen to roll high at 1st level, yay, but other than that it's just not a priority for me at all.

 

[Jer]

In the old days ya got what ya got. Unless you found a wish or a precious few items your ability scores were pretty static.

In the old days your ability scores basically gave you a few bonuses to a few things but were otherwise unimportant. And yet despite that one of the more common house rules I saw for 2e was to allow folks to increase their ability scores in some fashion or other.

When the game shifted to the d20 + ability bonus + skill bonus vs. DC ability scores became more important for skills and noticeably more important for attack bonuses in low level games. Also tying the saving throw mechanic to ability scores made them even more important.

So it's a real muddle. But you could just make a house rule that says "ASIs don't happen - the ability scores you have at the beginning of the game are the ones you have at the end, absent the feats that give you bonuses, so you have to choose a feat" and the game would actually be fine. The existence of that +5% to attack and +1 for damage is too tempting to some folks[*] so if you really want to shake things up just give them permission to ignore it as an option by taking it off the table.

[*] Despite the fact that the uniform distribution of the d20 means that it'll be noticeable in the aggregate over time but with no guarantee that it will matter at all when you really need it to matter.

 

[Maxperson]

I had a friend with a birthday the same week as Christmas.

He would get the toys on his birthday, and the batteries on Christmas.

(No, I'm not joking)

My son's birthday is December 19th. We make it a point not to shortchange the little guy. December is a good month for him.

 

[James Gasik]

We'd probably have to do away with magic that increases ability scores if we got rid of ASI's- I mean, granted, magic is currently "optional", but if you can't raise an ability score naturally, the existence of an item that lets someone gain a 19 seems a little busted.

Unless you did away with the artificial ability score limits of the point-buy system, I suppose, allowing someone to start with an 18-20, but that leads to it's own imbalances.

 

[Stoutstien]

My personal situation is to tie in feats that come online when your achieve a certain ability score.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Getting an ASI is like getting socks on Christmas; sure, you know those socks will be useful!

But c'mon. It's Christmas. Socks?

Perfect analogy.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Yeah, I'd rather no ASIs at all after 1st level, replace them with feats. Leave in-game stat increases to in-game circumstances.

We agree on something!