D&D 5E The impact of ASIs

[Guest 7034872]

I agree with James Gasik and Maxperson here: feats impress me way more than the stat boost in ASIs; my suspicion is many players go to ASIs because they've not explored feats and don't know much about them and what they can do. If WotC cut ASIs completely and just used feats, I'd likely regard that not just as acceptable, but as an improvement.

 

[Campbell]

ASIs as you level encourage more hyper specialization as you level which compounds with proficiency (and especially expertise) to create more and more divergence between characters as levels go up. The system math keeps getting worse and worse over time.

I would like to see either something like PF2 style ability boosts that raise multiple stats at the same time or do away with ASIs as you level.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Because there are so few ways to get actual bonuses to be competent at things, ASIs are more important than they deserve to be.

They make magic items a pointless endeavor because those items now set your ability score instead of giving a bonus and by the time you get the 20 items, you either don't care or already got your 20, which is inexplicably the max. Then if you get the 24 items, congratulations, you just wasted ASIs! Good job!

And on top of that, they waste valuable feat space and what you've got is the game design equivalent of a front yard full of rusting cars, mangy uncared for dogs and equally mangy, uncared for children -- and eyesore.

 

[Bill Zebub]

...my suspicion is many players go to ASIs because they've not explored feats and don't know much about them and what certain feats can do.

This is gratuitous (and denigrating) conjecture. A +1 to your primary has a huge mechanical impact, in many/most cases more so than any feat you could take.

If WotC cut ASIs completely and just used feats, I'd likely regard that not just as acceptable, but as an improvement.

That I will agree with.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

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.

I have a kid with a birthday right after Christmas. Short turn around.

We strip the house of Christmas stuff the day after Christmas and decorate for the birthday.

The bday presents are not reduced due to the proximity to Christmas!

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Socks and underwear, every year growing up

In addition to toys! My parents weren’t psychopaths!

 

[Bill Zebub]

The bday presents are not reduced due to the proximity to Christmas!

How do you know that for certain? It's possible that you subconsciously give fewer presents (maybe for both?) than you would if it were a summer birthday. Unless somebody who is not you assiduously tracks your gift purchases, and there is a sibling of a similar age with a summer birthday with which to compare data, but you don't actually look at the data (and, preferably, don't know this experiment is even happening), you just wouldn't know.

 

[Guest 7034872]

This is gratuitous (and denigrating) conjecture. A +1 to your primary has a huge mechanical impact, in many/most cases more so than any feat you could take.

Oh! I certainly do not mean to denigrate. Not at all. Does it help your interpretation of my comment if I add to it that until recently this was exactly true of me? I mean, I'm not talking about the serious players who've been at this energetically for some time; I'm talking about casual players who've never read all the way through the PHB and really feel no need to. And that is a lot of the people who play, isn't it?

 

[Warpiglet-7]

How do you know that for certain? It's possible that you subconsciously give fewer presents (maybe for both?) than you would if it were a summer birthday. Unless somebody who is not you assiduously tracks your gift purchases, and there is a sibling of a similar age with a summer birthday with which to compare data, but you don't actually look at the data (and, preferably, don't know this experiment is even happening), you just wouldn't know.

My wife has a rough dollar amount per kid.

I don’t care—they have too much crap as is and as long as they feel good vibes it’s fine to me.

But my wife wants as much symmetry as possible…

 

[Bill Zebub]

My wife has a rough dollar amount per kid.

I don’t care—they have too much crap as is and as long as they feel good vibes it’s fine to me.

But my wife wants as much symmetry as possible…

Yeah, my mother-in-law is like that STILL, with grown children. She both counts the number of gifts and the total $ amount. Ridiculous, imo. All that accomplished was to teach the kids that they should care about the comparison.