D&D 5E Unearthed Arcana: Gothic Lineages & New Race/Culture Distinction

The latest Unearthed Arcana contains the Dhampir, Reborn, and Hexblood races. The Dhampir is a half-vampire; the Hexblood is a character which has made a pact with a hag; and the Reborn is somebody brought back to life.

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Perhaps the bigger news is this declaration on how race is to be handled in future D&D books as it joins other games by stating that:

"...the race options in this article and in future D&D books lack the Ability Score Increase trait, the Language trait, the Alignment trait, and any other trait that is purely cultural. Racial traits henceforth reflect only the physical or magical realities of being a player character who’s a member of a particular lineage. Such traits include things like darkvision, a breath weapon (as in the dragonborn), or innate magical ability (as in the forest gnome). Such traits don’t include cultural characteristics, like language or training with a weapon or a tool, and the traits also don’t include an alignment suggestion, since alignment is a choice for each individual, not a characteristic shared by a lineage."

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

But there are people who in fact claiming that no halfling (or human, or elf, or aasimar, or triton) should be extraordinary statwise because... somehow it's wrong. It doesn't make sense to them, and they can't seem to understand or don't care, no matter how many times I've said it, that I'm talking about PCs and not entire races.

So here, you appear to be claiming that 15 in a stat isn't extraordinary.

Sure, it's extraordinary. And? Why not let the stat be a 16?

And here you are saying that it is.

Do you think that there is a chance that you might have misrepresented the people in the first statement and the ones similar to it?

You can't seem to imagine a halfling with a Strength of 16. That's what I'm talking about.

What on earth makes you claim that?

And again, I hardly think that saying "my character worked hard to be where they are, therefore, it makes sense that they focused on this one stat that's needed for their class.

There is nothing wrong with that. It is a good justification for putting your high roll or score into that ability.
Claiming that the character is non-viable without an additional +2 to whatever you rolled/assigned to that ability is what distinguishes the optimiser.

I am not going to go through a hundred pages of thread, but I will point out that Scribe has said that they prefer racial caps and racial penalties to stats, and have even gone so far as to suggest that they might play something other than D&D rather than allow floating ASIs. At least, that's what I got out of some of their posts.

That is not what you said that people have said.

Yes, there are some people saying that it should be literally impossible for any halfling to be stronger than average, no matter what the circumstances or the weird magic in their background or anything else.

This is what you said. What you claimed that people here were saying.
Now, if, in fact there aren't people claiming that it should be literally impossible for any halfling to be stronger than average, them it would appear that your earlier post where you claimed there were was a fabrication and you may owe them an apology.

And that also would drop "near impossible" to a 20, which considering a maxed out character can get a +17, is a far far cry from Impossible. Heck, the current 25 DC is better than even odds for that character.

I've no issue with a being approaching demigod status that has specialised in doing something really well, can regularly achieve feats that a commoner would view as impossible.

So either we need for the "average" to be closer to 14/16 or we need to completely rewrite every single DC in the game to show what people want. OR we can accept that what is "average" for a PC is far above average for your normal person, statwise

Bear in mind that in most situations, a PC could achieve that average task without needing a roll. Only in situations that the DM deems are stressful enough to require a roll is there a 50%/55% chance of failure.

Right.

And just like my Gnome Cleric or my one players Dragonborn Cleric, unless I'm playing a Wood Elf for the +1 Wisdom, I'm going to suck at it.

You can claim until you are blue in the face that I am wrong, that 5% doesn't make that much of a difference, but that 1 fewer spells prepared? That 1 point lower DC? They do matter. They matter A LOT. I know. If it had been a single character who had felt like they were underpowered, if it had just been me feeling that way, I might dismiss it. It could just be me. But it isn't. Another person I played with had the exact same experience.

And everyone else? They started with a 16 or higher in their prime stats. Every single person I have played with over the entire life of the game.

Feel free to tell me I'm wrong, that I'm a powergamer or a min-maxxer or whatever you want to call me. I tried it. Another person tried it. Both of us, independently, felt that it sucked. We didn't have fun with those characters.



Personal Experience is powerful. Maybe you have the opposite experience? Congrats. I don't. I will never play a caster with less than a 16 starting again. It doesn't work for us. So, I'm going to use Tasha's. Because that helps me match the game math.

I've got no issue with you not feeling happy playing a character that can't meet any particular qualification you choose to set. - Your requirements for enjoyment are your own personal business.
And I fully accept that a character with a 15 in an ability score is going to be slightly worse at things governed by it than a character with a 16. Just as that character with a 16 is going to be worse at those things by the one with an 18 in it.

What I am objecting to is the claim that the character with the 15 "sucks", or isn't viable, or that someone with an effective 15 in a stat isn't strong, or bright or whatever. That is rank elitism, whether you're claiming it on an internet board, telling a new player that when you see their character, or saying the equivalent to someone in a non-D&D context.

 

[Scribe]

I am not going to go through a hundred pages of thread, but I will point out that Scribe has said that they prefer racial caps and racial penalties to stats, and have even gone so far as to suggest that they might play something other than D&D rather than allow floating ASIs. At least, that's what I got out of some of their posts.

For the record, I am in favour of caps, penalty/bonus combinations. I'd remove the cap of 20 as well for some lineages.

I dont need to play something other than D&D, I'll just modify it as I see fit for my table.

 

[Don Durito]

Bear in mind that in most situations, a PC could achieve that average task without needing a roll. Only in situations that the DM deems are stressful enough to require a roll is there a 50%/55% chance of failure.

People have been saying this since the dawn of role-playing and for the vast majority of cases it doesn't work.

Making something difficult actually tends to signal to the GM that it should be rolled, not the opposite.

When do you make a stressful history check? If you're racking your brain to see what you remember about this design of ruins or what the mosaic on the wall represents, then you are almost certainly not in a life or death situation.

Basically, yes, it's true that if you don't use the skill system, you can avoid most of the problems with it.

Edit: It doesn't really change anything. If I want to actually succeed relatively often on a skill when I roll it, then I need to have a decent ability score to back that up. 10 doesn't really cut it. If I'm not going to roll the skill then I don't need a good ability score, but then I don't exactly need the proficiency either.

You could gate things in a binary yes/no state behind proficiency, but really that's a house rule, and most of the time you could do that just as easily with class or background. Skills are there to be rolled.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So here, you appear to be claiming that 15 in a stat isn't extraordinary.

And here you are saying that it is.

Do you think that there is a chance that you might have misrepresented the people in the first statement and the ones similar to it?

As I shown, and what I think @Faolyn is getting at, is that Extraordinary in the fiction does not equal extraordinary in the mechanics.

To re-give a strength example from back when people kept bringing up elephants and mice, a Spider has a strength score of 2. They have a -4 on every check involving their strength, and they are basically worthless in terms of strength based feats...

They can also drag 60 lbs, meaning they can carry off the average 8 year old child with no effort whatsoever.

There is a disconnect between the representations. Lifting 450 lbs is incredibly impressive. Getting a +2 on your attack roll is pretty crap.

There is nothing wrong with that. It is a good justification for putting your high roll or score into that ability.
Claiming that the character is non-viable without an additional +2 to whatever you rolled/assigned to that ability is what distinguishes the optimiser.

We want the level 1 average. That isn't so terrible, is it?

I've no issue with a being approaching demigod status that has specialised in doing something really well, can regularly achieve feats that a commoner would view as impossible.

Cool. Why did you skip all of the important parts of that post to jump down to the least important part?

Bear in mind that in most situations, a PC could achieve that average task without needing a roll. Only in situations that the DM deems are stressful enough to require a roll is there a 50%/55% chance of failure.

So you want to change the definitions.

An Easy task shouldn't be an actual easy task. It should be an "easy task to accomplish while under intense pressure that may cause you to fail half the time". How then should we define a hard task? I mean, a hard task is already difficult, but now it has to be particular difficult while under duress?

And look at the examples in the DMG on page 237. Under strength we have "Use a spike to wedge a door shut" Is that supposed to be difficult? Are we supposed to assume you are doing it quickly under duress, or is this meant to be an example for doing so in general? Intelligence has "recall a bit of lore" is that on a time limit? How do we add stress that would make recalling it more difficult, do we only roll intelligence checks while you are menaced by an enemy? Constitution says "Win a Drinking Contest" So are we to assume this is a contest you are in while being attacked? How do you add stress to a contest to make it require a roll?

I mean sure, it sounds nice to say that we should only call for rolls when you might fail, but then... what determines if you might fail? Does a Goliath with 10 strength automatically succeed on busting down that wooden door because he weighs 400 lbs and is big, but the 18 strength gnome has to roll because he is small? Do we say that the Dwarf automatically wins the drinking contest, without even needing to roll, while if they were an elf with 18 con they would need to roll for that victory?

I don't think it is nearly as cut and dry as you want your post to make it seem. This is an issue with a lot of complicated moving parts that impacts the entire skill system and how we utilize it.

Or...

We can let a 1st level character have their 16 in their prime score.

I've got no issue with you not feeling happy playing a character that can't meet any particular qualification you choose to set. - Your requirements for enjoyment are your own personal business.
And I fully accept that a character with a 15 in an ability score is going to be slightly worse at things governed by it than a character with a 16. Just as that character with a 16 is going to be worse at those things by the one with an 18 in it.

What I am objecting to is the claim that the character with the 15 "sucks", or isn't viable, or that someone with an effective 15 in a stat isn't strong, or bright or whatever. That is rank elitism, whether you're claiming it on an internet board, telling a new player that when you see their character, or saying the equivalent to someone in a non-D&D context.

Accuse me of rank elitism all you want. I let a player make that choice without saying anything once. They hated the entire game because of how badly their character performed, always falling behind the expected curve for their characters entire span in my campaign.

Should I just sit by quietly and let it happen again? I tore me up inside to hear him come to truly despise his own character, because it felt like all he did was waste resources in combat while the more optimized characters tore encounters apart.

Oh, and by "more optimized" I mean a elven rogue archer, a dual-wielding Orc Blood Hunter, and a Goliath Zealot Barbian, without GWM. They didn't even have a truly high tier build at the table. Those guys were, fairly average in terms of combat capability. And he felt worthless.

Maybe that +1 wouldn't have made a difference. Maybe it was all in just a year's worth of bad luck and poor die rolls. But since it so closely mirrored my own experience, where I felt the same frustrations with a cleric, who also started with a 15 as their highest stat, I'm fairly certain in saying it wasn't just a fluke. It wasn't just me.

16 is the average expected score for a 1st level character in their prime stat. You can call that whatever name you want to call it, elitism, powergaming, min-maxing, but I notice something interesting.

No one jumped in to call a Gnome Wizard min-maxing. No one has jumped in to say a Wood Elf Ranger is elitist. No one has cried that playing a Tiefling Warlock being an optimizer. Or a Half-Orc Barbarian.

We are only elitist min-maxing optimizers when we want to play a halfling wizard with a 16. A Wood Elf Warlock, with a 16. A Tiefling Barbarian with a 16. Then we are elitist. Then we are min-maxxing, because can't we just accept that we can't be as good as someone born to the role can be?

 

[Faolyn]

So here, you appear to be claiming that 15 in a stat isn't extraordinary.

And here you are saying that it is.

<sigh> No. I never said either of those things. What I'm saying is that there shouldn't be anything that stops a halfling from putting a +2 in Strength. A 15 is a good score. A 16 is a good score. I consider myself lucky when I roll those for stats. I have never claimed either roll "sucks." Especially in comparison to commoners, which PCs are almost never actually compared to.

Would you object if a halfling rolled an 18 and put it in Strength? But if you don't object to a roll of 18 being put in Strength, then you shouldn't object to a +2 bonus put in Strength either.

Do you think that there is a chance that you might have misrepresented the people in the first statement and the ones similar to it?

No more than you seem to be latching onto strawmen. A large portion of the things you claim I've said I never have.

What on earth makes you claim that?

Well, let's see: when you say that "it's a good justification for putting your high roll or score into that ability." You can accept a 15, but you can't accept a 16.

There is nothing wrong with that. It is a good justification for putting your high roll or score into that ability.
Claiming that the character is non-viable without an additional +2 to whatever you rolled/assigned to that ability is what distinguishes the optimiser.

I have never claimed that. What I have said is that you should put a +2 in whatever stat you want it to. I literally don't care if you choose to put the +2 in your most important stat or your dump stat. As the player, you should have that right. It makes more sense that you put the +2 in your most important stat, because you've likely trained in that stat, but you can put it wherever you want it.

This is what you said. What you claimed that people here were saying.
Now, if, in fact there aren't people claiming that it should be literally impossible for any halfling to be stronger than average, them it would appear that your earlier post where you claimed there were was a fabrication and you may owe them an apology.

Excuse me for using a bit of hyperbole when I say "average," especially since I have repeatedly said that PCs are by definition above average, but you, Scribe, and Crimson Longinus have straight-out said that things such as dedicated training and divine intervention can't and shouldn't be used to justify a +2 bonus. You and others have said that we should consider a 15 to be good enough and have said that anything else is for "optimizers," which I am assuming is a polite term for those dirty awful munchkins or minmaxers.

 

[Faolyn]

Bear in mind that in most situations, a PC could achieve that average task without needing a roll. Only in situations that the DM deems are stressful enough to require a roll is there a 50%/55% chance of failure.

That 100% depends on the DM. I frequently ask for rolls to determine how long the tasks take or how well its done, even if it's not a stressful situation. Otherwise, you can just assume that the results are always average. And of course, there are DMs who require rolls for everything no matter what.

 

[JEB]

Why are you assuming such a sidebar won't exist?

I'm not assuming anything. But I am strongly advocating for such a sidebar, because I think entirely too much of the discourse is binary, and the sidebar is the best possible compromise.

But, more importantly, am I supposed to feel there is something unfortunate in the fact that your friend can't find a way to play a human in away that is unusual and interesting? It is literally the same argument. There is no side bar telling you where to put your stats for playing a human, so your friend must struggle to find ways to play interesting human characters. Should we give a side bar to humans to give them static ASIs?

Humans never had default recommendations, they just get +1 to everything. And I think it was mentioned before, but this does raise the question of how humans will be handled under the new system, since their "hat" used to be that they didn't have any specific advantages.

You know what is interesting about calling it a roleplaying decision? It isn't the only RP decision that can be made.

Halflings are normally generous farming folk who would give you the shirt off their back if you were cold. Play a halfling who is a greedy mercenary rogue and you've played against what halflings are normally like.

Gnomes are bright and cheerful individuals with a love of pranks. Play a dour faced gnome who is a necromancer and you've played against type.

Races are more than their stat bonuses. Even with things as broad as the Dhampir, one of the concepts with their hunger is that it is a bad thing. What if you played a Dhampir who ate sadness and grief? That is not what you'd expect from the write-up, and actually it reminds me of a character I'm reading about and would be incredibly fascinating to try and play.

So, if his entire think is being unexpected... then there are ways to do that that don't involve needing a 15 as their highest stat.

Yes, those are all fun character concepts! Considering it more, I think that was the real reason my friend created a halfling barbarian - he just wanted to be a tiny angry man, because it sounded fun and unusual. He probably actually didn't care about the ability scores that much, so long as they fit the image he wanted - it just so happened that the halfling was, as he intended, not exceptionally talented in physical strength. Therefore, he'd have to come up with interesting ways to overcome that.

However, when I raised the matter, he was also pretty clear that he wouldn't have known how to deliberately make his character subpar, as would be required under a floating system with no default recommendations. It sounded like it was more thinking than he wanted to do. And had the halfling been naturally exceptional at strength (i.e. +2 in Str), I suspect he would have been disappointed at losing the intended contrast between class and physical ability.

In any case, even though my friend is likely a borderline case, there have been posts from other folks that suggest that defaults help them when making de-optimized characters. It's a crowd that deserves support just as much as folks who want complete design freedom.

See, now, if that were me, I'd look at the race's traits. Do lupins have interesting traits? Is the book's detailing of their culture interesting? Do I have a particular desire to play a wolf-person? Then I'd pick a class that I had wanted to play or would fill a gap in the party, if I didn't have a specific class in mind. Then I'd put that +2/+1 in whatever attributes work best for the background I develop or that would benefit the class.

I'm not sure how saying that all lupins get, say, a +2 Wis and +1 Con would actually help your friend.

And that's a perfectly valid approach to character design, one that Tasha's has certainly made easier for you. It's great to have that option!

But not everyone wants to have to think that much when designing a character, some just see a cool wolf-person and want to get right to playing them without deeply considering where their bonuses go; they're fine with whatever the game says they should be. In that situation, having defaults is a kindness, a matter of convenience, just like the quick builds for classes.

And for players who do want to knowingly play against type, having those defaults is an aid to decision-making.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

As I shown, and what I think @Faolyn is getting at, is that Extraordinary in the fiction does not equal extraordinary in the mechanics.

Bear in mind that way back on page 13 I explained why I don't use racial ASIs.

I am not objecting to the use of floating ASIs in this discussion with Faolyn and yourself. Faolyn has been making rather unpleasant accusations about what people in this thread have been saying, and I've been trying to get them to show where they have actually said those things, or to stick to arguments that have actually been made.
The only thing I've been discussing with you is the binary "you need a max stat or else you suck" statements you seemed to be making and the inter-player and real-life implications of that mindset. As I have stated, I've no issue with the understanding that a +2 bonus is worse than a +3 bonus, just the attitude that the +3 is necessary for a viable character or the whole "If you don't have a 16 in strength, you're not a strong person" statement made.
I've no issue that your experience differs from mine, and I'm not accusing you of being the type of person who would actually put their beliefs into practice by telling a new player who assigned a number of 14s rather than a 16 to their character that it sucks, or someone that they aren't intelligent because they only got a B on a test.

We want the level 1 average. That isn't so terrible, is it?

Is a +3 bonus actually the average?

Cool. Why did you skip all of the important parts of that post to jump down to the least important part?

Because that was the only part of the post that had issues with (that I hadn't covered elsewhere).

We can let a 1st level character have their 16 in their prime score.

As stated, I've got no problem with this. Just the attitude that it is necessary for a viable character.

Accuse me of rank elitism all you want. I let a player make that choice without saying anything once. They hated the entire game because of how badly their character performed, always falling behind the expected curve for their characters entire span in my campaign.

Should I just sit by quietly and let it happen again? I tore me up inside to hear him come to truly despise his own character, because it felt like all he did was waste resources in combat while the more optimized characters tore encounters apart.

Do you think that having one pip on a d20 lower chance for somethings in exchange for one or more pips better for other (albeit rarer) things was an issue because it actually came up a lot in rolling, or because the player knew it was always present even when they didn't actually roll within one pip of success?
(Not making a value judgement here:- I am legitimately curious. If someone is being made to feel worthless I would normally be looking at class, subclass, and spotlight time. That level of difference in some rolls would not have occurred to me to be an issue, so more information would be welcome.)

16 is the average expected score for a 1st level character in their prime stat. You can call that whatever name you want to call it, elitism, powergaming, min-maxing, but I notice something interesting.

the +3 bonus is the maximum, not the average. (outside of rolling, in which I think you'll agree all bets are off). I do not believe that anyone here has an issue with a character having a 16 stat. - My issue is being told that it is necessary for a viable and playable character.

<sigh> No. I never said either of those things.

They are literally quotes from your posts.

Would you object if a halfling rolled an 18 and put it in Strength? But if you don't object to a roll of 18 being put in Strength, then you shouldn't object to a +2 bonus put in Strength either.

I am objecting to being told a further +2 in addition to assigning a high stat is necessary for a character. - But mostly with Chaosmancer.

The reason I started questioning your posts, were the claims that you were making about what people had been saying. They did not seem to match up to what they were actually saying.
If someone says "I don't think halflings should be able to get a +2 bonus to Strength in addition to simply assigning a high score there."
and you say "They say that halflings shouldn't have above average strength" then you are claiming that they are saying something that they are not saying.

No more than you seem to be latching onto strawmen. A large portion of the things you claim I've said I never have.

Most of what I have said you have said are quotes from your actual posts.

Well, let's see: when you say that "it's a good justification for putting your high roll or score into that ability." You can accept a 15, but you can't accept a 16.

On the contrary, the system I use allows a 16 to be assigned whether you're a halfling or a half-orc.
However, I am still interested in why you would claim I "can't seem to imagine a halfling with a Strength of 16" since making false claims about what people are saying is precisely what I am discussing with you.

I have never claimed that. What I have said is that you should put a +2 in whatever stat you want it to. I literally don't care if you choose to put the +2 in your most important stat or your dump stat. As the player, you should have that right. It makes more sense that you put the +2 in your most important stat, because you've likely trained in that stat, but you can put it wherever you want it.



Excuse me for using a bit of hyperbole when I say "average," especially since I have repeatedly said that PCs are by definition above average, but you, Scribe, and Crimson Longinus have straight-out said that things such as dedicated training and divine intervention can't and shouldn't be used to justify a +2 bonus. You and others have said that we should consider a 15 to be good enough and have said that anything else is for "optimizers," which I am assuming is a polite term for those dirty awful munchkins or minmaxers.

I think the question seems to be whether you are satisfied with your character being an exceptional member of their race, at the peak of their potential, or whether being able to go over and above that, beyond your race for that extra +1 is necessary.

I'm using optimiser as a neutral term in the sense of someone who simply needs to be the best at what they can do to feel happy with their character - which is perfectly valid.
As distinct from munchkin or minmaxer who would be willing to deliberately overshadow the rest of the party and/or try to take advantage of rules loopholes to do so.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm not assuming anything. But I am strongly advocating for such a sidebar, because I think entirely too much of the discourse is binary, and the sidebar is the best possible compromise.

Sure, and I agree with that, but you attacked my position demanding to know if I was arguing that there was nothing unfortunate about your friend having a harder time when a sidebar would solve all of his problems.

If the entire issue is the potential issue of the sidebar, well, I have never once argued that the sidebar shouldn't exist. It might, but the other side has repeatedly demanded to know why we won't change the rules when a simple sidebar that might exist would solve the issue. It seems like you are holding it up as a reasonable compromise that we are refusing, when most of us are not refusing the sidebar, we just can't predict the future.

Humans never had default recommendations, they just get +1 to everything. And I think it was mentioned before, but this does raise the question of how humans will be handled under the new system, since their "hat" used to be that they didn't have any specific advantages.

Don't care about the questions, because the V. Human not having default recommendations was my point.

They never did. So your friend struggled to play interesting human characters right? If that hasn't been a problem worth demanding static ASIs for... heck since 3rd edition? Why is it a problem if a few races/lineages are released now that also don't have static ASIs? Humans were designed that way, why can't other racial options be designed that way?

You can't even say that it is a human unique niche and should be protected, because ASIs have never been a niche. There are like 9 of the 30 races that have a +2/+1 str/con. If they can double up their identity, so can humans.

Yes, those are all fun character concepts! Considering it more, I think that was the real reason my friend created a halfling barbarian - he just wanted to be a tiny angry man, because it sounded fun and unusual. He probably actually didn't care about the ability scores that much, so long as they fit the image he wanted - it just so happened that the halfling was, as he intended, not exceptionally talented in physical strength. Therefore, he'd have to come up with interesting ways to overcome that.

However, when I raised the matter, he was also pretty clear that he wouldn't have known how to deliberately make his character subpar, as would be required under a floating system with no default recommendations. It sounded like it was more thinking than he wanted to do. And had the halfling been naturally exceptional at strength (i.e. +2 in Str), I suspect he would have been disappointed at losing the intended contrast between class and physical ability.

In any case, even though my friend is likely a borderline case, there have been posts from other folks that suggest that defaults help them when making de-optimized characters. It's a crowd that deserves support just as much as folks who want complete design freedom.

Sure, again, I hope you guys get your side bar. But this isn't an argument that really moves me, that they want the option to make subpar characters without thinking about it. I'm sorry, character creation takes thought for me, I invest a lot of thought into it.

And again, this only means that the new couple of lineages being released will not be for him. There are still plenty of options that he won't have to think about when using.

 

[Faolyn]

They are literally quotes from your posts.

Again, sigh. No, they're not. For instance, I said

But there are people who in fact claiming that no halfling (or human, or elf, or aasimar, or triton) should be extraordinary statwise because... somehow it's wrong. It doesn't make sense to them, and they can't seem to understand or don't care, no matter how many times I've said it, that I'm talking about PCs and not entire races.

And you said

So here, you appear to be claiming that 15 in a stat isn't extraordinary.

Despite the fact that doesn't flow at all. I never said that any stats were ordinary, bad, or extraordinary; I was talking entirely about how many people seem to think that allowing PCs to put a +2 in the stat of their choice means that it'll somehow make it so halflings as a whole are stronger than goliaths.

Likewise, you say

Claiming that the character is non-viable without an additional +2 to whatever you rolled/assigned to that ability is what distinguishes the optimiser.

Despite the fact that nobody--not myself, not anyone else--has said that a character with a 15 in a stat is nonviable.

So you are either completely misunderstanding what I'm writing or making strawmen.

I have pointed out how you, Scribe, and Crimson Longinus have all said that halflings shouldn't get a +2 to Strength no matter what the cause. You ignored that and remained focused on the word "average." Which you're still doing.

I think the question seems to be whether you are satisfied with your character being an exceptional member of their race, at the peak of their potential, or whether being able to go over and above that, beyond your race for that extra +1 is necessary.

It literally doesn't matter if I am satisfied or not. It should be that all players have the option to put a +2 in whatever stat they want. People who want racial ASIs still get them with the floating ASI rules.

I'm using optimiser as a neutral term in the sense of someone who simply needs to be the best at what they can do to feel happy with their character - which is perfectly valid.
As distinct from munchkin or minmaxer who would be willing to deliberately overshadow the rest of the party and/or try to take advantage of rules loopholes to do so.

You do not seem to be using optimizer in a neutral way. You may go on to claim you think it's perfectly valid, but your actual words more strongly indicate that you feel that it's not as good: as you say, the player should be "satisfied" with having a 15 in a stat, which goes into "your fun is wrong" territory.