Sorry, I don't understand. We are talking about the difference between RACES, not classes. And more specifically, we are talking about the MECHANICAL differences between RACES, not classes. RACIAL MECHANICS - it is what our entire debate is about. How do you make the RACES different from one another?
Archetype, background, weapons, personality, flaw, ideal, bond - have nothing to do with it.
In fact, you are proving my point. There are so few things that separate the races mechanically, that removing ASIs make them, not a little more similar, but a lot more similar.
You are saying that a halfling barbarian with a Strength of 17 is too similar to a half-orc barbarian with a Strength of 17, even though every likely single other aspect of their character sheet is going to be different.
The races, as I've repeatedly said, are already quite different from each other, to the point that if there were
no ASIs at all they'd still be entirely different.
One species is Small and has a move of 25 feet, and has Brave, Lucky, Halfling Nimbleness, and one of Stout Resiliance or Naturally Stealthy (or other subrace traits).
The other species is Medium and has a move of 30 feet, and has Darkvision, Menacing, Relentless Endurance, and Savage Attacks.
They also have their lifespan and languages, for a total of ten traits--eleven if you count racial alignment tendencies, which I feel can go die in dragonfire. Other species have a similar total number of traits.
I
have to assume that your copy of the PHB only includes the ASIs and nothing else, because you seem to think that where they put their ASI is the
only thing that differentiates halflings from half-orcs. Hang on to that book, though. Misprints are sometimes worth a lot.
If you started a game where everyone was a 0th-level farmer, those racial traits would make everyone extremely different. As it is, people aren't starting as 0th-level farmers; they're starting in a class at1st level or higher, which means they
also have a ton of other mechanical differences.
And if you legitimately had a group with two members of the same class and who had identical game mechanics and the same archetype and background, you'd
still have very different characters because of their racial traits, written backstory, and, hopefully, the way they were roleplayed.
I have to ask, why do you keep asking about what I would do at a table I play or DM at?
Because you keep saying that it's too similar. I can only assume that it's too similar
for you, since I can see a world of difference between halflings and half-orcs. I can also see a world of difference between halflings and kobolds, who are also Small humanoids with +2 Dex, and between half-orcs, githyanki, and bugbears, who are all Medium humanoids with +2 Strength.
That said, it is a disservice to DMs everywhere that have tailored and crafted their worlds to match the PHB to change the rules to a clunky half-thought errata rule that could have just as well stayed optional or never come to fruition and been a table-ruling.
I started my current campaign solely because a new person who was temporarily in the area who wanted to learn how to play (in the Before Times, one player's family hosted students for a semester each year and they finally got one who was interested in D&D instead of smiling and backing away slowly when invited to play). Because of this brand-new player--and because none of the current games were really appropriate for new players--I built a setting around only what was in the PH, plus full orcs, minus dragonborn. I'm not going to claim it's the most in-depth world ever, but my players liked it enough to want to continue it even years after the new person moved on (and fortunately, the new person seems to have retained his interest in D&D).
The rule in Tasha's and this UA is not going to throw my game off at all. Nor is it clunky. It's an intuitive change that will allow the players, should they choose to make a new PC, to make whatever character they want, only with a bit more efficiency.