D&D 5E What To Do With Racial ASIs?

[Crimson Longinus]

There are a few ability score modifiers that do make sense for the race. Elves are graceful. Dwarves are tough as nails. Halflings are small and sneaky. Fine. But an awful lot of racial modifiers are very obviously just checking boxes: Every race has to have a +2 and a +1, so we gotta find stats to match that. We need a +1 mod for hill dwarves. Uh... how about Wisdom? Sure, sounds good. Drop a line in the subrace description about how they're deeply intuitive. Tieflings should be good at warlocking, so give them +2 Cha, even though most tieflings are isolated emo loners and they look like literal fiends from hell*.

So I say junk the lot of 'em, and boost the starting array/points to make up for it. For the mods that really fit a race's concept, most people will be pursuing a character concept that fits that race, and so they will invest in that stat anyway. Or else they will be deliberately playing against type as a clumsy elf or a sickly dwarf, and more power to 'em. For the other mods, they were only ever there in the first place to check a box, and the game is better off without them.

*Note that a similar criticism could be leveled against the warlock class. And this here is why I want to get rid of ability scores entirely.

I don't agree with most of this, but I agree that a lot of +1 feel superfluous. And as they're relatively easy to come by they make getting 16 pretty easy, so it kinda becomes the expected baseline, which in turn means that if you don't get that it may feel a bit lousy.

 

[FrogReaver]

So we are still at the the single most preferred option by a margin of nearly 2-1 is leaving everything as is. Surprise-Surprise.

 

[jmartkdr2]

So we are still at the the single most preferred option by a margin of nearly 2-1 is leaving everything as is. Surprise-Surprise.

Honestly my takeaway from that is that this forum doesn't reflect the DnD community at large, but that's not really news either.

Also, because of how OP framed this (with a poll) there's no agreement on what problem (if any) we're supposed to be addressing, so that of course leads to disagreements on what solution (if any) should be implemented.

 

[Tonguez]

There is an option in the market that is selling well right now if you want to ditch Racial ASI and stay for 5e:

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

After reading the preview within the context of this thread, I admit I like the approach (although I’d keep Tiefling thaumaturgy spells as part of their infernal ancestry rather than culture)

I’m also now far more comfortable with letting the ASI float and not be attached to anything at all.
Dwarfs still get their Dwarven Toughness boost from ancestry without necessarily having +2 Con, so all good by me

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Honestly my takeaway from that is that this forum doesn't reflect the DnD community at large, but that's not really news either.

Also, because of how OP framed this (with a poll) there's no agreement on what problem (if any) we're supposed to be addressing, so that of course leads to disagreements on what solution (if any) should be implemented.

I would expect that people who frequent these sort of forums are way more concerned with character optimisation and finer minutiae of the mechanical interactions than an average gamer. Most people just pick a race and class they like based on feels* and are not super fussed about 5% difference in performance or the best way to stack this and that bonus and feature.

* (They're doing it right.)

 

[FrogReaver]

Honestly my takeaway from that is that this forum doesn't reflect the DnD community at large, but that's not really news either.

Also, because of how OP framed this (with a poll) there's no agreement on what problem (if any) we're supposed to be addressing, so that of course leads to disagreements on what solution (if any) should be implemented.

I agree with both of those observations. My own earlier informed me that the poll was not perfect. That said - based On the poll more appear to want change than what we have - but no particular change looks better to more here than keeping things as is. My action statement based on these results would be to poll more pitting the most popular option against each of the others individually. A would you rather have X or Y style poll.

If I want going to poll more I would leave things as is.

 

[CleverNickName]

That certainly would work. Though it would cap most abilities of most races to 19, and it is questionable whether that is desirable.

You can substitute any number you like for the 18, I suppose, but yep. It hits the same cap that is granted by a number of magic items, like gauntlets of ogre power and the headband of intellect, while letting only a handful of special cases ever hit that sweet +5 bonus.

Otherwise, if every character can hit 20 in every stat, this argument isn't so much a question of "can squirrels ever be as strong as hippos?" but rather "how many levels does a squirrel need to turn into a hippo?" (to borrow the analogy from earlier.)

 

[DND_Reborn]

Also, because of how OP framed this (with a poll) there's no agreement on what problem (if any) we're supposed to be addressing, so that of course leads to disagreements on what solution (if any) should be implemented.

Well, that was sort of the point. The poll is showing that although there is certainly support for changing racial ASIs, there is no real consensus on which approach for that change would be best. The greatest support for change is with moving them to class and/or background, but it is not overwhelming at all.

 

[EscherEnigma]

Sure. But some races get +2 on the Strength while others get no bonus.

Which just changes how long it takes for a PC to get to 20. A 20 str half-orc is not, per RAW and RAI, any stronger then a 20 str halfling.

Consider two power-lifters. They both end up at the top-tier of some championship, and can lift the same weights. Is the one who's younger automatically "stronger" just because they got to that point earlier in their life? Of course not, that'd be ridiculous. You might point to their age as a reason to say you suspect one will be able to maintain that level of strength for more years, but in that moment, age doesn't matter.

All of which is to say... if "strongest" is part of your character's narrative, then race doesn't matter, as RAW and RAI don't differentiate between a halfling's 20 str and a half-orcs 20 str.

 

[DND_Reborn]

That certainly would work. Though it would cap most abilities of most races to 19, and it is questionable whether that is desirable.

Which is why only the +2 ASIs should boost the cap from 18 to 20. The +1 ASIs don't increase the cap.

But, the other issue is when you consider things like Gauntlets of Ogre Power (highly sought after in 1E) is that the modifiers for 18 and 19 are both +4, so if you can get the 18 max without the magic item, the 19 score with it is not really much better, is it?