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

[FrogReaver]

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.

The greatest support is to leave them as is. Without a clear direction on which way to change them doesn’t that suggest the best course of action is to leave them as is?

 

[DND_Reborn]

The greatest support is to leave them as is. Without a clear direction on which way to change them doesn’t that suggest the best course of action is to leave them as is?

That is pretty much my thinking. I suppose it is just understanding that without a clear direction for change, any change will likely meet more resistance than maintaining the status quo. Maybe I am wrong? But that is how I see it. shrug

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

And to be clear, even though I voted that I wan't species-based ASIs maintained, I am well aware that the system has issues. I am quite open other ways to do it, as long as some differentiation in the ability scores between the species is maintained. For example no bonuses but a point buy with species based minimums and maximums would work for me and would probably be better than the current system.

 

[FrogReaver]

That is pretty much my thinking. I suppose it is just understanding that without a clear direction for change, any change will likely meet more resistance than maintaining the status quo. Maybe I am wrong? But that is how I see it. shrug

Me as well. I could see the case that any of these changes is desirable over what we have now but this poll isn’t set up in a way that would reveal that to us.

 

[FrogReaver]

It does appear we are coalescing on a 2nd most popular option. Move racial ASI to class and/or background.

I really dislike the moving it to background. It will make me pick “optimal” backgrounds instead did call ones for flavor.

 

[DND_Reborn]

FWIW, I think WotC sort of messed up with making the bonuses on the even numbers. If you changed it instead to this:

The races with "strong" +2 ASIs would cap at 20 and get something more than the other races capped at 18 could ever get sans magic items (making magic items that give 19 would really still be useful).

 

[DND_Reborn]

I could see the case that any of these changes is desirable over what we have now

From what we've seen in other threads, I guess we simply differ on this. It seems to me a lot of people wouldn't mind a change, but again without a strong bias towards one or the other, any change would create a different conflict. Instead of people saying it makes no sense to have racial trait ASIs, they would argue about why this class or that background gets to pick X or Y, but not Z.

I was hoping for more evidence of a preferred chance concept, and then we could explore maybe the best way to implement it with the least amount of resistance.

 

[MGibster]

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.

For some reason I just had it stuck in my head that we were talking about 1st level characters and a point buy system. But that's on me because it's not like anyone here specified such narrow conditions. I tend to start campaigns at first level and I always use a point buy system. And while what I do should be the universal standard, it quite clearly isn't. Not yet, anyway. But I'm working on it. It doesn't really bother me that a halfling can get as strong as a half-orc. It's silly, but, hell, but D&D is all sort of silly.

 

[jmartkdr2]

It does appear we are coalescing on a 2nd most popular option. Move racial ASI to class and/or background.

I really dislike the moving it to background. It will make me pick “optimal” backgrounds instead did call ones for flavor.

Since backgrounds are defined as customizable in the PHB, there's really no difference between "by background" and "floating."

 

[Vael]

The greatest support is to leave them as is. Without a clear direction on which way to change them doesn’t that suggest the best course of action is to leave them as is?

Not necessarily. The vote on the method is split, but more votes have been cast for some kind of change over no change at all.

I'm more sympathetic to a desire to leave 5e as is, but a possible 5.5e or 6e should almost certainly move off of racial ASIs.