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

[Charlaquin]

To me, that sounds dangerously close to saying that people who do like that flavor are a problem. I'd like to stick to the rules and what we'd like to change as much as possible.

Well that’s not what I’m saying. You like what you like, I’m not here to judge you about that (that’s the general you, not anybody in particular.)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Right. There being physical differences is not the issue for me per se. The issue is those differences being primarily expressed through being better or worse at certain jobs. Goliaths being able to carry twice as much weight, dragonborn being able to breathe fire aarakocra being able to fly, these are cool and interesting ways to express the differences that don’t make them inherently better or worse than others at the tasks they are all capable of. Halflings having a 5% lower chance to hit with melee weapons than Goliaths? That’s a boring numbers difference that just makes them worse barbarians.

It makes them different Barbarians. They have bonus to dex which is good with Barbarian's unarmoured defence. Granted, it would be cool if there was a dex focused barbarian subclass. That's the thing, I don't want halflings and goliaths approach thing the same way and do everything in the same manner. Goliath's focusing on overpowering their enemies with their physical might and Halflings fighting using agility, biting the ankles of their enemies, is absolutely fine and indeed even desirable. You want every race to be able to be plugged with any build without a second thought, I want the race to inform the build. These are fundamentally opposed goals, and that's why we are not gonna agree on this.

 

[Charlaquin]

Well, I don't want them to be disassociated. And considering that disassociated mechanics was one of the biggest complaints about 4th, I doubt I'm alone in this. If ability scores no longer represent what it says on the tin, then it is time to remove than and just give everyone 'basic score' instead. But I don't want that either.

I think it has been time to do that for 20 years.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well that’s not what I’m saying. You like what you like, I’m not here to judge you about that (that’s the general you, not anybody in particular.)

Fair enough. I'm sorry if I misrepresented your opinion.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think it has been time to do that for 20 years.

Right. So another thing about which we fundamentally are not gonna agree on.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's an issue of scale - no one's arguing squirrels and humans should have the same stats.

But the rest of the game supports the idea that DnD races are similar to real world races - for example, they can interbreed - so any trope in the game that's also part of the 'justifying racism' manual should be examined.

Orcs having an int penalty is the best example for the "this is a problem' case, halfings having a strength penalty is the worst example for that. So where do we draw the line?

Another compromise idea: get rid of mental racial ASIs, but leave in the physical ones since those are less of an issue from a representational perspective?

I’ve played around with getting rid of the mental ASIs from race and tying those to backgrounds instead, but in my experience it doesn’t really fix the problem. Even with only physical ASIs, you’re still primarily differentiating the races primarily by what roles they’re good at, which I find icky. All that really does is removes casters from the set of roles races are defined by their aptitude for.

 

[Charlaquin]

perhaps A variant character creation rule. Your racially granted ASI’s can go into any ability scores? I can get behind an officially supported variant rule for this.

That would be acceptable for me.

 

[Charlaquin]

If the most interesting thing about a racial option is the numerical adjustment to ability scores, the developers need to send it back to the drawing board. Dwarves are more than just wads of hit points, elves are more than just "quick," etc.

I'd go even farther than what @Charlaquin said: I'd be fine with scrapping the ability score adjustments altogether, and replacing them with proficiencies, expertise, advantage on certain checks, unique abilities, etc. Then, elves aren't quick because they have +2 to Dex; the are quick because they have Advantage on initiative, are automatically proficient with longbows, and move an extra 5 feet per round. Dwarves wouldn't be hardy because of a +2 to Con; they are hardy because they get an extra hit point per level, have Advantage on Constitution saves, and heal maximum whenever they spend Hit Dice. Or whatever, get creative and be as generous/stingy as you need. I'm not a game designer.

The goal is to make each race fundamentally different in ways that matter. Players would choose to play an elf because of the abilities that only elves get. If you're relying on ability score adjustments to accomplish that task, you are setting yourself up for disappointment because all races can boost all stats to the same cap. On a long enough timeline, that unique distinction fades to nothing.

If you want to add flat numerical bonuses, there are better ways to do that than "they're all just born this way."

YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS!!!!!

 

[Charlaquin]

Taking a step back for a moment...

Fictionally - Why the heck wouldn’t a halfling and a Goliath be better at different jobs?

The average halfling and the average Goliath might be, but PCs aren’t average. It’s also just not a particularly interesting way to express the differences between them, in my opinion. Having them be able to lift different weight as, jump different distances, etc? Cool, that makes sense and is flavorful. Having them be more or less likely to succeed at the tasks they will be expected to perform regularly as members of a certain class? Boring, and kinda iffy in my opinion.

 

[Scott Christian]

Also, nearly every video game called an "rpg" pretty much mandates some serious optimization to succeed.

and most video games labeled an RPG also have an easy mode where no optimization is needed. And they also have their cut scenes, for the story enthusiasts, that you can watch without even playing the game. They often have millions of views. I get your point, I just don't think that the evidence translates to whether players optimize.