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

[Guest 6801328]

The entire concept of moving ASI's because they cause players to only pick certain races because that gives them an extra 5% to their main stat seems odd to me. I do not get it. It is changing a pillar of D&D for little or no reason imho. So when it was expressed that ASI's should move, but racial traits can stay because they don't "favor" a class. I pointed out that many racial traits do favor classes, melee, spellcasters, bards, and barbarians. If you refute that these things do not favor a class, great. I can't argue that. And in fact, like to encourage that type of character construction. For example, a barbarian that hides all the time. Obviously dark vision would be beneficial for this, as one cannot hide in the dark holding a lantern or torch. One can avoid tripping on noisy things if they can see where they are stepping. But the metagamer in me knows that it benefits the rogue more because they are the ones doing most of the stealth work. So yes, I like your thinking. And if more people approached it the way you just did, then we wouldn't need to have this discussion about moving ASI's. As any bonus anywhere can help any class. My tiefling barbarian can finally use intimidation because they have a charisma bonus. They may not have optimal strength, but they have intimidation, as an example.

Darkvision is a bad example for three reasons:

First, the idea of the rogue sneaking ahead with darkvision to scout things out doesn't work out nearly as well as it seems. If there's no light it means that if there are creatures there they can probably see, too. Plus you're getting disadvantage on perception checks, which is kind of the point of scouting. And if there are creatures, and the rogue is spotted, he's all alone for a round or two. I've had this happen to me many times. I've seen it often claimed on these forums that darkvision is only really useful if everybody in the party has it, otherwise it's not much use at all, and I tend to agree.

Second, so many races have darkvision that it barely constrains the choice anyway.

Finally, if your premise is correct and that darkvision is super useful for rogues, but the +2 dexterity isn't, then you'd expect to see darkvision races as a more popular choice for rogue than +2 dexterity races. But using D&DBeyond data (which is the only data set we have) we can see that there are more rogue halflings than rogues of all races combined that have darkvision but no +2 dex bonus (half-orcs/tieflings/dwarves/gnomes), even though there are only about 1/5 as many halflings overall as those races combined.

If we break that apart a little bit and compare races with darkvision, one gnome subrace gets a +1 Dex, and some newer tiefling variants also get +Dex, and sure enough those two races have rogue rates of 13% and 10%, compared to 5% and 4% for Half-orcs and Dwarves.

I just deleted 3 more paragraphs analyzing the data in various ways, but overall it's very hard to conclude from the data (at least, if you're drawing your conclusions from logic) that darkvision has any impact on rogue selection, whereas +Dex seems to have a large impact.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@Elfcrusher

The point about features is not that they dominate the class selection now, but that if you removed ASIs they would. If we had similar data from a world where racial ASIs do not exist we could analyse how much this is true, but we don't.

 

[Scott Christian]

Do note that Dm's are constantly warned about giving out magical items too early or too often, because they can upset the game balance and ruin the game.

No DM really gives a +2 or +3 sword to low level character's right? And this entire argument misses a fundamental fact. You are talking about Treasure. And treasure and rewards should be fairly even.

Legitimate story that happened to me.

We had completed an epic level story arc, and got rewarded items by some dwarven celestials from the heavens. The DM had us roll randomly for what we received.

One person got a +3 Vorpal Sword (that they had reforged into a polearm)
Another person got Blackrazor (that they returned for having their sun sword improved up to a +3 as well)
Yet another person got an oathbow

My paladin got a shield of smiles. It is a shield that has a face that can change expressions. it is a common item.

I returned it and got something better, but the point stands that that was clearly unfair, and made no sense in context. Because, the idea generally is that barring extraordinary circumstances the DM will work to balance the handing out of magic items. This is a separate concern from ASI's from races.

Hilarious story. I am confused how you returned it. Was it a store or treasure horde? But again, this goes back to the DM's control. Yes, your character didn't get the optimal "thingy." But a DM can let that shield shine as bright as its smile. Maybe few levels from then you find out the faces all denote different types of damage when it blocks something? That's pretty strong. I do not know or have ever played with anyone that is so much of a rules lawyer that the magic items are only those rolled within the books. But it is obvious your group wants optimal.

See, I think you've hit upon something interesting though, something that I've made the point about repeatedly.

That person who took that linguist feat, chose to do so. Likely, they had a 16 or 18 in their stat, because otherwise they would likely feel the need to bump their scores. If they wanted to instead improve their character, they would pick something else. But, it would be the same character, right?


The person who is choosing their race very well might choose a race that lowers their score instead of buffing it. But, if they want to improve their class score instead they build a different character.

Where as the human fighter can choose to up strength or take linguist at level 4, if you go back to character creation your only choice is to build a different character if you want to have a solid score. That is the problem I have. It isn't about forbidding people from choosing to be less optimal, it is letting character concepts shine, even if they happen to be something that isn't optimal.

And, of the person wants to run a Gnome Barbarian with +2 INT instead of strength? Then with floating scores they can still do that. But now it is a choice they are making, not one they are being forced into by picking to play a gnome.

I appreciate what your saying, but the "they" in your "they build a different character" is not the same as "they" the people who play D&D. Again, if you are a min/maxer I get it. And just like you have said something repeatedly, I have said something repeatedly as well about min/maxers: the only time they want a rule changed is when they are unable to min/max a better character. That is the only reason they ever really argue for a rule change. ASI is blocking a group, not from role playing in a role playing game, but from roll playing a stronger character in a role playing game.

Because seeing in the dark is also useful for everyone. Menacing can be great on a bard or warlock. Savage attack can be useful for druids. Infernal Legacy is extra spells, I'd love to have my fighter use hellish rebuke or my rogue cast darkness. Mask of the Wild is useful for anyone who wants to hide, which is usually the whole party. Dwarven weapon training can be useful for a lot of classes, especially with the new class variant monk who can make them monk weapons, and dwarven armor is more useful for casters. Halfling ability to hide behind people and ranger ability to track? Not sure where you got that one from, but since I don't see it, that helps prove the point.

A lot of these are useful universally. Sometimes more so for classes that never get to see them because of racial ASIs

These are great points and true. But, who rolls stealth more in a game? The rogue? Other classes? Odds are, in a regular game, the rogue. So you are correct, many of these racial traits are useful for everyone, but they are more useful for some than others. Which is also true of ASI's. But my guess is a min/maxer will eventually just want a list of racial traits that everyone gets to choose from - because it makes their character better.

I'm going to take Menacing for a moment.

Proficiency in Intimidation is +2 at level 1, double the bonus from a slightly higher Cha.

So, the Half-Orc Barbarian has better hp, ac, attack, damage, an extra skill, and better crits.

Your tielfing has spells (useful, but 1/day) and better charisma, which only translates into better Intimidation if you took the skill. And you are worse at everything a barbarian is supposed to be good at.


So, you sacrificed 5% attack, damage, hp, and AC for maybe +5% on intimidation, which if the table runs with letting you use strength to intimidate, you actually don't even have.

But, dang it, a Tielfing Barbarian fueled by the rage of Phlegethos is coool. I want to play that character, but there is literally no good reason too other than theme. And a theme that isn't backed up by the game system is just going to leave me frustrated and wishing I had just played the better option.

Yes. You are correct. They sacrificed to have the character concept they wanted. Again, in a role playing game. 5% matters very little. But it can matter a lot in someone 's head. I get this. But it matters a whole lot more to people who frame their game around optimizing their characters combat performance.

It is my choice to not change one of the pillars of this role playing game just so someone can squeeze out an extra 5% because they view it as important. It is, in my opinion, much better to let new players make tropes. And watch the ones that choose to go against the trope be recognized as different. Those types of dynamics make for fun role playing tables. (Min/Maxers can have their fun too, but let them make their own house rules instead of changing a pillar of the game.)

 

[Scott Christian]

Let's attach the conclusion of these sentences onto what you wrote:

"1. Because sometimes I'm not the dm so none of those things are within my power to do so" I'd rather not encourage, talk with the dm, or have a quest to help someone create their character. I'd rather just change the rule.
"2. Because even when I am the dm it's easier to let them start with the character they want and just play the game rather than force certain things to happen in-game to let them do so", so I'd rather not encourage or discuss with them to play whatever they want. I'd rather just change the rule.
"3. Because many of those involve changing the character which they may not want to do." - I do not understand what you are saying. We are talking about character creation. How are they changing the character if they haven't even created the character yet? You say the ASI pigeonholes. My ideas would help prevent that, and encourage role playing.

4. because I don't see any downside. Whatsoever. And that isn't hypothetical: in practice, the times that I've played with this rule, there is no negative side effect. At all.

Awesome. You should stick with it. I would like to try it out. But, why should it be discussed as an actual rule change? Why not say: I have a cool house rule on ASI's for anyone that wants to try!

 

[Scott Christian]

Darkvision is a bad example for three reasons:

First, the idea of the rogue sneaking ahead with darkvision to scout things out doesn't work out nearly as well as it seems. If there's no light it means that if there are creatures there they can probably see, too. Plus you're getting disadvantage on perception checks, which is kind of the point of scouting. And if there are creatures, and the rogue is spotted, he's all alone for a round or two. I've had this happen to me many times. I've seen it often claimed on these forums that darkvision is only really useful if everybody in the party has it, otherwise it's not much use at all, and I tend to agree.

Second, so many races have darkvision that it barely constrains the choice anyway.

Finally, if your premise is correct and that darkvision is super useful for rogues, but the +2 dexterity isn't, then you'd expect to see darkvision races as a more popular choice for rogue than +2 dexterity races. But using D&DBeyond data (which is the only data set we have) we can see that there are more rogue halflings than rogues of all races combined that have darkvision but no +2 dex bonus (half-orcs/tieflings/dwarves/gnomes), even though there are only about 1/5 as many halflings overall as those races combined.

If we break that apart a little bit and compare races with darkvision, one gnome subrace gets a +1 Dex, and some newer tiefling variants also get +Dex, and sure enough those two races have rogue rates of 13% and 10%, compared to 5% and 4% for Half-orcs and Dwarves.

I just deleted 3 more paragraphs analyzing the data in various ways, but overall it's very hard to conclude from the data (at least, if you're drawing your conclusions from logic) that darkvision has any impact on rogue selection, whereas +Dex seems to have a large impact.

Hi Elfcrusher. My reply was to note that racial traits can "favor" classes just like ASI's. I fully agree that they are not as potent as ASI's. But many of them do favor certain classes.

As far as darkvision, does no one sneak up on campfires anymore? Are all the dungeons full of cultists always filled with dark elves or can they be human? Sneaking up to a nest of harpies at night? Breaking into a Kenku's birdhouse at night? Sneaking by some lizard men in the deep shadows? I agree, soooooo many creatures have darkvision, but it doesn't makes it not useful for a rogue.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Hi Elfcrusher. My reply was to note that racial traits can "favor" classes just like ASI's. I fully agree that they are not as potent as ASI's. But many of them do favor certain classes.

Then we are in agreement. I never said (and in fact have repeatedly denied) that I think non-ASI racials have zero class bias, just that they have less class bias. (Where I'm defining "class bias" to mean the extent to which any ability favors one or some classes over others.). Nor do I claim that ASIs have so much bias that there is 100% correlation with class choice. So anything we can do to reduce class bias will also reduce the incentive, the pressure, to choose certain classes.

Just like Crimson has repeatedly explained that even though racial ASIs are only partly effective at achieving his goals, it's better than nothing, and progress toward reducing class bias is, well, progress.

As far as darkvision, does no one sneak up on campfires anymore?

Sure. But in my experience (important caveat) sending the rogue ahead solo to scout in the absolute darkness is just not all that big of a factor. Yeah, it happens. But not nearly as frequently as the rogue making a roll with a Dexterity bonus.

Are all the dungeons full of cultists always filled with dark elves or can they be human? Sneaking up to a nest of harpies at night? Breaking into a Kenku's birdhouse at night? Sneaking by some lizard men in the deep shadows? I agree, soooooo many creatures have darkvision, but it doesn't makes it not useful for a rogue.

Again, if the creatures are awake, they already have light sources. If they're asleep in the dark, then it matters less that you have your own light source.

And I'm not arguing it's not useful for a rogue; it is. Probably moreso than for other classes (except Monk and Ranger) but:
It's less powerful than +2 Dex for rogues (I should write a macro for pasting "just look at the data").
It's generally useful for all classes. More useful than most attribute bonuses, especially Strength, Int, and Charisma.
So many races have Darkvision that it still leaves a lot of choices.

 

[Fenris-77]

The Gloomstalker is why I still love Darkvision. Mostly I don't love it. When more races have it than not it's more of a standard than an option, and races without it can turn into a burden in the wrong party mix.

I wonder what it would look like to completely deconstruct races in D&D. Take all the racial stuff, put it into tiers, and let everyone take +2/+1 and their choice of goodies. That would be ok if the tiers were done properly.

 

[Micah Sweet]

One way I'd be OK with increasing flexibility is to get rid of subraces and just let players choose the secondary bonuses (and give some secondary bonuses to choose from to those races that do not have subraces.) It always seemed rather questionable to me that humans have cultures that do not really dictate their abilities (thank Athe!) but non-humans have weirdly specific subraces. So instead you could give gnomes +2 to Int and +1 to either Con or Dex and so forth. It would require some tinkering, but I'm sure one could make it work as pretty decent mid-point option between complete free float and the status quo.

I strongly believe that the only thing keeping humans from having subraces and more specific ASIs is unfortunate implications.

 

[Scott Christian]

And I'm not arguing it's not useful for a rogue; it is. Probably moreso than for other classes (except Monk and Ranger) but:
It's less powerful than +2 Dex for rogues (I should write a macro for pasting "just look at the data").
It's generally useful for all classes. More useful than most attribute bonuses, especially Strength, Int, and Charisma.
So many races have Darkvision that it still leaves a lot of choices.

Agree.

Then we are in agreement. I never said (and in fact have repeatedly denied) that I think non-ASI racials have zero class bias, just that they have less class bias. (Where I'm defining "class bias" to mean the extent to which any ability favors one or some classes over others.). Nor do I claim that ASIs have so much bias that there is 100% correlation with class choice. So anything we can do to reduce class bias will also reduce the incentive, the pressure, to choose certain classes.

Just like Crimson has repeatedly explained that even though racial ASIs are only partly effective at achieving his goals, it's better than nothing, and progress toward reducing class bias is, well, progress.

Disagree. It is not progress. It is change. It is change to better a min/maxer. And it creates homogenous characters.

I realize you two think it will open the doors. But, in reality, it will just open all the doors so they all lead to the same room. Instead of what we have now - some players choosing to walk down an empty hallway to an empty room far away and some players choosing to go through the door to the very crowded room next door.

But as a house rule to say it's cool. I am all for it.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Let's attach the conclusion of these sentences onto what you wrote:

"1. Because sometimes I'm not the dm so none of those things are within my power to do so" I'd rather not encourage, talk with the dm, or have a quest to help someone create their character. I'd rather just change the rule.
"2. Because even when I am the dm it's easier to let them start with the character they want and just play the game rather than force certain things to happen in-game to let them do so", so I'd rather not encourage or discuss with them to play whatever they want. I'd rather just change the rule.
"3. Because many of those involve changing the character which they may not want to do." - I do not understand what you are saying. We are talking about character creation. How are they changing the character if they haven't even created the character yet? You say the ASI pigeonholes. My ideas would help prevent that, and encourage role playing.



Awesome. You should stick with it. I would like to try it out. But, why should it be discussed as an actual rule change? Why not say: I have a cool house rule on ASI's for anyone that wants to try!

1. I am having that conversation when I propose the rule. It's not like the houserule gets accepted without any consideration It's a lot easier to change a rule than it is to add a quest to the game, or start everyone with a free magic item, or make players change the concept of their character, or get them to think about the game in a whole new way. Especially when I disagree with the change in thinking being proposed (because those numbers have a big effect on the feel of the game.)
2. Yes, because the result of the discussion will probably be "let's change the rule, so they can play what they want, rather than make them change what they're playing to to fit the existing rules."
3. Yes, because sometimes - usually, in my experience - people already have a clear concept of who they want to play before they start assigning rules. If the rules don't allow for the concept, the easiest option is to change the rules. If by "your idea" you mean tell people to not care about the 2-point change in the score - I've tried that. It doesn't work, because while changing rules is easy, changing people is hard.

4. I'm not in charge of 6e, and I'm not advocating for taking away people's PHBs to edit them. I'm advocating for a houserule because it solves a problem a lot of people have and does a great job of solving it.

If the majority of players of Dungeons and Dragons overall like the houserule, then maybe it should be the base rule and having racial ASIs should be the variant. I don't know how the statistics for that break down, but WotC seems extremely interested so I suspect they'll get the numbers and make a call based on that.