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

[doctorbadwolf]

And FWIW, the first barbarian we had at our table was a Tiefling, the second a Dragonborn, and the third and High Elf.

I've seen more elf barbarians than dwarf or human barbarians, and honestly I don't think I've seen half-orc or orc barbarians since we played 4e, and even then I saw more half-orc rangers, fighters, and paladins.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Ain’t no such world.

Okay, let's not be absurd. The actual real world is one in which not everyone is a min-maxer.

 

[Charlaquin]

Okay, let's not be absurd. The actual real world is one in which not everyone is a min-maxer.

You’re correct, I misread it as “everyone is not a min-maxer.” Which in my defense is the world that the rest of the paragraph seems to be describing to me. But I’ll go ahead and edit the post.

EDIT: Nope, I did read it correctly the first time. There is a big difference between a world where everyone is not a min-maxer and a world where not everyone is a min-maxer. The world we live in is the latter, not the former.

 

[EscherEnigma]

A, I’m not. At all. I’m saying that a lazy Goliath should be as strong as or stronger than a human of a physically intensive occupation.

Even going by PC rules... a golaith can start with 10 strength. An average human (10 across the board) would have an 11 strength.

So even by PC rules for character creation, D&D 5e doesn't support your idea of how strong goliaths "should be".

B, that is nonsense. By default, a Goliath commoner has 12 strength to the human’s 10. If a human of a given background would have 14, the Goliath counterpart has 16.

Nope. PCs and NPCs don't go by the same rules. Check the Monster Manual appendix. The character creation stat block is not there to tell you about average members of a race, it's there to tell you how to create a PC members of that race. For that matter, the entry in the monster manual isn't necessarily the "commoner" (which is itself a 3.X holdover), just an example that the PCs might run into conflict with.

 

[Scott Christian]

Cookie cutter builds...
All anyone has talked about is the combat/spell mechanics. No talk of exploration differences. No talk of social differences. It's almost like the conversation is viewed through one of the three pillars.
I can make a mountain dwarf wizard, but if dwarves are hated in the campaign as being war mongers, then the entire campaign may turn out different, despite me being an "optimized" wizard.

 

[Charlaquin]

In my experience, player character race doesn't have a significant impact on how the actual character plays. In my current campaign, the PCs include a kenku cleric, gensai druid, gnome artficer, tiefling warlock, and a halfling fighter. With the exception of the kenku, who has certain language peculiarities when speaking, you could switch any of the other PC races around and the way they player their characters would not significantly change. In most adventures, especially published adventures, it doesn't matter if the PC showing up is a gnome, human, or half-orc because it typically won't have any affect on how the NPCs react.

Not to be glib, but that’s great for you. Sounds to me like removing racial ASIs wouldn’t have a big impact on race/class variety at your table. But it would at many others’ tables.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

For most of the players I’ve known, that tradeoff is almost never worth it.

I don't think this is system issue then, it is a player issue.

Except that the tradeoff between medium armor proficiency or a climb speed and the ability to double your speed on a turn is not so clear-cut as the tradeoff between either of those things and +2 Int. Which one you pick will be much more a question of what you value and what you want your character to be able to do instead of a question of if you’re willing to accept being sub-par at your class’s role in exchange for an ability unrelated to your class’s role.

So the current tradeoff always leads to merciless min-maxing, but a marginally smaller tradeoff won't? This exact chance you want just happens to be the thing that makes min-maxers to stop caring about min-maxing? Sounds pretty questionable.

 

[Charlaquin]

Cookie cutter builds...
All anyone has talked about is the combat/spell mechanics. No talk of exploration differences. No talk of social differences. It's almost like the conversation is viewed through one of the three pillars.
I can make a mountain dwarf wizard, but if dwarves are hated in the campaign as being war mongers, then the entire campaign may turn out different, despite me being an "optimized" wizard.

For all the talk about the 3 pillars WotC did during the playtest, that didn’t bear out in the actual game they published. As long as the game rules are disproportionately focused on resolving combat, discussion of the game’s design will be similarly focused on combat. Obviously DMs can compensate for this combat focus on their own tables, but we’re talking about the game’s design and mechanics here.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I think it is just different players have different priorities in their styles and what they like. IME, players fall into certain groups:

1. I play only a few races (or just one!) regardless of class (we have one guy who nearly always wants to play dragonborn for instance).
2. I play certain races with certain classes, either for flavor or mechanical benefit (whichever the case might be...).
3. I mix-and-match races with classes with total abandon-- any combination can work for me!

Sure, people can shift a bit here or there, but that's how it seems more or less to me.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You’re correct, I misread it as “everyone is not a min-maxer.” Which in my defense is the world that the rest of the paragraph seems to be describing to me. But I’ll go ahead and edit the post.

EDIT: Nope, I did read it correctly the first time. There is a big difference between a world where everyone is not a min-maxer and a world where not everyone is a min-maxer. The world we live in is the latter, not the former.

Yes, it may have been unclear. I totally meant: "where not everyone is a min-maxer."