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

[Guest 6801328]

But your whole point was that by removing fixed ASIs we would get more of those races in those classes and then they most definitely would have those immersion-breaking stats!

Great! So you agree?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Great! So you agree?

Yes, I agree that if you let people put their ASIs wherever we would see more high-strength halfling characters. Obviously. I don't want that though.

 

[Scott Christian]

It seems to be all or nothing with you, which confuses me greatly. Either I don't care about roleplaying because I am a min-maxer, or I don't care about my ASI's because I am playing a roleplaying game.

I have never said that min/maxers don't care about role playing. I know many that are also great role players. It is not all or nothing with me. It is, why would anyone want a rule, that is the pillar of the game's mechanics, changed? Why toss out all the lore for 5%? The only answer I can come up with is because it lessens the enjoyment a person gets from their character because there is a 5% difference between their character and another. If 5% lessens their enjoyment that much, they are a min/maxer. It doesn't mean they can't role play, it just means the min/maxer side of them weighs more heavily. So I keep stating: it shouldn't be changed to appease min/maxers.

Let us say I want to play an Elf Barbarian. Why? Not because I want to min-max, but because I find the story potentials of an elven barbarian interesting. I can imagine some very interesting roles and thoughts from someone who has lived 200 years in the same forest, cut off from civilization.

However, that doesn't mean I want to be a bad Barbarian. In fact, being strong and dual-wielding troll-bone handaxes is part of my backstory, it sounds awesome. I can build some great stuff with this. Except, nothing in elf mechanically is what I want for a Barbarian. the lack of Strength and Con make me deal even less damage, miss more, have lower HP. Heck, if I was building this with the Standard array, I'd be looking at 15, 15, 14, 14, 10, 8 which isn't terrible, I mean, I can work with it. But my very first ASI at level 4 is going to be getting those to 16's, meaning I can't take feats which I love to take, because they are more interesting.

But, I could do a nearly identical concept with a Dwarf. Getting 17, 16, 12, 13, 10, 8. Same AC, better damage, better hp, better in every way as doing what a Barbarian does. So, now I am forced to answer a question. Do I care more about being an Elf, or more about being a Barbarian?

My answer is directly in front of you. I have stated many times: take everything into account, not just attack rolls and hp. Your elven barbarian (which is awesome btw) isn't as strong as your dwarf. But, they move faster. They are way better at their skill challenges! In fact, they are 5% better (same as attack and hp) at up to 10 skills than your dwarf. 10 skills! 5% better! That seems like a lot. Not to mention they have a greater range of saving throws that are better. As far as AC, I believe the elf's would by +1 above the dwarf, no?

As far as feats, I know many that would play the dwarf in your example and just give themselves a 19 strength. So increasing in levels does little to negate advantages/disadvantages, or at least that would be a hard one to prove (because all players choose differently).

And I hate having to ask that question. I shouldn't have to ask it. But I know the system. I know how hard it is to keep playing with a 16 after 5th level. Every single time I've done it, I've been left longing to reach 8th level so I can get that flipping 18, so I can tilt into the more comfortable patch of bonuses. I'm literally expeirencing this right now with my rogue. I want to take feats, but I've got a 16 dex, and it is leading me to miss far more than I should, leading to me feeling worthless in combat. And I even could have gotten an 18 at 4th, but again, I love feats. I seriously do, they are far more interesting than these boring numbers, but every time I ignore those numbers, I spend the majority of combats twiddling my thumbs and missing.

As your next paragraph states - that is exactly what a min/maxer is. Read the tone of your paragraph. It is literally begging for the rule to be changed so your character can have it all, instead of compromising one advantage for another.

So sure, call me a min-maxer, say I'm a roll-player who doesn't know what DnD is really about, but I'm sick and tired of making that decision. I'm sick and tired of thinking "wouldn't it be cool if- no, won't have the right stats" I want to role-play, and not have the game punish me for it. People are so worried about "humans with funny masks" that they are forgetting that DnD is Carnivale, and you should be changing masks with abandon.

I have no doubt Chaosmancer, that you are both, a great roll-player and role-player. No doubt. In fact, my guess is, if I were part of your table, I would think your character concepts and role-play are awesome. And I'd appreciate you being efficient with your combat skills.

But the reason I keep posting is because a core pillar of the game mechanics and lore should not be changed just so some players can have their "everything" character.

 

[Scott Christian]

The ones who envision a game where players can either play to expected tropes or against them and be balanced either way

This right here is the path I am talking about. It is flawed thinking. Without tropes, with everything "balanced," you rid yourself of any uniqueness. You never get a "that's cool, I've never seen that," or "I never thought to make that class specialize in this also." What you get is diversity for a year, then afterwards, you get McDonald's as your fighter, Burger King as your wizard, Wendy's as your rogue, and Taco Bell as your cleric. You don't get the Baja seafood Mexican cuisine cleric and the Oaxaca tamale Mexican cleric standing next to them. You get Taco Bell in the long term.

 

[Charlaquin]

This right here is the path I am talking about. It is flawed thinking. Without tropes, with everything "balanced," you rid yourself of any uniqueness. You never get a "that's cool, I've never seen that," or "I never thought to make that class specialize in this also."

I disagree. A thing doesn’t have to be suboptimal to be unique or surprising.

What you get is diversity for a year, then afterwards, you get McDonald's as your fighter, Burger King as your wizard, Wendy's as your rogue, and Taco Bell as your cleric. You don't get the Baja seafood Mexican cuisine cleric and the Oaxaca tamale Mexican cleric standing next to them. You get Taco Bell in the long term.

I don’t understand this metaphor.

 

[Maxperson]

I agree, this is something that the “don’t play with min-maxers” argument brushes over. There are many, many, many players who aren’t just min-maxers, who still find it difficult to be satisfied playing a character with below par accuracy and damage; players who would happily take a Feat over an ability score increase because expanding their characters’ capabilities is more interesting to them than getting a flavorless statistical boost. Players who genuinely want to play unexpected race-class combinations because they think it paints a cool narrative picture... But who don’t want to be punished for making those more interesting, concept-driven character decisions with a suboptimal contribution to the party’s overall damage output. Players who want to play something weird without dragging the rest of the party down for it. Players who would gladly take “role-play over roll-play” () but feel that the game discourages them from doing so. These, not the min-maxing boogeymen, are the players who want to decouple ability scores from race selection. The ones who don’t want to have to choose between playing against type and playing an effective character. The ones who envision a game where players can either play to expected tropes or against them and be balanced either way, If such a game is “just humans with rubber masks,” well, maybe humans with rubber masks is good for the game then.

It's not hard for a group of those kinds of players to just say, "No racial bonuses. Get +2, +1 floating." and be done with it. The game doesn't need to do it for you.

 

[Helldritch]

Couldn't agree more. If all races are excellent at everything, it becomes simply a matter of choice. Choice can be good. But people will quickly find out that too much choice can become the reverse. I have seen this in a few RPG where you could litterally create anything with any races (it was SciFy but it still the same). In the end, everyone was making more or less the same characters over and over again.

When you want to make a special character that is out of the ordinary, taking a race that is not good at something to do it is going against the norm and it will be challenging and surprising. The racial ASI are there for that. They are not as punishing as racial minimums and maximums that we had in 1ed but their presence is enough to make a difference. Cultural ASI would be a nice touch though...

 

[Charlaquin]

It's not hard for a group of those kinds of players to just say, "No racial bonuses. Get +2, +1 floating." and be done with it. The game doesn't need to do it for you.

Given that we are talking about 5e and not 6e, that the game won’t do it for us is a given. The 5e rules already are what they are, we are necessarily talking about house rules here.

 

[Maxperson]

I don’t buy this line of argument that rules at 12+ aren’t relevant because “most” games don’t go that high. If something is wrong with the rules, then something is wrong with the rules. What, people who play at higher levels don’t matter?

Furthermore, if we want to say that only statistically “normal” games matter, then you don’t have to worry about immersion-breaking 17 strength halflings and gnomes, because most games don’t have halfling or gnome fighters and barbarians, as we know from the data.

Absolutely.

My group routinely plays campaigns to 14-20th level. The only exceptions are when the campaign concept isn't as fun as we thought and we want to scrap it and start over with one that we do want to play to those levels. The rules need to take us into consideration, too.

 

[Helldritch]

1) I disagree. A thing doesn’t have to be suboptimal to be unique or surprising.


2) I don’t understand this metaphor.

And yet, it is a fact. A halfling barbarian will have a harder time than an half-orc barb. But he will be able to be a functional member of the group in 5ed. The ASI are not punishing enough to prevent such a build.

2) If any race can be anything. You will see that in the end. All characters made by a player will be from the same races all the time. I have a player that would only do elves. An other that would only do dwarves. But because of ASI, they have to change their normal behavior for the sake of being "better". Yet, I still see characters that are out of the ordinary exactly because it can be surprising. The dwarven wizard is such an example.