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

[Charlaquin]

Sure, I guess. But they affect each other. Like the tropes we associate with certain races have at least partly been moulded over the years by rules supporting those tropes. The first strength 17 halfling berserker or super smart ork wizard might be surprising the next seven thousand of them wont. And once it becomes the norm that every race is equally good at everything it will affect how people think about them and what tropes they associate with them.

Good! Let’s work on eroding the idea that occupational proclivities are a factor of genetic predisposition. Let’s normalize halfling barbarians and orc wizards. They’re cool, why we gotta make them scarce?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But an orc wizard will always be surprising unless we end up seeing a lot of them, because the lore and culture of orcs doesn't match up well with the wizard class, and most people play orcs to be big and strong and scary.

So, the big tough guy from a furious people who generally prefer dealing with spirits to academic memorization and theorycrafting for their magics, who becomes a wizard, will remain surprising.

I'm not convinced. What you describe is is the common image of the orcs now, because that's how their rules have represented them for decades. But after years of seeing orc wizards running around people will think it is perfectly normal. Orcs will not be any more big and strong guys than the high elves are.

 

[Charlaquin]

(Of course the ideal solution would be to persuade your DM to come up with something like a grugach, which has both the superior racial ASIs and the superior non-ASI abilities.)

No. No, making a bajillion subraces to fill the race/class combinations you want is not the ideal solution, it’s symptom of the problem. Why do we need a whole new subcategory of elf just so someone can play an elf who’s strong? Why can’t elves just be strong sometimes without having to attribute it to a genetic subgroup?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Good! Let’s work on eroding the idea that occupational proclivities are a factor of genetic predisposition. Let’s normalize halfling barbarians and orc wizards. They’re cool, why we gotta make them scarce?

Ok, but you are literally arguing from two contradictory positions. If what you want happens then they literally no longer can be surprising!

 

[Charlaquin]

Ok, but you are literally arguing from two contradictory positions. If what you want happens then they literally no longer can be surprising!

As @doctorbadwolf points out though, lore still exists. The surprising thing can be that a member of a culture that doesn’t typically value or foster the traits necessary for wizardry produced a wizard, instead of the surprising thing being that a player chose to play an orc wizard despite it being a poor choice mechanically.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, if we disregard high levels mechanically, we might as well remove them from the book and cap PCs at, say 10th. That would match most campaigns just fine, but it's not what I want. We should at least make the attempt at solid design all the way up.

Whose talking about disregarding high level mechanics!?

I'm not convinced. What you describe is is the common image of the orcs now, because that's how their rules have represented them for decades. But after years of seeing orc wizards running around people will think it is perfectly normal. Orcs will not be any more big and strong guys than the high elves are.

This is, I'm sorry, nonsense. There is no reason to expect to actually have years of seeing orc wizards running around, first of all. Most people play to the archetypal form. The archetypal wizard is very much not an orc, and the archetypal orc sure as heck ain't a wizard.

I strongly prefer nearly any other solution over floating ASIs, but one thing that they simply will not cause is a state where orc wizards are passe.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This is, I'm sorry, nonsense. There is no reason to expect to actually have years of seeing orc wizards running around, first of all. Most people play to the archetypal form. The archetypal wizard is very much not an orc, and the archetypal orc sure as heck ain't a wizard.

I strongly prefer nearly any other solution over floating ASIs, but one thing that they simply will not cause is a state where orc wizards are passe.

Perhaps you are correct, but I am far less sure about this. In MMOs where the race is often mainly cosmetic people constantly play all sorts of logically or thematically weird combinations. Like people routinely play gnome or lalafell warriors in WoW and FFXIV etc, and seeing either certainly isn't even a tiny bit surprising.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Perhaps you are correct, but I am far less sure about this. In MMOs where the race is often mainly cosmetic people constantly play all sorts of logically or thematically weird combinations. Like people routinely play gnome or lalafell warriors in WoW and FFXIV etc, and seeing either certainly isn't even a tiny bit surprising.

Well, gnome warriors shouldn't be surprising. I don't see many Dwarf Mages, however.

 

[DND_Reborn]

@doctorbadwolf

I know you think floating ASI's won't cause players to fall into playing "their favorite race" for everything, but I wouldn't be surprised if a fair number did. I mentioned before one player in our group who plays dragonborn a LOT.

To be fair, I certainly believe those players (who stick to one race) will be a small number. But as it has been said, if they can play a race they love to play and not feel like it is subpar to other choices, what is wrong with that? Personally, I would see such behavior as a lost opportunity for the player (like I've encouraged our Dragonborn player to try other races and he has had fun with them, in particular loving his Gnome!), but I certainly won't fault them for playing a race they really enjoy.

In a similar light we have another player who plays monks and paladins almost exclusively. I told him for the new game I hope to run later this year, I really want him to at least try another class! I told him if he simply isn't enjoying a new class, I'll let him remake his PC. So, he agreed and I'll be anxious to see how it works out.

Over all, I think (if we insist on keeping the ASIs), floating them is the least of all evils. Remove them from race and just add them as the end part of determining your attributes. You can float them to whatever ability score you want for whatever reason. You're Paladin is stronger? Ok, sure, why? Because he is a Dragonborn, because he has a Solider background, or just because he is a warrior? Honestly, does it really matter? You can come up with any reason you want.

In the light of the halfling/orc comparison. Both are barbarians, both used point-buy for max 15 STR and added ASI +2 for total 17. Maybe the orc's is just genetics due to race, maybe the halfling's is because of his barbarian "training" (?) or his Far Traveler background? Thematically, you can reason it out however you want.

Finally, what I still have issue with, personally, is more about encumbrance and other physical factors related to races. In discussing this with our newly budding DM last night, he was shocked to learn Medium creatures don't have advantage over Small for grappling, or that small creatures could carry just as much via STR as medium. To me, ASIs are secondary, some of the other issues are really the points that break verisimilitude for me.

 

[Charlaquin]

People keep saying “but players will just play their favorite race all the time!” like it’s a bad thing. What’s wrong with players playing their favorite race all the time? It’s their favorite race, let them play it!