Did anyone win the argument yet? (Spoiler: there are no winners in an Internet argument.)
Wait-- what? Man, what I am wasting my time for then?
And what are you
thinking, trying to get the thread back on course??? (j/k)
I'm sure there are other issues with this idea, but this was the biggest one for me. I'll keep tinkering with it.
My biggest issue with this is you are granting a 5 ASIs overall, which bumps ability scores even more than they already are. My view is ability scores are, in general, too high to begin with anyway after adding ASIs. But I know that is a view not many share.
First, we set it such that only physical ASIs are granted by race and subrace. To me, these represent the physical body that your character was born into.
This is fine for players who view other races as mentally equivalent to human. I'm not one of those. I think an elf's long lifespan, for example, changes the way they think and
could make them simply smarter. In other words, whether the biology is physical or mental, it could be either.
And second, we rig it such that a race and subrace never give the same ASI. Like, an elf would get a +1 to Dex, so no elf subraces would also grant a +1 bonus to Dex.
This I would be perfectly fine with. To reduce over all bonuses, I would also be okay with limiting race to +1 and removing subraces ASIs.
Next, only mental ASIs are granted by background. This makes sense to me because your background reflects your past and your experiences, the things you have learned and the habits you have picked up. All brain-stuff.
Past experiences are good and all, but to me a lot of that is reflected in the skill proficiencies (such as Soldier getting Athletics). But, I think many backgrounds could give physical ASIs just as well as mental ones. Like you suggest later for backgrounds, a Soldier could have CON +1 or such.
Finally, your class and subclass can give ASI bonuses to anything. (This is how you are able to get that oh-so-vital +2 to a single ability score.) And like the above, a class and its related subclass will be different. For example, if the Fighter class gives a bonus to Strength, none of the Fighter subclasses will grant another bonus to Strength.
So, you want these to float? I understand by restricting race to physical, and background to mental, you prevent the overlap there. I still think race and background could cover mental and physical, respectively, as I said before, but otherwise I would remove the subclass and preferably the class as well just to keep the total ASIs to 3 instead of 5.
I'd still prefer to do all ASIs with Background alone, and leave race and class out of the equation altogether. Athletes get +2 to Dex or Str and a +1 to Con. Soldiers get a +2 to Con and a +1 to Str or Dex. Acolytes get a +2 Wis and +1 Cha. That sort of thing. But lots of folks are struggling with that idea.
There's nothing wrong with this, except it shifts the onus from race to background. And, since backgrounds are completely customizable, you basically are giving floating ASIs anyway as long as the player/DM can justify it if they feel the need.
Anyway, thank you very much for getting the thread back on track and offering your thoughts. They're perfectly good and might work for many players!
All in all, I think the best thing is a fixed +1 for race, a chose of two options for class, and a floating +1, capping it at +2 for any one ability score. But, I posted on that before and never got much feedback--maybe people don't like it or maybe they are just "thread-dead" and tired of discussing it?
shrug