Level Up (A5E) Where to put ability bonuses during character creation

[doctorbadwolf]

Sure, the Spartans were no less wise than the Athenians. They are, after all, part of Ancient Greece. Spartan Military might be a background.

Jocks and nerds are all from the same culture (mid century America?) so you would not give that culture a bonus to either group. Jock is a background. Nerd is a background

The New Yorker example makes me think your concept of culture is not mine. Those two groups you mention are part of the same culture. They are Americans. Culture is a broad umbrella. It's not the Yancy St gang versus the Fulton St. gang. High roller might be a background.

Culture is commonly used much less broadly than you’re suggesting here.

New York Punk Scene is a culture. Like...objectively, from an academic standpoint, or colloquially, it’s a culture.

American is frankly arguable whether there is a distinct American culture, or ever has been, even if we ignore than American more properly refers to people of the American continents, not just people from the US of A.

 

[Giauz]

I think ability bonuses should go in the background. Up until becoming the character class, this is who you character was. I am assuming most races are relatively humanoid statswise, though certain species and culture combos could have their own bonuses as a special feature. Also, just as one picks or rolls for bonds, flaws, etc and picks skills in a background there should be the options of picking or rolling for variations of stat bonuses. I just find backgrounds to be such a cool character generation feature that I always wished had greater effect on the PC's stats than just skills and some equipment, etc.

 

[cbwjm]

I still think they should be part of the race, especially if some are freeform (if all are free form then they don't need to be attached to anything). I don't think they should be background since you might have a sailor background but were a terrible sailor which is why you're now a wizard. Not sure they should be in class either. Where would a fighter put their ability boost? If the class allows for putting ability boosts in strength, dexterity, or constitution then where does that leave those fighters that wanted to be an eldritch knight or even a charismatic knight leading by example.

My preferred options would be either race with one stat set and a couple +1s to put in one or two other ability scores or completely divorced from any kind of race, background, or class and each character just gains four +1s that can be distributed between your stats and combined up to +2 for a single stat (I could only vote once so couldn't pick both).

Edit: Oh, I also think that if people don't want to use race that ancestry is a better better than species. I know it is an old word, but it still sounds sci-fi rather than fantasy.

 

[Raduin711]

I voted the last option, because I feel it should be split between race/species and background (excluding culture.)

Race/Species bonuses should reflect physiology or nature aspects. This is going to be fairly restricted to the physical stats: Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution.

Background would represent upbringing unique to that character. This could potentially alter any stat, including the physicals. I think this is appropriate since this aspect should, in theory, represent the strongest influence on your character of the three. (Though race/species could have some profound effects)

Culture I am less inclined to offer much in the way of statistic bonuses. Earth has many cultures and I find it uncomfortable to assign any stat bonus to any culture in the world.

 

[Derren]

So you don't think someone with experience as a blacksmith should be stronger and more resilient that someone who worked as a merchant? That someone who worked as an entertainer is more charismatic than someone who was a sailor?

No, I don't. Because not all backgrounds have a clear connection to an ability score and because you can also be a bad entertainer etc. who obviously is not charismatic. Race is the only place where a guranteed stat boost makes sense.

Uhh....you literally just stated it (except that you assumed that the only sort of gamer who engages in the practice is somehow illegitimate and should be ignored.)

There are 2 big reasons why people want do disconnect abilities from races.
1. They see it as racist when a fictional race different from humans is actually different
2. They want to minmax while freely picking their race.

Which one of them do you belong to?

1 is obviously silly
2 would require to remove all differences between races because even without ability score differences some races will be better for certain classes as others and I also believe that it is completely ok to play something not optimized and I do not want the design of the game to be based on minmaxer.

 

[Guest 6801328]

There are 2 big reasons why people want do disconnect abilities from races.
1. They see it as racist when a fictional race different from humans is actually different
2. They want to minmax while freely picking their race.

Which one of them do you belong to?

1 is obviously silly
2 would require to remove all differences between races because even without ability score differences some races will be better for certain classes as others and I also believe that it is completely ok to play something not optimized and I do not want the design of the game to be based on minmaxer.

Oh. Ok, how does the following sound?

There are 2 big reasons why people want to keep ability bonuses in races:

1. The think they're holding a line against political correctness
2. They are unable to imagine any other way to differentiate D&D races

Which one are you?

(Sorta reminds me of, "Senator, yes or no: have you stopped snorting cocaine?")

But you missed...or mischaracterized...the primary reason: there is obviously a huge impact of racial ASIs on class/race selection by most of the community. We see it on a micro scale in our groups, and we see it on a macro scale in the D&D Beyond data. We see the same race/class combinations over and over and over again. So the result of racial ASIs is clearly a lack of interesting diversity in character builds.

 

[Giauz]

@Elfcrusher : I think that applying ancestry + culture bonuses to some combos of the two would make mechanics interesting if done some of the time. 5e is a bit limiting oddly for me because it gets done for everyone. Plus, I'm heavily biased toward finding backgrounds one of the most interesting parts of character creation, and I think there should be some Ability Score Bonus combos to choose from there just as one can choose different bonds, flaws, and skills.

 

[Derren]

But you missed...or mischaracterized...the primary reason: there is obviously a huge impact of racial ASIs on class/race selection by most of the community. We see it on a micro scale in our groups, and we see it on a macro scale in the D&D Beyond data. We see the same race/class combinations over and over and over again. So the result of racial ASIs is clearly a lack of interesting diversity in character builds.

So number 2. Minmaxer.
When you move abilities to backgrounds you will always see the same background/class combination and likely still the same races because of other racial features that combo well with certain classes.
And I do not see a point in designing a game around rollplayer who only play whatever has the biggest bonus. Why do you actually care if other people in different groups play that way? Do you want to enforce diversity in other peoples games?

 

[Guest 6801328]

So number 2. Minmaxer.
When you move abilities to backgrounds you will always see the same background/class combination and likely still the same races because of other racial features that combo well with certain classes.
And I do not see a point in designing a game around rollplayer who only play whatever has the biggest bonus. Why do you actually care if other people in different groups play that way? Do you want to enforce diversity in other peoples games?

So number 1. Culture warrior. Viva la resistance, Comrade Derren.

 

[Maxperson]

Culture is commonly used much less broadly than you’re suggesting here.

New York Punk Scene is a culture. Like...objectively, from an academic standpoint, or colloquially, it’s a culture.

That would be a subculture.