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

[Undrave]

But you can also roll below an 8, which isn't possible with the other methods (except for a few races with -2 to an ability score...).

The REAL issue, is when people roll, IME they don't want to accept the possible low rolls as the trade off for the high rolls. They roll a 5 or 6, and maybe an 8, and even if they have two 16's, they will want to roll again instead of accepting the low rolls. Most games even allow players to roll a few sets of ability scores using 4d6-L, and then choose the set they want to keep. This artificially increases the impact of 4d6-L because now you can choose the best of 3 sets, for example.

If DMs were all absolute in the 4d6-L, one set of scores ONLY, you would not see as much desire to do it IMO. If you rolled a 3 or 4, it can be severely harmful to a PC, even if you have a couple great score to make up for it. A lot of players say "Oh, no, I would play it" or "We only roll one set, take it or leave it." IME that is crap. It isn't like the DM will forbid them from playing if they won't accept a set of with bad rolls. At worse, the DM then resorts to "Fine, but then you are stuck with the standard array" or something.

This has been the real issue since the beginning of rolling stats.

I agree, this is also why I don't like rolling for stats. Also, a player with a bad roll could just play recklessly and suicide their character early.

Since a player who's stuck with [10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10] will like suicide her character at the earliest opportunity, the question becomes: What is the poorest, "most average", set of scores your players can abide? Then use that as your fall-back array.

they could always go for a Moon Druid since your stats don't matter...

Here's a Q.

What would we use as culture?

1. Is it just subraces renamed (elves get dark, wood, and high but not mountain and swamp)
2. Would every species get access to all cultures?
   • If so would it be based on fantasy archetypes? (High, Dark, Light, Nature, Warrior, City)
   • tropes? (stout, lightfoot, smart, magical, sneaky, normal)
   • terrain? (arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, underdark, urban)
   • caste? (royal, noble, priest, warrior, merchant, craftsman, commoner)
   • class? (warrior, thief, mage, priest, bard)
   • psuedo background? (foreign, urban, classy, tribal)
   • a mix? (arctic, high, dark, tribal, commoner, stout)

Because to me, it kinda matters. It would determine the logical spread of ability score bonuses.

The first playtest candidate has Elf as a heritage, and wood, high, dark elves etc. as cultures. Any heritage can take any culture, so you can have the dwarf heritage and the wood elf culture. All biological features reside in heritage, and all learned features reside in culture.

Personally I'd rather see more abstract cultures that can be plopped into any new setting. Probably with a combination of ideals, societal structure and a dash of terrain (so Militant by the sea and Militant in the mountains are slightly different flavor). Maybe even give building blocks so a DM can create their own race/culture set specific for their games.

You're absolutely correct. Even so, I've never run a game where everyone was ok with point buy or the standard array, so rolling is what we get. Maybe I can get away with point buy in a non D&D game where it's not a listed option, but to my players, rolling stats is a sacred cow of the game. I'm sure if we play Level Up it will be the same.

They wouldn't like to play in the Adventure League

Not a "big" fan of customizing races, as I feel some species in a fantasy world would share similar traits, but we won't let it stop our game and might use some bits of the idea.

I'm pretty sure some aspect will be inherent, it's the more cultural stuff like proficiencies and languages that'll change.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I agree, this is also why I don't like rolling for stats. Also, a player with a bad roll could just play recklessly and suicide their character early.



they could always go for a Moon Druid since your stats don't matter...




Personally I'd rather see more abstract cultures that can be plopped into any new setting. Probably with a combination of ideals, societal structure and a dash of terrain (so Militant by the sea and Militant in the mountains are slightly different flavor). Maybe even give building blocks so a DM can create their own race/culture set specific for their games.



They wouldn't like to play in the Adventure League



I'm pretty sure some aspect will be inherent, it's the more cultural stuff like proficiencies and languages that'll change

No, AL would not sit well with any of them.

 

[Minigiant]

Personally I'd rather see more abstract cultures that can be plopped into any new setting. Probably with a combination of ideals, societal structure and a dash of terrain (so Militant by the sea and Militant in the mountains are slightly different flavor). Maybe even give building blocks so a DM can create their own race/culture set specific for their games.

Well military based on terrain seems more like a ranger exclusive thing.

But I agree that I'd prefer more abstract culture. Kind of like how Age of Wonders 3 and Planetfall did it. Your choose of main hero determined the culture of your race and each hero was based on a common abstraction of a fantasy or scifi culture

Arcane (INT) + Elf (DEX)= High Elf Dex/Int
Druidic (WIS) + Elf (DEX) = Wood Elf Dex/Wis
Warrior (STR) + Elf (DEX) = Wild Elf Str/Dex
Fey (INT) + Elf (DEX) = Eladrin Dex/Int
Dark (CHA) + Elf (DEX) = Drow Dex/Cha

 

[DND_Reborn]

they could always go for a Moon Druid since your stats don't matter...

FWIW, your mental ability scores don't change in Wild Shape, so 10's for INT, WIS, and CHA aren't going to do much for you.

However, it would be an interesting character whose spells all revolved around utility/buffs and then relied on Wild Shape for much of combat when possible. Such a PC might not even be less efficient due to average mental scores.

 

[tetrasodium]

in my experience all of the rolling pros don't really hold up in practice.
Alice will have 12 12 13 8 6 3
Bob will have 18 15 12 16 10
chuck dawn & edie will be somewhere between the two. Then five or six games in it goes from coincidence to fact that bob had stats like that every game. Sure you can mandate they be rolled in order at the start but bob still winds up with optimal or near optimal order of those stats

 

[Micah Sweet]

in my experience all of the rolling pros don't really hold up in practice.
Alice will have 12 12 13 8 6 3
Bob will have 18 15 12 16 10
chuck dawn & edie will be somewhere between the two. Then five or six games in it goes from coincidence to fact that bob had stats like that every game. Sure you can mandate they be rolled in order at the start but bob still winds up with optimal or near optimal order of those stats

The biggest "pro" is when your players like rolling and dislike point buy (and HATE the standard array). Combine that with being unwilling to force a player to run a character with "bad stats" if they don't want to, and it is what it is.

 

[Undrave]

Well military based on terrain seems more like a ranger exclusive thing.

But I agree that I'd prefer more abstract culture. Kind of like how Age of Wonders 3 and Planetfall did it. Your choose of main hero determined the culture of your race and each hero was based on a common abstraction of a fantasy or scifi culture

Arcane (INT) + Elf (DEX)= High Elf Dex/Int
Druidic (WIS) + Elf (DEX) = Wood Elf Dex/Wis
Warrior (STR) + Elf (DEX) = Wild Elf Str/Dex
Fey (INT) + Elf (DEX) = Eladrin Dex/Int
Dark (CHA) + Elf (DEX) = Drow Dex/Cha

Well by 'militant' I meant a culture who puts emphasis on military strength, glorifies military conquest, and would conscript anybody of sound body for its militia. Someone raised on that kind of culture would obviously have some sort of martial weapon proficiency.

But if they were raised by the sea they would have some type of swim speed, and if they were raised on the mountains they would probably have climbing skill, like proficiency in Athletics.

 

[Minigiant]

Well by 'militant' I meant a culture who puts emphasis on military strength, glorifies military conquest, and would conscript anybody of sound body for its militia. Someone raised on that kind of culture would obviously have some sort of martial weapon proficiency.

But if they were raised by the sea they would have some type of swim speed, and if they were raised on the mountains they would probably have climbing skill, like proficiency in Athletics.

Well a swim or climb speed would be generic and thus a heritage trait. However I could see mountain, coastal, and woods cultures having different proficiencies, ASIs and other features works.

Although I don't see the point of them being Militant. I can't see any of the possible terrain or location based cultures not having a noticeable lean to combat. Especially since Morris said they would contain the learned aspects and backgrounds will still exist.

 

[Xeviat]

Coming up with racial stats that don't work better when doing some things compared to others is going to be rather tricky though. Off the top of my head, I can't think of many in the current 5E races that appear to meet your criteria.

The trick is to have a mixture of things that are useful to some and not really useful to others. Elven weapon proficiencies don't do anything for the warriors, but they offer a boost for the semi-warriors.

 

[Undrave]

Well a swim or climb speed would be generic and thus a heritage trait. However I could see mountain, coastal, and woods cultures having different proficiencies, ASIs and other features works.

Although I don't see the point of them being Militant. I can't see any of the possible terrain or location based cultures not having a noticeable lean to combat. Especially since Morris said they would contain the learned aspects and backgrounds will still exist.

In my version the environement and culture would be two parts you can mix and match, and 'Militant' would be one of the generic culture. You'd have one for Theocratic cultures and Magocratic cultures and Mercantile cultures, etc. the Environement is just there to spice thing up a bit. It would be overly minor bonuses compared to Culture.