D&D 5E Why do you use Floating ASI's (other than power gaming)? [+]

[Charlaquin]

Oh for naughty word's sake. Let me guess, they changed this because of 'feedback'.

I remember some people complaining that, since the most any race got was a +1 to two stats but (non-variant) humans got +1 to every stat, it meant humans were these weird super-beings who were as tough as dwarves, as nimble as elves, as strong as half-orcs, as charming as halflings, etc… But for the most part people were ok with it and it stayed consistent throughout the whole playtest so I don’t imagine it was polling poorly. I was shocked when it was different in the final release, something must have come up in closed playtesting that made them change their minds.

The more I hear about D&D Next the more it sounds straight up better than the 5e we actually got.

In some ways I think it was, but in other ways not. The biggest improvement from the playtests to the final version in my opinion was monster stats. The open playtest was really very focused on finding the right feel for PCs, they consistently insisted (despite a LOT of complaints) that they would get around to properly balancing the monster stats later, after internal playtesting, and that the open playtest was about the feel, not the math.

This is largely accepted as the reason Hoard of the Dragon Queen is so poorly balanced, because it was designed with an older draft of the monster stats, before the numbers were finalized and a lot of monsters’ CRs changed dramatically from playtest to release.

Where there serious problems in that playtest that were corrected?

... if not... maybe they shouldn't have ran a playtest...

Let’s be honest, the open playtest was mostly a marketing stunt, with the side benefit of letting them get a decent sense of what felt too 4e to include. All the actual playtesting happened internally.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

On thinking about it the difference between a 16 and a 18 would be the difference we (or at least I) saw in 4e between a 18 and a 20. In 4e you could point buy your way up to an 18 in your primary stat, but it cost 16 out of your 22 points (with a 16 only costing 9). And then your race could give a further +2. What I saw in 4e was that >90% of characters had at least an 18 no matter what their race, making it the benchmark. But only about a third to half of characters went all the way to 20 in my experience; although I really don't have enough data both going broad and hitting the benchmark of 18 and going narrow to hit 20 were fairly common.

Which actually is a better outcome than what we now have where basically everyone starts with the same number.

 

[Charlaquin]

Some of the playtest was awesome (looking at you, 2012 sorcerers), some of it less so. (I compared one playtest packet to the residue stuck on the plate when you accidently microwave something for 10 minutes too long.)

Was it the one where everyone and their mother used superiority dice for everything?

 

[TwoSix]

Which actually is a better outcome than what we now have where basically everyone starts with the same number.

Only tangentially related, but I've been thinking for a while the best way to allow flexible stats is to get away from classes having primary stats. Ideally, every stat should have a use for every class, and a Wizard with high Str and low Int or a Fighter with high Int and low Str would work just fine.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I remember some people complaining that, since the most any race got was a +1 to two stats but (non-variant) humans got +1 to every stat, it meant humans were these weird super-beings who were as tough as dwarves, as nimble as elves, as strong as half-orcs, as charming as halflings, etc…

Yeah. This is the sort of thing that bugs me. This is why I actually like to have variant humans as the standard humans, as at least it means that not every human is bizarrely gifted at everything.

 

[TwoSix]

Was it the one where everyone and their mother used superiority dice for everything?

I'd have to dig through my posts to remember. Might have been.

 

[Scribe]

Also known as “playing the character you want.”

They are completely different concepts.

 

[ReshiIRE]

This is largely accepted as the reason Hoard of the Dragon Queen is so poorly balanced, because it was designed with an older draft of the monster stats, before the numbers were finalized and a lot of monsters’ CRs changed dramatically from playtest to release.

Offtopic somewhat, but this is the exact thing that happened with Pathfinder 2e's first proper adventure path, Age of Ashes. The monster maths are off, and there are too many level +2 (i.e. moderate or severe) encounters, particularly early.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'd have to dig through my posts to remember. Might have been.

I just remember superiority dice being a big hit for fighters, and so in the next packet it was the martial mechanic. If you weren’t casting spells, you were rolling superiority dice (and in the Paladin’s and Ranger’s cases, both.)

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah. This is the sort of thing that bugs me. This is why I actually like to have variant humans as the standard humans, as at least it means that not every human is bizarrely gifted at everything.

Yeah, I also prefer variant humans.