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

[Blue]

It means I can play any class with any race, and not get effectively penalized because it doesn't line up with classes. It's freedom to play whatever I want.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Kinda strange that the thread title calls for "other than optimization", yet the only thing people post, including the ones in favor of floting ASI, is optimization to get the +3 primary stat...

Thanks for being honest. I see a lot of people who don't want to admit that this is why they want floating ASI.

I want to quibble with this. (I know, surprising on the Internet, right?)

If you have come to believe, entirely reasonably, that starting characters in 5e should expect a +3 modifier in their primary stat, then it's not "optimization" to want it. Rather, it feels like "intentional de-optimization" to take less.

Furthermore, optimization is not about a single stat, it's about an entire character build. So if you really want to play a half-orc Wizard for narrative reasons, it's not optimization to only want to do so if you can get that +3 bonus. It's not "optimum" unless all the choices are made with optimization in mind. "Better" =/= "Optimum".

Also, somebody explicitly said that they want to play against type by having an 8 in the attribute traditionally associated with a given race (e.g. an elf with 8 Dex) so your initial observation isn't even accurate.

Also, if you write/say/think the word "optimum" enough times, it starts to sound really strange.

 

[Azzy]

I find it further helps in tailoring a character to a concept—especially when rolling for attributes.

 

[Umbran]

The point to me ...

The point, to me, is that it really isn't significant optimization nor power gaming, and that folks are lowering the bar just to apply that language.

The point, to me, is also that, if you are trying to make the point that these aren't bad behaviors, lowering the bar so you can accuse people of those behaviors is probably not going to make that point. If that's the goal, it is an ill-conceived technique.

 

[MoonSong]

Power-gaming is a choice you make for yourself. Nerd-splaining is a choice you try to make for other people.

No I meant nerdsplaining and mansplaining...

 

[Scribe]

I’m not going to pretend it isn’t for power gaming, and certainly not going to apologize for it. It’s a legitimate motivation for play.

Refreshing honesty, and you are completely right that its a 100% legitimate motivation for play.

 

[billd91]

The point, to me, is that it really isn't significant optimization nor power gaming, and that folks are lowering the bar just to apply that language.

If it wasn’t significant, then that additional +1 wouldn’t be considered “necessary” for viability, or balance, or any of the other reasons that all ultimately come down to optimization. Yet it is. The whole debate continually underscores how significant people believe it is.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Some of us have both a basic expectation of competence (which isn't the same as optimization) AND don't like all elves being ISO standard gymnasts who are all inexplicably trained in classical 'elf weapons' even if they were orphans raised by flumphs in one of the weirdest cases of racial essentialism in fiction.

 

[Umbran]

If it wasn’t significant...

Please stop here. You seem to be chopping out words out wherever you want to make your point, ignoring whether that retains my meaning. Specifically, you dropped out what "significant" was modifying.

It isn't significant optimization. As in, if I use this to get a 16 in a primary stat, and take that over to the optimization boards and go, "Dudes, look at how optimized my character is!" I will get laughed at. The optimization boards are not for discussions of making average-power characters, folks. Let's not pretend they are.

The Fallacy of Equivocation is what happens when you switch out the meaning of a word when nobody is looking. You folks seem to have decided to take a word that is commonly used in the gaming context to be applied to the process making a character as powerful as the player can manage, and applying that word to any attempt to establish character effectiveness, regardless of whether the result is actually particularly powerful.

This is the lowering the bar I was speaking about before. Making a character of average function cannot be reasonably considered "optimization".

You are sharing a discussion with other humans. If you want it to go well, don't change the definitions on them.

 

[FireLance]

Some of you have really low bars for what you call "power gaming".

The opposite POV (which, in the interest of transparency, I admit that I subscribe to) is that some of you have really high bars for what you call "an effective character".