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

[jmartkdr2]

Give it a few years.

The base game works well. Races have a "type" that suggests classes they lean toward thematically. If a player chooses instead to play "off-type" by playing a different class they still have a good character, one which will have different strengths than if they were a standard race of that class.

With the Tasha's rules this is largely lost. Some races even suggest classes which are opposed to what their 'type' was as what race is 'optimal' for each class has now changed. Tasha's hasn't eliminated racial optimization per class just changed which ones are optimal.

People have been writing in new kinds of elf for a lot more than a few years, but the basic tropes remain the same. Even if elven barbarians become common (like in Elfquest), they're still elven.

Do you really think one game adding more rules options is going to upend the entirety of fantasy fiction around the world in a few years? By doing the same thing they've been doing for almost 50?

 

[jmartkdr2]

Like he said, give it a few years. 2024 is going to be a very strange and interesting year...

2 years of increasing options is going to have a much bigger impact than the last 48 years of increasing options. A bold take.

 

[Faolyn]

I guess one would wonder why combat is taking the whole session regularly. That doesn’t sound like a typical experience for a 5e game from both my personal experience and what I’ve read of the games of others on these boards.

Ending combats early is a possible solution. Not every fight needs to be nor should be a fight to the death.

This depends entirely on how long a session is, of course. Playing online in this pandemic era, our sessions have been reduced to about two hours.

This session, the paladin managed to stop the combat through the art of persuasion once it had actually already begun, which was really awesome.

 

[Micah Sweet]

2 years of increasing options is going to have a much bigger impact than the last 48 years of increasing options. A bold take.

It's the way they're doing it. They're purposefully removing differences between races.

 

[jmartkdr2]

It's the way they're doing it. They're purposefully removing differences between races.

They're flattening the mechanics. Races are a lot more than that, and that affects how people play.

I'll eat my words if in two years time you can't tell if someone's playing a dwarf at an average DnD table because they don't have +2 con and axe proficiency.

 

[Faolyn]

People have been writing in new kinds of elf for a lot more than a few years, but the basic tropes remain the same. Even if elven barbarians become common (like in Elfquest), they're still elven.

Elfquest came out in '78, meaning elf barbarians are almost as old as D&D itself.

 

[Faolyn]

It's the way they're doing it. They're purposefully removing differences between races.

Are elves still going to have trance and fey ancestry? Are dwarfs still going to have dwarven resilience and stonecunning? Are halflings still going be nimble and lucky?

If so, then all the important traits are still there.

As I said ages ago, once you add the bonus to your attribute, that bonus no longer matters. If you have an 18 Dex, it honestly doesn't matter if you got that through racial ASIs, level-based ASIs, or lucky rolls. It's just there. It's the traits that matter and that tell you what the race is actually like.

 

[Minigiant]

They're flattening the mechanics. Races are a lot more than that, and that affects how people play.

I'll eat my words if in two years time you can't tell if someone's playing a dwarf at an average DnD table because they don't have +2 con and axe proficiency.

Dwarves using axes is silly anyway.

If the traditional culture is traditionalist grumpy miners and heavy infantry, they'd use warpicks.

2 handed pick, when?

 

[Micah Sweet]

If

Are elves still going to have trance and fey ancestry? Are dwarfs still going to have dwarven resilience and stonecunning? Are halflings still going be nimble and lucky?

If so, then all the important traits are still there.

As I said ages ago, once you add the bonus to your attribute, that bonus no longer matters. If you have an 18 Dex, it honestly doesn't matter if you got that through racial ASIs, level-based ASIs, or lucky rolls. It's just there. It's the traits that matter and that tell you what the race is actually like.

If there were more traits, I'd agree with you. Thank God for Level Up. Their heritages actually stand on their own. I can't convert O5e fast enough.

 

[Faolyn]

If

If there were more traits, I'd agree with you. Thank God for Level Up. Their heritages actually stand on their own. I can't convert O5e fast enough.

Definitely agreed there. I am desperate to convert my table.