Need help with a Character Creation Homerule for Races / Ability Scores

[Trustypeaches]

I'd like to develop and implement a homerule for my games to allow players more flexibility during character creation, specifically when choosing their race. I want to make it easier to get relevant Ability Score increases such races can't traditionally offer, opening up more potential Class / Race combos. However, I want to make sure that whatever rule I implement doesn't open the gate to further imbalances.

I have a couple ideas in mind, but I'd like to try and find an elegant solution that allows for this flexibility without creating an even worse optimization meta. Keep in mind that these houserules are designed to work with the Point Buy system.


Option A: If a race receives a +1 increase to an ability score, Players can choose to reassign it to another Ability Score.
This seems to be the simplest solution, allowing virtually any race to reach a 16 in any given Ability Score at level 1. I excluded the ability to adjust +2 modifiers as that seemed too abusable. That said, even changing the +1 might be a bit abusable to optimize several races.


Option B: When using Point Buy, if a race has no modifiers for a given ability score, Players can spend 3 points to increase that ability score of 15 to 16.
This is a bit less simple but inflicts a bit of a steeper cost to characters within the Point Buy system to maximize a stat their race isn't naturally endowed with. It also punishes other optimization hijinks a bit more harshly than Option A. 3 points might be too steep, maybe 2?

Have your groups ever tried something similar to these ideas? If so, how did that go? Or is there any rule that might work better for what I'm trying to accomplish? I'm open to any suggestions or input!

[Grimmnist]

Option A: If a race receives a +1 increase to an ability score, Players can choose to reassign it to another Ability Score.
This seems to be the simplest solution, allowing virtually any race to reach a 16 in any given Ability Score at level 1. I excluded the ability to adjust +2 modifiers as that seemed too abusable. That said, even changing the +1 might be a bit abusable to optimize several races.


I use a similar houserule, however I limit to just the "half" races like half-orc, aasimar and teifling (though with MToF I will probably stop allowing teiflings). I think it is a clean solution in terms of lore and it has worked pretty well. I haven't noticed any crazy imbalances, mostly it just opens up more options.

[Biggstick]

I'd like to develop and implement a homerule for my games to allow players more flexibility during character creation, specifically when choosing their race. I want to make it easier to get relevant Ability Score increases such races can't traditionally offer, opening up more potential Class / Race combos. However, I want to make sure that whatever rule I implement doesn't open the gate to further imbalances.

I have a couple ideas in mind, but I'd like to try and find an elegant solution that allows for this flexibility without creating an even worse optimization meta. Keep in mind that these houserules are designed to work with the Point Buy system.


Option A: If a race receives a +1 increase to an ability score, Players can choose to reassign it to another Ability Score.
This seems to be the simplest solution, allowing virtually any race to reach a 16 in any given Ability Score at level 1. I excluded the ability to adjust +2 modifiers as that seemed too abusable. That said, even changing the +1 might be a bit abusable to optimize several races.


Option B: When using Point Buy, if a race has no modifiers for a given ability score, Players can spend 3 points to increase that ability score of 15 to 16.
This is a bit less simple but inflicts a bit of a steeper cost to characters within the Point Buy system to maximize a stat their race isn't naturally endowed with. It also punishes other optimization hijinks a bit more harshly than Option A. 3 points might be too steep, maybe 2?

Have your groups ever tried something similar to these ideas? If so, how did that go? Or is there any rule that might work better for what I'm trying to accomplish? I'm open to any suggestions or input!

Ability Score Generation. Players will use Improved Standard Array (8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16), or 34 point buy. Minimum score is an 8, maximum bought score is a 16. No rolling for stats.

8 - 0
9 - 1
10 - 2
11 - 3
12 - 4
13 - 5
14 - 7
15 - 9
16 - 12

Standard Racial Ability Score bonuses. Races other than Mountain Dwarf, Human Variant, and Half Elf have three +1's instead of their natural ability score bonuses that can be placed into any ability score. Any racial negative scores such as the Orc’s minus to Intelligence is completely ignored. They can be spread out to three different ability scores, or stacked to a maximum of +2 in one ability score and +1 in another ability score. This is to exemplify that not every Gnome is intelligent just as not every Dragonborn is strong. Any race can be just as good as the next race at something they want to excel at. If you’d like to play a Mountain Dwarf or Half Elf, you can use the three +1’s instead of what’s given in the book. Humans will use Standard or Variant stat bonuses provided by the PHB only.

This is what I use when I DM for my Players. They love it, and I can honestly say the power level of Players is only the tiniest bit higher. What it really does though is opens up the flood gates as to character ideas. All of a sudden you'll have Tiefling Clerics, Gnome Fighters, Aasimar Barbarians, etc etc.

You're on the right path, and your adjustments look fine to me.

[Unoriginal]

All race-class combos are already open, though.

[LudicSavant]

I'd like to develop and implement a homerule for my games to allow players more flexibility during character creation, specifically when choosing their race. I want to make it easier to get relevant Ability Score increases such races can't traditionally offer, opening up more potential Class / Race combos. However, I want to make sure that whatever rule I implement doesn't open the gate to further imbalances.

I have a couple ideas in mind, but I'd like to try and find an elegant solution that allows for this flexibility without creating an even worse optimization meta. Keep in mind that these houserules are designed to work with the Point Buy system.


Option A: If a race receives a +1 increase to an ability score, Players can choose to reassign it to another Ability Score.
This seems to be the simplest solution, allowing virtually any race to reach a 16 in any given Ability Score at level 1. I excluded the ability to adjust +2 modifiers as that seemed too abusable. That said, even changing the +1 might be a bit abusable to optimize several races.


Option B: When using Point Buy, if a race has no modifiers for a given ability score, Players can spend 3 points to increase that ability score of 15 to 16.
This is a bit less simple but inflicts a bit of a steeper cost to characters within the Point Buy system to maximize a stat their race isn't naturally endowed with. It also punishes other optimization hijinks a bit more harshly than Option A. 3 points might be too steep, maybe 2?

Have your groups ever tried something similar to these ideas? If so, how did that go? Or is there any rule that might work better for what I'm trying to accomplish? I'm open to any suggestions or input!

The main edge cases to watch out for would be the races with intentional anti-synergies (e.g. Mountain Dwarf/Yuan-Ti).

[DevilMcam]

A thingmy table may use in the near future :
Point buy 26 (instead of regular 27)
Once you are done with racials you can allocate an extra +1 to one stat (up to a maximum of 16)
This is simple and doesn't starve race with no appropriate bonuses that want that 16.