A Simple Houserule for Swapping Racial Ability Scores

[LudicSavant]

These days, racial ability scores seem rather vestigial. After all, a Half-Orc Barbarian and a Human one are likely to start, and end, their careers with the exact same Strengths scores (indeed, with half-feats, a variant human can emulate the racial ability scores of the majority of races, starting with +2/+1). All they really do in practice is encourage stereotypes by making 'wrong' race/class combinations less optimal, and little else.

So it's no surprise that people often talk about the idea of swapping out racial ability scores; indeed, even WotC themselves have been doing so lately. Well, here's the houserule my table has been using for just that purpose:

The Rule:
Any race other than Variant Human or Yuan-Ti may exchange their racial stat bonuses for +2 / +1 any.

Short 'n' simple, yet effective.

Note: This means that Half-Elves and Mountain Dwarves that switch will have less total modifiers. This is intentional. The Mountain Dwarf's +2/+2 is normally balanced by the fact that the classes that synergize well with a +2 Str/+2 Con already have Medium Armor proficiency. If they're able to get a mental stat bonus with Medium Armor, they should be +2/+1 like the Githyanki (who get an Int bonus and Medium Armor prof, along with some handy psionic features).

Note2: VHuman can't swap because it would actually increase their stats. Yuan-Ti can't swap because they're already a very powerful race, and one of its few downsides is a generally anti-synergistic statline (Cha/Int).

[LudicSavant]

Any thoughts? Ways to refine further?

[Aeriox]

It seems like there’s now even less of a reason to play normal human. Besides that, it looks fine. Personally I’d rather try nerfing yuan-ti instead of leaving it the only unchanged race, however.

[Fnissalot]

It seems like there’s now even less of a reason to play normal human. Besides that, it looks fine. Personally I’d rather try nerfing yuan-ti instead of leaving it the only unchanged race, however.

Yes, it should be fine if you homebrew another normal human as well since they suddenly get nothing to benefit them. Replace the yuan-ti magic resistance with the gnome version which is rarely complained about, and you can replace their stats as well.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Eliminate V human.
Erase all stat ups
Say any race can apply +2,/+1/+1 as desired

Any pc can sacrice +2 bonus or +1/+1 for feat.

[LudicSavant]

Personally I’d rather try nerfing yuan-ti instead of leaving it the only unchanged race, however.

I wouldn't object to Yuan-Ti getting a few nerfs. That said, making non-variant humans and yuan-ti have equal power is beyond the scope of what I'm looking to accomplish with this rule. The goal is to dramatically increase the number of race/class combinations on or near the competitive curve while raising the optimization ceiling as little as possible, and being as simple/unobtrusive as possible (indeed, it took some doing to condense the rule into a single sentence, while still adequately accounting for edge cases like Mountain Dwarf, Yuan-Ti, Vhuman, Githyanki, Triton, Half-Elf, etc).

If I were to take on a broader rebalancing project I would leave VHumans and similar-tier races alone and focus primarily on buffing the underwhelming races (like genasi, dragonborn, etc), with only minor nerfs to the top tier if I were to do any at all.

I think there's a fairly healthy population at or near the VHuman tier as is -- Hobgoblin, Goblin, variant Human, variant Half-Elves, most of the Elf subraces (particularly since they have such good racial feats), Yuan-Ti, Warforged, Dragonmarked races, Hill Dwarves, Loxodon, Simic Hybrids, variant Tieflings, etc.

So, pursuant to our stated goals,
- An orc Wizard with an Int bonus is clearly much better than an orc Wizard without one, but still doesn't raise the optimization ceiling because there are still better options for Wizard races available. It just makes many players who want to play orc Wizards happier while not adversely affecting overall balance.
- Yuan-Ti don't get a change because they are at the optimization ceiling as is, and giving them stat versatility would make them stronger (unlike many of the top tier race/class combinations, who already have ideal statlines and powerful features highly synergistic with their class).


Yes, it should be fine if you homebrew another normal human as well since they suddenly get nothing to benefit them. Replace the yuan-ti magic resistance with the gnome version which is rarely complained about, and you can replace their stats as well.

There's already a popular normal human fix, it's called variant human.

Also, I'm not sure why you say that they 'suddenly get nothing to benefit them,' they get precisely what they got before -- it's just that what they got before sucks. :smalltongue:

[GalacticAxekick]

These days, racial ability scores seem rather vestigial. After all, a Half-Orc Barbarian and a Human one are likely to start, and end, their careers with the exact same Strengths scores (indeed, with half-feats, a variant human can emulate the racial ability scores of the majority of races, starting with +2/+1). All they really do in practice is encourage stereotypes by making 'wrong' race/class combinations less optimal, and little else.This is an excellent point, but I'd like to see the opposite solution.

By erasing race differences, you make every race-class combo viable (superficial diversity) but you also make them all play mostly alike (actual homogeneity)

I'd like to see increased race differences, with carefully written features that make every race-class viable in a unique way.

For example, half-orcs might have a feature that means their concentration on spells cant be broken by taking damage. Half-orcs would inferior spellcasting ability scores but be better at hanging on to self-buffs like Enlarge and Polymorph.

Likewise, gnomes might have inferior Strength and Dexterity, but the power to cast attack-based cantrips whenever a feature would allow them to make a weapon attack. These cantrips would never scale, but would be compatible with Extra Attacks, Sneak Attack, Rage, etc.

[LudicSavant]

This is an excellent point, but I'd like to see the opposite solution.

By erasing race differences, you make every race-class combo viable (superficial diversity) but you also make them all play mostly alike (actual homogeneity)

Races can be (and in a great many games, are) differentiated by things other than attribute modifiers, and I'd argue that in 5th edition that's already the primary differentiating factor. For example, a human Barbarian and an orc one are both likely to start with 16 Strength and end with 20 Strength. The thing that makes the orc feel different than the human is that one has a Feat while the other has Darkvision, Aggressive, and Powerful Build.


I'd like to see increased race differences, with carefully written features that make every race-class viable in a unique way.

To use a particularly well known example, World of Warcraft differentiated its races this way. For example orcs could rage, but this rage would make spells stronger, not just martial attacks. They also got a bonus to damage from pets (since the rage wouldn't affect their damage output) and were extra resistant to stuns.

[Fnissalot]

Also, I'm not sure why you say that they 'suddenly get nothing to benefit them,' they get precisely what they got before -- it's just that what they got before sucks. :smalltongue:

I missed the may in your post. My bad.

[Skylivedk]

I like it. Simple, easy and clean. I have put it in my groups' house rule document. We'll see if it gets any play next time there is a re-roll.

There are minor oddities elsewhere that I'd like to fix. Mostly stuff about small creatures (i.e. Dimension Door as a Gnome is worse because you cannot save a team mate. I don't like that).

Otherwise: thank you for the elegant solution!

[GreatWyrmGold]

Eliminate V human.
Erase all stat ups
Say any race can apply +2,/+1/+1 as desired

Any pc can sacrice +2 bonus or +1/+1 for feat.
The big problems I see are humans (non-variant humans only have the stat bonuses, IIRC, so without variant human there's no reason to play one) and races with stronger racial traits and fewer ability score bonuses (if they exist—I'm not sure they do).

If there aren't any, then just giving humans an extra +2 to an ability score would sort that out. Though letting characters start with so many high attributes would probably disrupt multiclass balance.



This is an excellent point, but I'd like to see the opposite solution.

By erasing race differences, you make every race-class combo viable (superficial diversity) but you also make them all play mostly alike (actual homogeneity)

I'd like to see increased race differences, with carefully written features that make every race-class viable in a unique way.
1. Speaking as one of the people who strongly dislikes the importance race plays in D&D, not just in character creation but in lore*, that's not a bad thing. Forcing an orc wizard to play a very specific kind of build to be viable is making the problem worse, not better.
2. That's kind of a problem in the base game. An elven wizard and a variant human wizard play basically the same, if they pick the same school and don't intentionally avoid overlapping spell selection. Most (though not all) racial traits are neat, but small; a bonus skill proficiency that any other race could learn normally, or the occasional reroll, or you need a torch because you're the only party member without darkvision. The only reason an orc wizard plays differently than an elven one is that the orc wizard is less optimal.
3. The reason for this is simple; balance. A race can't have too many toys from its race, because the game isn't designed to handle that much power from that particular blank on the character sheet. If you want to give all races a bunch of distinguishing traits and make them seriously impact each race's playstyle, you're going to jack up the game's power level. And balancing all those traits will be tricky, because...
4. ...if you want each race to be unique, you'll need to come up with a lot of special traits, ones which are both balanced and unique. Okay, orcs are shoehorned into self-buffing muscle wizards because they're good at concentration and bad at anything with DCs or attack rolls. What gimmick does a dwarf caster have? How about elves? Humans? Dragonborn? Gnomes? Tieflings? And the problem gets worse when you consider...
5. ...the sheer number of options in D&D. Your proposed solution might work if the OP stuck to the base races, but with the number of special racial traits they'd need to add to each race to affect play for each role, that would already be a ridiculous number of traits. It's impractical.


*The obvious example being how goblinoids, orcs, giantkin, etc are portrayed as being arbitrarily more savage and evil than the "civilized" player character races, with no particular reason given, probably because there aren't any plausible reasons which don't either reek of racial essentialism (eurgh) or make them seem more like victims than antagonists.



Like I said above, I'm not a fan of how races work in D&D; it implies that all sorts of important things about a person are determined by their race. If you're not going to go for a serious rework (e.g, "Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e"), the OP's solution is fine; it's simple, it frees up the design space for characters a bit, and you don't have any races which are good at physical labor but weak-minded, or which are just inherently smarter/wiser than everyone else (by far the most problematic element of classic D&D race mechanics).

[TyGuy]

I didn't go as extreme and just said any 1 ASI can be shifted to anything with the exception of no starting with a +3. I like racial ASI telling a story of how the average member of a race performs.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Here’s a thought:
Edit: more complete thought:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QkZTCIC_jhVAsixvw2AZgG2y3jvw0PPjcTkA2wewfzs/edit

AS Threshold triggers for racial Ability score Increase.

Note: this only works if you do points buy, though you could still just roll stats and apply the points cost to the racial features as a subsystem.
Example:
Half Orcs “tend to be” hardier and more exceptional physically, but we base this on the idea that one that is already physically exceptional will be more so.

So a half Orc that puts a 14+ in Str will get a +2 Str and their exceptional crit boost, but one that has a Str 13 or less does not. A half orc that puts a 14 in Con gets the +1 and orc toughness, but 13 or less, no boost.

This creates some homogeneity at tier 1 but creates another power up path as players raise Ability scores.

In this case I’d like to see racial feats rewritten as options for when an associated Ability score hits a certain threshold. 16,18, and 20.

Dragonborn could be the biggest benefactor of this becoming more draconic as they get more powerful by default.

The exception would be Human which gets +1s across the board. A baseline human is able to start with 5 AS @ 14 and one 11 making it possible to MC into every class without too much of a handicap at Tier 1 and the option of expanding successfully into at least 2, possibly 3 or 4 if they choose classes with overlapping stats as they’re likely to do.

Take half feats, toss the ASI bumps out and make the functional bits automatic benefits available at certain thresholds as alternatives or substitutes for racial features. Like Keen Mind is automatic at Int 16+, Observant is Automatic at Wisdom 16+.

So, a High Elf Fighter that bumps Str to 16 @4th will get the busy half of Tavern Brawler for free, while a Half Orc That does the same would have the choice of Tavern Brawler or their Crit boost, or they would have started with a 16 and gotten either and could now bump to 18 (just like normal ASI progression), and get the other or go for something else like Athlete.

This makes it possible for humans to start with 2 half feats or be a stones throw from several at level 1.

Now feats aren’t so FOMO or Analysis Paralysis inducing. It’s OBVIOUSLY better to take the stat ups until you hit 20, but some builds (GWM, Polearm Master, etc) still justify the sacrifice.

This makes several of the more problematic builds (GWM+PAM) something deferred to level 8 where they are far less problematic.

[Kane0]

Another tangential thought: Move the ability bonuses from Race to Class

Take it straight from the multiclassing requirements. If your class has only one stat listed for multiclassing, +2 to that stat. If your class has two stats listed then +1 to them both.

[Edea]

Hmm, what about moving ability score bonuses to your Background choice?

[LudicSavant]

Hmm, what about moving ability score bonuses to your Background choice?

It just shifts it from being needless pigeonholing of races to needless pigeonholing of backgrounds.

[Edea]

It just shifts it from being needless pigeonholing of races to needless pigeonholing of backgrounds.

New backgrounds are a lot easier to create and put into a game than new races, though.

[sayaijin]

Have you seen this?

https://gabejamesgames.itch.io/cmm

They put together a class-based score modifier system that replaces the racial bonuses. It's especially nice for new players because it helps them build their backstory by asking questions about why they chose the class.

[LudicSavant]

New backgrounds are a lot easier to create and put into a game than new races, though.

The rule already posted requires neither.