"Just refluff it LOL" - a compormise in the discussion of racial abilities.

[H_H_F_F]

So, Tasha's rules for lineages and racial bonuses has created a long lasting arguement. Some of it is about "politics in my RPGs", and we're not going to touch that. As far as I can tell, most of the discussion is happening along these lines:

Position 1: people want to play out of the ordinary characters, such as a half orc scholar or a gnome skullcrusher. They do not want to pay the mechanical price of doing so with completely ill-suited racial bonuses.

Position 2: The Tasha rules actually end up creating an environment in which you pay such a mechanicql price for not playing an even narrower list of options: if you're a hugh elf and not a mountain dwarf wizard, you're as much of a "sucker" as you would've been for playing a mountain dwarf previously. The changes created a power creep, and a mechanical insentive to play a very limited scope of races even stronger than before.

This can become an issue if we have a DM holding to position 2, and a player on poaition 1. The player feels frustrated, the DM feels pressured.

The possible compormise: "Just refluff it, LOL."

You want to play a half-orc wizard? Perfectly fine! You can use the full mechanical statistics of whatever race you want. You want to play a tortle with a +2 intilegence? Sure, you can use gnome stats, and your shell will be purely cosmetic. We'll narrate blows that miss you as being diverted by your shell, but your unarmored AC is still 10+dex. Most Firbolgs are wise and have a unique connection to nature, but you're dexterous and brave.

Let a player unmarry the role-play/aesthetic and mechanical aspects of their race, if they want to, without creating power creep and a whole new approach to character building optimization.

What are your thoughts? Has anyone here tried this simple solution before?

Please forgive me if this has been brought up many times. I didn't find a previous thread along these lines, but I'm not very active in the 5E side of these forums.

[Mastikator]

I don't like that to be honest, some racial traits make no sense without the physical body to accompany them, how the hell does a "human" with a tortle shell suck their head into their body? Like wat

I'd like to see a third alternative.

Position 3: redesign old races so that they all just have "+2 to one, +1 to another or +1 to three ability scores" and then rebalance their other racial traits with this change in mind.
(yes, standard humans should just get unique traits)

It's more work but should be done. If there is power creep then it should at least be evenly applied and an important thing is that all races should get some fun ability. This was done well in Fizban's with dragonborn, it could be done with all pre-Tasha's races.

[Cheesegear]

Position 1: people want to play out of the ordinary characters, such as a half orc scholar or a gnome skullcrusher. They do not want to pay the mechanical price of doing so with completely ill-suited racial bonuses.

Yes. Players want to have their cake and eat it too.

However, these days I've randomly rolled both my Species and Class, and I've had a ball, creating characters that I never would have done otherwise, and I haven't really seen a single negative consequence.

The mechanical price of playing a species with the wrong stat bonuses for your class is 5% (+1). If 5% is making or breaking your entire character, you're probably playing D&D wrong and if you're looking to play 'wacky' builds, you probably don't have the right DM. Since you'll be punished for it regardless.

D&D is not hard. Play whatever you want. The mechanical differences are not that significant. In fact the mechanical differences should make you roleplay better.
Oh right, no-one cares about roleplaying. Carry on.


Position 2: The Tasha rules actually end up creating an environment in which you pay such a mechanicql price for not playing an even narrower list of options: if you're a hugh elf and not a mountain dwarf wizard, you're as much of a "sucker" as you would've been for playing a mountain dwarf previously. The changes created a power creep, and a mechanical insentive to play a very limited scope of races even stronger than before.

If you're playing anything other than Variant Humanoid (not Variant Human, that's actually different), Half-Elf or Mountain Dwarf, you are limiting yourself. That's why you don't play with Tasha's rules.


You want to play a half-orc wizard? Perfectly fine!

Easy. Here's what you do. You write down 'Half-Orc', and you write down all the Half-Orc Species Traits.
Then you write Wizard in your 'Class'.

You're a Wizard, Half-Orc!


Let a player unmarry the role-play/aesthetic and mechanical aspects of their race
[...]
What are your thoughts? Has anyone here tried this simple solution before?

This is the entire design rationale for Variant Humanoid.
You get everything mechanically you want.
You can look like whatever you want.
Nothing matters.

Once players realise what Variant Humanoid is, everyone at the table will do it. And now everyone is playing the same character.

[H_H_F_F]

I don't like that to be honest, some racial traits make no sense without the physical body to accompany them, how the hell does a "human" with a tortle shell suck their head into their body? Like wat


No, that's not what I meant at all. Note, I said you get the aesthetic of one race and the mechanical aspects of another. And I specifically said "refluff".

"Shell" is not a mechanical descriptor. AC 17 is. A human with the statistics of a tortle would not have a shell, they'd have AC set to 17. Fluff it however you want - for example, you could fluff it exactly how you fluff a 20 Con barbarian. Same goes fkr other defensive options. You don't retreat into your shell, you make a full defense move, however you want to fluff that.


The mechanical price of playing a species with the wrong stat bonuses for your class is 5% (+1). If 5% is making or breaking your entire character, you're probably playing D&D wrong and if you're looking to play 'wacky' builds, you probably don't have the right DM. Since you'll be punished for it regardless.


If you're playing anything other than Variant Humanoid (not Variant Human, that's actually different), Half-Elf or Mountain Dwarf, you are limiting yourself. That's why you don't play with Tasha's rules.

These statements don't really work together, in my opinion. If your tabke is fine with making mathematical sacrifices for fluff, they could do that with unoptimized Tasha's choices, just like with unoptimized pre-Tasha's choices, and vice-versa.

[Xervous]

I don't like that to be honest, some racial traits make no sense without the physical body to accompany them, how the hell does a "human" with a tortle shell suck their head into their body? Like wat

I'd like to see a third alternative.

Position 3: redesign old races so that they all just have "+2 to one, +1 to another or +1 to three ability scores" and then rebalance their other racial traits with this change in mind.
(yes, standard humans should just get unique traits)

It's more work but should be done. If there is power creep then it should at least be evenly applied and an important thing is that all races should get some fun ability. This was done well in Fizban's with dragonborn, it could be done with all pre-Tasha's races.

Yup, that’s the grudge right there. A half assed bandaid leading into a big design intent shift for new features that old features didn’t get updated for. I’m not offended on a political front, I’m offended as an end user who is now apparently burdened with finishing the dev’s work.

[Catullus64]

I often use refluffing to address when a specific element of a race or class doesn't meet the intended fiction, both as a DM and a player (with DM permission). But I find it unsatisfying when it's used as the blanket assumption, or as an intended fix for power creep.

The more refluffing becomes the rule rather than the exception, the more it erodes at the concept that these statistics and features mean something, that they exist to actually represent the details of a world and its inhabitants. I think you are trying to give some attention to this problem by talking about how people could still roleplay their racial traits as part of their re-flavored race, but that's very far, I think, from the practical reality of how people play this game.

It's also not an effective solution to the problem of power creep, or of overly narrow racial choices for the optimization-focused. If you're the sort of person who is bothered by a few mechanical options being big strides ahead of the rest, that's a functional problem with the game that isn't fixed just by having the ability to dress those OP options up in different clothes.

[KorvinStarmast]

Position 3: redesign old races so that they all just have "+2 to one, +1 to another or +1 to three ability scores" and then rebalance their other racial traits with this change in mind. (yes, standard humans should just get unique traits)
Yes!

It's more work but should be done. If there is power creep then it should at least be evenly applied and an important thing is that all races should get some fun ability. This was done well in Fizban's with dragonborn, it could be done with all pre-Tasha's races. Nailed that dive. :smallsmile:

[Cheesegear]

These statements don't really work together, in my opinion.

Because they are consecutive arguments where the second statement addresses the obvious question made in relation to the first. They aren't supposed to be read together because they are responses made to two different points you made.

If you care about Species, you shouldn't, because when it comes to stats, the only major difference is +5% in your main stat, which isn't a lot, and the difference can be mitigated as soon as Level 4. D&D isn't actually hard to play and your Species doesn't matter unless your DM is deliberately playing hardball. I will concede that the Feat that Variant Humans get actually is a significant difference. But this Feat is addressed by Tasha's and then given to anyone who wants it (everyone does, if you allow it, which is why you shouldn't).

If your DM is playing hardball and your Species actually does matter, and that +5% in your main stat does matter...Why are you playing with anything other than the 'best' Species and abusing the Tasha's Variant Lineage rules to literally get everything you want?


If your table is fine with making mathematical sacrifices for fluff...

That's literally the opposite of your OP. You're not making mathematical sacrifices because you want to be a Half-Orc Wizard, without actually being a Half-Orc, and in that case, why are you bothering with complicated palette swaps when Tasha's already has exactly what you want, except not complicated.

Tasha's lets you:
- Have everything you (actually) want,
- Look like any Species you want.
On page 8, if you're looking.

[strangebloke]

It gets to a point where the question becomes: Why do racial features exist at all? The simple answer is, to reinforce the feel of playing that race. Tortles get 17 AC because they've got a big shell. You can just treat the racial features as purely abstract things, basically feats, but they lose all meaning at some point. It's just X number to Y stat.

As for the Tasha's lineage options, these stat modifiers ultimately are just marginal differences, 5% here, +1 damage there. Players care about them because they have an expectation about what their stats should be at level one. You can say that this is entitlement and you're probably right, I mean. I'd argue its pretty silly to BOTH want to play a suboptimal concept AND to have it still be optimal. But what can you do? Everyone's just trying to have a good time.

IMO?

Just let people point buy up to sixteen. People's expectation is geared around being able to get a 16 at level one, and if they can do that they're usually happy. Sure, people can push things even further and start with 18 at level 1, but nobody minds that because the expectation has been met. 16 at level one is "enough." Then give everyone a free feat at level 1 too so that Vhuman gets diluted (yes this lets you start with a 19. Who cares?)

[qube]

The mechanical price of playing a species with the wrong stat bonuses for your class is 5% (+1). small remark: it's more then 5%.

Consider a sword that deals 8 damage (crit 13) and hits 50% of the times. That's 4.25 DPA (damage per attack). Reduce the ability modifier with 1, reducing both hit chance & damages, and your DPA is now 3.4. That's a 20% decrease, not a 5% decrease.

In fairness, I should note that for spells, this is of lesser importance. A firebolt doesn't get a damage drop, reducing it from 10 hits to 9 (a 10% drop). While a spell that has damage on a miss (lets say, fireball, dealing 28 on a succes and 50% hit rate) has a a 3.33.. % drop (from 21 DPT (damage per target) to 20.3)

[strangebloke]

small remark: it's more then 5%.

Consider a sword that deals 8 damage (crit 13) and hits 50% of the times. That's 4.25 DPA (damage per attack). Reduce the ability modifier with 1, reducing both hit chance & damages, and your DPA is now 3.4. That's a 20% decrease, not a 5% decrease.

In fairness, I should note that for spells, this is of lesser importance. A firebolt doesn't get a damage drop, reducing it from 10 hits to 9 (a 10% drop). While a spell that has damage on a miss (lets say, fireball, dealing 28 on a succes and 50% hit rate) has a a 3.33.. % drop (from 21 DPT (damage per target) to 20.3)

Both interpretations are valid, its just a matter if you're talking about proportional or absolute values. Having a +1 to attack will only come up 5% of the time you attack without advantage or disadvantage.

[Dork_Forge]

small remark: it's more then 5%.

Consider a sword that deals 8 damage (crit 13) and hits 50% of the times. That's 4.25 DPA (damage per attack). Reduce the ability modifier with 1, reducing both hit chance & damages, and your DPA is now 3.4. That's a 20% decrease, not a 5% decrease.

In fairness, I should note that for spells, this is of lesser importance. A firebolt doesn't get a damage drop, reducing it from 10 hits to 9 (a 10% drop). While a spell that has damage on a miss (lets say, fireball, dealing 28 on a succes and 50% hit rate) has a a 3.33.. % drop (from 21 DPT (damage per target) to 20.3)

It's actually more than this for classes/subclasses that use mod for number of times you can use an ability, number of spells prepared and so on.

But that's a good thing IMO, there should be opportunity cost and up until Tasha's all races were built with specific mod boosts in mind.

[Hawk7915]

I've got no strong feelings on Tasha's versus Classic races. I like that Classic points races in a clear direction, often a flavorful one, and makes for odd combinations that truly feel odd and quirky mechanically and not just from a "playing against stereotypes" perspective. I also appreciate Tasha's for letting folks not feel punished for playing something quirky at, say, a LGS (hahaha) where they are playing with strangers who may optimize more. Both are going to lead to nerds like me talking about "inefficient" builds. That's just inevitable as part of D&D.

A little tangential, but my playgroup has found a first level bonus feat does a lot to smooth out stuff especially with the table understanding that we use it to round that starting 15 up with a "fun" half-feat (or make up for having a starting 15 by having a super strong feat otherwise). Some folks have pushed a bit further, with DM blessing, if a race/class combo is really untenable. To wit:

C1: (started at 3, currently 8)

The Mountain Dwarf Wizard took Keen Mind as a bonus feat for +1 INT.
The Half-elf Warlock already had great stat/race alignment, and took Observant to roleplay his Constantine-style supernatural detective schtick.
The Aaracokra Bard rounded up her Charisma with "Actor".
The Half-orc Druid took Skill Expert to be more, well, skilled and also keep her STR and WIS balanced (she's a Spore Druid who likes to mix it up in melee).
The Dragonborn Kensei Monk felt weak enough as a premise post-Tasha's compared to an army of full-casters to allow for a total Tasha's style racial distribution (+2 Dex, +1 Wis) AND "Slasher" as the bonus feat to cap that Dex at 20 early.It's made him a truly fearsome damage dealer but ultimately, he just deals damage.



C2: (started at 1, currently 2)

The homebrew Plantfolk Druid had great stat alignment, so took "Magic Initiate" for a familiar and Booming Blade to off-tank with.
The Aasimar Fighter had a weak stat array, but wanted Great Weapon Master at level 1 anyways for fun and backstory purposes. Strong feat means strong character even with a starting 15 STR.
The Tiefling Wizard has a poor stat alignment too, but took Lucky for backstory purposes. 3 rerolls helps with her poor accuracy and saves.
The Elf Sorcerer similarly had poor stat alignment, but "Elven Accuracy" rounded up that CHA and lets her turbo-advantage nuke stuff with "Tides of Chaos" + "Elven Accuracy" + "Chaos Bolt".

[Anymage]

Refluffing has always been an option, and can quickly go to silly places. If your end goal is to let people skin their mechanics however they like, just make everything variant human/custom lineage and be done with it. Of course I don't expect this to actually happen. Having meaningful race/class combos is a core part of d&d, and messing with that formula is likely to annoy grognards and have them try to re-add it. See how common "free feat at first level" houserules are.

The Tasha's rules aren't bad per se, they just need two big changes. First and most importantly is to cordon the whole thing off as DM advice and slap a big "ask your DM" label on the front, as well as give a bit of guidance on how to be flexible while still retaining racial flavor instead of making the whole thing essentially freeform. Second is to encourage racial flex stats to only allow one point of shift instead of being totally freeform. I get how being -1 on your prime stat compared to the expected average can be annoying, but you just need one point of flex in order to get the required 16. Your sickly but brilliant half orc wizard can still have 9 str and 16 int, but you can't just plop three stat points wherever you feel like. That should leave more build flexibility options without throwing everything wide open.

Looking forwards d&d should try to rebalance older races around a plan of two fixed stat points and one flexible one. We can comment that the Tasha's rules feel half baked because they were rushed out due to the political climate. It's just that we have to focus on the "half baked because rushed" part of that.

[Sigreid]

To me, this just leads to the races (species) still being a meaningless, flavorless gray slurry instead of something somewhat alien you try to get into the mindset of. But that's just my opinion.

[Akkristor]

At this point, just remove ability score modifiers from races and attach them to backgrounds.

[H_H_F_F]

Refluffing has always been an option, and can quickly go to silly places. If your end goal is to let people skin their mechanics however they like, just make everything variant human/custom lineage and be done with it. Of course I don't expect this to actually happen. Having meaningful race/class combos is a core part of d&d, and messing with that formula is likely to annoy grognards and have them try to re-add it. See how common "free feat at first level" houserules are.

The Tasha's rules aren't bad per se, they just need two big changes. First and most importantly is to cordon the whole thing off as DM advice and slap a big "ask your DM" label on the front, as well as give a bit of guidance on how to be flexible while still retaining racial flavor instead of making the whole thing essentially freeform. Second is to encourage racial flex stats to only allow one point of shift instead of being totally freeform. I get how being -1 on your prime stat compared to the expected average can be annoying, but you just need one point of flex in order to get the required 16. Your sickly but brilliant half orc wizard can still have 9 str and 16 int, but you can't just plop three stat points wherever you feel like. That should leave more build flexibility options without throwing everything wide open.

Looking forwards d&d should try to rebalance older races around a plan of two fixed stat points and one flexible one. We can comment that the Tasha's rules feel half baked because they were rushed out due to the political climate. It's just that we have to focus on the "half baked because rushed" part of that.

That's a pretty good idea.

In general, to everyone, I wish to emphasize the context of this post, as it seems a few people misunderstood me. I'm not offering an "any race can have the stats of any other race" rule per se. This isn't something I'd put in a rulebook.

This is a proposed ad-hoc compormise for DMs and players struggling, with a player having a hard time not getting to play what they want and the DM not wanting the new racial optimization incentives created by Tasha's. This is a "how to compormise with a player without including Tasha's" proposal, not "Tasha should've said X".

If we're looking for "Tasha's should have said X", I'd say Anymage's suggestion seems great.

[BRC]

The Tasha's rules aren't bad per se, they just need two big changes. First and most importantly is to cordon the whole thing off as DM advice and slap a big "ask your DM" label on the front, as well as give a bit of guidance on how to be flexible while still retaining racial flavor instead of making the whole thing essentially freeform. Second is to encourage racial flex stats to only allow one point of shift instead of being totally freeform. I get how being -1 on your prime stat compared to the expected average can be annoying, but you just need one point of flex in order to get the required 16. Your sickly but brilliant half orc wizard can still have 9 str and 16 int, but you can't just plop three stat points wherever you feel like. That should leave more build flexibility options without throwing everything wide open.

Looking forwards d&d should try to rebalance older races around a plan of two fixed stat points and one flexible one. We can comment that the Tasha's rules feel half baked because they were rushed out due to the political climate. It's just that we have to focus on the "half baked because rushed" part of that.
Agreed

Rolling back to the initial problem, the issue was that starting with +3 in a primary stat is a pretty huge deal, and could not be done without racial bonuses under point buy. Even if it's not that mathematically that big a deal, it feels like you're playing with one hand tied behind your back if you don't get that starting 16. The above suggestion fixes that by getting a starting +3 available to anybody, since everybody has that floating +1.

Like, the questions are as follows

1) Do we want some races to be mechanically better for certain builds than others?

This is kind of inevitable under any sort of Lineage rules. Under Tashas, Mountain Dwarves make better Wizards than Fighters, just because their innate armor proficiency is a nice boon to a Wizard, but does nothing for a Fighter who already gets those proficiencies.

2) What sort of imbalance is acceptable?

Under the original system, a 16 int Wizard was just better than a 15 int wizard while doing most Wizard stuff. This was plainfaced and mechanically easy to see.

Under Tashas, a Mountain Dwarf wizard with 16 Int is going to be better than a High Elf wizard, since they can wear armor instead of spending spell slots on Mage Armor every day, but it's not as much of a direct comparison. High Elves have their own list of features, which might not be As Good as the mountain dwarf features, but you're not comparing like to Like.

[Cheesegear]

Personally, I want some race choices to be better at some classes than others.

Half-Orcs get Improved Critical and Don't Die.
Lightfoot Halflings can Hide behind party members, even when hostiles can actually see them.

These abilities are great. I know what you mean and I agree.

[strangebloke]

Thats not a given. E.g. a PHB Mountain Dwarf Wizard was already really good alternative to starting with an Int 16.

It was, however, thematically weird that Mountain Dwarves were eerily effective Sorcerers, Wizards, and warlocks.

------

Personally, I want some race choices to be better at some classes than others. And not just from ability score bonuses. I want the designers to really put some thought into races in the form of "these guys should be good at classes A, B, C and bad at X, Y, Z. How can we make that happen." And then use a combination of ability score modifiers and racial features to make that happen.

Agreed.

New players love playing to type. It's intuitive, it feels good, it makes sense. You want to be legolas so you grab ranger (or fighter or rogue) and wood elf and you're there. You're playing an 'optimal' combination of race/class. Indeed, this soft push toward certain archetypes also makes playing against type more rewarding, at least IMO. You're making your character stand out because they're a half orc sorcerer. If a Half Orc is equally good at being a sorcerer as anyone else, there's no payoff there.

Now with all that said, I'm fine with custom lineages in theory. It's fine imo to have a "variant human" like option for everyone, and it can reflect more niche concepts like a dwarf raised among humans (who therefore never learned dwarfish, or how to use a battleax, and also never had to rough it as hard as his kin)

My real beef is with

how this was actually implemented in practice
proficiency swapping being blatantly kind of busted if allowed
the removal of all cultural features from new releases.

[Witty Username]

I would personally prefer the Tasha's rules to this, Tasha's rules maintain generally the most interesting features as unique while making the least interesting more flexible.
An corrects a few design mistakes, like Fighter being a poor choice for a dwarf or drow having racial abilities that mismatch with their lore.

[Leon]

Given you can easily play any class without having a +X stat in its main stat (and back in the day where a lot of races has a -X stats you could just as easily play classes with a penalty to that Main stat)
Tasha's rules are a cop out by wizards to the people who cant adapt their thinking to be outside of the pure mechanical advantage game.
May as well do away with races and everyone plays a flying green octagon if your going to let players chose stats to suit because by and large they will chose what the Best Mathematically over what going to make a more interesting character.

[sithlordnergal]

See, I am firmly in the camp of the 1st position. By decoupling Race and Ability Scores, you are now free to make whatever you want without worrying about being ineffective. I've tried playing full casters that start with a 14 in their primary stat, and I found that the +1 to the spell DC is very much needed. With Tashas you can make a Half-Orc Wizard, Cleric, or Bard without being penalized for doing so. You can make a Halfling or Gnome Barbarian without being penalized. You can literally play any race/class combo you want without any sort of penalization, which is AMAZING for creativity. You no longer have to play a Half Elf to be a good and optimized Bard, you can play any race you like.

That said, I feel like fluffing everything would be a step too far. Ability scores are not what makes a race unique, its their Racial Abilities. If you fluff a Gnome to be a Tortle, but don't give that Gnome the Tortle Racial Abilities, then that's not a Tortle, its just a normal Gnome. What makes a Tortle a Tortle isn't the +2 Strength, +1 Wisdom. A Tortle is a Tortle because is has a Claw Attack, AC 17 from its shell, Shell Defense for +4 AC, and its Hold Breath ability. Without those mechanics, you're not a Tortle, you're just a Gnome as far as I'm concerned.

[Slider Eclipse]

That said, I feel like fluffing everything would be a step too far. Ability scores are not what makes a race unique, its their Racial Abilities. If you fluff a Gnome to be a Tortle, but don't give that Gnome the Tortle Racial Abilities, then that's not a Tortle, its just a normal Gnome. What makes a Tortle a Tortle isn't the +2 Strength, +1 Wisdom. A Tortle is a Tortle because is has a Claw Attack, AC 17 from its shell, Shell Defense for +4 AC, and its Hold Breath ability. Without those mechanics, you're not a Tortle, you're just a Gnome as far as I'm concerned.

This is ultimately what people seem to miss about the post Tasha changes, ironically because everyone is too invested in looking at what races got broken by the half step Tasha's provided. There's nothing thematically tying any particular race explicitly into any particular stat beyond the simple fact that WotC put a number on the mechanical definition of what it means to be each race, a number that now no longer applies post Tasha's. What makes a race the actual race is it's defining physical/magical features, not the fact that "because Half Orcs are usually found in cultures that heavily focus on survival of the fittest because of this they tend to have a higher str than most". granted I do think Tasha's went a little to far with bending the Racial Proficiencies as more often than not those seem to be better tied to actual physical aspects of the race, such as Elves and Half Elves having genetically superior eyes to most other races or a Half Orc being better at being intimidating due to them simply looking more threatening naturally.

This even shows in what most people who complain about tasha's uses as a point, Half Elves and Mountain Dwarfs look a lot more balanced if you simply strip away the effective +4 to stats. (Mountain Dwarf has some issues with having far more proficiencies than it really should have but that boils almost entirely down to it being the only race to give Armor Proficiency, which it's clear even Tasha's writers find problematic considering that it's the only thing in Customizing your Origin you can't directly one for one swap nor can you give to any other race with Proficiencies, not even the ones listed as swap options for armor).

In all honesty, I feel like they're in the middle of shifting towards a more mix and match style of character creation "Everyone gets +2/+1 or any three +1's, a Feat and X Number of Proficiencies, Choosing your race/linage now grants you the features listed." it lines up a lot with how the new linages function (Note how any Linage that can be obtained mid campaign has a line stating you keep Proficiencies or can choose 2 of your choice) and fixes the vast majority of issues that currently exist in this midway point between Tasha's and the presumably upcoming 5.5e.

[Leon]

By decoupling Race and Ability Scores, you are now free to make whatever you want without worrying about being ineffective. I've tried playing full casters that start with a 14 in their primary stat, and I found that the +1 to the spell DC is very much needed. With Tashas you can make a Half-Orc Wizard, Cleric, or Bard without being penalized for doing so. You can make a Halfling or Gnome Barbarian without being penalized.

Except that your not penalized or ineffective unless your of a certain mindset. In 3.5 certainly small races were Penalized for wanting to play a Melee character that was not a rogue, in 5e your all good outside of a small selection of weapons (I have a character idea that i'd love to try sometime which is a Halfling Barbarian with a Greatsword...) You have always been free to make any Class with any Race and they all work great, I'm playing a Mountain Dwarf ranger that is all abut Dex and it works fine and with no bonus to that Stat beyond lvl 4 ASI, we have a Tiefling Druid who has 14 Wis and does great.

[Witty Username]

Except that your not penalized or ineffective unless your of a certain mindset. In 3.5 certainly small races were Penalized for wanting to play a Melee character that was not a rogue, in 5e your all good outside of a small selection of weapons (I have a character idea that i'd love to try sometime which is a Halfling Barbarian with a Greatsword...) You have always been free to make any Class with any Race and they all work great, I'm playing a Mountain Dwarf ranger that is all abut Dex and it works fine and with no bonus to that Stat beyond lvl 4 ASI, we have a Tiefling Druid who has 14 Wis and does great.

Previous editions were able the sidestep this problem by having ability scores not matter much in the first place. In Ad&d they didn't affect your character much at all until you had a 16+, and in it and 3/.5 ability score bonuses were a small part of your character's larger power pie (a 5th level fighter with str 10 still has a +5 to hit, and can still have other bonuses from feats and such). 5e has as an expectation of a primary stat + prof(+6 at 20th level) for everything, so often being behind on ability scores is much more impactful. And so I am being fair to outside combat, skills in 3.5 were much more affected by ranks in the skill in comparison to ability scores. Spells having 10+spell level also gave a nice baseline to work with if you casting stat was poor, or in Ad&d casting stat didn't actually affect the power of your spells as I recall, fire ball was save vs spell for half damage, and the damage was based on caster level.

[Leon]

And even with what 5e assumes its not that big of an issue to have "less" than maximum in your primary stat, to not have a racial +X in Y stat means very little. For any normal player you put your best number in what you think is your primary stat and off you go.

You have the Half Orc Bard, just as good as any other Bard but a mite stronger, the Halfling Barbarian just as good as any other Barbarian but a mite more personable etc. Half Elves may well be the goto race for some classes because of choice stats and its good, they languished with having NO ability stats for far too long.

[Cheesegear]

And even with what 5e assumes its not that big of an issue to have "less" than maximum in your primary stat, to not have a racial +X in Y stat means very little. For any normal player you put your best number in what you think is your primary stat and off you go.

To prove my point, I had a group recently randomly roll their characters.

Elf Fighter
Dwarf Fighter
Goliath Sorcerer
Gnome Warlock
Half-Orc Bard

I allowed them to pick their Background and Subclass. But I did make them randomly roll their Background*.

They are having a blast, as they are playing characters they never would have picked on their own, and they're having amazing fun trying to come with ways for why their characters work the way they do.

For my part...I'm the DM. The rules in the DMG tell me pretty explicitly how 'hard' my encounters need to be. As long as I don't throw multiple Deadly encounters at them in a row, they do just fine. But then again, why would I throw multiple Deadly encounters at my players in a row? Who would do that? Who would make D&D that hard, on purpose, when it's not designed to be?

*For reference, this is exactly how I make my own characters, and my players have asked me why I do this. 'Because it doesn't matter.', and to prove it I made them do it too, for the current campaign.

[strangebloke]

For my part...I'm the DM. The rules in the DMG tell me pretty explicitly how 'hard' my encounters need to be. As long as I don't throw multiple Deadly encounters at them in a row, they do just fine. But then again, why would I throw multiple Deadly encounters at my players in a row? Who would do that? Who would make D&D that hard, on purpose, when it's not designed to be?

*For reference, this is exactly how I make my own characters, and my players have asked me why I do this. 'Because it doesn't matter.', and to prove it I made them do it too, for the current campaign.

Because other people like to run the game with an element of tactical challenge?

But speaking as someone who does run such a campaign, by far the most hardcore and threatening character on my team is a high elf (strength based) fighter. We also have a mountain dwarf zealot who went in on TWFing for consistency and exploiting magic weapons and a vhuman shadow monk who's loaded up on utility features like Inspiring Leader and Skill Expert and didn't max DEX until level 12 even with my more generous stat allocation.

They roll through Deadly+++ encounter conga lines regularly.

I know the system well so I often end up being the strongest member of the party when I actually get a chance to play... even if I'm playing such an 'unworkable' concept as a goliath cleric or a tiefling paladin with no higher than a 12 in any physical stat. I'm the very picture of a powergamer, but I don't see a 16 as that essential at level 1.

[Hytheter]

I play on a discord server where we're extremely lenient about refluffing. As long as you don't break any mechanical rules or go against established lore you have considerable latitude to define the aesthetics of your character and how their abilities manifest beyond their mechanical effects. We use Tasha's rules too.

What do I see as a result?

Well, most characters on the server are decently optimised, that much is true. But it's certainly not a world of only half-elves and mountain dwarves, a wide variety of races get used for all kinds of reasons. And while many players reject the official flavour they lean hard into the flavour they create for themselves, with novel and interesting character concepts that never would have been possible for those staying within the margins. It's definitely not my experience that everyone might as well be green octagons or whatever.

[Imbalance]

2) What sort of imbalance is acceptable?
:smallbiggrin:

Maybe I haven't given it enough thought (it hasn't come up at my table since Tasha's released), but I've decided to accept Custom Lineages with a homebrew caveat: if using this option, the player must first commit to 3d6 rolled stats, in order, with one reroll. It's probably draconian, and while I'm not married to that precise set of parameters I definitely feel like the option needs greater reliance on chance to balance it.

I could get along with the OP's pallet-swapping idea, but not as an anti-Tasha's compromise since it might as well be the same thing.

[H_H_F_F]

I could get along with the OP's pallet-swapping idea, but not as an anti-Tasha's compromise since it might as well be the same thing.

I didn't see my idea as being anti-Tasha, really, but I also don't think it might as well be the same thing. Thematic freedom and mechanics same as pre-Tasha's sound like they would keep both sides if the axis diverse (unlike Tasha's) even though I get why people are opposed.

[sethdmichaels]

May as well do away with races and everyone plays a flying green octagon if your going to let players chose stats to suit because by and large they will chose what the Best Mathematically over what going to make a more interesting character.

My experience is not extensive, but I'm confused what tables people are playing at if "everyone ends up playing the same character" or "people will inevitably choose pure mechanical advantage over storytelling if the game doesn't push them away from it" is a real problem. I'd agree those tables are probably a bummer to play at but I'd be surprised if they're as common as it seems from the discussion here. I think the flexibilities enable creativity and story, rather than squelch them. If you want to play the trope it's still there, it just isn't the only story you can tell. Just my take!