Quote Originally Posted by OldTrees1 View Post
... I did not include any downsides in my reply (quoted below in the spoiler for convenience) to you because I was highlighting the upsides to that aspect of asymmetry. Despite preferring less asymmetry, I agree with the upside your were elaborating on.

I also like homebrewing, but we both can recognize that it is work and that higher barrier to entry can discourage players from asking for it. However in general the specific aspect of asymmetry you are focusing on is the main Positive for asymmetry and its only downside is not one of main criticism with asymmetry.

Spoiler: Quoted for convenience
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The main downsides for asymmetry happen in other areas. In another post I did mention Legendary Actions. This is not really NPCs having a new ability. This is the structure of enemies vs PCs being made asymmetrical for metagame concerns. Lots of structural asymmetry has stronger criticisms.

Another main criticism of asymmetry is being unable to play certain characters. Imagine you wanted to play a Hill Giant PC and found out PC Hill Giants are medium size instead of their normal size. You might feel like the game banned Hill Giant PCs and lied about it. 5E did not do this with Giants, but I still can't play a Giant. Conversions that break the characterization or characters not being possible is a downside of asymmetry.

Again, you might notice neither of those criticisms is related to the positive of asymmetry that you and I were agreeing about and elaborating about.
Yes there's a higher barrier to entry when talking homebrewing, but I think 5e very intentionally decided that they wanted to be a toolbox with the expectation that players/dms would create their own tools when they wanted too.

But regardless I'm not seeing how this relates to asymmetry, if in 5e they built NPC using player classes and suggested DMs use class levels in the NPC section of the DMG then Shield Bash wouldn't exist as a possible feature and so as a player I still couldn't use it. And if I wanted to play a Hill Giant PC, well I'm still stuck asking the DM for homebrew options.