"Customizing your Origin in D&D"

[Hael]

This push towards single stat characters is one of those horrible design decisions that WOTC has been going down in recent times, and it's very much a reason why this whole debate is blowing up.

In the old days, when you had gendered strength differences you could nevertheless still make a perfectly mechanically great tank by focusing on other stats.. Other games had far more possible stat builds that were possible (and even desirable). In fact it was very much not the norm to have anything close to an 18 (00). Anyway it led to far more 'diverse' characters than the horrible standard array and point buy systems, which forced a minimum floor on the game..

In 5e, b/c everything is so dumbed down, if you don't have your 18 stat score by say lvl 4, you are already in a world of mechanical hurt. Hence the reason why certain races are basically never played with certain classes, unless someone rolled stats.

The new system just guarantees that high stat with the intention of allowing more initial racial choice. But of course it doesn't, b/c by raising the entire floor for everyone, it shifts the actual point of balance for a DM to make challenging games. The new point of balance of course will go right back to prioritizing some race for their racial traits, with the side effect that it produces some real absurdities (like mountain dwarves being the best d6 casters, or halflings being extremely good fighters).

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

When every drow is a misfit good guy rebelling against his evil culture, is the culture really evil?

Yes, because drow PCs aren't actually every drow. You have arbitrarily decided that NPCs and lore just straight up Do Not Matter and only player characters are representative of a races characteristics, which is just straight up wrong. Every game of DnD ought to be treated as unique; we aren't looking at every single game of DnD ever and then doing a statistical analysis of what is played in order to determine what baseline averages are for each race, that would be craziness. Your main argument seems to be "Playing a race in a non-standard way should be mechanically punished so that I do not have to see it very often because it doesn't jive with how I view the races".

Player characters are specifically noted to be outliers. Saying that a drow outlier cannot exist, they ALL must be evil is extremely limiting and frankly has a lot of racist implications that are extremely unfortunate. Orcs being mandated as dumb, savage brutes is similarly problematic. The game as a whole, both from a cultural perspective and a player enjoyment perspective, is improved by the changes to races allowing more creative freedom and dropping racist baggage from the system's earliest days.

[Segev]

Okay. So PCs are outliers. Why are they such outliers that they are homogenous?

I also dispute that lacking a +4 stat modifier every screws you over. Having stats too low is a problem, but a +2 is still good enough for a long while, unless the DM is playing a very hard game with ACs. Say what you will about it: bounded accuracy has accomplished that much of its goal.

It’s nice to have a maxed out stat. Nice enough to pressure people to take a race that gives the one they want. But not required enough that it punishes those who want to do something different.

Now, though, with this rule, it’s impossible to do “something different” because it’s all the same. And if you think racial features do make differences, we’re right back to being “punished” if you don’t take the right race to complement your class.

It’s amazing how many more five-color decks get played when you let all land tap for any color. Kind-of removes the uniqueness of encountering one, in fact. Or of building one.


Also, incidentally, I support rewriting the races with penalties to stats to eliminate those penalties. They go against the 5e design paradigm. Making racial modifiers be purely positive already did about all that could be done to enable “unusual” class/race combinations while keeping them from being homogenous.

Racial penalties can work in systems not built around 5e’s paradigm, but they are a bad idea in 5e.

[Xervous]

This push towards single stat characters is one of those horrible design decisions that WOTC has been going down in recent times, and it's very much a reason why this whole debate is blowing up.

In the old days, when you had gendered strength differences you could nevertheless still make a perfectly mechanically great tank by focusing on other stats.. Other games had far more possible stat builds that were possible (and even desirable). In fact it was very much not the norm to have anything close to an 18 (00). Anyway it led to far more 'diverse' characters than the horrible standard array and point buy systems, which forced a minimum floor on the game..

In 5e, b/c everything is so dumbed down, if you don't have your 18 stat score by say lvl 4, you are already in a world of mechanical hurt. Hence the reason why certain races are basically never played with certain classes, unless someone rolled stats.

The new system just guarantees that high stat with the intention of allowing more initial racial choice. But of course it doesn't, b/c by raising the entire floor for everyone, it shifts the actual point of balance for a DM to make challenging games. The new point of balance of course will go right back to prioritizing some race for their racial traits, with the side effect that it produces some real absurdities (like mountain dwarves being the best d6 casters, or halflings being extremely good fighters).

Being in the midst of a collab game design project where the system has 8 ability scores that each tie to numerous important statistics (all calculated beforehand. Opinion has pushed it towards transparent crunchy building and straightforward, minimal math play) it’s night and day how the players approach ability score investment. STR initially appears to be something of a god stat in contributing weapon damage, physical damage mitigation and a bit of fort save equivalent but you can’t neglect everything else, and there’s reasons even casters might want it. Tying anything combat related to 2+ ability scores asks for a deeper investment, but with a nonlinear probability distribution the gap between average and exceptional is bridged only with cost and compromise.

Or for a summary. MAD and nonlinear probability spreads whose range grows rather than shifts make having stats that are not maXXXed reasonable and a comfortable norm.

[Boci]

Saying that a drow outlier cannot exist, they ALL must be evil is extremely limiting and frankly has a lot of racist implications that are extremely unfortunate.

That's not really the issue. D&D largely stopped saying all drow even around the time they were itnroduced when they were a playable race, before even Driz'zt. The problem was that the sadistic demon worshipping slave taking borderline stupid evil underdark cities culture had become synonemous with the drow. Eberron, released before 5e, had different drow more tribal, way less evil as a society, but because FR was much better known than Eberron, so were FR drow.

The problem isn't that drow outliers cannot exist, the problem is that because the evil culture came to stand for the race as a whole, the only way to have good drow was to have outliers, which could be seen as problematic because of the "I'm not like my kin, I'm good" theme.

[GooeyChewie]

Well, kinda. The armor and weapon proficiencies dwarves have mean every dwarf is a bit of a fighter, the cantrip and the weapon proficiencies means all high elves are tiny bit of a wizard and a fighter, and the extra damage and bonus action options means every goblin is a bit of a rogue, regardless of actual class. The attribute bonuses, on the other hand, make it so dwarf fighters, high elven wizards and fighters or goblin rogues still have a reason to pick the race/class combo, despite the redundant features.

Well, that's the real trick, isn't it? The ability score increases were THE reason to make a Mountain Dwarf Fighter, or a Goblin Rogue, or a High Elf Wizard. With the new rule, these combos would become the ones taking the mechanical "penalty," with the penalty becoming redundant racial features rather than not having a 16 in the primary ability score.

[micahaphone]

Earth being tied to acid damage makes me think of a bunch of spongy porous rock, that when thrown splashes acid onto the target. Or that if you hit an earth elemental with bludgeoning damage, they should splash acid into melee range, just like a remorhaz's burning blood

--------------


As to the "15 vs 16 doesn't matter that much" argument, I think about a table where two people choose the same class. Will the elf barbarian player notice or feel like they're lagging behind the half orc? Is it noticeable? Would this be discouraging to a new player?

I think yes, but that's entirely due to my personal experiences of seeing newbies build mediocre characters and then getting frustrated when their stats aren't that great compared to the rest of the table.

[Boci]

Earth being tied to acid damage makes me think of a bunch of spongy porous rock, that when thrown splashes acid onto the target. Or that if you hit an earth elemental with bludgeoning damage, they should splash acid into melee range, just like a remorhaz's burning blood

If you're sticking to elements, honestly poison might be a better fit, though that is a weaker damage type then acid. Thunderstorms are a thing, water tends to be colder than land and fire is fire, but if miners die its not because of acid. Most often it because of collapses, which isn't an element, but if not that then its gas, at least I believe, I haven't done much research on the topic.

[micahaphone]

If you're sticking to elements, honestly poison might be a better fit, though that is a weaker damage type then acid. Thunderstorms are a thing, water tends to be colder than land and fire is fire, but if miners die its not because of acid. Most often it because of collapses, which isn't an element, but if not that then its gas, at least I believe, I haven't done much research on the topic.

I'm currently enjoying a spooky story podcast focusing on a coal mining town, there the big mining accident involves natural gas/coal catching in the mine, turning the whole thing into a horrible inferno. So I guess it depends on what you mine.

[x3n0n]

That's actually what I'm afraid of: that we are looking at the road ahead to 6ed and I don't much like it.

My favourite race in D&D are Tieflings, partly for their backstory and partly for their aesthetics (they have an amazing look.) Having said that I recognise that their attribute bonuses don't translate well to certain classes. That can be irksome if I want to play a Tiefling Rogue or Fighter but it also gives me a strong sense that I'm not just playing a human in a funny suit but going against the cultural grain or compensating for biological elements that simply have no parallel in real life - no matter how lithe and nimble my Tiefling Rogue is she still has a long thick tail and full horns. She has to learn how to compensate for those things in a world which is mostly designed for beings without those particular traits. Likewise the particular bonuses of the Tiefling give me a good idea how to get inside their heads. The average Tiefling is just a shade sharper than the average human, and a shade more charismatic. Even if I personally dump those stats it still feels like I'm bouncing off something if that makes sense.

(I'm using Tieflings here because they are my favourite race but it applies to all the others too.)

This is an interesting point! The existing ability score modifiers serve as implicit role play documentation for the designers' view of the "typical" member of a group in the settings they envisioned.

I may not have said this clearly before, but I'm basically thinking of this as a "fix" to point-buy. I'm in the "strongly prefer a 16 in primary ability" camp (and not everyone is: that's fine). Given that, it's impossible to point-buy a "good" character without at least one aligned bonus, with a larger penalty for MAD classes.

*Without* mods, I can buy
15/15/14 and have 2 points left over,
15/14/14 and have 4 points left over, or
15/14/13 and have 6 points left over.

With floating mods (either variant-style or +2/+1, which is my preference) on top of that, I have a lot of freedom to assign those to the important stats, while leaving enough left over to be credible in the abilities that don't affect my class features.

I think my personal (as in, when building my own characters) "variant rule" is going to be "I must buy at least a 10 in any stat that has a fixed bonus as printed". That maintains a nod toward the signal sent by the printed mods, while still giving the effectiveness boost for key abilities.

For example, that Tiefling Rogue can start at 10/16/14/12/10/12 with the new rule (with one point left over for a 13 in Cha or Int for multiclassing). That just seems better overall, and with no guilt for "dumping" the Tiefling-aligned abilities.

Thanks for helping me see this more clearly!

[Sindal]

Eh.

At this point I suppose we can all be happy that variant rules are variant rules for reasons. Use what makes you happy and don't use the things that don't.

Some like the option, some see it as devaluing. I'm just glad an option is 'present'. I don't ask for things as a player if there isn't afleast something backing it up.

[RossN]

This is an interesting point! The existing ability score modifiers serve as implicit role play documentation for the designers' view of the "typical" member of a group in the settings they envisioned.

I may not have said this clearly before, but I'm basically thinking of this as a "fix" to point-buy. I'm in the "strongly prefer a 16 in primary ability" camp (and not everyone is: that's fine). Given that, it's impossible to point-buy a "good" character without at least one aligned bonus, with a larger penalty for MAD classes.

*Without* mods, I can buy
15/15/14 and have 2 points left over,
15/14/14 and have 4 points left over, or
15/14/13 and have 6 points left over.

With floating mods (either variant-style or +2/+1, which is my preference) on top of that, I have a lot of freedom to assign those to the important stats, while leaving enough left over to be credible in the abilities that don't affect my class features.

I think my personal (as in, when building my own characters) "variant rule" is going to be "I must buy at least a 10 in any stat that has a fixed bonus as printed". That maintains a nod toward the signal sent by the printed mods, while still giving the effectiveness boost for key abilities.

For example, that Tiefling Rogue can start at 10/16/14/12/10/12 with the new rule (with one point left over for a 13 in Cha or Int for multiclassing). That just seems better overall, and with no guilt for "dumping" the Tiefling-aligned abilities.

Thanks for helping me see this more clearly!

That's... sort of the opposite of what I was going for really. I liked fixed species attributes even if they leave me with less than optimised characters.

I don't feel "guilty" for dumping Intelligence for a Tiefling or Strength for a Half-Orc - there are nothing between the ears Tieflings and scrawny Half-Orcs just like there are humans with those attributes. It is just that the fixed attribute boost gives me a much better idea with what I'm working with.

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

Okay. So PCs are outliers. Why are they such outliers that they are homogenous?

I also dispute that lacking a +4 stat modifier every screws you over. Having stats too low is a problem, but a +2 is still good enough for a long while, unless the DM is playing a very hard game with ACs. Say what you will about it: bounded accuracy has accomplished that much of its goal.

It’s nice to have a maxed out stat. Nice enough to pressure people to take a race that gives the one they want. But not required enough that it punishes those who want to do something different.

Now, though, with this rule, it’s impossible to do “something different” because it’s all the same. And if you think racial features do make differences, we’re right back to being “punished” if you don’t take the right race to complement your class.

It’s amazing how many more five-color decks get played when you let all land tap for any color. Kind-of removes the uniqueness of encountering one, in fact. Or of building one.


Also, incidentally, I support rewriting the races with penalties to stats to eliminate those penalties. They go against the 5e design paradigm. Making racial modifiers be purely positive already did about all that could be done to enable “unusual” class/race combinations while keeping them from being homogenous.

Racial penalties can work in systems not built around 5e’s paradigm, but they are a bad idea in 5e.

They aren't homogeneous because you shouldn't be judging them as a group and instead ought to be treating each DnD game as a unique story of its own rather than looking at every game to do a statistical analysis, as previously said. Right now I could play, ten games in a row, a different dwarf cleric who worships Tiamat and multiclasses into dragon sorcerer at varying different points in their builds. Maybe I could get really popular on a DnD podcast, and then we start seeing a flood of dwarf clerics who worship tiamat and multiclass! Does that mean, in fiction, adventurers are just rife with dragon sorcerer dwarf clerics? No, each game needs to be examined on its own unless its an explicit continuation of another game. Every time you sit down and play a game, even if you're in forgotten realms, you're not in the forgotten realms, you are in your forgotten realms. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to play any of the adventurers, they'd already be solved as other people have played them already.


Also: Having played in several groups now where several characters picking races that are are optimized (16 or 18 to a main stat) and several newer players who picked races for creative reasons (14-15 in a main stat). I have personally witnessed the newer players suffer and feel bad about their characters because they just aren't able to perform and keep with the 16s/18s. They notice that they're stuck taking ASI's while the optimized players have moved on to fun and sometimes flavorful feats, they notice they miss a higher portion of the time and contribute less, or waste entire turns on save DC spells with saves too for most creatures to be likely to fail. It's a less enjoyable experience for them.

If you maintain that it is a small difference (I disagree; even if math-wise the numerical difference is small, it adds up over time) that shouldn't matter to people, then you have to admit it shouldn't matter to you either and there's no harm in giving them this small difference if it's so easy to overcome anyways, if only for the psychological boost of making the game feel better to play for them, right?

[stoutstien]

IMO the problem (other than the whole racism in media/games) is that the majority of races in most RPGs are just rebranded humans. The move, think, and behave in terms that mirror human. If a race is nothing more than a stereotype, a few physical characteristics, and a paper thin cultural identity what do they add to the game? I'm not saying it's easy to roleplay a race with little to no parallels of humanity let alone trying to design one but just slapping the standard array of races in every setting to provide the illusion of diversity is just lazy design.
I'd rather have a game with 2-3 truly unique races that can stand alone than 30 races that boil down to, "do you want to be a short human that's good at magic and live a long time or a angry human that likes to hit stuff? Don't worry you can be a short human who likes to hit stuff as well."

Lizard folks while being a poorly written race mechanically (too much going on) at least attempts they introduce something that is truly alien to humanity. Why couldn't we take that same principle and apply it to all the standard races?

[Boci]

They aren't homogeneous because you shouldn't be judging them as a group and instead ought to be treating each DnD game as a unique story of its own rather than looking at every game to do a statistical analysis, as previously said.

I don't think that's reasonable. I picked up a fantasy book and read the back which promised a conflict between money minded, clever city dwelling humans and a more tribal, down to earth society across the river. I didn't buy it because I had seen this story before. Now the author may well be writing it for the first time, but that doesn't change that I have encountered this premise before. I don't D&D games to the same standard as a book I pay money for, but repetition is still going to dull stuff, that's unavoidable.

I get it, evil drow are hard to play, evil characters are hard to play and the given guidlines we have for society certainly don't help. But it can work, and an evil drow PC working with neutral/good PCs towards a common goal and the tension that can RP-ed out would be so much more memorable than another good soul born in the wrong enviroment who fled to the surface world.

Or you know, a drow PC that isn't evil but also isn't an outlier, because the game takes place in Eberron or a homebrewed setting where the only drow culture isn't monstrously evil.

[x3n0n]

That's... sort of the opposite of what I was going for really. I liked fixed species attributes even if they leave me with less than optimised characters.

I don't feel "guilty" for dumping Intelligence for a Tiefling or Strength for a Half-Orc - there are nothing between the ears Tieflings and scrawny Half-Orcs just like there are humans with those attributes. It is just that the fixed attribute boost gives me a much better idea with what I'm working with.

(Although the fixed mods actually prevent you from dumping to 8 in point buy, which is what my personal variant was trying to capture.)

In short: that's totally valid! I can see liking to have fixed mods as documentation and even abiding by them as a constraint (like we have for the past 6 years, during which the game was still plenty fun).

I just also appreciate the freedom to *not* hamstring my primary ability score when playing a race/class combo that don't align as printed, and (as a DM) to not force the suboptimal on my players when they make characters in those combos.

[Segev]

They aren't homogeneous because you shouldn't be judging them as a group and instead ought to be treating each DnD game as a unique story of its own rather than looking at every game to do a statistical analysis, as previously said.

Except that part of the arguments I've seen for this change being "good for creativity" is that the poster is likely to say, "Ugh, another wood elf ranger?" because the optimizer in the party chose an optimal stat line for his ranger over "creatively" making a "wood elf barbarian." So, yes, I do get to make this judgment when it's the standard being held up to justify the change.

Having played in several groups now where several characters picking races that are are optimized (16 or 18 to a main stat) and several newer players who picked races for creative reasons (14-15 in a main stat). I have personally witnessed the newer players suffer and feel bad about their characters because they just aren't able to perform and keep with the 16s/18s. They notice that they're stuck taking ASI's while the optimized players have moved on to fun and sometimes flavorful feats, they notice they miss a higher portion of the time and contribute less, or waste entire turns on save DC spells with saves too for most creatures to be likely to fail. It's a less enjoyable experience for them.

If you maintain that it is a small difference (I disagree; even if math-wise the numerical difference is small, it adds up over time) that shouldn't matter to people, then you have to admit it shouldn't matter to you either and there's no harm in giving them this small difference if it's so easy to overcome anyways, if only for the psychological boost of making the game feel better to play for them, right?

If it doesn't matter giving them this small difference, why not just give them magic items that put those problem stats at 19? Or just let them set their stats to 20?

I agree: if it's a problem, fix it at your table. However, given that it's the experienced players outshining the newbies, I suspect there's far more going on here than just a +1 or +2 difference in their d20 rolls. I know from my own experience running a game that a rather optimized barbarian with the second largest chance to-hit in the party complains a lot about missing when others with lower chances to hit are not having nearly this problem, and it comes down to a perception of how often misses happen being based on what they notice and remember, as well as a bit of dice luck (seriously, sometimes the dice hate her).

"Why not fundamentally change the way tables the world over will play the game to accommodate my table's problems?" is not a very persuasive argument, no matter how justified your concern for your table's problems might be.

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

Except that part of the arguments I've seen for this change being "good for creativity" is that the poster is likely to say, "Ugh, another wood elf ranger?" because the optimizer in the party chose an optimal stat line for his ranger over "creatively" making a "wood elf barbarian." So, yes, I do get to make this judgment when it's the standard being held up to justify the change.



If it doesn't matter giving them this small difference, why not just give them magic items that put those problem stats at 19? Or just let them set their stats to 20?

I agree: if it's a problem, fix it at your table. However, given that it's the experienced players outshining the newbies, I suspect there's far more going on here than just a +1 or +2 difference in their d20 rolls. I know from my own experience running a game that a rather optimized barbarian with the second largest chance to-hit in the party complains a lot about missing when others with lower chances to hit are not having nearly this problem, and it comes down to a perception of how often misses happen being based on what they notice and remember, as well as a bit of dice luck (seriously, sometimes the dice hate her).

"Why not fundamentally change the way tables the world over will play the game to accommodate my table's problems?" is not a very persuasive argument, no matter how justified your concern for your table's problems might be.

I'm not really making that first argument. The argument I'd make is that the change is good for creativity not for the whole "ugh, another wood elf ranger" thing (because if someone wants to play a class that aligns with the racial average then they ought to do that and and anyone who gripes can pound sand) but instead so that a new player isn't told "Sorry, Billy, but if you play the cool orc Wizard you want to, you're going to be behind the rest of the party forever because of your roleplaying choice." Optimizers are going to optimize no matter what and the impact on them shouldn't really be considered here. (Though if you really want to, it will still result in them playing a wider range of races, too; I feel the only difference going forward is that Mountain Dwarf will now be on the same tier as half elf and variant human, so you'll see three races out of optimizer instead of two.)

Second point: You don't give them magic items that set them to 19 because the rest of the party doesn't have access to that, and there's no opportunity cost to it. If you run a game where the entire party has access to similar items, then that would be fine. The issue isn't "the player isn't strong enough" full stop, it's that "the player is behind the other players". Every PC should be capable of being just as competent at their main class ability as every other, full stop. Honestly, the best change would have been to decouple ASI's from race altogether and simply make them an option based on your class or background, still leaving them modular but making it more about the training you've put yourself through rather than genetic superiority.

And it's not just a problem at one table. I sometimes teach highschool students how to play and it's a problem I see time and time again, on a constant basis. I've also played in a variety of different games and styles on Roll20 and it is a pervasive issue. Fixing it goes a long way towards making the game more accessible and creatively fulfilling. I have not heard a single good argument for keeping things the way they were, only lots of panicking about hypothetical min-maxing and gripes about characters not matching setting lore, which to be frank, most new players don't care about, and is something the designers are explicitly keen on not enforcing when it comes to PCs. The desire to force all player characters to adhere to your vision of what their races should mean to them is misguided at best.

[rooneg]

If it doesn't matter giving them this small difference, why not just give them magic items that put those problem stats at 19? Or just let them set their stats to 20?

Many of us play in Adventurers League games where we do not have the freedom to make these sort of arbitrary changes. We have to abide by the rules.

[Boci]

I have not heard a single good argument for keeping things the way they were, only lots of panicking about hypothetical min-maxing and gripes about characters not matching setting lore

...

The desire to force all player characters to adhere to your vision of what their races should mean to them is misguided at best.

I find these two statements so close together odd, because describing the pre-varient rule version of 5e as "forcing all player characters to adhere to your vision" seems way more panicing and knee-jerk than the people on this thread saying they dislike this varient rule. People have been playing odd combination since 5e hits the tables, and before in previous editions which largely lacked a form of this varient rule.

Now its easier yes, but I don't get the repeated, insistent implication that it is only now possible and that without this rule players are utterly unable to make unconventioning race-class combos.

Are DMs who don't allow multiclassing trying to "force all player characters to adhere to their vision"?

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

I find these two statements so close together odd, because describing the pre-varient rule version of 5e as "forcing all player characters to adhere to your vision" seems way more panicing and knee-jerk than the people on this thread saying they dislike this varient rule. People have been playing odd combination since 5e hits the tables, and before in previous editions which largely lacked a form of this varient rule.

Now its easier yes, but I don't get the repeated, insistent implication that it is only now possible and that without this rule players are utterly unable to make unconventioning race-class combos.

Are DMs who don't allow multiclassing trying to "force all player characters to adhere to their vision"?

I am specifically responding to his argument regarding the fact that player characters form the "average" of what a race consists of, so if there end up being a lot of dwarf wizard PCs then to him then dwarf wizard becomes the "average" dwarf, and doesn't line up with official dwarf lore. Not making a blanket statement, apologies if I was unclear about this.

Though yes, I would say the previous rules were unreasonably restrictive, that's why they are being changed. It was possible to be unconventional before, but you were punished for it, so many simply did not. And if you make it so undesirable that many don't bother, then is there really a difference between "Can't" and "Shouldn't"?

I would say not allowing multi-classing is also too restrictive, personally, because it eliminates any characters that don't cleanly align to one class archetype. I personally look at the classes as simply lists of mechanics to pick from to simulate what I want my character to do and generally ignore any and all lore/fluff related to them unless it fits that particular characters story. Otherwise, I'm just looking for what I need for the character to do what I want them to do. If they're meant to be an unarmed fighter that gets by using brute force and athletic prowess, I'm going to be pretty hard pressed to do that in a useful way with the chassis of just one class. That's just one example, there are plenty of other character ideas you could have that might require abilities from two different classes to make sense narratively. I am more understanding of banning it (or at least certain permutations of it) in a game due to some balance concerns of hyper-optimized multiclassers blowing away single-classed characters, though I find those generally to be overblown from my own personal experience.

[Boci]

I would say not allowing multi-classing is also too restrictive, personally, because it eliminates any characters that don't cleanly align to one class archetype.

Whilst my preference to have MC allowed as well, I would avoid using the term "too restrictive" to describe a fairly common playstyle. Yes, its a bit wierd for me that without MC taking one level of fighter locks you away permenently from every knowing how to sneak attack or having access to a domain, but eh, its D&D these things happen, I can still happily play at the table.

As for this varient rule, I don't like it. I like elves being natural more graceful than other races. Its not cultural, they are literally born. I play a lot of PF and 3.5, where elves are not only born more graceful than humans, they're also born frailer. I really don't mind it. Its by no means a deal breaker, but I'm not even sure I would use it if playing at a group that did. I had a drow druid once that had 14 wisdom, and if i remade her, I can't say I'd love her concept much more if she had 16 instead. In fact being graceful and charismatic was an important part of how I imagined her. If I was going to use an option on her, it would probably be weapon training.

[x3n0n]

I had a drow druid once that had 14 wisdom, and if i remade her, I can't say I'd love her concept much more if she had 16 instead. In fact being graceful and charismatic was an important part of how I imagined her. If I was going to use an option on her, it would probably be weapon training.

Interesting! Would you be willing to post her ability scores as played?

[Boci]

Interesting! Would you be willing to post her ability scores as played?

Strength: 10 Dexterity: 14 Constitution: 10 Intelligence: 14 Wisdom: 14 Charisma: 14

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

Whilst my preference to have MC allowed as well, I would avoid using the term "too restrictive" to describe a fairly common playstyle. Yes, its a bit wierd for me that without MC taking one level of fighter locks you away permenently from every knowing how to sneak attack or having access to a domain, but eh, its D&D these things happen, I can still happily play at the table.

As for this varient rule, I don't like it. I like elves being natural more graceful than other races. Its not cultural, they are literally born. I play a lot of PF and 3.5, where elves are not only born more graceful than humans, they're also born frailer. I really don't mind it. Its by no means a deal breaker, but I'm not even sure I would use it if playing at a group that did. I had a drow druid once that had 14 wisdom, and if i remade her, I can't say I'd love her concept much more if she had 16 instead. In fact being graceful and charismatic was an important part of how I imagined her. If I was going to use an option on her, it would probably be weapon training.

You can still make characters like that, though. There's nothing stopping you if that's what you want. It just gives the option for other players that don't see their drow as being particularly graceful because they've spent their entire life bodybuilding and slamming back mead with the community of dwarven lumberjacks that adopted them. You can still have your drow druid be graceful and charismatic, and that is still in fact the baseline, but now player characters are simply allowed to break that mold if they so choose because of their PCs own unique circumstance.

[Segev]

I just don't see how a 15 vs. a 17, or an 18 vs. a 20, cripples a build to the point that it can't keep up with the others that are more in alignment. I do see why it creates pressure to play the thing that synergizes well, but I think that pressure is a good thing. Not a compulsion, not a punishment for not going with the pressure, but a reward nonetheless that helps explain in-character why certain class/race combinations are more common than others.

Let's look at the standard array: [15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8]

Let's assign stats to a wood elf barbarian with and without the new rules. Under standard rules, the wood elf gets +2 Dex, +1 Wis.

Without even thinking about stat modifiers, we would blindly prioritize Str and Con (and then later reconsider whether Dex is better than Con based on what kind of armor we want to wear, if any). Int is probably our dump stat, as Cha is useful for intimidation and Wis is useful for noticing threats (not to mention avoiding being whammied).

Pre-adjustment: Str 15, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 10

Now, if we're making it under standard rules, applying the racial stat mods gives us: Str 15, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 13, Cha 10.
As we want to optimize this, we may consider shuffling things to get different final stats. Maybe even lean into the racial modifiers a bit, swapping Dex and Wisdom: Str 15, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 10. That's a pretty respectable barbarian, with an unarmored AC of 14 and an armored AC of up to 16. She also has a +2 to her Wisdom checks, which includes both insight and the all-important perception. She's only got a +2 to her attacks from stats, but the level +2s across much of the board are actually pretty nice, and certainly aren't weak. A half-feat at level 4 would get her up to a +3. It also leans nicely into the elven reputation for being aware of nature and what's going on around them, creating a somewhat different flavor of barbarian from "normal."

Let's examine this under the new rules. Same pre-adjustment stats. The new rules say that the wood elf gets a +2 and a +1 to assign wherever she likes. The obvious choices are +2 Str and +1 Dex, given this statline and class:

Str 17, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 10.

This doesn't look too terribly different from the first one, but is definitely a more stereotypical barbarian, with only a +1 to Wisdom and now a +2 to Strength rolls. She's even likely to take the same half-feat at level 4 to get up to Str 18. One can argue that the +1 to attack rolls and damage is a bigger deal than losing 1 to Wisdom checks, but if one does, one needs to remember that most spells that will take a barbarian out of a fight call for Wisdom saves. (These generate more frustration for the barbarian in my game than anything else. And before you say "elf charm resistance," let me point out that the effects she's complained most about are fear effects.)

In the end, if the +1/-1 difference is significant to you, then there is a significant shift between the second one being a more stereotypical barbarian whose race is largely irrelevant, while the first is a barbarian is informed by the unusual race choice to be a more aware, harder-to-thwart individual. If the +1/-1 difference is not significant to you, then why do you need to change the default rules?

Note: you can of course arrange the stats in other ways. I am just trying to make the best, most fair comparison I can in the simplest way possible.

[Boci]

You can still make characters like that, though. There's nothing stopping you if that's what you want. It just gives the option for other players that don't see their drow as being particularly graceful because they've spent their entire life bodybuilding and slamming back mead with the community of dwarven lumberjacks that adopted them. You can still have your drow druid be graceful and charismatic, and that is still in fact the baseline, but now player characters are simply allowed to break that mold if they so choose because of their PCs own unique circumstance.

Yeah sure, which is why I don't mind playing in a group that uses this rule. But when I DM, I dislike this rule. I know PCs are exceptional, but they always have been, this rule isn't neccissary for that, it just makes them more exceptional. Its always going to be a scale with an ultimately arbitary cut off point for when a suggested change would make PCs too exceptional that will largely be a matter of taste. I like PCs to be part of the race they come from, which their exceptional-ness largely coming from their class.

[Segev]

You can still make characters like that, though. There's nothing stopping you if that's what you want. It just gives the option for other players that don't see their drow as being particularly graceful because they've spent their entire life bodybuilding and slamming back mead with the community of dwarven lumberjacks that adopted them. You can still have your drow druid be graceful and charismatic, and that is still in fact the baseline, but now player characters are simply allowed to break that mold if they so choose because of their PCs own unique circumstance.

(bold added)

The bolded part is not true, though. With these rules in place, there is no baseline. A baseline implies that it is something common. But the whole justification for the rule change is that normal members of the races don't have these adjustments at all, and only the exceptional adventurer types do. Which means that the exceptional adventurer types have the given racial modifiers...except they don't. They have whatever stat mods they want. There is no baseline, unless the baseline is "no stat mods."

I actually think the justification explanation is bunk, too, myself. But that's a different argument.

[x3n0n]

Strength: 10 Dexterity: 14 Constitution: 10 Intelligence: 14 Wisdom: 14 Charisma: 14

Ah, the 14/14/14/14/10/10 (sorted) stat line is not one I'm used to seeing, and helps me understand why this doesn't matter to you as much.

Thanks!

[zinycor]

You can still make characters like that, though. There's nothing stopping you if that's what you want. It just gives the option for other players that don't see their drow as being particularly graceful because they've spent their entire life bodybuilding and slamming back mead with the community of dwarven lumberjacks that adopted them. You can still have your drow druid be graceful and charismatic, and that is still in fact the baseline, but now player characters are simply allowed to break that mold if they so choose because of their PCs own unique circumstance.

This is also how I choose to see this rule.