Balancing Racial Ability Scores and the game itself

[MadBear]

There has been various disagreements one Tasha's ability score changes to race. As I've stated, I personally like the changes based on how the game actually plays out (everyone can get to 20 in any stat, so limiting your starting ability score doesn't help immersion, but makes certain races feel not very viable for various classes). In order for me to be more behind ability scores having a place that makes sense, we'd have to have hard caps/limits on how high certain races ability scores can actually go.

For example, a killer whale has a strength of 19. There is really no context in which a human sized creature should every be able to match that strength. A gorilla has a strength of 16. Again, nothing that's human should every be capable of reaching that strength, no matter how hard they train.

However, if we left it at that, and humans could only range from roughly 8-12 on any given ability score (with other races having similar ranges), you'd end up in a scenario where if you wanted to play a strong fighter, you'd have to pick the race that actually allows you to be strong.

What ideas, would you implement in a future version of the game, if your goal was for the various stats of a creature to be more meaningful and purposefully varied.

[Khrysaes]

There has been various disagreements one Tasha's ability score changes to race. As I've stated, I personally like the changes based on how the game actually plays out (everyone can get to 20 in any stat, so limiting your starting ability score doesn't help immersion, but makes certain races feel not very viable for various classes). In order for me to be more behind ability scores having a place that makes sense, we'd have to have hard caps/limits on how high certain races ability scores can actually go.

For example, a killer whale has a strength of 19. There is really no context in which a human sized creature should every be able to match that strength. A gorilla has a strength of 16. Again, nothing that's human should every be capable of reaching that strength, no matter how hard they train.

However, if we left it at that, and humans could only range from roughly 8-12 on any given ability score (with other races having similar ranges), you'd end up in a scenario where if you wanted to play a strong fighter, you'd have to pick the race that actually allows you to be strong.

What ideas, would you implement in a future version of the game, if your goal was for the various stats of a creature to be more meaningful and purposefully varied.

Unique mechanics independent of ability scores. I dont like the owlin, for example. Its very basic with darkvision, flight, and a proficiency bonus. I prefer interesting mechanics like kalashtar, shifter, warforged, reborn, hexbound, the new dragonborn.

[Xervous]

What defines a meaningful stat?

Stats themselves are a tool for helping the game fulfill a design goal. Meaningfully and purposefully varied stats are not so much a final goal as an intermediate design target that hopes to fulfill some broader design goal.

So what is the design goal that has led you to the conclusion that the game would be better served with stats that are more meaningful and purposefully varied?

[Segev]

This is somewhat incompatible with "bounded accuracy" being a thing, and, moreover, I am okay with human-sized and -shaped creatures being "as strong as a killer whale" or the like in my D&D fantasy games. It's worth noting, too, that a killer whale is larger than Medium, and thus would be stronger than a Medium-sized humanoid of even 20 strength when it comes to lifting and carrying. If the killer whale is Huge, it is also stronger in terms of grappling ability: the Medium humanoid cannot grapple him at all, and if the killer whale is grappling the Medium humanoid, the killer whale suffers no movement penalties for dragging him around.

Creature statistics and verisimilitude are often combinations of factors and traits. It's one reason, too, why eliminating fixed racial stat adjustments doesn't achieve one of the goals it ostensibly sets out to: anything you'd do to represent the same things for these racial differences would actually be more akin to what you mention in the OP: setting racial maxima to stat values, thus making it so that NOBODY can be as smart as the smartest gnome, and NOBODY can be as strong as the strongest half-orc. (Unless they have the same racial maxima.) As the pre-TCE rules were set up, ANYBODY could reach 20 in the given stats, and (almost) NOBODY (exceptions like capstone barbarians and a few magic items, and non-PC monsters aside) could exceed 20 in any ability score. So your human fighter, your elven fighter, and your half-orc fighter all could have 20 strength and possibly 20 constitution. Make the races have racial maxima, and now that isn't the case anymore. Make the "elves are more graceful than others" thing be something other than +2 dexterity - make it some elf trait that isn't part of their ability score array - and now it's like you said elves can hit 20 Dex while humans are stuck at 19 and half-orcs at 18. Maybe you'll feel the trait is less impactful in some fashion, but the statement is there and absolute: elves have this and nobody else can.

If racial fixed ability score adjustments ARE to be done away with, then these kinds of traits are almost required to take their place. "Powerful Build" is such a trait that already exists, expressly to allow for Goliaths to not break the size category cap that 5e has determined PCs should be fixed to while still letting them have the benefits, including increased "strong man" status, of being larger than other races.

[Sorinth]

How are you defining strength though because a humanoid with 20 strength can lift/drag/push 600lbs, a killer what with Strength 19 can lift/drag/push 2280lbs. So despite the lower strength score they are clearly much stronger overall.

For the Gorilla, I believe the Ape stats represent the Chimpanzee not a Gorilla. I would assume a Gorilla would be size large so even if they had 16 Str they would still lift/drag/pull 960 and therefore be stronger then a humanoid.

[Gtdead]

I don't think that this is a question of balance, rather than design.

There are multiple ways to measure Strength. One is absolute, the other is relative.

An absolute measurement would be taking a human and a lion and having them apply force to a measuring device. Assume for argument's sake that the Lion applied double the force. So to model this we would have to give 10 STR to the human and 20 to the Lion.

An absolute measurement would be to do the same, but now express this force as a percentage of the creature's weight. Lion applied 100% of it's weight as force, while the human applied 120% (random numbers). We can still model this with STR, but now the Human should have 10 STR and the Lion 8.

We can further balance the relative strengths by giving the Human and the Lion different baselines and changing STR to be a percentage increase rather than a flat one. So the Lion will have 10 base damage that would decrease to 8 due to low STR score, while the human would have only 5 base damage that would stay the same due to it's neutral STR score.

I think using relative attributes with vastly different baselines would create a more realistic simulation but it would increase the complexity too much to be worth it.

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Another idea could be an aptitude/mastery stat. Again this would increase complexity but it could create a more realistic simulation. Humans aren't known for their extreme physical characteristics, and they compensate for their biological inadequacies with superior technique and intelligence. I'm not sure how that could be implemented in a manner that makes sense for both physical and mental attributes though.

[diplomancer]

Unique mechanics independent of ability scores. I dont like the owlin, for example. Its very basic with darkvision, flight, and a proficiency bonus. I prefer interesting mechanics like kalashtar, shifter, warforged, reborn, hexbound, the new dragonborn.

Owlin is boring, which is why you should play an Owlin Dhampir; get the flight speed (but faster!), get the skill proficiency, lose a bit of darkvision, and get all the Dhampir goodies.

[GooeyChewie]

What ideas, would you implement in a future version of the game, if your goal was for the various stats of a creature to be more meaningful and purposefully varied.

Ultimately, ability scores are a game mechanic and cannot both provide verisimilitude and a good game. Realistically no human should ever be able to match a gorilla or killer whale in strength. At the same time, realistically a gorilla could easily tear the head off an adventurer, and that sort of "suddenly you're super dead" capability doesn't make for a great game. So I have no problem with adventurers being able to get to a completely unrealistic 20 in their ability scores. They're basically superheroes.

If I were designing 6e, I would decouple ability scores from race right from the start, focusing on a more robust racial feature structure to differentiate the races. I've laid out some plans that include 12 classes, two focusing on each ability score. Starting in level 1 with a particular class would give you a +1 to the associated ability score. Your background would also give you +1 to a particular ability score, as well as +1 to another ability score of your choice. Effectively this system would allow a character to get +2 any/+1 any or +1 to any three, but does so in a way that ties it to the character rather than making it arbitrary. It also allows backgrounds to tie thematically to particular classes. One of my dislikes about 5e is how sometimes racial or background features are redundant with class features, making pairing which thematically make sense mechanically suboptimal. (Example: Soldier makes thematic sense for a Fighter, but Fighters can already get Athletics and Intimidation proficiency from their class.)

[Psyren]

PC ASIs are fine. I'd say your example is more a problem with the Killer Whale (and bounded accuracy more broadly).

In Pathfinder for example, a Killer Whale has 27 Strength, which almost no PC race is reaching without magic or at least an Ex feature of some kind (e.g. Rage.) By rights, a 5e killer whale should be something like 22 or 24 Str instead (i.e. unattainable by most PCs without magic.) But that would throw their CR design off-kilter - they have a design doc somewhere that says melee-focused creature of CR X should have Str no higher than Y, and that has more to do with the KW's design than verisimilitude does.

As for what changes I would make, that's easy - big animals should be stronger, and if that makes their CR a bit higher so be it. The only real casualty there is the Moon Druid, who might either become too powerful or lose options, but that needs a major overhaul anyway.

[Sorinth]

PC ASIs are fine. I'd say your example is more a problem with the Killer Whale (and bounded accuracy more broadly).

In Pathfinder for example, a Killer Whale has 27 Strength, which almost no PC race is reaching without magic or at least an Ex feature of some kind (e.g. Rage.) By rights, a 5e killer whale should be something like 22 or 24 Str instead (i.e. unattainable by most PCs without magic.) But that would throw their CR design off-kilter - they have a design doc somewhere that says melee-focused creature of CR X should have Str no higher than Y, and that has more to do with the KW's design than verisimilitude does.

As for what changes I would make, that's easy - big animals should be stronger, and if that makes their CR a bit higher so be it. The only real casualty there is the Moon Druid, who might either become too powerful or lose options, but that needs a major overhaul anyway.

Even with only a strength 19 a killer whale can pull over 3.5 times what a strength 20 human can. So big animals are strong even if it's not represented by a higher strength scores.

[diplomancer]

Even with only a strength 19 a killer whale can pull over 3.5 times what a strength 20 human can. So big animals are strong even if it's not represented by a higher strength scores.

This. Fundamentally, that STR number in the character's sheets is entirely abstract. It translates differently in different creatures. A whale's carrying capacity is much larger than a 20 str Human. The damage from a whale's bite is much larger than the damage from a Human's unarmed strike (or even the unarmed strike of races with Natural weapons). So why then do we say that the Human is "stronger"? Because there'a a number in a Character Sheet that does not translate at all to the simulated reality?

Even with the Ape. Put a level 1 Fighter naked on a ring with an Ape, give him even 20 Str, and I'm not betting on the Fighter.