Should MAD classes get an extra ASI? Or, should feats be decoupled from ASIs?

[Gurgeh]

Show me 1 fighter that thinks he has any usefulness outside of combat

In terms of concrete mechanics? Every Fighter subclass gives something, though some get significantly more than others.

• The Samurai gets a bonus proficiency in a social skill at third level, and gets to add their wisdom modifier to persuasion rolls at seventh.
• The Banneret gets a bonus social proficiency and expertise in persuasion at seventh level.
• The Battle Master can learn manouevres that enhance a variety of skills, including persuasion, investigation, and stealth.
• The Cavalier gets a bonus skill proficiency at third level.
• The Eldritch Knight gets access to spellcasting. While most of their levelled spells are restricted to abjuration and evocation, they can take their pick of the Wizard cantrips.
• The Rune Knight can enhance a wide variety of skill and tool proficiencies.
• The Champion's Remarkable Athlete - weak as it is - provides a concrete numerical benefit to non-proficient ability checks.
• The Echo Knight can use their duplicate for a staggeringly wide variety of tasks, especially once they reach seventh level and gain the ability to send it out at longer ranges.
• The Psi Warrior gets access to limited telekinesis and flight.
• The Arcane Archer gets a bonus skill proficiency and access to a minor-tricks cantrip.

[strangebloke]

Show me 1 fighter that thinks he has any usefulness outside of combat (or as you so nicely put it "everywhere else"). Against non-bsp damage barbarians have the largest hit dice in the game and magical weapons aren't supposed to be super common in 5e. "If they can't rage" is like saying "If a battlemaster has no more superiority die" so that's a matter of resource management.

I completely disagree that fighter subclasses are better than barb subclasses, but if you take subclasses into account you could easily take zen archer for your monk and have him be really effective without needing to get high con - now the monk is no longer MAD and thus I've just made the same arguement you've made for other martial classes earlier.

The reason I've played devil's advocate here is to show that you can't just say "you can go for medium armor and become useful" for barbs while expecting whatever your favourite class is to not be limited to similar "do I become a minmax munchkin or do I actually have some flavour to my character and suck at combat" questions. Or you can just play a full caster and laugh at martials attempting to have it all.

So to sum up my unpopular opinion: monks are fine

I don't think you understood my point, and I am sure I do not understand yours.

Mathmatically,

• monks have few defenses other than AC and what defenses they have (patient defense, deflect missiles) scale really well with AC. So AC is important to them.
• Barbarians have many defenses (high hp, rage) other than AC and because of reckless attack, AC doesn't reduce damage by as much.
• Monks have to invest 2 +3's to have 16 AC at level 1.
• Barbarians can start the game with 18-19 AC investing only a +2 in DEX.
• A monk with a +2 in CON is 2 hp behind a barbarian with a +0 in CON at level 1.
• monks get all their damage and accuracy from ability mods.
• barbarians get most of their damage and accuracy from class features.

I'm not trying to say monks are weaker than barbarians. I actually think the reverse is true. But monks are much more dependent on multiple attributes than barbarians are. You give me a barbarian with two 14s and a load of 10s, you're like 75% of the way to the full potential power of a barbarian. They're still going to have most of their survivability and most of their DPR. You show me a monk with the same array and they're going to be missing most of their survivability and most of their DPR. It's just very simple math.

A barbarian can go unarmored and take a 2-3 point hit to their AC and it honestly won't cost them much. Depends on the enemy's attack mod but most of the time it will only result in them taking like 16% more damage proportionally, whereas a monk taking a comparable hit to their AC takes like 33% more damage.

[Pex]

How are you getting there with the standard array?

Like, I've played a bunch of Monks in games using standard array, and I'm basically locked into Dex 16/Wis 16/Con 13 with a 12, 10, and 8 spread across the other three stats.

I also don't understand why you felt the need to give me a rather patronizing rundown of how to assign ASIs while playing a Monk? Seems a bit odd, honestly.

One, I'm thinking Point Buy not Standard Array. Two, assume having a conversation before malice.

[Gurgeh]

Gentle reminder that point buy and standard arrays, despite their predominance in online discussions, are both variant rules. The game is designed with the assumption of rolled stats (specifically, using 4d6 drop lowest).

[Psyren]

Sounds like one of you is using Point Buy and the other Standard Array.

Gentle reminder that point buy and standard arrays, despite their predominance in online discussions, are both variant rules. The game is designed with the assumption of rolled stats (specifically, using 4d6 drop lowest).

Standard Array was actually brought to my attention as not being a variant. Point Buy is the only variant.

[Gurgeh]

Point well made! My research was lazy, it seems. ;)

[Ugmaro]

In terms of concrete mechanics? Every Fighter subclass gives something, though some get significantly more than others.

• The Samurai gets a bonus proficiency in a social skill at third level, and gets to add their wisdom modifier to persuasion rolls at seventh.
• The Banneret gets a bonus social proficiency and expertise in persuasion at seventh level.
• The Battle Master can learn manouevres that enhance a variety of skills, including persuasion, investigation, and stealth.
• The Cavalier gets a bonus skill proficiency at third level.
• The Eldritch Knight gets access to spellcasting. While most of their levelled spells are restricted to abjuration and evocation, they can take their pick of the Wizard cantrips.
• The Rune Knight can enhance a wide variety of skill and tool proficiencies.
• The Champion's Remarkable Athlete - weak as it is - provides a concrete numerical benefit to non-proficient ability checks.
• The Echo Knight can use their duplicate for a staggeringly wide variety of tasks, especially once they reach seventh level and gain the ability to send it out at longer ranges.
• The Psi Warrior gets access to limited telekinesis and flight.
• The Arcane Archer gets a bonus skill proficiency and access to a minor-tricks cantrip.

If we ignore the fact I asked for a fighter that believes he has uses outside of combat I can still rebuff your point:

According to the PHB there are no maneuvers that increase any of those skills - perhaps you'll enlighten me in regards to what book you're refering to.
If you're taking into account remarkable athlete and EK's wizard cantrips as something to be used outside of combat you could say the same for all barbarians: Danger Sense means you're useful in exploration since you're good with Dex saving throws. Additionally, totem warriors get the beast sense an speak with animals spells.

I don't think you understood my point, and I am sure I do not understand yours.

Mathmatically,

• monks have few defenses other than AC and what defenses they have (patient defense, deflect missiles) scale really well with AC. So AC is important to them.
• Barbarians have many defenses (high hp, rage) other than AC and because of reckless attack, AC doesn't reduce damage by as much.
• Monks have to invest 2 +3's to have 16 AC at level 1.
• Barbarians can start the game with 18-19 AC investing only a +2 in DEX.
• A monk with a +2 in CON is 2 hp behind a barbarian with a +0 in CON at level 1.
• monks get all their damage and accuracy from ability mods.
• barbarians get most of their damage and accuracy from class features.

I'm not trying to say monks are weaker than barbarians. I actually think the reverse is true. But monks are much more dependent on multiple attributes than barbarians are. You give me a barbarian with two 14s and a load of 10s, you're like 75% of the way to the full potential power of a barbarian. They're still going to have most of their survivability and most of their DPR. You show me a monk with the same array and they're going to be missing most of their survivability and most of their DPR. It's just very simple math.

A barbarian can go unarmored and take a 2-3 point hit to their AC and it honestly won't cost them much. Depends on the enemy's attack mod but most of the time it will only result in them taking like 16% more damage proportionally, whereas a monk taking a comparable hit to their AC takes like 33% more damage.

I fully understood several of your points, and while mechanically what you're saying in regards to how each of the 2 classes work is entirely true (which I've not even attempted to refute) you agree with me that monks are no weaker than barbs.

What I'm saying is that you can't pidgeonhole a class into a playstyle (such as armored barbarian) and then compare that pidgeonholed playstyle with the basic monk. If you pidgeonhole the monk into a zen archer you suddenly have no need for high AC and since you're now a ranged character you don't need HP either while despite gaining less from those than the monk does the barb absolutely needs them - the entire point of playing a barbarian is being a frontline meatshield that does a bunch of damage. It's like me whining that a rogue can't have as high an AC as a monk can - after all, they're both skirmisher types so they should have the same AC. Now you can say that rogues should be ranged and you'd probably be correct but then you're also saying proficiency in rapiers etc. is pointless for rogues, as they should never be using them anyway.

The simple fact of the matter is that the classes function differently, which is completely fine. What I'm really saying is that if you make changes like "you gain a feat at character levels 4, 8, 12,.. along with your ASIs you're just making the extra ASIs of warriors that much weaker, meaning you're making the class even weaker than it already is (compared to other classes I'd argue SAD classes are actually the "weakest"). Naturally, you can do what you want at your table but these ideas seem like they'll just increase the divide between PC power levels which just increases resentment between players.

Just to make it clear I don't like the monk feats at all, it's supposed to be a combat oriented character and yet it doesn't do much more in combat than a rogue, which is a skill oriented character. I honestly wouldn't mind a small damage increase to monks and a reduction of bard powers (as a skill oriented class it shouldn't also be a full spellcaster) but these extra feats or ASIs won't help fix this, it'll just make bards even stronger than monks while fighters will become that much more useless in comparison.

I hope I've managed to make my points clearer with this.

Edit: Sorry, I've misremembered what you've said in this thread (mixed you up with someone else's thoughts) so most of the things I'm saying here aren't "directed" at you though some specifically are, so I'll leave it as is.

[Gurgeh]

If we ignore the fact I asked for a fighter that believes he has uses outside of combat I can still rebuff your point:

According to the PHB there are no maneuvers that increase any of those skills - perhaps you'll enlighten me in regards to what book you're refering to.
If you're taking into account remarkable athlete and EK's wizard cantrips as something to be used outside of combat you could say the same for all barbarians: Danger Sense means you're useful in exploration since you're good with Dex saving throws. Additionally, totem warriors get the beast sense an speak with animals spells.

I'm sorry, I don't understand your intitial point there at all - every one of the subclasses I listed are Fighter subclasses, and all of those features have uses outside of combat (some more than others - like, I'm not saying the Champion's noncombat benefits are good). Most of them offer significantly better noncombat options than you get from the Barbarian subclasses, half of which offer nothing but combat boosts.

If you're making a point of comparing the base classes without taking any of the subclasses into account, then I don't quite understand why. Subclasses aren't an optional rule or anything, they're part and parcel of how a class works. Even if you do that, I'd say that the hypothetical Fighter-with-no-subclass still gets similar noncombat utility from their wider choice of skill proficiencies to what the equally hypothetical Barbarian-with-no-subclass gets from Danger Sense (and both are comically marginal in noncombat applications - like, how often are you going to care about the consequences of a dexterity save outside of combat?), so it's a dead heat until you get all the way to level 18 and Indomitable Might turns up.

For reference, the relevant Battle Master manouevres are in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything:

• Commanding Presence: add a superiority die to a persuasion, intimidation, or performance check
• Tactical Assessment: add a superiority die to a history, insight, or investigation check
• Ambush: add a superiority die to a stealth check or initiative roll

While they chew up a short rest resource, they can be very impactful (on average they give a bigger boost than Expertise, and drastically so at lower levels) and they stack with every other potential modifier.

EDIT:

Because barbarian players want to be Arnold Schwarzenegger in a loin cloth.

I don't disagree with the desire to offer something for the archetype - but, funnily enough, the specific case of Schwarzenegger-as-Conan is fully armoured for the climactic fight in the movie.

[Ugmaro]

I'm sorry, I don't understand your intitial point there at all - every one of the subclasses I listed are Fighter subclasses, and all of those features have uses outside of combat (some more than others - like, I'm not saying the Champion's noncombat benefits are good). Most of them offer significantly better noncombat options than you get from the Barbarian subclasses, half of which offer nothing but combat boosts.

If you're making a point of comparing the base classes without taking any of the subclasses into account, then I don't quite understand why. Subclasses aren't an optional rule or anything, they're part and parcel of how a class works. Even if you do that, I'd say that the hypothetical Fighter-with-no-subclass still gets similar noncombat utility from their wider choice of skill proficiencies to what the equally hypothetical Barbarian-with-no-subclass gets from Danger Sense (and both are comically marginal in noncombat applications - like, how often are you going to care about the consequences of a dexterity save outside of combat?), so it's a dead heat until you get all the way to level 18 and Indomitable Might turns up.

For reference, the relevant Battle Master manouevres are in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything:

• Commanding Presence: add a superiority die to a persuasion, intimidation, or performance check
• Tactical Assessment: add a superiority die to a history, insight, or investigation check
• Ambush: add a superiority die to a stealth check or initiative roll

While they chew up a short rest resource, they can be very impactful (on average they give a bigger boost than Expertise, and drastically so at lower levels) and they stack with every other potential modifier.

Never read Tasha's so thanks for the elaboration.

Again to repeat my first point: I'm not asking about what a fighter could theoretically do, I asked what fighter (meaning the player) BELIEVES he can do something outside of combat. I've not met 1 in my life but as I said, it's not something I'll fight you over since these are anecdotal.

You seem to be hung up on subclasses and I'm saying neither fighters nor barbarians have anything to do outside of combat (or extremely little), where fighters are combat focused with a tiny bit of utility in social interactions barbarians are combat focused with a tiny bit of exploration utility.

Honestly, I don't see what subclasses have to do with it... some subclasses are simply better than others, some offer some things, some offer others and some offer both because the "balancing" in D&D is kinda stupid.

[strangebloke]

What I'm saying is that you can't pidgeonhole a class into a playstyle (such as armored barbarian) and then compare that pidgeonholed playstyle with the basic monk. If you pidgeonhole the monk into a zen archer you suddenly have no need for high AC and since you're now a ranged character you don't need HP either while despite gaining less from those than the monk does the barb absolutely needs them - the entire point of playing a barbarian is being a frontline meatshield that does a bunch of damage. It's like me whining that a rogue can't have as high an AC as a monk can - after all, they're both skirmisher types so they should have the same AC. Now you can say that rogues should be ranged and you'd probably be correct but then you're also saying proficiency in rapiers etc. is pointless for rogues, as they should never be using them anyway.

I don't think that "not wearing armor" is as key to the barbarian brand as "punching people" is to the monk, and furthermore zen archery builds require feats and often subclass support to really work well

[da newt]

Perhaps this would be much less of an issue (low AC on Monks unless they put all their point buy, racial modifiers, and ASI into DEX and WIS) if the Player of the Monk PC didn't BELIEVE they were a melee tank. I believe monks are much better skirmishers than front line melee types. With their superior mobility, they function well in the hit and run niche - move up to target, strike, move away (preferably to cover or behind a tanky PC). Sure you might eat an Opp Att, but that's much better than just standing and banging like a barbarian (unless you use patient defense, or step of the wind).

Most monk subclasses include features to facilitate hit and run tactics or ranged attack options: Open Hand Technique, Shadow Step, 4 Elements (everything), Drunken Technique, Kensei (everything), Sun Soul (everything), Arms of Astral Self.

In order to 'fix' this believed issue of low AC for Monks you could homebrew many measures. Perhaps in your world Monks can wear light armor and still qualify as 'unarmored'. Or maybe Monk's superior will power and focused inner strength grants them D12 hit die or the tough feat. Maybe you ensure they stumble upon a cloak of protection. Or if you wanted to emphasize their skirmisher ways you could give them the last bullet of the Mobile feat.

But overall, I agree that Monks don't have the damage mitigation to stand toe to toe and fight like a Barbarian or Fighter or Paladin or Moon Druid, but that's why they have so many other little tricks/feats to allow them to fight like a Monk - mobile.

[Pex]

I don't disagree with the desire to offer something for the archetype - but, funnily enough, the specific case of Schwarzenegger-as-Conan is fully armoured for the climactic fight in the movie.

Heh, still a stereotype. Admittedly I don't think such players would mind when near the end of the campaign they acquire a magical armor that's Cool and worth using. When I played a barbarian I went the shirtless route for most of the campaign, but I did eventually wear Dragonhide armor. I single handedly slew the red dragon it was made from defending a dwarven city. They made it out of gratitude. How could I not?

[Tanarii]

If you want to play a shirtless Barbarian, do it. Prioritize Con ASIs over Strength. Barbarians can skip prioritizing Str far more than Fighters or Paladins who want to be more tanky, due to Reckless Attack. Or Monks prioritizing Wis over Dex.

[strangebloke]

If you want to play a shirtless Barbarian, do it. Prioritize Con ASIs over Strength. Barbarians can skip prioritizing Str far more than Fighters or Paladins who want to be more tanky, due to Reckless Attack. Or Monks prioritizing Wis over Dex.

yeah, this is my point. Barbarians benefit from multiple stats, but not that much. A barbarian with 12/12/12 in physical stats would be weak but mostly still able to do barbarian things, even if you went unarmored. It just doesn't matter much how you alocate your stats compared to other classes.

Arguably rogue is even less stat dependent.

[Tanarii]

yeah, this is my point. Barbarians benefit from multiple stats, but not that much. A barbarian with 12/12/12 in physical stats would be weak but mostly still able to do barbarian things, even if you went unarmored. It just doesn't matter much how you alocate your stats compared to other classes.

Arguably rogue is even less stat dependent.

I was thinking more of a Barbarian with Str 16 Dex 14 Con 14 (ie either human and standard array, many races and point buy) trying to decide where to put the first and second ASI. Go to Con 18. That works fine.

Now if you feel you're going to level 20 AND you feel you must have a 20 in your primary and secondary stats, MAD becomes an issue for any class that is built with the idea you must max both abilities. For barbarians in particular, lvl 20 builds often seem to come with the idea that the capstone is 'wasted' if you don't end up with Str 24 Con 24. Ditto for Monks, the assumption often seems to be that Dex 20 Wis 20 is required.

[Ganryu]

So... run down:

Monk, most people seem to agree, would not mind an extra ASI. Standard 'is monk a strong class' argument brewing.

Barbarian people think is fine, there is some discussion on it. {I say throw them a bone personally. But valid points raised all around.}

Paladin hasn't really been discussed, but tend to be one of the most powerful classes, so no one thinks they need one.

Ranger had little discussion, but consensus seems to be their problems are far different than their stats.

And I'm not sure any other class really hits MAD all that much. Casters tend to only need decent con/dex. Fighter has tons of ASI and can stick to a thing. Rogue needs Dex and is happy.

I... don't actually know what Artificer falls under, haven't played them enough.

[OldTrees1]

I... don't actually know what Artificer falls under, haven't played them enough.

Artificers are not MAD. Comparing them to Paladins is imperfect but works.
Battlesmith is Int SAD
Others are basically Paladins and can be casters or warriors.

[Psyren]

Artificers are quite SAD. Armorist and Battlesmith get to use Int (their casting stat) for their attack and damage rolls, and Artillerist buffs their spell attacks such that they're effectively doing the same thing. Meanwhile, Alchemist...

Uh, anyway, they also potentially get Int to all their saving throws!

[Tanarii]

Monk, most people seem to agree, would not mind an extra ASI. Standard 'is monk a strong class' argument brewing.

Personally I like Monks design encouraging lower Con but higher AC. And there aren't that many feats that are good for them, if you're playing in a feat game. Skulker is mostly it, although for some reason people like to blow an ASI on Mobile when they can already use Ki for the important part of it.

Really the only argument I can see would be from folks who feel they absolutely must have Dex/Wis 20 and a feat at 19th, who would feel they are forced to start with Dex/Wis 16 as a result.

[strangebloke]

Personally I like Monks design encouraging lower Con but higher AC. And there aren't that many feats that are good for them, if you're playing in a feat game. Skulker is mostly it, although for some reason people like to blow an ASI on Mobile when they can already use Ki for the important part of it.

Really the only argument I can see would be from folks who feel they absolutely must have Dex/Wis 20 and a feat at 19th, who would feel they are forced to start with Dex/Wis 16 as a result.

There aren't many feats that are better than an ASI for them, but I don't think that's the same thing as saying that there are no feats they'd want to take. Tavern brawler, crusher, piercer, elven accuracy, martial adept, skill expert, sharpshooter etc. Plus all the 'normal' good feats like inspiring leader or magic initiate. Mobile you scoff at, but being able to freely disengage without losing ki or the MA attack is a huge deal. I mean, obviously it is, it gets you an extra attack each round when you're trying to be evasive on top of making you faster.

Now, I'm not going to claim they need any one of these feats to compete. But I think when people complain about the monk being overly prescripted in build and playstyle, they're onto something.

Besides which, there's been a noted power spike at level 11 in most newly released monk subclasses, likely because of how badly monks do fall off in t3 (imo its less bad than some claim, but it is still there.). If we accept that monks are a little weak after t2 and also can feel too prescripted, I think its fine for them to have an ASI at level 10 like the rogue. Certainly, this won't make them anywhere near as powerful as something like a paladin.

[Tanarii]

If we accept that monks are a little weak after t2 and also can feel too prescripted,

Why would I accept that?

[Amnestic]

Personally I like Monks design encouraging lower Con but higher AC.

Maybe if they had a d10 hit dice, but personally I think "peak physical performance" monk shouldn't have a lower hit point number than the wizard.

[Tanarii]

Maybe if they had a d10 hit dice, but personally I think "peak physical performance" monk shouldn't have a lower hit point number than the wizard.

I thought Wizards were MAD and wants to max out Dex/Int?

Generally speaking, I've yet to see a Wizard invested significantly more than a Monk in Con. A few dwarves outliers for example.

OTOH that vast majority of my 5e experience is in Tier 1 and Tier 2 and low Tier 3. If the extra ASIs being granted to classes were coming to fix perceived Tier 4 issues for these classes by granting 2 instead of 1 at levels 16 and/or 19 ... whelp, I don't really have much input on that. That's far more theoretical white room for me.

[Pex]

Artificers are quite SAD. Armorist and Battlesmith get to use Int (their casting stat) for their attack and damage rolls, and Artillerist buffs their spell attacks such that they're effectively doing the same thing. Meanwhile, Alchemist...

Uh, anyway, they also potentially get Int to all their saving throws!

Alchemists buff their spells too, adding IN to healing and damage spells of certain types. Alchemists do well.

Personally I like Monks design encouraging lower Con but higher AC. And there aren't that many feats that are good for them, if you're playing in a feat game. Skulker is mostly it, although for some reason people like to blow an ASI on Mobile when they can already use Ki for the important part of it.

Really the only argument I can see would be from folks who feel they absolutely must have Dex/Wis 20 and a feat at 19th, who would feel they are forced to start with Dex/Wis 16 as a result.

I'd get around it playing Variant Human to have the feat I really want already and start with 16/16. I'm happy having 18/18 at 8th level, then figure out what I feel like from there, maybe depending on campaign circumstances. A couple of subclasses really care about one ability score, so 16/20 isn't out of the question for 8th level on those.

[Gtdead]

I thought Wizards were MAD and wants to max out Dex/Int?

Generally speaking, I've yet to see a Wizard invested significantly more than a Monk in Con. A few dwarves outliers for example.

OTOH that vast majority of my 5e experience is in Tier 1 and Tier 2 and low Tier 3. If the extra ASIs being granted to classes were coming to fix perceived Tier 4 issues for these classes by granting 2 instead of 1 at levels 16 and/or 19 ... whelp, I don't really have much input on that. That's far more theoretical white room for me.

I haven't seen a Wizard too, but I personally have played a 20 CON Cleric. Cleric is the only caster that wants to get hit, so it makes sense to forgo a stat that doesn't promote his main playstyle at all. SG is save for half and no save slow. It gains too little from WIS.

Since then I have changed my Cleric build philosophy so I'm not doing max CON anymore but it's not a bad option IMO.

[Quietus]

So... run down:

Monk, most people seem to agree, would not mind an extra ASI. Standard 'is monk a strong class' argument brewing.

Barbarian people think is fine, there is some discussion on it. {I say throw them a bone personally. But valid points raised all around.}

Paladin hasn't really been discussed, but tend to be one of the most powerful classes, so no one thinks they need one.

Ranger had little discussion, but consensus seems to be their problems are far different than their stats.

And I'm not sure any other class really hits MAD all that much. Casters tend to only need decent con/dex. Fighter has tons of ASI and can stick to a thing. Rogue needs Dex and is happy.

I... don't actually know what Artificer falls under, haven't played them enough.

I'd say, yes, Monk should absolutely have another ASI in there. It's the only class in the game where the base class really, REALLY wants you to have double 20's.

Barbarian is pretty solid, but its endgame stretch is so bad, I would be perfectly happy to see some Tier3/4 ASI action in there.

Paladin is fine. You've got builds that do more strength/less cha, more cha/less strength, and some that max both but go light on feats. That's balance.

Ranger as a base class is fine. Where I would be looking is the subclasses that really want you to max both. Beastmaster ranger, with the new primal beasts (and the Summon X spells), really wants you to max Wisdom since their attacks are based off of your spell attack. Taking the Primal Beast turns your level 7 subclass feature into "your beast's attacks count as magical", and nothing else; it'd be a great opportunity to drop an ASI in there to accommodate for not needing the other half of that feature. Just make it explicitly an ASI, with no option to replace it with a feat.

Everything else, I think, is pretty okay.

- Edit to add, I do think the Tasha's fighting styles for Paladin and Ranger that give you cantrips, should have also granted <casting stat> to damage with those cantrips. That would allow for a wis-SAD beastmaster ranger using cantrips and pet attacks, which would be incredibly fun.