Better alternative than stat-less races

[qube]

I think it would be simpler to just say: "You can pick which stat you use for combat and magic", so a fighter could choose int for attacks, a sorcerer could use str for magic, etc, and the players would need to fluff it accordingly.

I've played around with that idea as well, but it has a few downsides:

• that it still nudges players to max out stats
• some DMs might requires players to come up fluff they find acceptable
  (not all players are as elequent to put their ideas into a good argument, not all DMs are as excepting)

But aside from that, this abstraction is basically just that. Instead of

Str 14 (+2) Dex 12 (+1) Con 16 (+3) Int 13 (+1) Wis 10 (+0) Cha 11 (+0)
Weapon DEX; Defense INT; Toughness CON; Mysticism STR

It uses it's own numbers

You need to tell players that they don't want to min-max.

If only life were that easy :)

As you pointed out yourself: the ideal solution would have been to rewrite the entire system ... but that's not really realistically.

You get Intimidation! I don't want Intimidation.

On that note, the proposed system still provides the player with a "filled box" (This is a half-orc, This is an elf, etc ...). But it significantly disconnects their combat capabilities while not trying to errase their inter-racial diversity.

And yes, it doesn't do it away completely, but lets be honest - we could open up any on-line handbook for class X and look at the suggested races. The pattern was quite simple: the skills, abilities, etc ... might have made the class one tier better or worse, the overwelming difference between the "good races" and the "bad races" are the abiliy score.

If you need to basically duplicate most attributes, then something isn't working correctly, under a paradigm like this you should eliminate the 6 attributes.

I'm not duplicating them - I'm disconnecting them from their most important use of combat.

But don't you see, you're just a human cosplaying if you do that. Pay no attention to all the other racial features.

If the races were designed that ways, I'd agree. But they aren't.

Their racial features (alone) don't do this.

• High elves, are designed to be a race that veers towards wizards. An extra cantrip could be a great addition for melee forced non-spellcasters, but is pretty meh for casters.
• Dwarves are designed to be a race that veers towards melee classes. But their extra armor proficiencies is litterly useless for paladins & fighters, while great for the wizard who fears melee.
• ...

I have seen several examples and with their new UA system all of them work.

I don't follow the UA. But a quick skimming of UA Expert-Classes (I presume you're referring to that?) still says things like primairy ability: dexterity.

What about the rangers & rogues that aren't dexterious? The friendly woodcutter (a strenght axe-wielding ranger), or the muscle bound mafia enforcer (a strength rogue).

Honest question - as, again, I haven't played it - how much does it affect these new UA classes use if

• you happen to play a character where that primairy stat is dumped?
• Or where you go for a more even spread of abilities instead of maximizing one? (realistically. in 5E +2 CON also gives a wizard hit points and concentration - but +2 INT is significatlly better)

[akma]

I've played around with that idea as well, but it has a few downsides:

• that it still nudges players to max out stats
• some DMs might requires players to come up fluff they find acceptable
  (not all players are as elequent to put their ideas into a good argument, not all DMs are as excepting)

Those are both cultural issues, not rules issues. A group could choose to play with unoptimized stats and very flimsy explanations for their capabilities, but it's not how things are usually done.

What about the rangers & rogues that aren't dexterious? The friendly woodcutter (a strenght axe-wielding ranger), or the muscle bound mafia enforcer (a strength rogue).

You could just play a fighter and in game call him an enforcer, or ranger, or even a cleric.

It seems that you want to do two things:
A) Break the culture of minmaxing.
B) Give more flexibility for how players can design their characters.

Instead of trying to change D&D into something it's not, I think you should just play another system. Point buy systems are more flexible than class based ones for character builds, and many are not as focused on combat as D&D is.

[Sigreid]

That's... That's REALLY harsh.

If you want to be a strength-based class on a small PC, you're looking at being down one or two points of bonus at level one, and four points of bonus by late Tier Two or early Tier Three.
And it makes playing a Goliath, Firbolg, or other Powerful Build race unneededly strong when playing the same-the equivalent of a Belt Of Cloud Giant Strength (a Legendary Item) if you max it out.

I don't see a problem with their basic idea, but if you do that there needs to be a tradeoff. Not going that route myself, but if I did I'd do the same thing in reverse with dex at the least.

[Cheesegear]

A group could choose to play with unoptimized stats and very flimsy explanations for their capabilities, but it's not how things are usually done.

It's not that it isn't usually done.
It's that there's no benefit to doing so. But there is a benefit to min-maxing.

[akma]

It's not that it isn't usually done.
It's that there's no benefit to doing so. But there is a benefit to min-maxing.

That applies to every system, but I don't recall ever reading a discussion about optimizing character builds in World Of Darkness, for example.

The benefit to not minmaxing is more flexible roleplay, if you want to play something like a buff wizard. If the entire party is equally unoptimized, than the DM can just pit them against weaker encounters, and the game will work out about the same, even if they do something "crazy", like putting less than 10 in their constitution. Likewise, the DM could put harder encounters if they are hyperoptimized.

[Psyren]

If the races were designed that ways, I'd agree. But they aren't.

Their racial features (alone) don't do this.

• High elves, are designed to be a race that veers towards wizards. An extra cantrip could be a great addition for melee forced non-spellcasters, but is pretty meh for casters.
• Dwarves are designed to be a race that veers towards melee classes. But their extra armor proficiencies is litterly useless for paladins & fighters, while great for the wizard who fears melee.
• ...

That's the case for the 2014 versions, but those are in the process of getting changed so its moot.

[ahyangyi]

If the races were designed that ways, I'd agree. But they aren't.

Their racial features (alone) don't do this.

• High elves, are designed to be a race that veers towards wizards. An extra cantrip could be a great addition for melee forced non-spellcasters, but is pretty meh for casters.
• Dwarves are designed to be a race that veers towards melee classes. But their extra armor proficiencies is litterly useless for paladins & fighters, while great for the wizard who fears melee.
• ...

By the way, I often wonder, in an imaginary world where the designer would write and publish the design intention behind each mechanics, things would have been much more coherent and consistent over the years.

For example, it did not take long before we had the Genasi, who were generally as tough as the dwarf but were given random spell-like abilities...

[qube]

You could just play a fighter and in game call him an enforcer, or ranger, or even a cleric.

Quite true - though that's kind of mising the point.

There's a not uncommon houserule to let warlocks use intelligence instead of charisma. Yes, sure they could just play wizard ... I think every DM knows that. but the fact that this houserule exists notes that not always what people want.

Classes have different structures, focusses, etc ... (playing a low dex fighter, kind of forces you to wear heavy armor, they don't get sneak attack, etc...)

It seems that you want to do two things:
A) Break the culture of minmaxing.
B) Give more flexibility for how players can design their characters.

Instead of trying to change D&D into something it's not,

I don't subscribe to the notion that that's is not D&D. I consider getting nudged toward minmaxing, and inflexible character desing, unfortunate (and solvable) sideeffects.

That's the case for the 2014 versions, but those are in the process of getting changed so its moot.

Are they released already? I don't seem to find them.

By the way, I often wonder, in an imaginary world where the designer would write and publish the design intention behind each mechanics, things would have been much more coherent and consistent over the years.

For example, it did not take long before we had the Genasi, who were generally as tough as the dwarf but were given random spell-like abilities...

Definately

[Dienekes]

Are they released already? I don't seem to find them.

The UA for D&D 5.5 (called One D&D for likely silly marketing reasons) is out, can be found on DND Beyond if you look.

The races are... better. But they have some oddities to them. Like the fact Orcs are now mechanically more durable and defensive than Dwarves, which feels wrong to me on a fundamental level. But they do try to fix some of the issues where the species' traits make them better than the opposite of what they're designed for. No one has armor proficiencies any more. Really, very few have anything to do with hitting anything anymore, there are no abilities that involve Strength or Dexterity in the initial batch. The Revised Species with Cleric UA introduces two that do, the new weird Ardlings which are half-celestial/half-beastperson and the designers don't really seem to know which side they want to emphasize more(for the record, I'm all for dropping the celestial and just making a beastperson species) and the Goliath. And in both cases they make certain the attack focused abilities are optional.

It's functional.

[Rukelnikov]

Or would you rather have a halfling swashbuckler-style fighter who uses taunts and feints as defense? A sword wielding elf fighter (a slashing sword, not a rapier)? A strong smithy dwarf artificier, ... These, and much more options are now viable options - without having to trade in flavor for game mechanics.

I think this is a core part of the divission on the subject.

Mechanics are the game system's implementation of the narrative, flavor is part of the narrative, you can't dissociate them without the mechanical representation losing precision in its modeling of the narrative.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The UA for D&D 5.5 (called One D&D for likely silly marketing reasons) is out, can be found on DND Beyond if you look.

The races are... better. But they have some oddities to them. Like the fact Orcs are now mechanically more durable and defensive than Dwarves, which feels wrong to me on a fundamental level. But they do try to fix some of the issues where the species' traits make them better than the opposite of what they're designed for. No one has armor proficiencies any more. Really, very few have anything to do with hitting anything anymore, there are no abilities that involve Strength or Dexterity in the initial batch. The Revised Species with Cleric UA introduces two that do, the new weird Ardlings which are half-celestial/half-beastperson and the designers don't really seem to know which side they want to emphasize more(for the record, I'm all for dropping the celestial and just making a beastperson species) and the Goliath. And in both cases they make certain the attack focused abilities are optional.

It's functional.

One downside is that they have the "everything plausibly interesting is a spell" bug. So many of the races have the "cast spell x/day" instead of more "organic" features. Which also makes casters even stronger, since now they (and only they) get extra features from their racial choice--those spells are added to their spell lists. Which is a fairly large deal.

I think this is a core part of the divission on the subject.

Mechanics are the game system's implementation of the narrative, flavor is part of the narrative, you can't dissociate them without the mechanical representation losing precision in its modeling of the narrative.

I agree with this. There is no fluff/crunch divide. It's all on equal footing--all of it is bound up in the same task.

[Dienekes]

One downside is that they have the "everything plausibly interesting is a spell" bug. So many of the races have the "cast spell x/day" instead of more "organic" features. Which also makes casters even stronger, since now they (and only they) get extra features from their racial choice--those spells are added to their spell lists. Which is a fairly large deal.

There is a reason why I used the word functional, not interesting, exciting, or even good. Which is my critique of most of 5.5 as far as I've seen.

[PhoenixPhyre]

There is a reason why I used the word functional, not interesting, exciting, or even good. Which is my critique of most of 5.5 as far as I've seen.

On that we can agree. 5.5 has a few things that work ok, a lot of just meh, and a few really bad decisions. But nothing higher than "ok, that's something that works, I guess."

[qube]

Mechanics are the game system's implementation of the narrative, flavor is part of the narrative, you can't dissociate them without the mechanical representation losing precision in its modeling of the narrative.

Quite true. I think the paladin is a nice example of this: in 3/3.5E had paladins cast on wisdom, while in 5E they cast on charisma.

However, by including an abstract layer - you can midigate the effect.
In effect,that's also what the proficiency modifier does. (you're not stronger, and don't neccecairly know more abilities, but you're just ... better flavor it how you want )

[Rukelnikov]

Quite true. I think the paladin is a nice example of this: in 3/3.5E had paladins cast on wisdom, while in 5E they cast on charisma.

However, by including an abstract layer - you can midigate the effect.
In effect,that's also what the proficiency modifier does. (you're not stronger, and don't neccecairly know more abilities, but you're just ... better flavor it how you want )

Flavor it what you want doesn't mesh with archetype centered design (like classes), and IMO works better in a point buy system like Mutants and Masterminds where you choose "Blast" as a power and flavor it being shotting with your assault rifle, throwing a Kamehameha, or whatever you want, all equally valid, all equally efective, I went with throwing a pigskin at my enemies really hard, my character used to be quarterback at high school american football, could've gone pro if he didn't end up in the reformatory.

Parties end up being a bunch of weirdos and it's fun. But I like my DnD better when it reminds me more of LotR than Justice League.

EDIT: Well, thinking more about it, I guess that's a campaign/setting thing more than anything else, for some campaigns maybe the DC line-up would be better to have. Hmm... IDK, i'll think more about it.

[qube]

I like my DnD better when it reminds me more of LotR

I 100% agree! And that's where I find it weird.

In DnD all fighters have the same ideal score (presumable, STR 20 DEX 8 CON 20. it's way cheaper to pick the allert feat then investing into dexterity).
And the tasha's fix says "well, not all elves are dexterious. you got non-dexterious elves and dexterious dwarves as well !"

I'm going to be honest with you, that doesn't remind me of LotR. For me, in LotR, each race uses their strengths to fight.

• Elvish fighter are dexterious and graceful
• Dwarf fighter are strong and tough
• etc ...

Even if they are equally compentent - how they fight is totally different.

Flavor it what you want doesn't mesh with archetype centered design (like classes)

A class gives you the ability to use tools (fighters get armor and weapons, wizards get to read magical books) - they don't specify how you go from "knows how to use sword" to "dead goblin".

The fact that the fighter class need strength - is a side effect of how the melee attack roll mechanic works.

If melee attack roll said "use whatever stat you want", fighters would be a lot less strength dependant.
The only problem with that is that 5E has SAD classes and MAD classes. (but that problem is solved with my system)

[greenstone]

I'm going to be honest with you, that doesn't remind me of LotR. For me, in LotR, each race uses their strengths to fight.

• Elvish fighter are dexterious and graceful
• Dwarf fighter are strong and tough
• etc ...

I agree.
The backlash against racial stats really puzzles me. It seems that "orcs tend towards fighters and elves tend towards rogues" is bad, yet to me, that seems like a good thing.

If, in the fantasy world, elves are generally better at magic that other races then elves will tend to be wizards. If orcs are in general stronger than other races then a majority of phyical jobs (bouncers, fighters, gladiators) will be orcs.

The fantasy world should follow on from the mechanics. To me, having a mechanic that isn't reflected in the world breaks immersion more than almost anything else.

Similarly, I dislike having a world fact that isn't backed up by mechanics. For example, if a book says "Elves are graceful and dextrous" then there should be some game rule to support this. Otherwise, why say it?

[akma]

I consider getting nudged toward minmaxing, and inflexible character desing, unfortunate (and solvable) sideeffects.

Class system is something that inherently limits flexibility. The less restrictive a class is, the less meaningful it is. Even if you could just choose whatever attribute you use to whatever rule, classes would still pigeonhole your character.

The fact that the fighter class need strength - is a side effect of how the melee attack roll mechanic works.

If melee attack roll said "use whatever stat you want", fighters would be a lot less strength dependant.

Stuff like that will make minmaxing worse, as eloquent players might convince the DM to have all the rolls they care about be dependent on a single stat, for example, constitution. It is already a stat that nobody dumps, and maxing it out to have more hit points would be useful for any character.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Class system is something that inherently limits flexibility. The less restrictive a class is, the less meaningful it is. Even if you could just choose whatever attribute you use to whatever rule, classes would still pigeonhole your character.

This. And that's by design and working as intended. Classes are supposed to provide constraints, to define what archetypes are supported by the system. They're the antithesis of the "build-a-bear" model where you assemble a bunch of mechanics to fit your pre-determined character--you're supposed to start with the class and build around that archetype.

Stuff like that will make minmaxing worse, as eloquent players might convince the DM to have all the rolls they care about be dependent on a single stat, for example, constitution. It is already a stat that nobody dumps, and maxing it out to have more hit points would be useful for any character.

Agreed. We see how that goes with hexblades (albeit to a lesser degree).

[greenstone]

Off the wall suggestion: species don't get increases to the ability scores, they get required minimums.

For example:

Elves are an agile and graceful people. No elf character can have a starting DEX of less than 12.

Dwarves are hardy and resilient folk. No dwarf character can have a starting CON of less than 12.

This way the game mechanics represent the game world description (because having something in the world that is not reflected in the mechanics is just empty words).

The player now has a cost to go with their choices. They want to get the cool elf immunities and abilities? They have to pay a cost of putting points in DEX.

If a dwarf PC loses CON and goes below the minumum then other dwarves notice it and behave differently. "Are you alright, cousin? You look really poorly, you need to see a healer?"

Or maybe , "Call yourself a dwarf? You're a disgrace, a weakling! Get out of here and don't come back until you've grown a spine." :-)

[Blackdrop]

Off the wall suggestion: species don't get increases to the ability scores, they get required minimums.

For example:

Elves are an agile and graceful people. No elf character can have a starting DEX of less than 12.

Dwarves are hardy and resilient folk. No dwarf character can have a starting CON of less than 12.

This way the game mechanics represent the game world description (because having something in the world that is not reflected in the mechanics is just empty words).

The player now has a cost to go with their choices. They want to get the cool elf immunities and abilities? They have to pay a cost of putting points in DEX.

If a dwarf PC loses CON and goes below the minumum then other dwarves notice it and behave differently. "Are you alright, cousin? You look really poorly, you need to see a healer?"

Or maybe , "Call yourself a dwarf? You're a disgrace, a weakling! Get out of here and don't come back until you've grown a spine." :-)

While I support this idea, it's a problem since it goes against the current "Character First, Mechanics Second" character creation paradigm. We'd have to go back to a pre-3.0 "Roll the Dice and see what you can play" paradigm for this to be serious option.

[Hurrashane]

I prefer the species having differing abilities that say something about them. Like, Dwarves having extra HP/level and poison resistance sells them more for being a tough and hardy people than a +2 con or a con minimum would. A Dwarf fighter and a Human fighter with the same con, the Dwarf is tougher.

I like features like that.

[ahyangyi]

Off the wall suggestion: species don't get increases to the ability scores, they get required minimums.

For example:

Elves are an agile and graceful people. No elf character can have a starting DEX of less than 12.

Dwarves are hardy and resilient folk. No dwarf character can have a starting CON of less than 12.

This way the game mechanics represent the game world description (because having something in the world that is not reflected in the mechanics is just empty words).

The player now has a cost to go with their choices. They want to get the cool elf immunities and abilities? They have to pay a cost of putting points in DEX.

If a dwarf PC loses CON and goes below the minumum then other dwarves notice it and behave differently. "Are you alright, cousin? You look really poorly, you need to see a healer?"

Or maybe , "Call yourself a dwarf? You're a disgrace, a weakling! Get out of here and don't come back until you've grown a spine." :-)

Nobody ever pays anything for the strongest racial trait that is the bonus feat, and I wonder why.

Well, you can't really claim "world reflect in the mechanism" by requiring a minimum of 12. That means, the constitution of the worst dwarf adventurer ever is better than the average human. Think about it, does that sound right?

Let's do the math: in the current system, you can start at 8, dwarf gives +2. That means a random heroic dwarf adventurer has a minimum constitution of 10, not 12.

[qube]

eloquent players might convince the DM to have all the rolls they care about be dependent on a single stat

I share that concern.
You will note that, in the proposed system, this is not the case - as classes remain equally SAD/MAD.

Class system is something that inherently limits flexibility.

In the context of ability scores?

I find only one inflexibility - in multiclassing

• paladins, sorcerers, warlocks and bards cast on charisma
• Eldritch knights, spell thieves and wizards, artificiers cast on intelligence
• clerics and druids cast on wisdom

The systems goes from the, frankly arbitrairy

• paladin sorcerer OK eldritch knight wizard OK sorcerer bard OK
• paladin wizard Bad eldritch knight sorcerer Bad sorcerer wizard bad

to now casters uses the same score to cast spells.

AFAIK there's no game-mechanical reason for this seperation (other then the 'fluff' that forces certain casters to use different stats). Best I can think of is wizards being able to cast cure light wounds by multiclassing ... but that seems quite missplaced when warlocks and sorcerer (by MC bard) are allowed to do it.

Imagine having to DM a world where one of the PCs is a mountain dwarf cleric of Moradin / artificier(armorer) ... silly players with their redonculous character ideas.

[Xervous]

My knee jerk response is “make everyone MAD”. Each class will have their primary stat and a secondary, and subclass will add a third desirable stat on top of that. Assuming a PHB with four subclasses apiece that key to a different score, 9/15 ASI pairings will be relevant to playing some sort of X, even ignoring how desirable CON would be in a vacuum.

Consider a monk. DEX is their mainstay, and WIS will drive some other core features. Long death will want CON to interact with some of their unique abilities. Four elements benefits from INT. Kensei has a use for putting both STR and DEX high. Ascendant dragon has a burning desire for CHA. It’s impossible for a racial ASI to fail to improve some sort of monk, and 60% of racial ASI pairings will map directly to some sort of monk.


Far too complicated for the target audience, never going to happen, but I can dream.

[Hurrashane]

Things were more MAD before in 3.x, wizards needed dex, not just for AC but for ranged spell attacks and strength for melee spell attacks. All that did is make Wizards rarely use melee spell attacks.

All making classes more MAD will do is incentivize people to play the least MAD classes.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Things were more MAD before in 3.x, wizards needed dex, not just for AC but for ranged spell attacks and strength for melee spell attacks. All that did is make Wizards rarely use melee spell attacks.

All making classes more MAD will do is incentivize people to play the least MAD classes.

Or find "clever" workarounds (yes, hexblade, I'm taking to you) to remove the MAD. Or push it somewhere, as you say, that they don't care about.

[Xervous]

And if you just make ASIs function like an extension of point buy...

Yeah never going to happen. D&D is about SAD.

[Pixel_Kitsune]

Honestly, if you really want the Races to have specific stat tendencies, here's an idea I've seen done (I run open bonuses because I think the appearances, ribbons and other abilities are what make race/species interesting, not a +2 to a certain stat.).

Make the +2 static based on Race, but the +1 floating.
Make the +2 also bump the cap of the stat. Which encourages and allows improvement that way but doesn't penalize others.

So taking Standard array of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 9 and an Elf with a +2 Dex(Max 22 now) and a +1 floating.

If I lean into the Dex theme I can put the 15 or 14 in Dex for a 17/16 and eventually hit 22 netting me that extra 5% to things at level 12 as a nice power boost.

But if I want to play something that uses Heavy Armor and doesn't care about dex? Say a Light Cleric as an easy example. Alright, well, we toss the 9 into Dex to make it 11 and don't have to stress any penalties and put the +1 with the 15 in Wisdom and our High Elf Cleric no longer has an automatic disadvantage at levels 1-8.

[Psyren]

Racial stat tendencies are for NPCs. If you want to establish that the average vanilla elf in your world has a higher dex than the average vanilla dwarf, that's totally fine, go ahead and do that. PCs however are not average or vanilla and never have been.