# Put initial stat bonus in class not background



## Lojaan (Aug 26, 2022)

It seems to me that the most logical place to put the stat bonuses from character creation are in class choice, not background.

Who cares what you did growing up - if you spent the last 5 years studying to be a wizard you're going to get a boost to your intelligence. Or if you spent however long it took learning how to be proficient in every martial and simple weapon then you'd likely get a bonus to your strength (or dex depending on where you focused your studies). Similarly, it would be super odd if cleric or druid training did not increase your wisdom. It makes sense. Even for warlocks it makes sense to put the stat bonus in class - the first gift from their patron being a boost to their charisma. 

The way I would do it is this: 
You can increase certain stats, determined by your class, by 3 points. You can put one point in each stat, or increase one stat by 2 and one stat by 1. 

This would be my breakdown (open to suggestions on this);

Artificer: Int, Dex, Con
Barbarian: Str, Dex, Con
Bard: Cha, Dex, Con
Cleric: Wis, Dex, Con
Druid: Wis, Dex, Con
Fighter: Str, Dex, Con
Monk: Dex, Wis, Con
Paladin: Str, Cha, Con 
Ranger: Str, Dex, Con
Rogue: Dex, Cha, Int
Sorcerer: Cha, Dex, Con
Warlock: Cha, Dex, Con
Wizard: Int, Dex, Con

Apart from making sense, it solves a couple of problems;
1. You don't have to worry about a players _story_ choice (race/background) reducing their _game_ effectiveness
2. No more bio-existentialism. 
3. It works with all methods of stat generation (standard array, point buy, rolling)
4. Makes it difficult for new players to inadvertently make choices in character creation that substantially reduce their game effectiveness
5. The stat bonus still feels meaningful

(Plus people can still easily have low scores in their primary stats if they want) 

What do you think?


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## delericho (Aug 26, 2022)

I'm not sure it really matters. If it's in race, people will choose their class and then look for the elf with the stat bonuses that match. If it's in background, people will choose their class and then look for the background with the stat bonuses that match. At least this way is honest.

Personally, I didn't see what was wrong with them just being floating, making both race and background essentially free choices. Or, even better, building them into the point buy/standard array/rolling method.


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## Benjamin Olson (Aug 26, 2022)

It would certainly be more meaningful than nominally attaching them to a customizable background, I'll give you that. 

But I don't particularly need them to be meaningful, I would rather just have them be free floating. Or maybe just have them not exist.


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## Shiroiken (Aug 26, 2022)

During the playtest, you got +1 from race and +1 from class. After 5E came out, my group discussed the idea that they should have kept that, and added an additional floating +1 that couldn't be placed with both prior ASI (creating a +3 total). Tying everything to class would make all characters of each class fairly uniform, which is enough of a problem already.


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## Horwath (Aug 26, 2022)

it should be floating and be done with it.


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## John Lloyd1 (Aug 26, 2022)

Just build it into the standard array/point buy and be done with it.


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## Corinnguard (Aug 26, 2022)

Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition also has it's initial stat bonuses in background rather in race (or in A5e's case-heritage), but instead of having two fixed stat bonuses, it has one fixed and one floating stat bonus. So someone with the Soldier background in A5e will get a +1 STR and a +1 stat bonus of your own choosing. 

The initial stat bonuses are +1 Fixed and +1 Floating because character origins in A5e make use of something that D&D has yet to touch upon, Culture. That's why it's +1/+1 instead of +2/+1.


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## Horwath (Aug 26, 2022)

John Lloyd1 said:


> Just build it into the standard array/point buy and be done with it.



that works as well.


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## Art Waring (Aug 26, 2022)

I use floating bonuses, which are added right when players generate ability scores, either buy point buy or pooled random rolls. There is really no need to make it any more complicated.


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## aco175 (Aug 26, 2022)

I would like to see +1 from race, class, and background since I can see each affecting you.  I know attaching one to race is not in fashion now, but it might be a compromise over throwing one's hands up and saying, "Fine, do anything you want."


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## Branduil (Aug 26, 2022)

It seems like the playtest isn't effectively communicating that the stat bonuses _are_ floating already. The backgrounds listed are sampled and you can assign +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 to any stats of your choosing, that's how it already works RAW.


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## Corinnguard (Aug 26, 2022)

aco175 said:


> I would like to see +1 from race, class, and background since I can see each affecting you.  I know attaching one to race is not in fashion now, but it might be a compromise over throwing one's hands up and saying, "Fine, do anything you want."



Pathfinder 2nd edition kind of does this already.   You start out two ability boosts( +2 each), one ability flaw (-2) and a free ability boost (+2) for your ancestry, gain another two ability boosts with your background (another +2 each), and finally an ability boost based off of your class. And then to put the cherry on top, PF2 gives four more ability boosts at 1st level. 

Mind you, PF2 has it where everyone's ability scores start out at a 10 and initially caps their max ability score out at 18.


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## Reynard (Aug 26, 2022)

Why don't we just do a complete point buy character generation and let people pick ancestry and background purely for role-playing purposes?


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## Horwath (Aug 26, 2022)

Reynard said:


> Why don't we just do a complete point buy character generation and let people pick ancestry and background purely for role-playing purposes?



I'm all for trading starting skill and armor proficiencies one on one basis also, but that would maybe be too "complicated".


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## Reynard (Aug 26, 2022)

Horwath said:


> I'm all for trading starting skill and armor proficiencies one on one basis also, but that would maybe be too "complicated".



You can always provide pre-built "packages" to make life easy for new players or those that aren't interested in fiddling with numbers, but it feels like WotC is trying to have its cake and eat it to by shifting around where ASIs, proficiencies and special abilities come from. Just bite the bullet and say "You have X build points for your starting character. Go nuts." THEN pick a class.


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## Horwath (Aug 26, 2022)

Class:
you can have 1-5 skill proficiencies: 1-5 pts
you can have 0-4 cantrips: 0-4 pts
you can have none to heavy armor: 0-3 pts
you can have simple or simple+martial weapons: 0 or 2 pts
strong save(dex, con, wis): 2 pts, 1 max
weak save(str, int, cha): 1 pt. 2 max
3 tools or languages: 1 pt

you have 10 points for starting proficiencies.


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## TwoSix (Aug 26, 2022)

Reynard said:


> Why don't we just do a complete point buy character generation and let people pick ancestry and background purely for role-playing purposes?



Probably because it's not "D&D" enough.  But it sounds pretty awesome to me for a modern game.


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## DND_Reborn (Aug 27, 2022)

John Lloyd1 said:


> Just build it into the standard array/point buy and be done with it.




This.

Or, just forget it entirely and put your best scores where you, oh, I don't know, want them to be, so they reflect the things you've done, studied, have innate talent in, etc.


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## Charlaquin (Aug 27, 2022)

Branduil said:


> It seems like the playtest isn't effectively communicating that the stat bonuses _are_ floating already. The backgrounds listed are sampled and you can assign +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 to any stats of your choosing, that's how it already works RAW.



For some reason people just refuse to accept that custom background is the default, and all example backgrounds can be freely customized. It’s bizarre.


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## doctorbadwolf (Aug 27, 2022)

Lojaan said:


> Who cares what you did growing up - if you spent the last 5 years studying to be a wizard you're going to get a boost to your intelligence.



If your wizard grew up a farmer, they are stronger than the average wizard. 

If you doubt me, go seek out an academic who grew up on a farm. “Farm strength” is a term for a reason.


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## Branduil (Aug 27, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> For some reason people just refuse to accept that custom background is the default, and all example backgrounds can be freely customized. It’s bizarre.



This was also a problem in the 5e PHB, even though it explicitly stated they were sample backgrounds and RAW you can customize backgrounds as much as you want. 

I think the issue is that it's just a giant list of backgrounds without any indication in the backgrounds themselves that they're just suggestions. I would just attach random character names to each one to make it clear "this is just one example of a background, it doesn't have to match yours."


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## doctorbadwolf (Aug 27, 2022)

delericho said:


> I'm not sure it really matters. If it's in race, people will choose their class and then look for the elf with the stat bonuses that match. If it's in background, people will choose their class and then look for the background with the stat bonuses that match. At least this way is honest.
> 
> Personally, I didn't see what was wrong with them just being floating, making both race and background essentially free choices. Or, even better, building them into the point buy/standard array/rolling method.



They essentially are floating in the playtest, since backgrounds are malleable and customized by default.


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## Azzy (Aug 27, 2022)

Horwath said:


> it should be floating and be done with it.



Honestly, this is where I'm at, too. We've already had several products which use floating ASIs, so why not just roll with that.


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## Charlaquin (Aug 27, 2022)

Azzy said:


> Honestly, this is where I'm at, too. We've already had several products which use floating ASIs, so why not just roll with that.



They are. Backgrounds are just packages of floating things.


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## Sabathius42 (Aug 27, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> For some reason people just refuse to accept that custom background is the default, and all example backgrounds can be freely customized. It’s bizarre.



I get it.  If they had only shown one example background (like when they follow a sample character creation as examples in the PHB) it would be obvious you were supposed to build it custom.

Instead they devoted a large amount of real estate to making a bunch of "examples" which can look like a list to choose from instead of several of infinite possibilities.


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## Charlaquin (Aug 27, 2022)

Sabathius42 said:


> I get it.  If they had only shown one example background (like when they follow a sample character creation as examples in the PHB) it would be obvious you were supposed to build it custom.
> 
> Instead they devoted a large amount of real estate to making a bunch of "examples" which can look like a list to choose from instead of several of infinite possibilities.



I mean, it _is_ a list you can choose from. That’s the point, if you want to make your own you can; if you want to just pick a premade and call it good, you can do that too. I don’t understand what’s so confusing about it.


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## Sabathius42 (Aug 27, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> I mean, it _is_ a list you can choose from. That’s the point, if you want to make your own you can; if you want to just pick a premade and call it good, you can do that too. I don’t understand what’s so confusing about it.



People don't always read from front to back, they also flip around and read here and there.  If one were just glancing at the playtest, but we're familiar with 5e then one could easily assume backgrounds worked similar to 5e but now had stat mods attached to them.


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## delericho (Aug 27, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> They essentially are floating in the playtest, since backgrounds are malleable and customized by default.



Sure, but that's a really long way around just to get back to "assign them where you want".


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## Charlaquin (Aug 27, 2022)

delericho said:


> Sure, but that's a really long way around just to get back to "assign them where you want".



Necessarily so, in order to both provide “assign them where you want” and the option to pick a set that has already been assigned for you if you want.


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## doctorbadwolf (Aug 27, 2022)

delericho said:


> Sure, but that's a really long way around just to get back to "assign them where you want".



The only way it could be less direct and still slow for easy quick build packages would be to inject “suggested” and “example” language to each background. Which is fine, I’ll probably encourage that in my feedback. 

But it’s hardly a long way around.


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## d24454_modern (Aug 27, 2022)

Why don’t we go the Megaman/Bravely Default II route and just have all the abilities have set affects and damage?


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## payn (Aug 27, 2022)

Maybe just get rid of background, race/lineage, and anything else and just go class?


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## d24454_modern (Aug 27, 2022)

payn said:


> Maybe just get rid of background, race/lineage, and anything else and just go class?



Let’s get rid of class too. It’s too restrictive.


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## delericho (Aug 27, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> The only way it could be less direct and still slow for easy quick build packages would be to inject “suggested” and “example” language to each background. Which is fine, I’ll probably encourage that in my feedback.



If it's about quick build packages than they should go in class. Those will be pointing to default backgrounds, and will be picked to maximise the prime requisites anyway, so they might as well put the ASIs there too.


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## doctorbadwolf (Aug 28, 2022)

delericho said:


> If it's about quick build packages than they should go in class. Those will be pointing to default backgrounds, and will be picked to maximise the prime requisites anyway, so they might as well put the ASIs there too.



No. Background should be impactful, and some parts of the character should sometimes be orthogonal to what makes the class stronger. 

Not only that, but also the class would be even more limiting in perception than the background is. It would be much harder to get people to understand that it’s actually a floating bonus, and the listed stats are suggestions.


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## Blue (Aug 28, 2022)

13th Age, a d20 that came out a bit before 5e, had an interesting way to do this.  (This was a years and years before Tasha's.)

Race gave +2 to one of two ability scores.
Class gave +2 to one of two ability scores.
They couldn't be the same score.

So You have that a halfling wizard and a dwarven wizard, both have +2 Int for their class, but the halfling might have +2 Dex vs. the dwarven wizard with +2 Con.  So race would impact how you built your character, but you would always have the right ability scores for your class so all race/class combos were on an even playing field.


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## d24454_modern (Aug 28, 2022)

Blue said:


> 13th Age, a d20 that came out a bit before 5e, had an interesting way to do this.  (This was a years and years before Tasha's.)
> 
> Race gave +2 to one of two ability scores.
> Class gave +2 to one of two ability scores.
> ...



What’s the point of that?


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## delericho (Aug 28, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> No. Background should be impactful



I actually agree. But ASIs are a terrible way of doing this.

Additionally, if backgrounds are just a collection of floating stuff then they won't be impactful. For that, the ability to customise _must_ be limited.



doctorbadwolf said:


> , and some parts of the character should sometimes be orthogonal to what makes the class stronger.



Realistically, it won't matter. The vast majority of characters will have the ASIs put to bolster the player's chosen build, where the class is _by far_ the most important element. That's one of the reasons putting ASIs in race was a bad idea - people chose their race based on which class they wanted. And putting fixed ASIs in background would be equally bad, for the same reason.

Making them floating but listing "suggestions" in backgrounds is the worst of both worlds. You're wasting space providing suggestions that by rights should just be ignored _and_ you're muddying the waters where people fail to appreciate that they're just suggestions.



doctorbadwolf said:


> Not only that, but also the class would be even more limiting in perception than the background is. It would be much harder to get people to understand that it’s actually a floating bonus, and the listed stats are suggestions.



Each class already has a clearly marked "Quick Build" suggestion that identifies scores to emphasise. That's the place to put suggestions of this sort.


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## doctorbadwolf (Aug 28, 2022)

delericho said:


> I actually agree. But ASIs are a terrible way of doing this.
> 
> Additionally, if backgrounds are just a collection of floating stuff then they won't be impactful. For that, the ability to customise _must_ be limited.



Eh, I disagree, and we aren’t going to change each others minds, I imagine. 


delericho said:


> Realistically, it won't matter. The vast majority of characters will have the ASIs put to bolster the player's chosen build, where the class is _by far_ the most important element. That's one of the reasons putting ASIs in race was a bad idea - people chose their race based on which class they wanted. And putting fixed ASIs in background would be equally bad, for the same reason.



The vast majority of players don’t optimize. 


delericho said:


> Making them floating but listing "suggestions" in backgrounds is the worst of both worlds. You're wasting space providing suggestions that by rights should just be ignored _and_ you're muddying the waters where people fail to appreciate that they're just suggestions.



It’s absolutely the best of both worlds, as long as they make clear in the backgrounds that these are examples for everyone who doesn’t want to make every individual decision. 


delericho said:


> Each class already has a clearly marked "Quick Build" suggestion that identifies scores to emphasise. That's the place to put suggestions of this sort.



Again, that ends up restricting ASI choice _more_, and encourages CharOp thinking.


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## DEFCON 1 (Aug 28, 2022)

Sabathius42 said:


> People don't always read from front to back, they also flip around and read here and there.  If one were just glancing at the playtest, but we're familiar with 5e then one could easily assume backgrounds worked similar to 5e but now had stat mods attached to them.



None of these books should be written to save players from themselves.

If a player chooses not to read the Player's Handbook about character creation and chooses a Background from the pre-rendered list without reading the section and realizing their first option was to make their own... _and then_ gets pissy after the fact that the Background they chose had two ASIs in abilities they didn't want and could have in fact had them on two abilities of their choosing but they just didn't realize it... that's on them.

WotC has enough stuff to put in these books without having to spend paragraph and after paragraph and bolded header after bolded header waving their arms to say "HEY!  HEY YOU!  READ THIS!  THIS IS IMPORTANT!"  It's a rulebook.  The entire thing is important.  If you don't read it... don't complain when you make mistakes.


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## Ixal (Aug 28, 2022)

Lojaan said:


> It seems to me that the most logical place to put the stat bonuses from character creation are in class choice, not background.



The most logical place is race. Inborn, genetic things people are born with. Orcs are strong, Dwarves are though, Elves are agile because thats simply how their race works when compared to humans.

If people can't break out the minmaxer mindset to always take the race to optimize their attributes to their class so be it. Maybe at some point they will realize that the "role" in role play doesn't mean "ranged damage dealer", but WotC should not cater to this minmaxer, wargaming mindset.


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## CubicsRube (Aug 28, 2022)

Ixal said:


> The most logical place is race. Inborn, genetic things people are born with. Orcs are strong, Dwarves are though, Elves are agile because thats simply how their race works when compared to humans.
> 
> If people can't break out the minmaxer mindset to always take the race to optimize their attributes to their class so be it. Maybe at some point they will realize that the "role" in role play doesn't mean "ranged damage dealer", but WotC should not cater to this minmaxer, wargaming mindset.



No it's not the most logical. It's the nature vs nurture debate that hasn't been fully solved in the real world. Perhaps if you have some scret knowledge of this you should share it with the scientific community.


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## Yaarel (Aug 28, 2022)

Lojaan said:


> It seems to me that the most logical place to put the stat bonuses from character creation are in class choice, not background.
> 
> Who cares what you did growing up - if you spent the last 5 years studying to be a wizard you're going to get a boost to your intelligence. Or if you spent however long it took learning how to be proficient in every martial and simple weapon then you'd likely get a bonus to your strength (or dex depending on where you focused your studies). Similarly, it would be super odd if cleric or druid training did not increase your wisdom. It makes sense. Even for warlocks it makes sense to put the stat bonus in class - the first gift from their patron being a boost to their charisma.
> 
> ...



It makes sense to associate the ability improvements with the class. And the list is fair. But even here I want the class to have more ability fluidity.

For example, Int, Con and Dex, probably are the most important abilities for a Wizard. But what if I want a particular Wizard character to be an enchanter, thus need the improvement to go to Charisma? For an eladrin enchanter culture, a Cha Wizard is a trope. Alternatively, I would want an illusionist Wizard to be perceptive, requiring Wis. A high elf military culture Wizard might have higher Str from longsword training.

Ultimately, it is the specific individual concept that requires the ability improvements, not the statistical average.

Associating the ability improvements with the background actually is freefloating, because the default is to design ones own background, thus placing the improvements wherever they make sense narratively.

One can locate the ability improvements with the ability score generation itself, thus free floating.

But making the improvements part of a background that the player oneself designs for a unique character, helps assign narrative reason for why the background happened to develop these particular abilities.

All in all, I didnt expect free-floating ability improvements to be part of the background creation, but it makes enough sense, and I am pretty happy with this decision.


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## Ixal (Aug 28, 2022)

CubicsRube said:


> No it's not the most logical. It's the nature vs nurture debate that hasn't been fully solved in the real world. Perhaps if you have some scret knowledge of this you should share it with the scientific community.



Nature vs. Nature has been thoroughly solved when it comes to different races. A bulldog is stronger than a poodle because of its race. No one would deny that. The same would apply to fantasy races.
Are there strong poodles and weak bulldogs? Sure, but genetics still affect both breeds on all parts of the scale (the weak, the average and the strong ones).


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## Yaarel (Aug 28, 2022)

Ixal said:


> Nature vs. Nature has been thoroughly solved when it comes to different races. A bulldog is stronger than a poodle because of its race. No one would deny that. The same would apply to fantasy races.
> Are there strong poodles and weak bulldogs? Sure, but genetics still affect both breeds on all parts of the scale (the weak, the average and the strong ones).



A bulldog and a poodle are the same *species*, yet differ from each others ability scores.

Ironically, the example supports how a D&D *race* likewise needs floating ability score improvements to adequately represent the diversity within a race.


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## Ixal (Aug 28, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> A bulldog and a poodle are the same *species*, yet differ from each others ability scores.
> 
> Ironically, the example supports how a D&D *race* likewise needs floating ability score improvements to adequately represent the diversity within a race.



Different dog breeds is the closest real world equivalent to D&D races, now that they can freely interbreed with each other.
And the same way dog breeds have different biological characteristics which would be represented by ability score so would D&D races.

Is there variance within a breed? Yes. Thats what the standard array is for, but there are still characteristics which apply to the whole breed.


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## Yaarel (Aug 28, 2022)

Ixal said:


> Different dog breeds is the closest real world equivalent to D&D races, now that they can freely interbreed with each other.
> And the same way dog breeds have different biological characteristics which would be represented by ability score so would D&D races.
> 
> Is there variance within a breed? Yes. Thats what the standard array is for, but there are still characteristics which apply to the whole breed.



The D&D term "race" absolutely doesnt mean "breed".

To make race mean breed would be full-on reallife racism.

The D&D term "race" is a quasi-medieval-esque term for "species".


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## Ixal (Aug 28, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> The D&D term "race" absolutely doesnt mean "breed".
> 
> To make race mean breed would be full-on reallife racism.
> 
> The D&D term "race" is a quasi-medieval-esque term for "species".



Except for the interbreeding issue.
I wouldn't care about that but I know from the past if I would use different species as examples someone who does not want to discuss it and seeks a way to halt the discussion would try to bring up "But Humans and Elves can interbreed while species X and Y can't so your entire argument is invalid, end of discussion".
Hence I use dog breeds as examples.

But no matter if you use dog breeds or different species, both of them feature inborn, genetic differences to strength, agility, intelligence, ect. which are not "nurture". So it just common sense that different D&D races would have the same instead of every race being exactly the same (nature) and all coming down to nurture. Racial ASI just make the most sense.


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## Yaarel (Aug 28, 2022)

Ixal said:


> Except for the interbreeding issue.
> I wouldn't care about that but I know from the past if I would use different species as examples someone who does not want to discuss it and seeks a way to halt the discussion would try to bring up "But Humans and Elves can interbreed while species X and Y can't so your entire argument is invalid, end of discussion".
> Hence I use dog breeds as examples.
> 
> But no matter if you use dog breeds or different species, both of them feature inborn, genetic differences to strength, agility, intelligence, ect. which are not "nurture". So it just common sense that different D&D races would have the same instead of every race being exactly the same (nature) and all coming down to nurture.



Elves are ultimately immaterial astral spirits made out of thought, or fey spirits. They dont have genetics.

That said. Some chose to materialize and take on bodies of flesh and blood. But these elves can have whatever genetics they want, because magic.

Indeed, according to D&D, the elves adapt fluidly to any environment, implying that while material, their genetics are fluid. Elves use magic to intentionally genetically engineer their own DNA.



In any case, it is the individual character concept that determines where the ability score improvements belong. A statistical average is irrelevant because outliers are outliers.



Personally, I resent "agile elves". According to my reallife culture, elves are personifications of fate and magic, and sunlight. Arrows and Dexterity are irrelevant, and belong to the folkbelief of someone elses culture. I dont want someone elses fantasy racism to interfere with my cultural understanding of what an elf is.

If the default ability score improvements for an elf are +2 to Intelligence, Charisma, or Wisdom, and +1 to any other, I wouldnt complain. Essentially the elf is a "mental race" that specializes in magic. But this predeterminism would also be wrong, because D&D also has traditions of elves with high Strength and high Dexterity, and there is no reason for any fantasy racism to interfere with these elf concepts either.

D&D has many different kinds of elf. There are Intelligence sun elves central to the 3e Forgotten Realms setting, and Intelligence-Charisma eladrin elves central to 4e core. These elves lack Dexterity, and as mental races, are closer to personifications of magic.



Allowing every D&D race to include individual character concepts with floating ability score improvements is a win for the D&D game as a whole.


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## Branduil (Aug 28, 2022)

Elves and Dwarves are not real. There is no "makes the most sense," everything is a choice made by the designers. If we try to bring supposed physical realism into it, every single dragon should just instantly collapse under its own weight.

In the past, the designers did make the choice that races should have different stats (actually it was even weirder, since races were their own class at first). Now they are making the choice not to, and for good reason, because racial stats have become fodder for people who want to make comparisons between real-life humans. It's a fictional game, there's no such thing as "18 Strength" in reality. People don't have ability scores.


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## Ixal (Aug 28, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> In any case, it is the individual character concept that determines where the ability score improvements belong. A statistical average is irrelevant because outliers are outliers.



Its still relevant because, ideally, you are still playing a member of that race and thus are affected by the attributes of said race no matter how relevant or irrelevant they are to your class.


Yaarel said:


> Personally, I resent "agile elves". According to my reallife culture, elves are personifications of fate and magic, and sunlight. Arrows and Dexterity are irrelevant, and belong to the folkbelief of someone elses culture. I dont want someone elses fantasy racism to interfere with my cultural understanding of what an elf is.
> 
> If the default ability score improvements are +2 to Intelligence, Charisma, or Wisdom, and +1 to any other, I wouldnt complain. Essentially the elf is a "mental race" that specializes in magic. But this predeterminism would also be wrong, because D&D also has traditions of elves with high Strength and high Dexterity, and there is no reason for any fantasy racism to interfere with these elf concepts either.
> 
> ...



And yet D&D basically invented the dexterous elf.
And no its not a win for D&D but a huge loss. You lose history, you lose the flavor of different races and you lose the role in role playing because this change signals that WotC is now considering roll playing the default, playing optimized combat stats. Because there is no other reason (except for a minority who think fantasy elves being different from humans is racism) to have floating ability scores except to minmax your combat power and many people on this board have in the end advocated for floating ASI because "it will allow them play different race/class combinations" as for them playing something not optimized is unthinkable (because they would suck and not be competent. Their words...)

Sadly WotC seems to (probably rightly) think there is more money in tactical boardgames instead of RPGs and thats the direction where they are going. Not playing the "elven blacksmith who picked up a blade himself" as a role, but the "+5 attack AC 16 damage dealer" role.


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## delericho (Aug 28, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Eh, I disagree, and we aren’t going to change each others minds, I imagine.



Indeed. Probably best to leave it at that.


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## Yaarel (Aug 28, 2022)

Ixal said:


> Its still relevant because, ideally, you are still playing a member of that race and thus are affected by the attributes of said race no matter how relevant or irrelevant they are to your class.



No. That isnt how magic works.



A magically fluid race is magically fluid.

There are many different ways of being an elf, with D&D traditional examples to improve every ability score.

A 5e player can be whatever kind of elf they want to be. And because elves are magic. Whatever the player wants "makes sense".

No one is stopping you from creating a high Dexterity elf.

Other players want other kinds of elf concepts.





Ixal said:


> And yet D&D basically invented the dexterous elf.



In Original D&D and in Basic D&D, the elf is Strength-Intelligence.

The D&D 1e high elf went with Dexterity to correlate the bow and hiding. However the high elf also needs Strength for longsword. Properly, according to the flavor, the high elf uses magic to hide, not stealth skill checks. 1e intentionally avoided granting mental ability score boosts because they so dramatically empowered spellcasters with extra spells. But flavorwise, the high elf is a mental race with wizardry and high Intelligence. The NPC grey elf has this Intelligence bonus.

D&D has many different kinds of elf concepts with every one of the ability score improvements.





Ixal said:


> And no its not a win for D&D but a huge loss.



Floating ability scores are a huge loss for racism.

And a huge win for D&D players.





Ixal said:


> You lose history, you lose the flavor of different races and you lose the role in role playing because this change signals that WotC is now considering roll playing the default, playing optimized combat stats.



All of these different kinds of elf are the same D&D elf race!

The D&D elf race especially has floating ability scores.





Ixal said:


> Because there is no other reason (except for a minority who think fantasy elves being different from humans is racism) to have floating ability scores except to minmax your combat power and many people on this board have in the end advocated for floating ASI because "it will allow them play different race/class combinations" as for them playing something not optimized is unthinkable (because they would suck and not be competent. Their words...)



I care about flavor first. I require crunch to actualize the flavor during typical gameplay.

I require floating ability scores for narrative reasons. And to adequately represent the history of D&D concepts, as well as unique character concepts.

Free floating ability score improvements benefit me and others.





Ixal said:


> Sadly WotC seems to (probably rightly) think there is more money in tactical boardgames instead of RPGs and thats the direction where they are going. Not playing the "elven blacksmith who picked up a blade himself" as a role, but the "+5 attack AC 16 damage dealer" role.



Wait. A cookie-cutter race with mechanically racist predeterminism is more like a tactical boardgame, with color coding, and less like a storytelling game where an individual individuates to become ones own person.


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## Blue (Aug 28, 2022)

d24454_modern said:


> What’s the point of that?



13th Age made gave both racial flavor but also removed sub-optimal choices where what the race didn't match up with any of the ability scores the class needed, allowing playing any race/class combo without penalty.  Tasha's eventually did something to meet that goal for 5e a good number of years later, but did it by giving up the racial flavor aspect while 13th Age did both.


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## Branduil (Aug 28, 2022)

Ixal said:


> Its still relevant because, ideally, you are still playing a member of that race and thus are affected by the attributes of said race no matter how relevant or irrelevant they are to your class.
> 
> And yet D&D basically invented the dexterous elf.
> And no its not a win for D&D but a huge loss. You lose history, you lose the flavor of different races and you lose the role in role playing because this change signals that WotC is now considering roll playing the default, playing optimized combat stats. Because there is no other reason (except for a minority who think fantasy elves being different from humans is racism) to have floating ability scores except to minmax your combat power and many people on this board have in the end advocated for floating ASI because "it will allow them play different race/class combinations" as for them playing something not optimized is unthinkable (because they would suck and not be competent. Their words...)
> ...



Well I think now you are hitting on the real reason for removing racial ASI, but maybe not in the way you think. The issue for many people is not "oh no I can't play a suboptimal character," frankly very few people truly min-max their characters to the fullest degree. The issue is that if someone does decide to play an Elven swordsman, some people seem to think "Ah that's cute! Tremendous roleplaying! (It's funny though because he'll never be as good as a _real_ swordsman." I really don't know how to describe that kind of attitude other than fantasy racism. I mean it's literally saying that someone will always be worse at a job than other races, simply because of their heritage. Obviously being racist against fictional races isn't the same as being racist in real life, but it's pretty obvious why many people have been pushing D&D to move away from that kind of design.


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## DEFCON 1 (Aug 28, 2022)

And as we've talked about before... a bonus +1 to a racial PC stat in _no way_ denotes what kind of a person you are.  You can't say "All dwarves are tough!" and then create a dwarf PC with a CON 9 (stat buy 8 + the bonus +1 from a supposed racial bonus).  That mechanical +1 in no way accomplishes the narrative ideal the statement "All dwarves are tough" was going for.  So there's no point in even giving in to the illusion that it does.  Which is why WotC has removed racial bonuses to races.

If a person wants the idea that 7' goliaths should be stronger than 3' halflings just by their size if nothing else... they ONLY way to accomplish that mechanically would be to like set Goliath STR minimums at like 14 and Halfling STR maximums at like 8, so there's never any Halfling that is stronger than a Goliath.  But how many people would actually go for that kind of rule if THAT was put in the game?

And you know what's even stupider about a rule like that?  Even if the game DID put in a rule that that said Goliaths *must* have a minimum STR of 14 and Halflings a maximum STR of 8... that's only 3 modifier points of difference!  Which means you're STILL going to have contested STR checks where the Halfling in going to best the Goliath in strength more than a third of the time!  And thus your whole narrative ideal of "all goliaths are stronger than halflings based on sheer size alone!" gets completely stomped in the mud AGAIN.  So attempting to use game mechanics to reflect a narrative ideal fails miserably once more.

This is another one of those times where attempts at modeling any sort of "reality" in D&D are ignored in the rules in order to make the _game_ fun.  The game wants and needs the mechanics to be more equitable for the most amount of players.  And that means yes, we can and will have clumsy elves, brilliant orcs, sickly dwarves, and strapping halflings.  So be it.  And if an individual DM doesn't want that for their campaign world... they can set up their own rules for their players to make it happen, rather than demand WotC to do it for them.


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## Ixal (Aug 28, 2022)

DEFCON 1 said:


> And as we've talked about before... a bonus +1 to a racial PC stat in _no way_ denotes what kind of a person you are.  You can't say "All dwarves are tough!" and then create a dwarf PC with a CON 9 (stat buy 8 + the bonus +1 from a supposed racial bonus).  That mechanical +1 in no way accomplishes the narrative ideal the statement "All dwarves are tough" was going for.  So there's no point in even giving in to the illusion that it does.  Which is why WotC has removed racial bonuses to races.



Wrong, because compared to the CON 8 notdwarf the dwarf is though.


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## d24454_modern (Aug 28, 2022)

Blue said:


> 13th Age made gave both racial flavor but also removed sub-optimal choices where what the race didn't match up with any of the ability scores the class needed, allowing playing any race/class combo without penalty.  Tasha's eventually did something to meet that goal for 5e a good number of years later, but did it by giving up the racial flavor aspect while 13th Age did both.



Exactly. It made race/class combos pointless. There’s really a point in having them anymore.


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## Blue (Aug 28, 2022)

d24454_modern said:


> Exactly. It made race/class combos pointless. There’s really a point in having them anymore.



I'm not sure which direction your point is facing.

Personally, my direction is "I enjoy that I am no longer limited in picking froma  particular set of races for each class so as not to nerf my character and instead have the freedom to pick from the full list of races for any class".  I remember back with AD&D and AD&D 2nd when you just were not allowed to play certain combos, like dwarven wizards, and it was a drag.


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## DEFCON 1 (Aug 28, 2022)

Ixal said:


> Wrong, because compared to the CON 8 notdwarf the dwarf is though.



So you just wants "averages".  The "average" dwarf is tougher than the "average" nondwarf.  Well guess what?  PCs aren't average.  You want the "average" dwarf, you go to the Monster Manual where the book can present thousands more "average" dwarves with a simple statblock than the dwarves we get from the Player's Handbook.  Cause if the dwarf statblock has their CON set at 12 and the human commoner at 10... pretty sure most people would be fine with that.  So let's let the MM do the dirty work and stop demanding the character creation rules attempt to do it but fail miserably.


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## d24454_modern (Aug 28, 2022)

Blue said:


> I'm not sure which direction your point is facing.
> 
> Personally, my direction is "I enjoy that I am no longer limited in picking froma  particular set of races for each class so as not to nerf my character and instead have the freedom to pick from the full list of races for any class".  I remember back with AD&D and AD&D 2nd when you just were not allowed to play certain combos, like dwarven wizards, and it was a drag.



Then where’s the fun in playing a Sorcerer Orc if it plays exactly the same as every other Sorcerer.


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## Ixal (Aug 28, 2022)

DEFCON 1 said:


> So you just wants "averages".  The "average" dwarf is tougher than the "average" nondwarf.  Well guess what?  PCs aren't average.  You want the "average" dwarf, you go to the Monster Manual where the book can present thousands more "average" dwarves with a simple statblock than the dwarves we get from the Player's Handbook.  Cause if the dwarf statblock has their CON set at 12 and the human commoner at 10... pretty sure most people would be fine with that.  So let's let the MM do the dirty work and stop demanding the character creation rules attempt to do it but fail miserably.



Yet the PC dwarf is still a dwarf, hence begin tougher than a PC elf (with the same specialization). Because dwarf.


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## DEFCON 1 (Aug 28, 2022)

Ixal said:


> Yet the PC dwarf is still a dwarf, hence begin tougher than a PC elf. Because dwarf.



And yet you can have a PC dwarf with a 9 CON and an elf with a 15 CON.  Because game mechanics.


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## Yaarel (Aug 28, 2022)

d24454_modern said:


> Then where’s the fun in playing a Sorcerer Orc if it plays exactly the same as every other Sorcerer.



Because the Orc invites flavors. The Sorcerer invites flavors.

The combination of flavors and how these flavors can work together create an interesting character concept. The past backstory and the future ambition are fun.


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## Ixal (Aug 28, 2022)

DEFCON 1 said:


> And yet you can have a PC dwarf with a 9 CON and an elf with a 15 CON.  Because game mechanics.



And? Intense training can overcome biological averages especially when you compare a trained and untrained person.
Yet the difference would be even bigger when comparing two dwarves or a human and that elf.


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## DEFCON 1 (Aug 28, 2022)

Ixal said:


> And? Intense training can overcome biological averages especially when you compare a trained and untrained person.
> Yet the difference would be even bigger when comparing two dwarves or a human and that elf.



Great!  And thus we can assume that all PCs have had intense training that has overcome biological averages... and this is represented in-game as not needing to have ability modifier bonuses on races!  WotC got it right!


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## Ixal (Aug 28, 2022)

DEFCON 1 said:


> Great!  And thus we can assume that all PCs have had intense training that has overcome biological averages... and this is represented in-game as not needing to have ability modifier bonuses on races!  WotC got it right!



Wrong, because now you do not deal with averages but racial maximums. An elf CON 15 vs. a dwarf CON 16 because of biology.
No way how you turn it and how trained or not trained someone is, biology has an influence.


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## Charlaquin (Aug 28, 2022)

d24454_modern said:


> Then where’s the fun in playing a Sorcerer Orc if it plays exactly the same as every other Sorcerer.



It oughtn’t, because not every other sorcerer can gain temp HP and move up to their speed as a bonus action a couple times per day, or remain at 1 HP when they would be knocked to 0 once per day, or carry twice as much as usual for their size. All of those make tremendously more gameplay difference than an extra +1 to a few d20 rolls.


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## d24454_modern (Aug 28, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> Because the Orc invites flavors. The Sorcerer invites flavors.
> 
> The combination of flavors and how these flavors can work together create an interesting character concept. The past backstory and the future ambition are fun.



Flavor is created by limitations; not freedom.

It’s the fact that’s “sub-optimal” that incentives people to play differently than they otherwise would’ve.

By removing that, you make it the gameplay equivalent of shaved ice.


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## d24454_modern (Aug 28, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> Because the Orc invites flavors. The Sorcerer invites flavors.
> 
> The combination of flavors and how these flavors can work together create an interesting character concept. The past backstory and the future ambition are fun.



Flavor is created by limitations; not freedom.

It’s the fact that’s “sub-optimal” that incentives people to play differently than they otherwise would’ve.

By removing that, you make it the gameplay equivalent of shaved ice.


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## Charlaquin (Aug 28, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> It oughtn’t, because not every other sorcerer can gain temp HP and move up to their speed as a bonus action a couple times per day, or remain at 1 HP when they would be knocked to 0 once per day, or carry twice as much as usual for their size. All of those make tremendously more gameplay difference than an extra +1 to a few d20 rolls.



And on this note, why insist that the biological differences be expressed via ability scores? A dwarf _will_ always be tougher than an elf regardless of Con score because the dwarf has more HP for its Con and resistance to poison, and the elf does not.


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## DEFCON 1 (Aug 28, 2022)

Ixal said:


> Wrong, because now you do not deal with averages but racial maximums. An elf CON 15 vs. a dwarf CON 16 because of biology.
> No way how you turn it and how trained or not trained someone is, biology has an influence.



Okay, well, if that how you feel I guess you'll just have to put that biology in your own game from now on cause WotC isn't going to do it for you... unless the surveys they get say otherwise.  Who knows?  Maybe there are enough people who see things like you do and WotC changes their mind?


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## Branduil (Aug 28, 2022)

d24454_modern said:


> Then where’s the fun in playing a Sorcerer Orc if it plays exactly the same as every other Sorcerer.



Can you explain to me the fun of playing the exact same Sorcerer Orc, but with a -1 penalty every time he rolls?


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## Yaarel (Aug 28, 2022)

d24454_modern said:


> Flavor is created by limitations; not freedom.



Each player can decide what the limitations need to be for ones own character concept. This is part of assigning a low score or narrating a flaw.


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## Yaarel (Aug 28, 2022)

Ixal said:


> And? Intense training can overcome biological averages especially when you compare a trained and untrained person.
> Yet the difference would be even bigger when comparing two dwarves or a human and that elf.



Yawn. A +1 improvement is a boring way to stat a race. Besides being seriously problematic.


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## Sir Brennen (Aug 28, 2022)

I thought this thread was about adding the bonus to Class vs. Background?

The dead horse of "Keep it as part of Race" has been beaten so thoroughly in other threads it's just pâté now.

And you know what? IT'S NOT HAPPENING. Move on.

The Class vs. Background (vs. other options, like free-floating or baked into the Point Buy/Standard array) are at least interesting possibilities to discuss and could still engender changes based on playtest feedback.


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## Ixal (Aug 28, 2022)

Yaarel said:


> Yawn. A +1 improvement is a boring way to stat a race. Besides being seriously problematic.



A made up race being different than a other made up race is hardly problematic. Rather based ho how species work thats to be expected.



Branduil said:


> Can you explain to me the fun of playing the exact same Sorcerer Orc, but with a -1 penalty every time he rolls?




Thinking that not having the maximum possible value being a penalty is a minmaxer mindest WotC should not promote.


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## Yaarel (Aug 28, 2022)

Ixal said:


> A made up race being different than a other made up race is hardly problematic. Rather based ho how species work thats to be expected.
> 
> Thinking that not having the maximum possible value being a penalty is a minmaxer mindest WotC should not promote.



In 5e and 4e, and maybe in 3e: race = species.

But in 1e and in inspirations like Tolkein, race really was racism.

Gygax, Tolkien, and others reimagined the spirits from various reallife folkbeliefs as if exotic human "races" − in the sense of low-magic human ethnicities.

For example, Gygax uses the word "race" to mean both the elf, and the Suloise human ethnicity. The fixation on the violet or amber eyecolor of a grey elf is no different from a reallife racist fixation on blue or brown eyecolor. Likewise hair color and skin color.

Shifting racism from reallife human traits like blue/brown eyes to fantasy traits like violet/amber eyes, seems a useful tactic to subvert reallife racism, and is arguably beneficial for that era. But that racist way of thinking doesnt age well today. It feels highly problematic. Ick. The racists of that era actually believed certain human ethnicities were slightly higher Intelligence or slightly higher Strength. The racism is both scientifically incorrect and ethically unjust.

Other novelists that indirectly inspired D&D were even more overtly racist.

The D&D term "race" came from reallife racist baggage, even when 5e does intellectual somersaults to reinvent its meaning for today.

I dont want my game to continually parrot reallife racist ways of thinking.




The best way to stat a fantasy race species, is to assign it clearly nonhuman traits, like wings or the ability to teleport.


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## Blue (Aug 28, 2022)

d24454_modern said:


> Then where’s the fun in playing a Sorcerer Orc if it plays exactly the same as every other Sorcerer.



What would make you think an orc sorcerer would play like every other sorcerer?

Now, Orc isn't one of the 13th Age classes, but I already gave the example wizard with a dwarf wizard having +2 INT (class) +2 CON (racial) and a halfling wizard having +2 INT (class) and +2 DEX (racial).

Also, the Orc racial abilities would be very different than another race's special abilities.  (And in 13th Age the races are given more design weight than in 5e, so that choice is more important in the first place.)

But really, I already explained the racial stat differences in what I was suggesting and if you have every played D&D you know about racial features, so I can't actually fathom how you could come up with your statement.  Of course race X will play differently than race Y, even with the same class.


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## doctorbadwolf (Aug 28, 2022)

delericho said:


> Indeed. Probably best to leave it at that.



For sure. There are enough intractable forever arguments around here as it is!


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## Sabathius42 (Aug 28, 2022)

DEFCON 1 said:


> None of these books should be written to save players from themselves.
> 
> If a player chooses not to read the Player's Handbook about character creation and chooses a Background from the pre-rendered list without reading the section and realizing their first option was to make their own... _and then_ gets pissy after the fact that the Background they chose had two ASIs in abilities they didn't want and could have in fact had them on two abilities of their choosing but they just didn't realize it... that's on them.
> 
> WotC has enough stuff to put in these books without having to spend paragraph and after paragraph and bolded header after bolded header waving their arms to say "HEY!  HEY YOU!  READ THIS!  THIS IS IMPORTANT!"  It's a rulebook.  The entire thing is important.  If you don't read it... don't complain when you make mistakes.



I'm just speaking real world experience.  I printed it out and had a few minutes on break at work to read it.  I didn't start novel style, but instead flipped through the pages reading some bits that caught my eye.  I stopped at the sample backgrounds (because it takes up a lot of room in the packet just to show examples) and thought it was dumb that they still has set modifiers in the game, only now moved to a different place.

In between glancing and reading from front to back I saw at ENworld people discussing the actual background system and realized it wasn't really "fixed but movable" and instead "assignable".

That said, and after pondering a bit, I think it's poor design overall to have the stat mods moved to the Background portion of character creation.  If it's truly assignable it should be placed directly after the section on how to determine your stats (rolling, point buy, etc).


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## Sabathius42 (Aug 28, 2022)

Ixal said:


> Its still relevant because, ideally, you are still playing a member of that race and thus are affected by the attributes of said race no matter how relevant or irrelevant they are to your class.
> 
> And yet D&D basically invented the dexterous elf.
> And no its not a win for D&D but a huge loss. You lose history, you lose the flavor of different races and you lose the role in role playing because this change signals that WotC is now considering roll playing the default, playing optimized combat stats. Because there is no other reason (except for a minority who think fantasy elves being different from humans is racism) to have floating ability scores except to minmax your combat power and many people on this board have in the end advocated for floating ASI because "it will allow them play different race/class combinations" as for them playing something not optimized is unthinkable (because they would suck and not be competent. Their words...)
> ...



I'm pretty sure in 2e you could find an elf with a bonus to any of the 6 stats, so the idea that one particular stat helps define a race seems to have flown out the window long ago.

How about we just divorce the stat bonus from everything and let each player decide if they want to model nature, nurture, training, magic, or pure chaos in their character.


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## Charlaquin (Aug 29, 2022)

Sabathius42 said:


> That said, and after pondering a bit, I think it's poor design overall to have the stat mods moved to the Background portion of character creation.  If it's truly assignable it should be placed directly after the section on how to determine your stats (rolling, point buy, etc).



The problem with this, is it precludes the option to just pick a preset and go, which many players want to be able to do.


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## Sabathius42 (Aug 29, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> The problem with this, is it precludes the option to just pick a preset and go, which many players want to be able to do.



I'd say it would be more useful for new players to have a preset array of all six stats (including the floating bits added in) by class than it would be to have them assigning base numbers blindly and THEN have guidance on where to put the little nudges afterwards.


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## CubicsRube (Aug 29, 2022)

I apologise for inciting the race issue in this thread. I should have known better.

I for one enjoy the idea of ASIs to background. I'm not trying to make a political or moral statement with my games, I just want to make a fun story.

And to me, I find the fun story to come from the wizard in the party who is strong because they grew up a farm hand. Or a fighter that is intelligent because they used to be an apprentice sage.


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## Sorcerers Apprentice (Aug 29, 2022)

CubicsRube said:


> No it's not the most logical. It's the nature vs nurture debate that hasn't been fully solved in the real world. Perhaps if you have some scret knowledge of this you should share it with the scientific community.



Nature vs nurture used to be pretty simple in D&D
Nature: Stat bonus from race
Nurture: how the player assigns the stat array/stat points/rolled stats.

Now that stat bonuses come from backgrounds I guess its all nurture.


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## DragonBelow (Aug 29, 2022)

I think you missed the part where they said the backgrounds provided are just examples, and they tell you exactly how to create your own. So you can improve whatever stats you want, and get proficiencies in the skills you want, etc.


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