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Originally Posted by SaurianDruid
Originally Posted by spectralhunter
Not trying to be argumentative but why does it have to be a level playing field? Why can't some races outperform in certain areas? For instance, let's use the orc wizard as an example. I assume people roll an orc wizard mainly to roleplay since the orc (I think) racial traits are not that useful to a wizard. People roleplay orcs because of the potential conflicts that may arise. If that's the core reason, why the need to min max our stats? An 18 vs 20 is a minor difference after a couple of ASIs but it seems like everyone needs that 20.

People tend to follow RAW if they can. That way if you happen to play in a different table, you don't have to concern yourself with a bunch of homebrew. It allows the game to be consistent. So yes, I agree, you don't need permission but it's better if the official rules were followed by all.

Because fundamentally being worse than the rest of your party doesn't feel good.

People may roll an orc wizard for a variety of reasons. Some might do it for the racials (Savage Attacks isn't useful, but a wizard can still get great mileage out of Restless Endurance in a pinch) while others might just really like the aesthetic of a burly half-orc in wizard robes. Others might just want the novelty or to roleplay a character who, while competent in the field (has 16 INT), isn't respected by their peers because of racial bias. Or heck, maybe they just LOVE half-orcs as a race and really want to try wizard out.

What Tasha's rule does is allow the player to not be penalized for choosing flavor over mechanical strength. Or at least not punished as harshly. Being 5% more likely to fail at casting spells as a wizard is generally not good. It is why you almost never see a human or gnome wizard who sets their INT at 14 and feels this is fine. You always want your character's primary stat as high as it can be so you can succeed your important rolls as much as possible.

There's also the point that some campaigns are harder than others and some groups emphasize min-maxing more than most. In BG3 terms there are different difficulty settings, and maybe I want to play a half-orc wizard on a higher difficulty without turning it into an exercise in masochism.

Meanwhile if I DID want to be masochistic... I can always just not invest in my INT attribute when assigning my attribute points.

As I've said a few times now, all Tasha's rule does is add more options to character creation so that we can all make the sort of character we want without handicapping ourselves in the process.

All your reasons seem to support min maxing and mechanical meta gaming and relegating roleplaying as a secondary goal. Again, I am not disparaging it but that's what I see. If roleplay was the main goal, the player would be willing to play a sub-optimal character. Aren't people always suggesting that our characters have some flaws to create struggles so that their achievements are magnified? Seems people want their cake and eat it too.

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Originally Posted by spectralhunter
This has always been my thought as well. I never considered races in D&D as analogs of real world races and physical limitations and advantages seemed logical to me. People demand and seek immersion but it's jarring to me that a halfling with strength 20 can lift and carry the same as a half orc with strength 20. But clearly I am in the minority here.
It is a bit unrealistic, but what is the solution? Should halflings be limited to a maximum strength of 16 or 18? Or be allowed to have STR 20, but have disadvantage on all STR checks (including str-based weapon attacks)?

These changes would make the races more 'realistic', but they come at a high cost for player options.

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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
Originally Posted by spectralhunter
This has always been my thought as well. I never considered races in D&D as analogs of real world races and physical limitations and advantages seemed logical to me. People demand and seek immersion but it's jarring to me that a halfling with strength 20 can lift and carry the same as a half orc with strength 20. But clearly I am in the minority here.
It is a bit unrealistic, but what is the solution? Should halflings be limited to a maximum strength of 16 or 18? Or be allowed to have STR 20, but have disadvantage on all STR checks (including str-based weapon attacks)?

These changes would make the races more 'realistic', but they come at a high cost for player options.
A sacrifice that I personally, am perfectly fine with making.

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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
Originally Posted by spectralhunter
This has always been my thought as well. I never considered races in D&D as analogs of real world races and physical limitations and advantages seemed logical to me. People demand and seek immersion but it's jarring to me that a halfling with strength 20 can lift and carry the same as a half orc with strength 20. But clearly I am in the minority here.
It is a bit unrealistic, but what is the solution? Should halflings be limited to a maximum strength of 16 or 18? Or be allowed to have STR 20, but have disadvantage on all STR checks (including str-based weapon attacks)?

These changes would make the races more 'realistic', but they come at a high cost for player options.

The answer is yes. There should be limits. If people seek immersion then the answer is yes. If people want to min max at the expense of immersion then the answer is no. The choice really comes down to what the player really wants.

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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
It is a bit unrealistic, but what is the solution? Should halflings be limited to a maximum strength of 16 or 18? Or be allowed to have STR 20, but have disadvantage on all STR checks (including str-based weapon attacks)?

These changes would make the races more 'realistic', but they come at a high cost for player options.

Older editions had a lot more pro/cons going on for smaller characters. Smaller characters got bonuses to dodge AC and other benefits, while also having penalties to other things like lifting, carrying, or even what weapons or armour you were allowed to wear. weapons used to have sizes, and unless you invested your feats into doing so, a Halfling or Gnome could never properly wield a large weapon.

But it was easier in the older editions to make dud characters that were just very bad, by not allocating your skill points right, or not taking the feats in the right order *cough*FuckingWeaponmaster*cough* or just by picking the wrong race/class combination it was very easy to make a dud character. I can understand WOtC trying to implement a system where this happens less, because it is very frustrating to build a character up and then realise that you did it wrong by mistake, or that Harper Agent is a shitty prestige class and you should have gone with the Bard/Duelist/Weaponmaster combo instead I'm not projecting at all.

I've never been a fan of hardcore immersion ultra hard survival realism simulator. I like fantasy. I've said before i don't hate the tasha's ASI rules, I can see why people would use them, but I probably won't. And if lots of people like them then its fine if they are added to the game, as long as I can have an opt out option.

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Originally Posted by Sharp
Originally Posted by mrfuji3
It is a bit unrealistic, but what is the solution? Should halflings be limited to a maximum strength of 16 or 18? Or be allowed to have STR 20, but have disadvantage on all STR checks (including str-based weapon attacks)?

These changes would make the races more 'realistic', but they come at a high cost for player options.
A sacrifice that I personally, am perfectly fine with making.
Originally Posted by spectralhunter
The answer is yes. There should be limits. If people seek immersion then the answer is yes. If people want to min max at the expense of immersion then the answer is no. The choice really comes down to what the player really wants.
Okay. Good luck changing the details about every single race--their max scores, what abilities have disadvantage vs advantage, etc--AND keeping things balanced. I don't agree that this "increased immersion" is worth the reduction in simplicity and character flexibility.

Originally Posted by Piff
Older editions had a lot more pro/cons going on for smaller characters. Smaller characters got bonuses to dodge AC and other benefits, while also having penalties to other things like lifting, carrying, or even what weapons or armour you were allowed to wear. weapons used to have sizes, and unless you invested your feats into doing so, a Halfling or Gnome could never properly wield a large weapon. ...
Important here is "pros/cons." I'd be more fine with restricting halfling strength if they also got some bonus, like dodge bonus to AC you mentioned. But, currently, D&d 5e does not have those bonuses, so you can't just slap on a strength penalty to halflings/gnomes/etc (Hafling nimbleness doesn't count because it's a trait specific to Halflings, not all Small Creatures). Which brings me back to my previous point: currently halflings can achieve a STR score of 20, the exact same max as other characters. Thus, they should be allowed to start with STR 16.

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Let me add that I'd be perfectly fine with this
Originally Posted by Scribe
Within my own alternative character generation method, I dont even have the ASI completely tied to race. I have it broken down as.

Lineage +1 ASI (depending on Lineage, so no you cannot put your Halfling +1 in Str)
Background + 1 ASI (each Background provides 2 or more options for an Attribute to be increased per my own assumptions)
Class + 1 ASI (each Class provides an ASI increase to 1 of 3 Attributes.

No Attribute may be increased by more than 2.

That way, you get to have your Halfling with +2/+1 however you like, but only because your whole character builds up to that combination.
Your race gets you a small bonus to a stat.
Then your background gets you a bonus (my halfling was experimented similar to Captain America, gaining it +1 Str)
Then your class (representing training)

This is a good balance of preserving difference between races but allowing flexibility of backgrounds/classes/roleplaying/etc.

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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
Let me add that I'd be perfectly fine with this
Originally Posted by Scribe
Within my own alternative character generation method, I dont even have the ASI completely tied to race. I have it broken down as.

Lineage +1 ASI (depending on Lineage, so no you cannot put your Halfling +1 in Str)
Background + 1 ASI (each Background provides 2 or more options for an Attribute to be increased per my own assumptions)
Class + 1 ASI (each Class provides an ASI increase to 1 of 3 Attributes.

No Attribute may be increased by more than 2.

That way, you get to have your Halfling with +2/+1 however you like, but only because your whole character builds up to that combination.
Your race gets you a small bonus to a stat.
Then your background gets you a bonus (my halfling was experimented similar to Captain America, gaining it +1 Str)
Then your class (representing training)

This is a good balance of preserving difference between races but allowing flexibility of backgrounds/classes/roleplaying/etc.

Yeah, I've yet to see a system that is a better compromise.

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Originally Posted by Scribe
(...)

Within my own alternative character generation method, I dont even have the ASI completely tied to race. I have it broken down as.

Lineage +1 ASI (depending on Lineage, so no you cannot put your Halfling +1 in Str)
Background + 1 ASI (each Background provides 2 or more options for an Attribute to be increased per my own assumptions)
Class + 1 ASI (each Class provides an ASI increase to 1 of 3 Attributes.

No Attribute may be increased by more than 2.

That way, you get to have your Halfling with +2/+1 however you like, but only because your whole character builds up to that combination.
Nice ! I like it. It is similar to my little tweak/moderation (you can have 16 in main Ability instead of 15 for some Race-Class combo), but more tied to the character's background or concept.
Wish WotC had proposed something that cool for Race-Class instead in Tasha's Cauldron.

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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
Okay. Good luck changing the details about every single race--their max scores, what abilities have disadvantage vs advantage, etc--AND keeping things balanced. I don't agree that this "increased immersion" is worth the reduction in simplicity and character flexibility.
Here is where you make a false assumption about me. I simply do not care whether or not the mechanics are balanced. I care about immersion. Look outside the window at the real world and ask yourself if it is balanced or not. I think it takes less than a second to answer that question and the answer is no it isn't. I care far more about simulating an immersive environment than about creating a balanced environment, hence why I am willing to throw things out of the window if they don't make sense, regardless of how it impacts the balance of the game. If someone ends up picking something that sucks and then struggles as a result of it, well, thats life! I have certainly done that on many occasions and in the long term, those were actually some of my most memorable experiences. You don't remember the times when everything was easy, you remember the times where you struggled through something and then came out at the other side.

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Originally Posted by Sharp
Originally Posted by mrfuji3
Okay. Good luck changing the details about every single race--their max scores, what abilities have disadvantage vs advantage, etc--AND keeping things balanced. I don't agree that this "increased immersion" is worth the reduction in simplicity and character flexibility.
Here is where you make a false assumption about me. I simply do not care whether or not the mechanics are balanced. I care about immersion. Look outside the window at the real world and ask yourself if it is balanced or not. I think it takes less than a second to answer that question and the answer is no it isn't. I care far more about simulating an immersive environment than about creating a balanced environment, hence why I am willing to throw things out of the window if they don't make sense, regardless of how it impacts the balance of the game. If someone ends up picking something that sucks and then struggles as a result of it, well, thats life! I have certainly done that on many occasions and in the long term, those were actually some of my most memorable experiences. You don't remember the times when everything was easy, you remember the times where you struggled through something and then came out at the other side.

Agreed.

Some of the most fun stories are where the character overcomes their struggles in spite of their flaws and inherent weaknesses.

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Immersion can be part of it but the ASIs can break immersion. Maybe I want to play a completely ugly and unable to be convincing tiefling. Therefore I would want a negative in charisma to match but that +2 to charisma stops me from having the negative I desire. Tieflings are considered innately charismatic but I want to play one that isn't, or a person might want to play a weak orc, or dumb gnome. Races in dnd, while being more like species, also have variance like humans where they can have different strengths and weaknesses. ASIs reflect the average member, but most people are not playing average characters. If I go back, the +2 will always make him average at being convincing, the gnome will always be average intelligence, and the orc will always be average strength even if they shouldn't. The loss of variance by locking ASIs is immersion breaking for me and locks off character concepts matching in RP and mechanics.

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Reading the many updates in this thread, I thought I would chime in with a couple of considerations. So here are my 3 pennies.


1) Roleplay vs Power-gaming.

When there is disagreement downstream, the source of it is sometimes rooted in the definitions. So I'll spell out mine explicitly.

Roleplay is about treating the character as its own person, with their story and evolution within the adventure and fictional world. In particular, making the character act in-character, and not according to the mood or knowledge of the player. Power-gaming is about making the character mechanically good, especially at doing what their class is supposed to be doing. This usually implies starting with 16+ on your main Ability Score. Min-maxing is a particular case of power-gaming, where one boosts all the useful Ability Scores and dumps the others.

By these definitions, roleplaying and power-gaming are independent. One can engage in neither, one but not the other, or both.

Originally Posted by Ixal
Originally Posted by mrfuji3
Doesn't this help both power-gaming and role-playing? If I wanted to play a goblin shaman (druid), roleplaying how I became disillusioned with goblin society, realizing that goblins that are out of balance with the world, VGtM Goblins (+2 Dex, +1 Con) punishes this. Like, okay, I could play with 14 Wis. But that will just make me less mechanically effective in game which will be less fun.
Thats pure power gaming. A role player would not care that his goblin shaman would only have 14 Wis. Rather he would see this as part of his character and role.
Originally Posted by Ixal
So no, it doesn't improve role playing at all. It just allows powergamers to pretend that they are role playing.

The No True Scotman vibe is strong in these statements.


2) Statistics and essentialism.

The racial Ability Score Increases/Bonuses are there to reflect the statistical differences between the DnD races.

And it seems to me that some of the views on what is an acceptable level-1 adventurer of a given race might, perhaps, stem from falling in a statistical trap.

If a set of numbers has a higher average than a second set of numbers, that does not mean that every number from the first set is higher than every number in the second set. For example, we know that human males are on average taller than females, by about 13cm. Yet everybody has already seen a woman taller than at least some men. This can carry over to the top of the distribution : a random woman in the top 5% of the tallest women can be taller than a random man in the top 5% of the tallest men.

Now, let's look at DnD.

a) From a mechanical point of view :

If players roll for their Ability Scores, it is completely possible for an Elf to start with 16, 17 or even 18 Strength.
Originally Posted by Scribe
A halfling with 16 or 17 Str at level 1, is simply flawed to me.
The rules, as written, say it is fine.

(Naturally, this example is not possible with Point-Buy. There is a risk with Roll : you can start with a weak character (and weaker than the rest of your group). Some people are fine with it, but many people don't like having a couple of bad rolls penalising them for the next 6 months. The Point-Buy system addresses this risk, as you reduce the variance to 0, but it bars you from starting with some of the most exceptional adventurers. If you want to play with an 18-Strength Human Fighter at level 1, you have to be lucky. It's a peculiar design philosophy, and a very poor choice in my opinion, since it goes against the idea of "play the character you want to play", but that's another topic.)

b) From a thematic/lore point of view :

The racial ASI make it so that, if you were to roll many Elves and many Half-Orcs, without permutation of the scores, you would find the Half-Orcs to have more Strength than the Elves, on average, while the latter would have more Dexterity than the former, on average. These sets would be reflective of the lore, the statistical differences between races, and the racial stereotypes that accurately stem from them (Half-Orcs are strong, Elves are agile). But the adventurers we play are exceptional, they are in the top of the statistical distribution for whatever race, class or skills they have. Also, the adventurers are not large sets. They are just a few points from their population.

It is thus completely possible to have a party with a 17-Strength Elf Barbarian and a 16-Strength Half-Orc Paladin. The former is statistically more exceptional than the latter (say, the 17-Strength Elf might be in the 1% strongest Elves, while the 16-Str Half-Orc might be in the 3% strongest Half-Orcs but not the top 2%), but that's fine. Not every adventurer is reflective of their whole race. Not every pair of adventurer in a party is reflective of the statistical differences between the races. That's just how probabilities and statistics work. And there is good roleplaying to be had with characters that are walking stereotypes, just as there is good roleplaying to be had by going against stereotype.

Originally Posted by Ixal
No, if you want to roleplay you will roleplay a goblin with all its advantages and disadvantages because that makes him a goblin. He is incredibly wise for his people, which is also what makes him PC material exceptional, but he can't match a wise human (yet he is still more wise than 90% of humans he will meet and certainly more wise than nearly all goblins).
Originally Posted by Scribe
A Halfling PC, should never be as strong as Half Orc or Goliath, at level 1, when both focus on Strength. It simply shouldnt.

The more I think of it, the more I think people should not have a problem with the Custom Origin rule, but with the Point-Buy rule.

Now, if a group wants to turn the stereotypes into hard-rules-of-the-universe, with every (adventurer, Strength-focused) Half-Orc being stronger than every (adventurer, Strength-focused) Elf, they can. If a group wants to put a cap at 15 for the Strength of level 1 Elf (regardless of age, years of training, and backstory), they can. That's leaning into essentialism, and is not a great thing, but hey, to each group their play. The PHB rules do not support this, but that's not problem : many GMs do not play in the official DnD settings after all.


3) Lore implications.

Fundamentally, what the new Custom Origins rule does is allowing the players to create a statistically rarer character, which Point-Buy does not allow, without having to Roll for ages (which BG3 will likely allow us to do) or hope to be super lucky (on tabletop).

It does not mean that the racial statistical differences no longer exist in the Forgotten Realms. It just makes it easier to break away from the stereotypes.

Originally Posted by Scribe
And what happens when some race provides no meaningful benefit to being a fighter, while Half-Orcs are over there with their purely racial benefits? Do we ask that they lose those, or do we turn them into feats so that all races have the same potential?

When does it simply become 'forget about different races'.

That sounds like a Slippery Slope. I think that races like Dragonborn have very particular racial traits (the breath weapon). So it doesn't sound likely that Custom Origins will eventually lead the complete homogenisation of races.

To be honest, I don't know what WotC plans to do with the rules and the lore. But I wouldn't mind if they re-worked the rules to better separate race from culture (so you wouldn't have Elven Weapon Training tied to being an Elf, but to growing up in an Elven society). Again, so that very conceivable roleplay concepts could be implemented within the official rules.

Originally Posted by Scribe
In the end, I anticipate race limited ASI will be seen as socially unacceptable and removed, so it is what it is.

I wouldn't bet money on it, but I'm no Diviner. I think that the racial ASI and the character creation rules in general should just give prompts, like the personality tables, for new players who don't know the lore and don't mind creating a cliché. There are ways to give these prompts and suggest statistical racial differences in the lore without closing doors for Player Characters. Custom Origins might lose a bit on the "prompt" aspect, but it does open the doors.


Back to Custom Origins in BG3.

As I said, I doubt Larian will add the races and (sub)classes from other books (DMG, VGtM, SCAG, XGtE, TCoE, ...), as they can keep this for expansions.

But the Custom Origins rule from TCoE is a good idea, and Larian will hopefully add it. It might even have been on their roadmap from the start. And WotC is quite keen on making DnD be for everyone, so even if Larian wasn't naturally planning on adding Custom Origins, WotC might actually request this.



PS1 : I took as example the Strength difference between the Elves and the Half-Orcs. I could have taken the Halflings and Firbolgs. This however brings in a new factor : size. 5E has some rules related to it, but if mechanical realism is the goal, one can consider that 5E doesn't factor that in enough. Why not. One can however replace my examples with the Wisdom of a Hill Dwarf and a Goblin, or the Intelligence of a High-Elf and a Half-Orc, etc.


PS2 : That thread got me into thinking that Point-Buy really isn't great, and come up with the following variant, which sounds better.
- Ability Scores are limited to 17 (or 18), at level 1 (after character creation).
- Start with M Ability Points in each Ability (say M=8, like in the PHB), as well as N Purchase Points (to be determined). Buying one Ability Point costs one Purchase Point, up until 15, then 2 PP until 17, then 3 PP for the 18th AP (if made available).
- Apply vanilla Ability Score Improvements after purchase.
This still includes the racial ASI in the creation of an adventurer (which is perhaps questionable), but there are no locked options. The racial ASI only gives you more savings if you max the incentivised Abilities.
(Yes, this allows for guaranteed 18 at level 1. If it's possible to obtain out of luck, why not just say it's possible. The game's difficulty can be maintained by giving all enemies +1 to AC, ST and DC, or putting more of them, if maintaining that difficulty is felt necessary.)

Scribe's system has the advantage that 2 of the 3 Bonus Ability Points come from the character's backstory (Class training and Background), and thus allows players to focus on how the character came to be as good as they are, instead of what they are and how statistically exceptional that is within the distributions for their race.

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Originally Posted by Drath Malorn
Reading the many updates in this thread, I thought I would chime in with a couple of considerations. So here are my 3 pennies.


1) Roleplay vs Power-gaming.

When there is disagreement downstream, the source of it is sometimes rooted in the definitions. So I'll spell out mine explicitly.

Roleplay is about treating the character as its own person, with their story and evolution within the adventure and fictional world. In particular, making the character act in-character, and not according to the mood or knowledge of the player. Power-gaming is about making the character mechanically good, especially at doing what their class is supposed to be doing. This usually implies starting with 16+ on your main Ability Score. Min-maxing is a particular case of power-gaming, where one boosts all the useful Ability Scores and dumps the others.

By these definitions, roleplaying and power-gaming are independent. One can engage in neither, one but not the other, or both.

Of course. You seem to have missed that this entire tangent was derived from somebody -- I do not remember who -- saying that choseable stat advantages increased roleplaying potential. Not somebody saying that roleplaying and power gaming are antithesis.


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Originally Posted by spectralhunter
All your reasons seem to support min maxing and mechanical meta gaming and relegating roleplaying as a secondary goal. Again, I am not disparaging it but that's what I see. If roleplay was the main goal, the player would be willing to play a sub-optimal character. Aren't people always suggesting that our characters have some flaws to create struggles so that their achievements are magnified? Seems people want their cake and eat it too.

Then you aren't understanding what I am saying.

My goal is roleplaying the character I want to roleplay without making a sacrifice in their mechanical effectiveness. I will 100% play a character that isn't mechanically optimized like the Githyanki ranger that is my current avatar, but I would still much prefer to roleplay the same character without having sub-optimal stats and being fundamentally worse than if I had made a wood elf ranger.

You're basically advocating for forcing my roleplay characters to be weaker by virtue of being roleplay characters. You're enforcing a roleplay tax onto me. I want that roleplay tax removed so I can continue to play my roleplay concepts in content with higher difficulty curves without hindering the rest of my party.

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Originally Posted by SaurianDruid
Originally Posted by spectralhunter
All your reasons seem to support min maxing and mechanical meta gaming and relegating roleplaying as a secondary goal. Again, I am not disparaging it but that's what I see. If roleplay was the main goal, the player would be willing to play a sub-optimal character. Aren't people always suggesting that our characters have some flaws to create struggles so that their achievements are magnified? Seems people want their cake and eat it too.

Then you aren't understanding what I am saying.

My goal is roleplaying the character I want to roleplay without making a sacrifice in their mechanical effectiveness. I will 100% play a character that isn't mechanically optimized like the Githyanki ranger that is my current avatar, but I would still much prefer to roleplay the same character without having sub-optimal stats and being fundamentally worse than if I had made a wood elf ranger.

You're basically advocating for forcing my roleplay characters to be weaker by virtue of being roleplay characters. You're enforcing a roleplay tax onto me. I want that roleplay tax removed so I can continue to play my roleplay concepts in content with higher difficulty curves without hindering the rest of my party.

No I understand what you are saying. It's just our roleplay philosophy is different. What you see as a tax, I see as an opportunity to overcome a flaw. So in my mind, if I choose to play a sub-optimal race for a class, I do so knowing the character will be sub-optimal because to me, it fits the world and maintains my immersion as part of the world. I generally refuse to play halflings with STR 20 because it doesn't make logical sense to me. My halfling fighters will be agile and quick, looking for precision strikes. But if I for some reason choose to play a halfling who depends on his strength, then I will do so knowing he just won't be as strong as the half orc fighter in the party. I will find a way to overcome that statistical weakness.

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Originally Posted by spectralhunter
No I understand what you are saying. It's just our roleplay philosophy is different. What you see as a tax, I see as an opportunity to overcome a flaw. So in my mind, if I choose to play a sub-optimal race for a class, I do so knowing the character will be sub-optimal because to me, it fits the world and maintains my immersion as part of the world. I generally refuse to play halflings with STR 20 because it doesn't make logical sense to me. My halfling fighters will be agile and quick, looking for precision strikes. But if I for some reason choose to play a halfling who depends on his strength, then I will do so knowing he just won't be as strong as the half orc fighter in the party. I will find a way to overcome that statistical weakness.

As I've said multiple times already if I do want to play a character who is handicapped and not as good at their class as others I can already do that by simply not distributing their stats optimally. I don't need a game mechanic that forces that decision on me.

And hey, if you don't want to play a halfling fighter with 20 strength that is entirely on you. I, however, might have in mind a heroic halfling barbarian with immense, unparalleled physical strength for his kind that can grapple with half-orcs if needed. And this is not any more immersion breaking in my mind than a human barbarian wrestling a bear (19 strength) or a tiger (17 strength) or a FRICKIN' ALLOSAURUS (19 strength) or any human-sized being getting hit by a dragon and not being reduced to a mushy red paste.

Besides, DnD's mechanics are all abstractions. In the real world being swol as heck doesn't make you better at hitting enemies with a sword, but for some reason in DnD it DOES do exactly that. Having a high STR isn't just your raw muscle mass, it also covers your skill at utilizing that strength and your proficiency at wielding certain non-finesse melee weapons. Which is why it can be so frustrating. My halfling barbarian should be able to be just as skilled at wielding a longsword as a goliath even if the goliath can lift and carry significantly more weight than my halfling ever could.

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Originally Posted by SaurianDruid
Originally Posted by spectralhunter
No I understand what you are saying. It's just our roleplay philosophy is different. What you see as a tax, I see as an opportunity to overcome a flaw. So in my mind, if I choose to play a sub-optimal race for a class, I do so knowing the character will be sub-optimal because to me, it fits the world and maintains my immersion as part of the world. I generally refuse to play halflings with STR 20 because it doesn't make logical sense to me. My halfling fighters will be agile and quick, looking for precision strikes. But if I for some reason choose to play a halfling who depends on his strength, then I will do so knowing he just won't be as strong as the half orc fighter in the party. I will find a way to overcome that statistical weakness.

As I've said multiple times already if I do want to play a character who is handicapped and not as good at their class as others I can already do that by simply not distributing their stats optimally. I don't need a game mechanic that forces that decision on me.

And hey, if you don't want to play a halfling fighter with 20 strength that is entirely on you. I, however, might have in mind a heroic halfling barbarian with immense, unparalleled physical strength for his kind that can grapple with half-orcs if needed. And this is not any more immersion breaking in my mind than a human barbarian wrestling a bear (19 strength) or a tiger (17 strength) or a FRICKIN' ALLOSAURUS (19 strength) or any human-sized being getting hit by a dragon and not being reduced to a mushy red paste.

Besides, DnD's mechanics are all abstractions. In the real world being swol as heck doesn't make you better at hitting enemies with a sword, but for some reason in DnD it DOES do exactly that. Having a high STR isn't just your raw muscle mass, it also covers your skill at utilizing that strength and your proficiency at wielding certain non-finesse melee weapons. Which is why it can be so frustrating. My halfling barbarian should be able to be just as skilled at wielding a longsword as a goliath even if the goliath can lift and carry significantly more weight than my halfling ever could.

We'll just keep going in circles. What you see as fitting, I do not. Our philosophy of roleplay is different. Some mechanics are abstractions but some are not. That halfling barbarian with STR 20 can carry and lift stuff just as much as the goliath.

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Originally Posted by spectralhunter
We'll just keep going in circles. What you see as fitting, I do not. Our philosophy of roleplay is different. Some mechanics are abstractions but some are not. That halfling barbarian with STR 20 can carry and lift stuff just as much as the goliath.

No, they can't. Goliaths have a racial ability that basically doubles their carry capacity, so at 20 strength the Goliath is twice as capable of lifting, pulling, and carrying things as the halfling is without being far superior in raw damage dealing.

Which is, in my opinion, the ideal state. Halfling barbarian is still mechanically viable in combat while the Goliath still has a racial ability that showcases its superior, borderline supernatural strength.

Also the fact we have differing ideas on what is and is not realistic is exactly why I am right in this conversation. Tasha's rule, being an optional rule, does nothing to you or your games while giving me and my games what I want. It is literally a win/win situation and yet people are arguing against me having the option at all. Imposing their "roleplay tax" on me.

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Originally Posted by SaurianDruid
Originally Posted by spectralhunter
We'll just keep going in circles. What you see as fitting, I do not. Our philosophy of roleplay is different. Some mechanics are abstractions but some are not. That halfling barbarian with STR 20 can carry and lift stuff just as much as the goliath.

No, they can't. Goliaths have a racial ability that basically doubles their carry capacity, so at 20 strength the Goliath is twice as capable of lifting, pulling, and carrying things as the halfling is without being far superior in raw damage dealing.

Also the fact we have differing ideas on what is and is not realistic is exactly why I am right in this conversation. Tasha's rule, being an optional rule, does nothing to you or your games while giving me and my games what I want. It is literally a win/win situation and yet people are arguing against me having the option at all. Imposing their "roleplay tax" on me.

You got me there. But good job ignoring the purpose of my example. Replace goliath with human.

Believe what you will. Hey whatever let's you sleep at night.

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