| > Changing race to species has not been a concern for myself, my players, or those I know. Largely the same, I acknowledge it's not being done for me and definitely doesn't impact me. Shrug (or eyeroll if so inclined) and move on. > “People really wanted to be able to mix and match their species choice with their character-class choice. They didn’t want choosing a dwarf to make them a lesser wizard.” Ok, but IMO nobody has more fun by doing 13 damage a round instead of 10. The consequence of chasing optimality is it simply leads a DM to tune encounters appropriately. > We want more variety at the table, not just everyone choosing the same optimized builds from RPGBOT. So instead everyone is using the same optimised builds but with more species variety? Does that really improve the state of games in your experience? I sort of want disparate builds, playing to aptitudes. Balancing spell lists and feats etc to make lots of viable builds is a hard problem to solve though (I've not played the 2024 rules so have no idea how well they've done?). |
Now, a good DM can house-rule around a lot of these things, but designing rules for balance is quite hard, as is learning new rules, which is why these systems are a thing in the first place, so ideally the rules should by default allow this kind of creativity and flexibility without creating large power imbalances, both between players and between players and monsters (also something that's more difficult than it looks, hence things like challenge ratings and pre-built adventures).
(I'd argue the fairly high variance of D&D combat also causes problems here, both for fun and balance, because it's no fun when a powerful character completely bricks in a fight against a lesser opponent because of cursed dice, and it also makes it harder for the DM to get useful feedback to balance encounters)