Floating a boat generally requires liquid. A LOT of liquid.

Ah. Yes. Good point. Guess they'll haven’t work overtime.

There's no rule saying a dog can't play!

it would require a pretty comprehensive rework, yes. You'd need to (as an example): - give martials something really cool that they can do to compete with the "cool factor" spells offer (I think having a large variety of weapon options would help, especially if the weapons all feel different and have different mechanical effects) - Let martials use their physical prowess to dynamically interact with the battle (They can already do things like shoving enemies, but a really robust list of tricks that characters can do with their athletics, acrobatics, stealth, medicine, etc. skills could really help level the playing field. After all, spells are mostly useful for their utility and not just raw damage.) - Make spells less all-or-nothing using multiple saving throws or varying levels of success (this lets you nerf the "top end" of spells while keeping their overall power the same) - give martials more ways to cheat the action economy, like more actions per turn on average than casters get - make more enemies resist magic but weak to normal weapons, or make more enemies weak to certain kinds of physical damage (slashing, piercing, silver, etc.) - give martial characters "backdoors" into magical skill (for example, maybe characters with a high arcana skill can do magic as long as they have time to prepare - like rituals instead of combat magic - or they could use arcana and a satchel full of scrolls/wands to cast magic even as a martial) - give characters more access to ability score increases on their weaker ability scores so they don't have to optimize as heavily around only one ability score ... just to name a few I'd have in mind

I think the last one is not really necessary. Characters having flaws is part of the design philosophy. Martials actually have a small advantage here as it is easier for them to build around their most important abilitiescores.

Dogs aren't a playable race so they can't have class levels. But there is no rule saying dogs can't learn languages. And they can be Sidekicks, but that's more a rule specifically designed to allow them to play. There's also no rule saying they can't wield weapons. One-handed and two-handed weapons both require hands to use, but there aren't actually any weapons listed as one-handed.

Don't knock it till you try it. Making MAD builds more viable is really great for the game. Obviously characters will still have a couple low scores, but it's nice not to suck at everything except one thing.

Okay. Giving it a second thought I think specifically giving them the ability to increase one of the mental stats may be a good idea, so long as the philosophy is that they can be as good at it as casters and not just not horrible. Maybe giving them the choice of boosting all ability-Checks and saving throws of one of those by 1 every ASI, but under the premise that this + the stat bonus doesn’t exceed 5.

You could just give players multiple ASIs, but they can't be applied to the same stat

Or that. I think it stills leaves room for Shenanigans though.

oh so that's what elves do in the other 4 hours of the long rest

Of course, but it favors the RPer who just wants to be decent more than the minmaxer, since it encourages breadth not depth.

>undead and constructs are valid targets by RAW. I mean, if you follow the logic, undead are "animated corpses" and constructs are "animated objects", sooo.... Sure, the "Rule of Cool" wins my vote on this.