ccs
41st lv DM
And you have them now as well. You just won't realize it for another 20-30some years.
But don't worry, the rest of us are right there with you.
D&D 5E Do you miss attribute minimums/maximums?
And you have them now as well. You just won't realize it for another 20-30some years.
But don't worry, the rest of us are right there with you.
Sacrosanct
Legend
Probably true, but hopefully much less of them
When we were in our teens and early 20s, we'd look at people in their 40s and 50s (our parents usually) and think, "Man, they probably have a lot of things figured out." Now that I'm in my 40s, I don't have much more figured out now than I did back then lol. Especially when it comes to social interaction
Yaarel
He Mage
Today, in D&D 5e, because of bounded accuracy,
It is better for the d20 statistics to rely on ability minimum requirements, to ensure a feel of a strong or intelligent race, rather than heaping on extra bonuses.
So, in other words, a Half-Orc is strong because no Half-Orc has a Strength score less than 15. Rather than a Half Orc gets a huge +4 or whatever.
I dont mind the +2 in the context of the race ability score. It is only equivalent to a modest +1 on a d20. At the same time, this +2 in conjunction with minimums helps quantify significant differences between unrelated species.
With regard to gender division, it is better if the game stays away from such. A female player character who is exceptionally strong is simply understood to be one of the statistical outliers. No big deal.
Yaarel
He Mage
I agree. The Lightfoot Halfling cannot be strong. The race roughly 3 feet, with a small childlike musculature. To even get Strength 8, is being generous.
For the Stout Halfling, my willingness to suspend disbelief is a bit easier. The flavor suggests a broader musculature, a bit taller, and perhaps even some Dwarf ancestry. Treating this Small race as about Strength 10, roughly equal to an average Human seems tolerable.
Sometimes a Small race is simply a magical race and are strong for magical reasons. I could see certain kinds of Small Gnome-like races from the Fey Plane, with Strength 20 for supernatural reasons.
The Halfling is characterized as a natural, non-magical race akin to the Human. (There are even reallife prehistoric humans who kinda resemble it, exhibiting insular dwarfism.) Superstrength feels all kinds of wrong.
Yaarel
He Mage
I'd definitely like the racial & class min/maxes.
Maybe in my next 5e campaign I'll reinstate those min/maxes.
Personally, I like the min-maxes for character creation. This sets the tone for a ‘typical’ member of the race.
But then, eschew maxes for character advancement. So any character can (eventually) reach Strength 20, even if they started with 8. By that time they are approaching Epic anyway.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
I agree that it shouldn't be an issue for actual PCs during advancement. This is, after all, a game and if a halfling is capable of dealing out astonishing damage or manipulating the environment through feats of strength on a par with a larger character... who really cares why? Chalk it up to being better at understanding leverage or other factors where the character can maximize the strength they apply, not necessarily have the same raw muscle power.
As far as delineating a typical member of the race, that can easily be done with a reference to average values rather than racial minima/maxima.
Yaarel
He Mage
Give me an example of what you mean?
Ilbranteloth
Explorer
Unless you're like me and prefer that the math of the rules supports that delineation.
Yaarel
He Mage
I guess the only headache that min-maxes can cause me, is if the official mechanics doesnt really make sense for the official flavor.
(Besides the Elf traditions that are endlessly contradicting mechanics versus flavor ... )
I was looking at the Tinker Gnome. For me, it should be Int +2 (high tech) and Dex +1 (craftsmanship). Where the mechanics has +1 Con, that makes less sense and is less satisfying. I get it that someone who hammers nails all day might have stamina, but I feel it is more important that they arent hitting their thumb.
So, if the min-maxes feel wrong it is an extra layer to homebrew to correct it. Not a big deal, but a surprisingly strong psychological barrier. What percentage of DMs actually go against the official ability improvements?
(Besides the Elf traditions that are endlessly contradicting mechanics versus flavor ... )
I was looking at the Tinker Gnome. For me, it should be Int +2 (high tech) and Dex +1 (craftsmanship). Where the mechanics has +1 Con, that makes less sense and is less satisfying. I get it that someone who hammers nails all day might have stamina, but I feel it is more important that they arent hitting their thumb.
So, if the min-maxes feel wrong it is an extra layer to homebrew to correct it. Not a big deal, but a surprisingly strong psychological barrier. What percentage of DMs actually go against the official ability improvements?
I find as a DM that having numeric minimums or maximums would not do a single thing in establishing the feeling of any of these races. Because there are so many rolls happening across the table throughout an entire game, I am incapable of discerning which rolls are affected due to a particular ability stat numbers in enough proportion for me to identify "Hey! That character's more charismatic than that other one!" One has an 18, the other has a 14, a difference of +2 in modifiers. Can I determine through the dice rolling (of which that is the only way that these numerical differences actually get represented in the game) that X character is 10% more charismatic than the other one? Not in the slightest. The 18 makes 1 out of 10 more rolls than the 14. Yeah, great. I wouldn't be able to point that out when it happened if I tried.
Same thing with something like Strength. That half-orc has an 18 STR, and that halfling now has a 16 because the game inserted a rule that says halflings can't have a STR over 16. Okay. Great. Now... when exactly as the dice are rolled am I supposed to be able to tell that the half-orc is the stronger racial PC? A +1 modifier means only like 1 out of every 20 rolls involving Strength will be affected by this. I can tell you that I would NEVER be able to discern that numeric difference enough to ever get the impression the half-orc was the stronger character...
...UNLESS you actually showed me the character sheet to point out to me that the half-orc had the 18 STR and the halfling had the 16.
So if I can't tell (without looking at the character sheets) who is the stronger, or smarter, or more agile character because the differences between these numbers is so minute (ESPECIALLY when you add in all the other stuff that masks those numbers with additional modifiers like proficiency bonuses, magic item bonuses etc.)... then what was the point in putting in minimums or maximums in the first place? If I can't tell they are there, then they serve absolutely no purpose except in a white-room character sheet generation where no halflings will have 18 STRs written on them and no half-orcs will have 18 INTs written on them.
Do you know how I can tell that a character is unusually strong? Or unusually stupid? Or unusually charismatic? Or unusually clumsy? Through roleplay. The player who PLAYS his or her PC as dumb means so much more to me and the game than the one who has a 6 INT on their character sheet. Because that 6 INT means nothing if they don't play their PC that way.
So rather than the game putting numerical minimums or maximums back in... I'd rather they give roleplay advice on how to actually roleplay their characters that way. Because that'll do more to make the PCs interesting than any number on the sheet.
Same thing with something like Strength. That half-orc has an 18 STR, and that halfling now has a 16 because the game inserted a rule that says halflings can't have a STR over 16. Okay. Great. Now... when exactly as the dice are rolled am I supposed to be able to tell that the half-orc is the stronger racial PC? A +1 modifier means only like 1 out of every 20 rolls involving Strength will be affected by this. I can tell you that I would NEVER be able to discern that numeric difference enough to ever get the impression the half-orc was the stronger character...
...UNLESS you actually showed me the character sheet to point out to me that the half-orc had the 18 STR and the halfling had the 16.
So if I can't tell (without looking at the character sheets) who is the stronger, or smarter, or more agile character because the differences between these numbers is so minute (ESPECIALLY when you add in all the other stuff that masks those numbers with additional modifiers like proficiency bonuses, magic item bonuses etc.)... then what was the point in putting in minimums or maximums in the first place? If I can't tell they are there, then they serve absolutely no purpose except in a white-room character sheet generation where no halflings will have 18 STRs written on them and no half-orcs will have 18 INTs written on them.
Do you know how I can tell that a character is unusually strong? Or unusually stupid? Or unusually charismatic? Or unusually clumsy? Through roleplay. The player who PLAYS his or her PC as dumb means so much more to me and the game than the one who has a 6 INT on their character sheet. Because that 6 INT means nothing if they don't play their PC that way.
So rather than the game putting numerical minimums or maximums back in... I'd rather they give roleplay advice on how to actually roleplay their characters that way. Because that'll do more to make the PCs interesting than any number on the sheet.
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