D&D 5E Do you miss attribute minimums/maximums?

[Lylandra]

Well yeah. In AD&D only people who like disappointment or aren't rolling for their stats pick character details before they generate their #s.
You need the stats in order to see what the rest of your options are (or aren't).



I suppose it's happened.
Afterall, I just rolled up a 1/2ling barbarian for our PF game. 1/2lings there have a -2 on str. So I put the one & only 18 I rolled into str - knowing it'd drop to a 16.
If it were only about the #s, then logic would dictate that 1) my barbarian would NOT be a 1/2ling, 2) In fact I'd pick a race that boosted str.

I've never actually played AD&D, but the people who have told me that they often asked their players what they wanted to play and made sure the stats matched the requirement. And if that meant boosting a stat to 17 (Paladin) then so be it.

It really depends on what and how you're playing. For example, my last few campaigns were very character-driven despite playing "gamesy" systems like PF or 4e. Which meant I often talked with the GM about the setting, the general directon and my character ideas (along with an elaborated background story) before throwing any die or even knowing my class. So if I wanted to play a female fighter/warrior who focused on strength and dexterity and wisdom (one of my PCs), I would have decided this before knowing my abilities or stat array. Because I want to play a person first, and fun mechanics second.

 

[Libramarian]

I've never actually played AD&D, but the people who have told me that they often asked their players what they wanted to play and made sure the stats matched the requirement. And if that meant boosting a stat to 17 (Paladin) then so be it.

Relatively few people play AD&D by the rules, which is why it's such an underrated game. If you don't fight the game that it wants to be and accept it as a (pre-Rogue) roguelike dungeoncrawler rather than escapist fantasy sim, it's very fun.

The character gen lottery leavens the sting of character death. Ouch, you lost your mediocre Fighter, but you get to roll again and this time you might get the stats to be a Paladin!

Many people have made comments upthread to the effect of "D&D is about pretending to be whoever you want, therefore X restriction should be dropped..." but that's not universally true. Classic dungeon crawl play is not really about that. You don't get to choose your stats, and your choice of class is limited. You're gonna be killing monsters and taking their stuff, regardless of whether that fits your character concept. And you very well might die in the first room by falling into a hole in the ground (which almost no one envisions as a fitting death for their fantasy avatar).

The stat caps in AD&D are not very annoying in practice. Male human Fighters can get percentile strength if an 18 is rolled, but that's quite unlikely. A man who desperately wants to pretend to be hugely strong is just as likely to roll a 7 as a woman. Now if men got to choose their stats while women had to roll, that would be pretty sexist, I guess.

 

[The Old Crow]

The stat caps in AD&D are not very annoying in practice.

They were very annoying in practice. Fingers on blackboard annoying. Or did you mean it just didn't come up very often? Did your group never use Strength as a buff? It was very common where I played. So, both annoying and commonly coming up.

Male human Fighters can get percentile strength if an 18 is rolled, but that's quite unlikely. A man who desperately wants to pretend to be hugely strong is just as likely to roll a 7 as a woman. Now if men got to choose their stats while women had to roll, that would be pretty sexist, I guess.

Not sure what your point is? A woman who wants to play a strong character is just as likely to roll one up as the man who does. But before she even picks up the dice she is told No Girls Allowed on that concept.

 

[Helldritch]

Did your group never use Strength as a buff?

Not sure what your point is? A woman who wants to play a strong character is just as likely to roll one up as the man who does. But before she even picks up the dice she is told No Girls Allowed on that concept.

1)That was the whole point of ability enhancing spell such as the strength spell. (We later saw spells such as cat's grace, owl's wisdom and many others.) Every fighters were hoping to get that buff from the mage. Every fighter/wizard were using the spell. And why not? It was part of what was good about the spell. Now the enhance ability we get is almost a joke and the enlarge/reduce spell, at level 2 is not worth taking. An enhance spell that could raise your strength to epic proportions (18.00) as it was the case back then would not be that over powered now. Would a spell that could give +1d6 to an ability (up to 20 max) would've been that unbalancing? With the concentration mecanic that we have now, it would no longer be that unbalancing (if it ever was...).

2) Girls always could have percentile strength. So even with a strict application of the rule, a women character could have as high as 18.50 of strength. Fortunately, I and most DM I knew and that I trained decided to ignore the women cap. We had quite a few girls playing with us back then and it was a way to get more. They could get to be as strong as any man. I even had a group made entirely of women (6 players strong at that). The sexism of D&D was not that prominent at that time. (at least in my area)

I still have women playing at my tables. D&D is sexist as much as the one adjuticating it.

But I strongly believe that seeing a halfling with a 20 strength score is aberrant.
I strongly believe that there should be minimal requirement to do certain classes.
And the set array and point buy system are simply making all characters look alike. It is almost as if every single character has the same genetic. In fact, if you want to. You can create an entire party looking exactly the same. Same stats, same class and worst of it, same progression. It would be a bland group indeed, but it can be made.

 

[Lanefan]

What does the scaling have to do with it? Any scale can be mapped to any other scale. If you want a dramatic difference between elves and humans, you can do it on a linear scale just by making the elves' cap 12 and the humans' cap 24, or whatever other values match their abilities on the nonlinear scale. And on a linear scale, it'd be a whole lot more transparent that there is a dramatic difference there, too.

If we were using a 1-100 bell curve or range that had enough granularity to do this, I'd be on board. However, 3-18 doesn't give much room to move; if elves get capped at 12 then hobbits get capped at...8? And tiny opponents e.g. Leprechauns get capped at...4?

Doesn't work.

What works is if the extreme ends of the 3-18 spectrum have more happen per individual point than the middle bits. That way, capping elves at 17 instead of 18 actually makes a difference while still allowing hobbits to cap at 16 (again making a difference) while leaving lots of room for other smaller critters. And if some race can get to 19 in a stat that's a big deal.

Of course for this to work the auto-stat-increments by level would have to go, or be very sharply curtailed; and I wouldn't have any issue with this either were it to happen.
[MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] - is it intentional that in your table in post 799 no race has more or less potential wisdom than any other? (they're all at 3-18)

Lanefan

 

[Sadras]

@Sadras - is it intentional that in your table in post 799 no race has more or less potential wisdom than any other? (they're all at 3-18)

Very much intentional, however that doesn't mean that certain races/subraces won't get an ability boost or penalty to the ability.
I just don't see any character of any particular races being able to reach the levels of wisdom unatainable to others. There might be races that have greater/lesser wisdom on a whole, or some might have to work harder to attain the heights of others (due to the penalty/age), but not that any particular race or races cannot reach an 18 score in widsom.

MULTIPLE EDITS (AS I RAMBLED): Coming from a Mystaran-setting background I dont see elves as more intuitive. I do not see dwarves as particularly willful - they are just more resistant to magic in general, but not more willful.

Wisdom can also be seen as the level of insight permitted to mortals by the greater powers. Greater insight will provide mortals the ability to discern hidden truths automatically (illusions, invisibility, hidden/overlapping planes...etc).
Another one of my thoughts, a point of Wisdom can be awarded when characters begining understanding the relationship of the various planes, the multiverse, the reason/purpose for their existence within the cosmos, becoming an immortal - any matter of real truths...so the 18 cap is gradually increased during the course of the campaign as the DM begins with the setting revelations. Although, in fairness this can all be handled best via the Insight skill (so intead of 1 point awards to wisdom, rather increase the character's insight by 1).

Perhaps the best solution is for there not to be a cap for Wisdom. That is what I'm leaning towards. Given my flatter tables a +3 or even a +4 won't break the game and one would sacrifice a lot to achieve such modifiers in a point buy system.

 

[Coroc]

Relatively few people play AD&D by the rules, which is why it's such an underrated game. If you don't fight the game that it wants to be and accept it as a (pre-Rogue) roguelike dungeoncrawler rather than escapist fantasy sim, it's very fun.

The character gen lottery leavens the sting of character death. Ouch, you lost your mediocre Fighter, but you get to roll again and this time you might get the stats to be a Paladin!

Many people have made comments upthread to the effect of "D&D is about pretending to be whoever you want, therefore X restriction should be dropped..." but that's not universally true. Classic dungeon crawl play is not really about that. You don't get to choose your stats, and your choice of class is limited. You're gonna be killing monsters and taking their stuff, regardless of whether that fits your character concept. And you very well might die in the first room by falling into a hole in the ground (which almost no one envisions as a fitting death for their fantasy avatar).

The stat caps in AD&D are not very annoying in practice. Male human Fighters can get percentile strength if an 18 is rolled, but that's quite unlikely. A man who desperately wants to pretend to be hugely strong is just as likely to roll a 7 as a woman. Now if men got to choose their stats while women had to roll, that would be pretty sexist, I guess.

XP for mentioning rogue, a game which in its later incarnations aka nethack did let you think it has AI.

Did you ever play nethack? The purist way to do so is of course without savegame. Means you die on Dungeonlevel 57 then you start anew.

There was a forum to post your ascensions (when you beat the game) it required 70000 - 120000 moves without bigger errors for your YAAP = yet another ascension post
Errors meant death for your character sometimes in a ridiculous way : "Elric the Tourist killed by eating a rotten cockatrice corpse" lol. For the deaths there was a YASD posting (yet another stupid death).


EDIT: I wish they would make a 5E computergame with modern graphics and that level of complexity

 

[Hussar]

Just another point about granularity.

In AD&D, there were what, 5 or 6 increments between a 17 Str and a 19 Str. At that level of granularity, ok, fair enough, I can see making adjustments to stats. But, what was that limited to Str? And, prior to 17, there was virtually no difference between a 9 Str and a 15 Str. So, you had all this granularity at the very top (which, according to some, no one ever saw at the table) and virtually none at any other point.

I mean, looking at the other stats, there's pretty much no difference between a 9 and a 14. There were a couple of things - extra spells for the cleric, a slightly higher chance to learn spells for the wizard, but, that was about it. It really was a weird kind of progression.

No real point here, just an observation.

 

[Shasarak]

In AD&D, there were what, 5 or 6 increments between a 17 Str and a 19 Str. At that level of granularity, ok, fair enough, I can see making adjustments to stats. But, what was that limited to Str? And, prior to 17, there was virtually no difference between a 9 Str and a 15 Str. So, you had all this granularity at the very top (which, according to some, no one ever saw at the table) and virtually none at any other point.

Remember that we used to use Stat rolls a lot more in ADnD (as in rolling under your stat to succeed) so in that case there is still a big difference between a 9 and a 15 even though you did not get any pluses to your attack rolls.

 

[Hussar]

Remember that we used to use Stat rolls a lot more in ADnD (as in rolling under your stat to succeed) so in that case there is still a big difference between a 9 and a 15 even though you did not get any pluses to your attack rolls.

Note, that was a 2e thing. That didn't exist in 1e. And still, only applied to Non-Weapon Proficiencies. Which didn't come up in play all that often.