D&D 5E Attack Bonuses

[Falling Icicle]

This POV seems lopsided to me. It's so negative--it's the game designer's job to not break the game. I don't look at it like that. To me, it's the game designer's job to make my game more fun, not just to not make it less fun.

What the person I was responding to did was use the Oberoni fallacy.

Oberoni Fallacy: Originally posted by Oberoni on the D&D general board July 23, 2002:

"This my my take on the issue.

Let's say Bob the board member makes the assertion:

"There is an inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X."

Several correct replies can be given:
•"I agree, there is an inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X."
•"I agree, and it is easily solvable by changing the following part of Rule X."
•"I disagree, you've merely misinterpreted part of Rule X. If you reread this part of Rule X, you will see there is no inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue."

Okay, I hope you're with me so far.
There is, however, an incorrect reply:
•"There is no inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X, because you can always Rule 0 the inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue."
Now, this incorrect reply does not in truth agree with or dispute the original statement in any way, shape, or form.

It actually contradicts itself--the first part of the statement says there is no problem, while the last part proposes a generic fix to the "non-problem."

It doesn't follow the rules of debate and discussion, and thus should never be used.

Simple enough."

 

[Libramarian]

So, if I think the belts of giant strength are too powerful, that means that I only want there to be boring, predictable items in the game? There's quite a large middle ground between "boring and predictable" and "so powerful that it causes problems."

In principle yes, but if you think these belts are too powerful then I don't know if there's much space between what I would call boring and what you would call too powerful. The only problem the belts could cause would be if the DM starts raising ACs to bring down the belt-wearer's hit chance, and makes it too difficult for other characters to hit. I wouldn't mind it if the item said explicitly not to do that.

What the person I was responding to did was use the Oberoni fallacy.

Oberoni Fallacy: Originally posted by Oberoni on the D&D general board July 23, 2002:

"This my my take on the issue.

Let's say Bob the board member makes the assertion:

"There is an inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X."

Several correct replies can be given:
•"I agree, there is an inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X."
•"I agree, and it is easily solvable by changing the following part of Rule X."
•"I disagree, you've merely misinterpreted part of Rule X. If you reread this part of Rule X, you will see there is no inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue."

Okay, I hope you're with me so far.
There is, however, an incorrect reply:
•"There is no inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue with Rule X, because you can always Rule 0 the inconsistency/loophole/mechanics issue."
Now, this incorrect reply does not in truth agree with or dispute the original statement in any way, shape, or form.

It actually contradicts itself--the first part of the statement says there is no problem, while the last part proposes a generic fix to the "non-problem."

It doesn't follow the rules of debate and discussion, and thus should never be used.

Simple enough."

This doesn't apply because the DM choosing not to introduce certain magic items into the game in DDN is not overriding a rule with rule 0, it IS the rule. By default, the DM chooses which magic items to introduce in the game. There is no suggestion being made to change the rules, so it's not inconsistent to say there is no problem with the rules.

My response was more like the third correct reply there. You seem to assume that magic items are build components. They are not in DDN.

 

[Starfox]

If girdles of giant strength were changed to give damage bonuses and not to-hit bonuses there is a precedent for that; in 1 ed potions of giant strength did just that if I recall.

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It is all about consistency... I can´t see consistency within the monster entries.
And I don´t like too arbitrary numbers. If they had +3 or so there would be no question asked... some kind of weapon finesse... or something... can always use their dex modifier or so...

 

[Jester David]

This "balance doesn't matter because the DM controls the game" argument has never been satisfactory. It's not just the players that benefit from a balanced and well-designed game, DMs do too. It makes the DM's job a lot easier if he doesn't have to worry about using any of the magic items in the rulebooks for fear of breaking the game. After all, not every DM is an expert game designer, and most aren't going to know that a particular item is going to be a problem until they give one to their players and the game falls apart. Saying "oh it's okay, because it's up to the DM" is a cop out in game design of the very worst kind. The game rules are supposed to be there to help the DM, not to create additional pitfalls for him or her to have to avoid.

You have it backwards.

Balance does matter. And the game is nearing balance.
But the game allows DMs to unbalance the game and gives them the tools to do so. And gives them options to rebalance via encounters with harder foes.

 

[Falling Icicle]

This doesn't apply because the DM choosing not to introduce certain magic items into the game in DDN is not overriding a rule with rule 0, it IS the rule. By default, the DM chooses which magic items to introduce in the game. There is no suggestion being made to change the rules, so it's not inconsistent to say there is no problem with the rules.

My response was more like the third correct reply there. You seem to assume that magic items are build components. They are not in DDN.

The question is whether or not belts of giant strength are overpowered, not whether or not DMs can allow overpowered things in their game. Saying "the DM can do it" is completely avoiding the question. If the question had been phrased this way: "do you think it could cause balance problems if I, as the DM, decide to give a player a belt of giant's strength?" would you still consider "it doesn't matter, players don't get to choose their items in Next" to be a valid response to that question?

 

[Falling Icicle]

Ahhh, yes...the Oberoni Fallacy. I know it well.

It's as insidious as the typical mind fallacy, where one assumes that their experience is the norm or average, and that everyone else aspires to or agrees with the assumption.

Their seems to be many fallacies being utilized within this thread...

It has nothing to do with relative experience. It's about whether or not the Rule 0 Fallacy, a.k.a. the Oberoni Fallacy: "it's not broken if the DM can fix it" is a valid answer to whether or not an item as written is unbalanced. It never is.

 

[Sage Genesis]

Ever notice that Gauntlets of Ogre Power actually make you a little bit stronger than ogres are?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Well, it worked out nicely until 3e. In AD&D you got a to-hit bonus and a damage bonus from high strength, and they weren't the same. The highest strength you could start with was 18/00 and it gave +3 to hit and +6 to damage. 25 strength - which was the max - gave +7 to hit and +14 damage.

...

My conclusion: we don't really need to remove strength bonus to-hit, just going back to the range we had in AD&D would alleviate the problem to a large degree. As you noted, the rapidly increasing damage bonus from high strength feels appropriate, while the to-hit bonus doesn't.

Take that one step further. The problem with the AD&D range was that they took the bell curve from Basic as gospel, then tacked on the extreme Str ranges at the end. And of course they did this only for Str, which has its own set of problems.

What they are really trying to model is something that the 3E mindset seems to have foreclosed as a possibility--even though it does exactly model the desired outcome and solve some other inconsistencies at the same time: The mod should not scale linearly with the score.

Accept that, then the score can represent things that pretty much do scale with extremes. For example, base encumbrance off of Str score, and then giants with a high score can lift and carry far more than a human. OTOH, base accuracy of melee hits off of modifier, which now scales slowly, and giants don't hit that much more accurately. (Actually, they don't hit any more accurately, but since in D&D a "hit" is abstracted to mean "a telling hit that gets through armor", a giant has a better chance of doing this. Just not a radically a better chance.)

I still think they should cut out the ill-thought and arbitrary parts in favor of a simple scale with no minuses: Score 1, Mod +0 ... 2-3, +1 ... 4-6, +2 ... 7-10, +3 ... etc. That puts 16-21 at +5 and most giants in the next two brackets at +6 or +7. It's a lot of work to reconcile that number scheme to traditional D&D, but if we are going to have all of these gamist/simulationist concerns trying to make the numbers work out to what is essentially this kind of scale, it would be a lot easier to first admit what the math of the underlying model looked like.