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

[ccs]

Sure, but the stat still has an impact. If you roll a 9 dex, you are impacted by that roll by likely not choose to be a thief. The impact doesn't have to be an ongoing penalty.

My rolling a 9 dex wouldn't have anything to do with me not choosing Thief. I'd sooner play a healbot cleric....

 

[Lanefan]

That's an interesting perspective, but regardless, you are still forgoing some of the most important aspects of narrative by accepting that that is what story means in the context of an RPG. I don't think I agree that the party's story is the story that matters, any more than I'd agree that in a cooperative game only an individual characters story matters. And as a practical matter, the party's story is the story of the members that have made up the party, and if no part member arises above the level being a bit player, the whole story suffers. My current campaign suffers IMO from all the lose threads and broken stories that have occurred as characters died.

I long ago learned not to pin any aspect of the story on any one particular character, as sure as shootin' that'll be the character who drops dead at the next opportunity.

That said, my own game has had a boatload of characters pass through it...some lasted, some didn't...yet the overall story has remained at least vaguely coherent.

Leaving aside whether it is even legal to do that with thief skill, and whether its tactically possible in the majority of situations, your combat got to round 4.

It's an unusual combat that doesn't go 4 rounds, unless the foes (or, very rarely, the party) are complete pushovers. I don't have stats on it, but I'd guess about 5-7 rounds is average. The shorter battles tend to be against single enemies - fights against a dragon, for example, are always short no matter which side wins. But anything involving multiple enemies is going to go on for a while.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

Now, this is even worse than it sounds, because to do that, we have to come by a wish - which according to the Player's Handbook, can't come from a scroll or device if it is to be used in the manufacturing process, so in other words we are now in this case up to a 17th level character.

Er...18th level character.

The spell level progression skips a level at 11th, so 6th-9th level spells are gained on even-numbered levels.

But those that could, they never stopped for a mere loss in constitution, the restoration spell was just for that. Aging 10 years? Clone yourself before hand. Put the clone in stasis and if you die, have a programed unseen servant pour some disenchanting oil on the stasis buble and you would be back with the age you had at the time of your cloning. That was a good way to survive death in 1ed.

Your DM was (is) being very nice to you if she allows this kind of shenanigans.

Cloning yourself, going by the spell description, is probably a very bad idea; as the moment you and-or the clone become aware of the other's existence you're compelled to seek out and kill the other. If you don't, one or both of you goes insane and-or commits suicide.

Lanefan

 

[Lylandra]

Er, no; we most certainly cannot all agree on that.

so you do think that the *majority* of D&D (and maybe PF) players worldwide still play dungeon after dungeon with little to no RP and don't play more than the equivalent of an MMO avatar in terms of character depth and investment?

Which can quickly lead to sterility and blandness in both design and resulting play, if great care isn't taken to avoid such.

it can, but it doesn't have to and in my opinion it doesn't. Thinking about game style preferences, game audiences etc. led to everything meta we see now in almost every DMG. That you probably should consider whether your players like dungeon crawling or city intrigue. That you should examine your types of roleplayers in your group and make sure that everyone can participate. That there is no wrong way to play the game as long as everyone is having a good time. How to deal with Rule 0 in different groups. The whole existence of different APs with different settings and different genres. The sandbox vs railroad debate.

I guess my D&D would look very different to the types of D&D the rest of you plays and same thing is true for most of us. And I'm happy to have the creator's (or 3rd party) support to use their stuff for my campaigns. In a world where every published module is basically a dungeon of some sort and where all of these dungeons don't really mix up very well, I'd have to create every single bit by myself.

Oh, and you cannot be racist to fictional races. Sorry, that's not how racism works.

I'd say you could be racist in a fictional world even if the races were fantasy races. For example, if you based all your fictional races on RL people and their stereotypes and added exaggerating racial features to them. Or made some of them "always evil" and others "always good". Sure, the races would be fictional per se, but if your Orcs screamed "I AM BASED ON WHAT AMERICANS THINK OF INDIAN PEOPLE" and you made them "always evil" and then made your elves lily-white, blonde, very beautiful guys who just happen to be very northern-european in terms of society and made them "always good", you'd bake in some serious (and possibly dangerous) racism into your game.

Not that D&D does that. But they came dangerously close with the drow, albeit from a different angle.

 

[Celebrim]

Magic items can be created at lower levels through use of scrolls.

Player's Handbook, page 86: "Scrolls or magic devices can never be used to enchant an item or cast magic upon an object so prepared"

Where is that wish limitation? I don't see it in permanency, enchant an item or wish, nor do I see it under magic item creation in the DMG.

Player's Handbook, page 86: "Scrolls or magic devices can never be used to enchant an item or cast magic upon an object so prepared"

Player's Handbook, page 86: "It is also necessary to point out that while it is possible to tell when the basic (enchant an item) spell succeeds, it is not possible to tell if successive castings actually take, for each must make the same sort of saving throw as the item itself"

What page is that on?

Dungeon Master's Guide, page 116

You can opt to be harsh, but I don't know what you have against your players. The rules don't require you to be harsh, though. That's on you.

Seriously, have you ever read the 1e DMG? I can't remember the page but there is an admonition in there to never give the player's an even break. Honestly, at the time I considered myself a very gentle soul, and if anyone disagreed I offered to apply all the rules set forth in the DMG in compensation.

Still, some players will walk all over you if you let them, carefully quoting rules but forgetting to quote the restrictions, and inventing new abilities that are not in the rules which they pass off as logical, or realistic, and so forth.

 

[Helldritch]

Your DM was (is) being very nice to you if she allows this kind of shenanigans.

Cloning yourself, going by the spell description, is probably a very bad idea; as the moment you and-or the clone become aware of the other's existence you're compelled to seek out and kill the other. If you don't, one or both of you goes insane and-or commits suicide.

Lanefan

1) I was the DM.
2) That shenanigan has been used in official material.
3) bla bla bla.... 95% of killing each other bla bla bla insanity bla bla bla. These probabilities will occure within one week of dual existence.
bla bla bla again... 2-8 month of growing. Dual existence is only established at the end of that period. (taken directly from the player handbook, 1ed)

So yes, you have one week to set things right after your clone is grown up. For about a week, you and your clone will get along. You are both yourself after all. But dual existence starts to gnaw at both your sanities. Thus the quick stasis. You will go in stasis so that one of us will go on. And since 9th level spells required an 18 in intelligence we can safely assume that they are both really logical (for a brief period of time), before madness sets on in the clone 75%, or your self 25%. With that risk in mind you keep body guards. The clone is a wizard with no spell memorized after all.

I was not leniant. I was adhering to a strict interpretation of the rule.

Edit: The best example I can think of is when Spok meet Spok in the Star Treck reboot. The conversation is what could be expected.

 

[Helldritch]

Seriously, have you ever read the 1e DMG? I can't remember the page but there is an admonition in there to never give the player's an even break. Honestly, at the time I considered myself a very gentle soul, and if anyone disagreed I offered to apply all the rules set forth in the DMG in compensation.

Still, some players will walk all over you if you let them, carefully quoting rules but forgetting to quote the restrictions, and inventing new abilities that are not in the rules which they pass off as logical, or realistic, and so forth.

Yep players will sometimes do that and some will try it all the time. In fact, You did it yourself right there. DMG said the above and: Reward clever thinking and gameplay.

It even goes on to say that if the game is too hard or too easy to play it will lessen the enjoyment of the game. DMing is a fine line to walk on. The preface goes on to warn on the danger of adding or removing limitations. It's on the preface, the first introduction and in the introduction page. (Page 7 through 9). Even the afterword gives some warning and guidelines about ruling.

 

[Maxperson]

My rolling a 9 dex wouldn't have anything to do with me not choosing Thief. I'd sooner play a healbot cleric....

Unless you rolled a 9 wisdom. Just because you have a class that you dislike, doesn't disprove my point.

 

[Maxperson]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]

You are clearly better than I at debunking arguments. I salute you in that. However misguided our friend is, he is right on some points. Magic item creation was not in the reach of many groups. In my many groups that I had in 1ed, it has been 4 or 5 different that could've done some of what I have been talking. It was far from the majority. I think that our friend Celebrim assumed that it was all my groups (or simply all groups in 1ed) that could do magic items. It was not so.

But those that could, they never stopped for a mere loss in constitution, the restoration spell was just for that. Aging 10 years? Clone yourself before hand. Put the clone in stasis and if you die, have a programed unseen servant pour some disenchanting oil on the stasis buble and you would be back with the age you had at the time of your cloning. That was a good way to survive death in 1ed. Tenser used it and many other mages in D&D litterature.

Once you are at this level of power, you have access to most spells or information (if not all). What you can't create, you'll seek. Of course low level characters won't be able to create magic items in 1ed. Neither would they in 2e. The 3e brought in the fact that for creating magic items you had to spend experience. In 1e and 2e it was the reverse! Creating magic items would bring experience, not remove it. Both systems are good. But 3e was better. It was forcing spell casters to go on adventure to have more experience to spend on their creations. The 4e view on magic item creation was the same as 3e. Only 5e makes it almost impossible. And note this, almost, not impossible. Especially if you read the unearthed arcana on downtime...

Agreed. In my experience, though, time was the limiting factor. The game world doesn't stop in most games, so few players of wizards wanted to stop playing the game while the rest of the group investigated rumors, was targeted by enemies, invited to dinners, etc. That held true for 1e-3e. I didn't play 4e, so I don't know if it took time to create items, and I haven't played 5e a lot yet.

 

[Maxperson]

Player's Handbook, page 86: "Scrolls or magic devices can never be used to enchant an item or cast magic upon an object so prepared"



Player's Handbook, page 86: "Scrolls or magic devices can never be used to enchant an item or cast magic upon an object so prepared"

Player's Handbook, page 86: "It is also necessary to point out that while it is possible to tell when the basic (enchant an item) spell succeeds, it is not possible to tell if successive castings actually take, for each must make the same sort of saving throw as the item itself"

Okay. I see the problem. You wrote your PHB. The 1e PHB on page 86 just talks about a few 6th and 7th level spells that have nothing to do with enchantments or scrolls.

Dungeon Master's Guide, page 116

Fair enough, though you can get +1 to a stat with a single wish up to 16 in the stat. To go higher than 16 might require more wishes, depending on the DM, but since the vast majority of stats will under 16, a single wish(much easier to get than one of the books) will work better than the book will. It won't take 3-5 days to use the wish.

Seriously, have you ever read the 1e DMG? I can't remember the page but there is an admonition in there to never give the player's an even break. Honestly, at the time I considered myself a very gentle soul, and if anyone disagreed I offered to apply all the rules set forth in the DMG in compensation.

Yes I have. From the preface.

"When you build your campaign you will tailor it to suit your personal tastes. In the heat of play it will slowly evolve into a compound of your personality and those of your better participants, a superior alloy."

"If it is all too plain and too easy, the players will quickly lose interest, and your effort will prove to have been in vain. Likewise, if the campaign is too difficult, players will quickly become discouraged and lose interest in a game where they are always the butt; again your labors will have been for naught. These facts are of prime importance, for they underlie many rules.""

So it's your game to make how you like it, and then a warning that if it's too easy or too hard, it will fail. Sound like he's ultimately saying to be fair to me.

Still, some players will walk all over you if you let them, carefully quoting rules but forgetting to quote the restrictions, and inventing new abilities that are not in the rules which they pass off as logical, or realistic, and so forth.

You don't have to be harsh to your players in order to keep them from walking all over you.