Forked Thread: Why do we have a constant numbers bloat?

[ExploderWizard]

Forked from: How did you avoid spamming attacks in 3e combat?

As I was wondering about when "spamming" became a more or less common view of repeated combat actions from the other thread, a related thought prompted me to fork a new thread with a different question.

Why does every edition change have to feature larger overall numbers ( stats, bonuses, hp, ect.)?

New ideas, more choices to make during character creation, and during actual gameplay I understand. Everyone likes cool new stuff.

The thing I am talking about is the movie sequel style advertising that comes along with the changes. Everything has to be bigger, better, and with more............whatever.

This question isn't aimed strictly at 4E, it applies to every edition of the game beyond OD&D including my favorite-Moldvay Basic. One of the largest leaps of bloat was 1E AD&D (exceptional STR) It has gotten more noticable since around the 2E era (at least to me).

This hiking up of the numbers overall has greatly influenced every aspect of play. A PC with ability scores that were once semi-divine in nature is now merely "acceptable" as long as those scores are in the "right place".

When the monsters/other challenges are jacked right up to match the new standard whats the overall purpose of the elevation?

I would like to get everyone's take on this, especially those that have played through all (or most) of the editions.

 

[Obryn]

Part of it is psychological. If you can look down at your sheet and you have a really high Strength, you can say, "Sweet! I remember when that was an 18!"

Part of it was system. I think you saw all sorts of numbers escalate at high levels in 3e just because the system was made that way.

Part of it is a formal or informal "tier" system. The game develops and changes as you advance, making it so high level characters get an emerging and increasing number of possible foes over the course of time. If a chuul is only a little tougher than a hobgoblin, killing a chuul isn't that big a deal.

I dunno. I think it's a natural outgrowth of how D&D developed in 3e and 4e. In 1e/2e, your characters had largely static statistics, and the power development was fairly narrow over the course of your career. In 3e and 4e, characters' power development is a lot more extreme. A 20th-level 1e fighter is very powerful compared to a 1st-level 1e fighter; but a 20th-level 3e fighter is dramatically and intensely more powerful than a 1st-level 3e fighter.

-O

 

[JDJblatherings]

there are 2 reason for number bloat in D&D over the years: Increase in Granularity and Bigger Numbers are cooler.

Granularity- once upon a time the combat system was 2d6 with and "optional" d20 roll combat system. A +1 was a big deal when rolling 2d6, +3 was an immense advantage.
Ability scores did little or nothing to contribute to combat.

When rollign the d20 became the combat system higher modifiers fit in because there was a wider range of numbers to play with. A +1 doesn't mean as much on a 1 to 20 scale as it did on a 2d6 scale. Weapons gained different damage ratings, thus increaseing granularity and giving wider raneg for "more".

As granularity increases a higher "+" means less because it is factored into a wider range of results.

the D20 games has no top scores, something can always be higher so the numbers can and do go higher.

Higher Numbers are cooler- it's just a simple fact that rolling 2d6+4 for your weapon is cooler then rolling 1d6.

Funny thing is the higher numbers mean less and less since the scores are higher, so there is temptation to add more to have them look still cooler.

 

[Psion]

Because it's easier to give than to take away, and whether or not the numbers mean something different in a new edition, giving you a smaller number for stats, damage, etc., will be perceived as taking away.

In a similar vein, contrast this with Book of Nine Swords. IMHO, the "right" thing to do to come up with fighter that compares with CoDzilla is to rein in CoDzilla so it compares to the rest of the classes. But how well would people take a supplement that TAKES POWERS AWAY. Generally, not well.

I recall:
1) When I had the old Ninjas and Superspies game, one class had THREE martial art styles, which seriously kicked tail. A later edition reined it in so it only had two. At the time, my immediate thought was "You're nerfing my character. I'm not using this!" In hindsight, it was probably the right thing to do.
2) For 3.5, the Expanded Psionics Handbook had several powers that had DCs that escalated at twice the rate of other powers and spells. Complete Psionic actually fixed this (why they didn't do this with normal errata, I don't know.) But on the psionic boards, there were people still trying to justify that the rapidly scaline DCs of psionic blast powers was actually as it should have been in XPH.

So in short, I think it's marketing, fan expectation management, as well as designer expectation baselining.

 

[malraux]

Was there much of a numbers bloat from 3 to 4? Ability scores seem a bit lower to me (though that could be because 4e emphasizes picking 2-3 scores and having them all good, whereas 3e tended to encourage maxing a single stat). HP are larger at the start, but much lower later on. AC seems to lag behind the 3e numbers a bit, but I could be misremembering.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Funny thing is the higher numbers mean less and less since the scores are higher, so there is temptation to add more to have them look still cooler.

Exactly. Thats what I really talking about. If the scale of things makes even the high numbers look trivial, then what is this really doing?

The answer, I believe comes from a Nigel Tufnel/Marty Debergi conversation:

" You're on 10, where can you go from there? Nowhere. So what we do is turn it up to 11."

"Why don't you make 10 a little louder and have that be the loudest number?"

" These go to 11."

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I only see this happening in three cases: AD&D 1e, D&D 3.0 and D&D 4e.

In AD&D's case, I have no idea why it was implemented. Both before my time and, well, AD&D decisions were not often driven by what I would describe as rigorous game design.

Not really seeing an increase in numbers in BECMI and 2e, save relative to OD&D.

In 3e's case, player character statistics were inflated by the ability to increase them over time and the removal of the cap, but they MEANT more because they provided bonuses at regular intervals. (Champions had only had this for... twenty years, was it, before 3e's release? So it was a pretty radical step for D&D.)

HP and damage also increased due to the change in how ability scores worked. (Also, at high levels, due to the removal of 'flat' (and low) HP progression above 10th.) Because of the way Con and Str applied, HP inflated more than damage as the game progressed, meaning that HP damage meant less. (Hence, why save or die effects, despite being LESS common than in AD&D, became even MORE important.)

In 4e, HP was deliberately inflated at low levels to prevent characters from being killed in one hit, and for monsters at all levels to prevent them from going down quickly. Damage, past the first few levels, actually seems quite DEflated to me, certainly relative to HP, because 4e is designed to have more rounds per combat and fewer one-shot-kills. A 1st level 4e character can easily outdamage a 3rd level 3e one, but by 10th level they will have evened out considerably, and by 20th the 3e character can probably one-shot his counterpart even with HP damage, while being in little to no danger of the inverse.

Has there been stat bloat in 4e? I hadn't noticed it, but possibly the default point buy was raised over what's in the DMG? (If so, this is probably because the RPGA raised it due to play experience in 3e.) Stats tend to be pretty tightly stretched in 4e, like most resources.

 

[The Little Raven]

The scale of the systems is different. While 2e contributed direct bloat to the numbers from 1e, 3e rescaled the system entirely (as evidenced by the removal of "roll high sometimes, roll low other times"), and 4e did the same thing (which actually reduced numbers in many regards, a direct contradiction to the "new edition = goes up to 11 now" claim). While you can directly compare 1e and 2e in such a regard, it becomes much more complex with 3e and 4e because of the changes to the underlying math of the system.

 

[Gentlegamer]

One of the largest leaps of bloat was 1E AD&D (exceptional STR)

Exceptional strength premiered in the GREYHAWK supplement for D&D, as well as additional perks for the other ability scores. Diaglo can surely attest to this and the effect it had on the game.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

It doesn't always go up. Heck, most of the numbers went down dramatically in 4e compared to 3e. Numbers didn't change almost at all from 1e to 2e. Even some numbers went down from 2e to 3e.

In fact, there have been very few places that the number have become all that much bigger. The places that numbers went up were mostly to create granularity. For instance, if a person with average strength gets no bonus to hit and damage and a person with near superhuman strength gets +1 then it's easy to feel that your above average strength is rather useless because it doesn't give you any more bonus than someone with average strength.

So, the way to fix this is to change the scale of the numbers. If someone with near superhuman strength has +5 to hit and damage then you can create more tiers of strength.

Although, it seems to me that your beef appears to be more with the fact that it was considered to be a really big deal when you had an 18 strength and that in 4e, it's considered the standard for all fighters. This has more to do with balance changes. Because in previous editions, it was a given that almost everything about the game was completely random. Your stats, what weapons you found, your attack rolls, the enemies you were fighting, and so on. If you ended up with an 18/00 strength and found a +5 weapon at level 1, you were considered to be really lucky and that life should be easy for your character because of that luck.

If your DM made you choose a class before you rolled for stats and you ended up with a 6 strength fighter, well...tough luck. Of course you were supposed to die easily. That's the way life works, it isn't fair. It wasn't very much fun to die so easily and to be completely unable to hit anything. But, maybe if you got really lucky, you'd survive and you'd have a story to tell.

The modern theory of gaming is more about balance. The only way to do that is to give you a lot less randomness in character creation. Preferably none. But if there is no randomness, then "the max" will become the average. I say "the max" because there may be a practical limit. If it costs 10 points for a 17 and 20 points for an 18, most people won't spend the extra.