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

schnee said:

That stuff worked for grogs. It doesn't any more.
For you, it's 'poetic'. For people coming in new, it's stupid.

Back in the day, that weird groggy D&D WAS our 'playing against type'. It was fresh. Now it's stale. Sensibilities have changed. The field has gotten mature and the gamers have gotten far more sophisticated and pickier. And the new people at my table see the old AD&D and vomit.

So, this D&D went 'back to the source' to win back grogs after 4E, but they did it only so far. They kept all the new rules and sensibilities that are bringing in new gamers. And I'm glad of it.

Home brew whatever you want. Knock yourself out. Just don't expect the rules to roll back the clock to 1978. And don't expect anyone under 30 to care.

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I do get your message, but I do not think that all younger people think that way at least my players do not.

But your tone is very arrogant, don't expect us old grogs to be impressed by your youthful rudeness.

Just saw you are 40 lol do not despair 40 is not the end of it

Hm, but the races are not all the same. D&D (out of psychological reasons I guess) just cut away the penalties and went with the bonus-only way. So while a human can be best in whatever he or she wats, a halfling still has a headstart in anything DEX based, while the average half-orc or dragonborn is stronger than the average elf or halfling.

And the halfling or gnome doesn't have to be described as extraordinarily strong in the PHB as the ones they are compared to are other non-STR races, like elves or tieflings. The only races which are described as particularly strong are Dragonborn (STR bonus) and Half-Orcs (again, STR bonus). Dwarves could qualify as well, but their broad frame and heavy weight can also be linked to CON (although I'd argue that CON is not a matter of frame, but of substance). Also, small size doesn't seem to imply a general stat adjustment in 5e, unlike previous editions.

Oh and I started way before MMORPGs were even a thing with DSA (which is much more Tolkien-esque and back in the days even had elf as a class). But you are right, I got to D&D with the highly imbalanced 3.0 and dabbled a bit in tweaking game balance due to this edition's shortcomings (being a Sorc/Bard fan was pretty rough that time). So yes, satisfaction and "feeled fairness" trumps a better RL simulation for me

PS: Dwarf barbs are awesome. I had the honor to play with a fully fledged clan-bound axe-wielding Battlerager once. That kind of dwarf who has to be beaten up in order to realize that battle 's over and that those people still standing are your friends and not your enemies.

Lanefan said:

A major mistake, IMO. The LotR Fellowship is the archetypal adventuring party, and has within it examples of everything a DM should expect to and be able to deal with in a D&D party:

- party infighting and hidden PC agendae (Boromir)
- split parties (Frodo-Sam-(Gollum), Merry-Pippin-(Treebeard), Aragorn-Legolas-Gimli)
- death and revival (Gandalf)
- significant ability and-or level differences within the same party (e.g. Aragorn-Legolas vs. Merry-Pippin)

Lanefan

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Yes, but this is not mechanics, nor level of mundane vs magical or simulationist vs fantastical. What you correctly describe is common party interaction and fantasy tropes which can be found in *any* RPG party. Not just in D&D

LotR doesn't have (high level) magics at every corner, nor does it have flying islands, airships, elementals, deities (no, I don't count Valar and Maiar as gods) and priests, it does have quite a specific form of half-elf and very little female characters, it also doesn't have all the D&D classes or races or friendly dragons or devils/fiends or planes or true fey or material components or...

Lylandra said:

Hm, but the races are not all the same. D&D (out of psychological reasons I guess) just cut away the penalties and went with the bonus-only way. So while a human can be best in whatever he or she wats, a halfling still has a headstart in anything DEX based, while the average half-orc or dragonborn is stronger than the average elf or halfling.

And the halfling or gnome doesn't have to be described as extraordinarily strong in the PHB as the ones they are compared to are other non-STR races, like elves or tieflings. The only races which are described as particularly strong are Dragonborn (STR bonus) and Half-Orcs (again, STR bonus). Dwarves could qualify as well, but their broad frame and heavy weight can also be linked to CON (although I'd argue that CON is not a matter of frame, but of substance). Also, small size doesn't seem to imply a general stat adjustment in 5e, unlike previous editions.

Oh and I started way before MMORPGs were even a thing with DSA (which is much more Tolkien-esque and back in the days even had elf as a class). But you are right, I got to D&D with the highly imbalanced 3.0 and dabbled a bit in tweaking game balance due to this edition's shortcomings (being a Sorc/Bard fan was pretty rough that time). So yes, satisfaction and "feeled fairness" trumps a better RL simulation for me

PS: Dwarf barbs are awesome. I had the honor to play with a fully fledged clan-bound axe-wielding Battlerager once. That kind of dwarf who has to be beaten up in order to realize that battle 's over and that those people still standing are your friends and not your enemies.

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Since I am from Germany I know dsa and also once played it. The thing about it I did like was that it had already bound accuracy 20 years before 5E because of the low variation in hit points. I also liked it because it is perfect for a low magic setting, no other system is better for that. It is also very good for people who value the roleplaying aspect. But coming from AD&D at that time I wondered why the DSA people I played with saw it as a super challenge to play a magic caster, they all went with other classes. Ok we had a Schelm (Jester) in the group which is the DSA equivalent to a kender, but human it is a class called jester. He was armed with a chair leg and constantly writing secret messages and exchanging them with the DM. One of the things he managed was that our knight once grabbed for his trusty 2 handed sword in a fight scenario, but found the jesters chair leg instead.

Lylandra said:

Corundum, as well as diamond, is a crystalline solid. One is an oxide of aluminium, the other a form of elementary carbon. Both can be cut. Adamant is a forgeable metal. Their chemistries wouldn't really overlap which is why I don't see much similarities here besides the presumed hardness. And even diamond breaks under too much strain. Adamant doesn't.

Besides these two, there is also Adamantan. Which is an organic compound and not very hard. So... I guess that Adamant really belongs to the realm of fantasy and not much more

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Reallife ‘adamant’, the stuff that the Greek and Romans talk about is a crystal, a kind of gem. Corundum.

Honestly, don't become too attached to age while considering fans.

Personal experience: I'm 22 years old. I started playing D&D with 4e.
I have found memories of 4e, and I think it did a lot things right.
However, I'm reading a lot of AD&D 2e. It has been a great experience to me because it opened my eyes to questions I thought I knew about, but have always being dissatisfied.

One example: races. In many games, character race doesn't matter. I always hated it but now I know why.
For example, I played a lot of Final Fantasy XIV (while I could afford it). There, race is pretty much cosmetic. Not only I thought to be a huge waste of design space, but there was the problem that *everyone* was a Miqo'te. The few who weren't were Lalafel Marauders (you can see how gnomes would look with gigantic axes). It got tiresome an annoying.

On 3e and 4e: both games say that any race can be of any class, but that's not quite right.
I had to deal with many (more than I want) players who were dissatisfied with their character simply because they chose the "wrong" combinations. Meanwhile, players who chose the "right" combinations were clearly outclassing other players.

In the end, I want race choice to matter, but I don't want to make false promisses. Moreover, in my conception, what marks a race is not the miscellaneous benefits. Dwarves aren't unique because of their abilities with rocks; neither are elves with infravision. Their broad aptitudes with classes, be it Fighters, Archers, Mages, Priests, or other: that's what marks me.
And hey, I'm a cool DM. If you want to "fight against the odds", I'll support you. But in order to do that, there needs to be odds to fight against...

The group I'm currently DMing for are aged 21-30. We're currently playing 1E AD&D with all the racial limitations and associated baggage. And the feedback I get from them is that [MENTION=6801225]Igwilly[/MENTION] is spot on, and [MENTION=16728]schnee[/MENTION] is wrong

Lylandra said:

in 5e, yes, maybe. In earlier editions, no. For example, fast movement is an extraordinary (read: non-magical) ability. And mighty rage gives a whopping +8 Str/con as Ex as well... Just because you *could* explain something extraordinary with magic, this doesn't mean that RAW call such effects magical at all.

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Extraordinary Abilities were non-magical magic. They allowed you to break the laws of physics, which means that they are pretty supernatural in origin, despite the game rule saying that they are not.

No, it is not. You can easily say that the same fantasy "reality" which has created materials like Adamant (and by the way, we don't know the origins of these metals... RL metals come from stellar processes. I don't think this is true in the typical D&D world ) also gave halflings or other seemingly impossibly strong small races extra efficient or dense muscle tissue and ultra-flexible-still-durable bones. This can be purely biological and natural. Nowhere does the description of a halfling say "this humanoid is from head to toe the VERY SAME as a human, just 1/2 the size". Halflings don't exist in our world, same as Adamant, Giant Eagles (which are not magical and shouldn't be able to fly, either) or Myconids. So why apply RL assumptions to the one, but not the others?

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No. The game rules specifically give those metals their abilities and provide reasons for them to be in the game. The game rules provide no reason at all for halflings to be as strong as a half-orc.

Coroc said:

On your preferences, the last thing I want to do is calling your opinion badwrongfun don't get me wrong on that. I think that you are from a younger generation than I am and you probably got conditioned by the stereotypes of the MMPORPG hype, just as us oldschoolers rather grew up with the classic in ways totally unbalanced RP Systems.

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I have to wonder every time I see someone say something like this. I'm 42, started gaming in '82 with the Moldvay Basic set, incorporated AD&D stuff in that weirdly quintessential early 80's mishmash it sounds like most people did, never even touched an MMO, and am just seriously happy that the hobby as a whole has improved and evolved from there. (My 2 favorite D&Ds? 4e and BECMI/RC basically in that order, with AD&D 1e a close third.)

As for the OP's question - No, and good riddance.

The game's mechanics aren't there to model everything in the universe. That way lies madness and really overwrought rule-sets. It's there to model the kinds of adventures that dungeon-crawling, dragon-slaying heroes are going to have. It's about the PCs and their adventures.

So it bothers me not at all if Greg the Halfling Barbarian can bench press an ox, or if Shelly is a rad princess who can arm-wrestle ogres. Because every fantastic thing in the game means that you have pushed your suspension of disbelief at least that far back, and if "women can be strong" is less acceptable than "elves exist," that's a line that you've chosen.

Coroc said:

I do get your message, but I do not think that all younger people think that way at least my players do not.

But your tone is very arrogant, don't expect us old grogs to be impressed by your youthful rudeness.

Just saw you are 40 lol do not despair 40 is not the end of it

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You're right, I should have put a smiley face or two in there, and I was using my over-dramatic 'voice' because sometimes I like to hear myself write. I'm saying it as one grog to another, really. I went back and softened it a bit.

But, beyond my unfortunate tone, I think my point stands...The idea of balance over the length of a campaign is really hard to pull off, and having it be built in to certain races or classes is passé.

Not that modern gamers don't like having different power levels or imbalances, that would be incredibly presumptuous (and wrong) to say; the difference is the modern taste for narrative balance. In LOTR, the Hobbits only got 'balance' in their story influence when the parties split up, so they could make do in their own clever, make-do ways and stop being saved by the powerful Humans all the time. With D&D, that's hard when it's a drag to split the party.

(In fact, that was true of my Hobbit character as well - the only time I really got to 'shine' was when I was able to go off on my own, and do things that wouldn't have worked with other characters in the mix. I ended up using mischievous tactics to delay reinforcements, and not a single HP of damage, but that meant our fighters took down a string of giants one at a time instead of all at once.)

(I think the rise of story games is due to that; you can have Gandalf and Pippin in the same party, but they get equal time in the story because the mechanics force it. Fiasco is a great example; you can play a character that literally says 'I suck and everything I ever do go wrong' and make it happen, but instead of being sidelined immediately due to dice, you can play it out and the 'wrong' things have impact. Not so with a 1st level Rogue alongside Gandalf.)

Old D&D had a lot of meaning and interest due to the asymmetry, but the problem was it was too asymmetrical. Certain character types just sucked to use because the game nerfed them too much. I'd rather the mechanics support a wider variety of characters, and the flatter ability scores do that.

That said, a few of my players have re-created that old school feel quite often with their choices. Like, at my table, 'I want to be an Illusionist, and I have an 8 ability score I have to explain somehow... OK, I'm a slight little Forest Gnome, so I'll put in in Strength'. That's perfectly in line with old school.

But, another player can now say, 'I'm a legendarily strong Halfling Barbarian, the Heracles of my people, so I'm as strong as the strongest Human!' and have a hell of a lot of fun with hit. You can't do that with the old game. You can with the new. That's why I'm glad they're gone as rigid rules.