D&D 4E Is 4E doing it for you?

[Raven Crowking]

If you like the system, you'll want to have the books. If you dislike the system, you should be indifferent to the presence of the books, since you have no interest in them.

I'm not saying its rational; I am specifically saying that no human (or non-human, for that matter) preference is.

(But I do agree that the poster was probably engaged in hyperbole.)

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I wonder why rolling for stats is so important to us DnD players. In storyteller, I pick exactly the stats I want. In Mutants & Masterminds, same deal. I decide what you want to do and your character is as effective as you want them to be. This does not work for a lot of DnD players I've met, and I wonder why.

I admit, it took my about five years to get into point buy. Now I'll never go back, but before I was very resistant. Rolling those stats was really important to me. Part of it was a way to differentiat myself from other characters. "Yeah, I'm playing a Fighter, but I got an 18 Con, where as Joe over here only has a 13." Another part was the chance of excellent luck, with lots of good stats that you couldn't otherwise get.

Now I prefer point-buy because it levels the mechanical playing field and forces players to think about their characters beyond mechanical stats.

This is probably a tangential discussion, but it's popped up a few times here, and the idea interests me.

 

[Darkthorne]

Mallus,
I agree with you for the most part. At no point do I think a 10 in the class stat is at all viable (nor is it more interesting to me) and would prompt a "what are you thinking?". However prior I could get away with a 15 in my main stat and it would be ok, not great nor would I be overly penalized for it and I could still hit/do damage/cast spells etc. I think now 4E's 15 stat is like having an 12/13 in the old system, you'll barely get by and never catch up.
Thanks

 

[Mallus]

Mallus,
I agree with you for the most part. At no point do I think a 10 in the class stat is at all viable (nor is it more interesting to me) and would prompt a "what are you thinking?".

OK. Perhaps I was misunderstanding the exact point you were making?

I think now 4E's 15 stat is like having an 12/13 in the old system, you'll barely get by and never catch up.
Thanks

15 may well be the new 12. I haven't played enough 4e to see how that shakes out. Admittedly, my Dragonborn paladin has a 18 CHA and a 16 STR, so he certainly fits what looks like the standard build for his class (which has been more-or-less that standard build since AD&D).

 

[Stalker0]

4E is designed for at least the 17/18 in the main stat to maintain balance, ... I just don't see where maxing out your main stat & then having to keep it maxed so you don't get worse for your chances to hit as you level up is a strength.

With quotes like this, I have to reiterate the monk phenomena in 3rd edition.

When 3e came out, there was a strong belief in the community (myself included) that the monk was obviously overpowered. I mean....look at all those abilities!! Yet with time, we all learned the painful truth that he was in fact a suboptimal class.

A lot of people have looked at 4th edition and concluded that you must have a 17/18 starting stat to be the least bit effective in the system. I think its too early to make such judgments. The game is still pretty new, and my guess is most people are trying out the 17/18 mainstays and have yet to experiment with more rounded builds.

Time will tell of course.


One thing I'm curious to see is how long the current point buy numbers hold out. As many polls have shown over the years, in 3rd edition a large percentage (not necessarily a majority) of groups that used pointbuy used a number higher than 25 point standard. Many used 28-32 points. I am interested to see if groups starting uping the points in 4e's buy as well.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Mallus,
I agree with you for the most part. At no point do I think a 10 in the class stat is at all viable (nor is it more interesting to me) and would prompt a "what are you thinking?". However prior I could get away with a 15 in my main stat and it would be ok, not great nor would I be overly penalized for it and I could still hit/do damage/cast spells etc. I think now 4E's 15 stat is like having an 12/13 in the old system, you'll barely get by and never catch up.
Thanks

This kind of stuff is the stat/power bloat that has crept into the game since OD&D. The feelings of being useless or a lesser being than another character are magnified tenfold when you use a system of random generation for stats and those stats mean the difference between being being a competent adventurer and useless baggage.

If the assumption is that every member of a given class needs X to be useful then give them X. Then you have what we see now. Point buy systems where every member of the same class has close to identical stats with minor tweaks for different builds. How predictable and cookie cutter is that? A combination of exceptional stats (when not everyone has them, otherwise they are indeed average) and memorable sub-par scores help give a character some depth.

Giving high bonuses and harsh penaties to core adventuring activities for stats make it difficult to achieve that depth without actually making the character "useless" if he/she doesn'thave high stats or has ones that are too low.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

One thing I'm curious to see is how long the current point buy numbers hold out. As many polls have shown over the years, in 3rd edition a large percentage (not necessarily a majority) of groups that used pointbuy used a number higher than 25 point standard. Many used 28-32 points. I am interested to see if groups starting uping the points in 4e's buy as well.

We tried to stick to 25 point buy a very long time, but in the later adventure path, we moved to 28 point buy and then 32 point buy.

I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that 4E rely is heavily dependent on high statistics. The math "works" at all levels, which means you never enter the territory of "only a 1 misses" or "only a 20 hits". So that means every +1 from your ability score counts. But then, feat access is mostly restricted by race and ability scores, so there is definitely a strong motivation to not focus too much on one ability score.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This kind of stuff is the stat/power bloat that has crept into the game since OD&D. The feelings of being useless or a lesser being than another character are magnified tenfold when you use a system of random generation for stats and those stats mean the difference between being being a competent adventurer and useless baggage.

If the assumption is that every member of a given class needs X to be useful then give them X. Then you have what we see now. Point buy systems where every member of the same class has close to identical stats with minor tweaks for different builds. How predictable and cookie cutter is that? A combination of exceptional stats (when not everyone has them, otherwise they are indeed average) and memorable sub-par scores help give a character some depth.

Giving high bonuses and harsh penaties to core adventuring activities for stats make it difficult to achieve that depth without actually making the character "useless" if he/she doesn'thave high stats or has ones that are too low.

But how is it not cookie-cutter that different stats don't matter?

There must be some practical difference between a Fighter with Str15, Dex14, Con13; Int13, Wis8 and Cha8 and a Fighter with Str18, Dex10, Con12, Int8, Wis12, Cha10. If these numbers don't mean a difference for the conflict or task resolution, or the advancement of the character, what's the point?

 

[malraux]

How predictable and cookie cutter is that? A combination of exceptional stats (when not everyone has them, otherwise they are indeed average) and memorable sub-par scores help give a character some depth.

I find exactly the opposite. The only thing I remember about my character that used random rolling was that he sucked relative to the other characters and wasn't much fun. All my PB characters were reasonably unique, within the limits of the type of characters I play.

Put another way, the rolled character, all I remember are the rolls. The PB character I remember the personality.

 

[Mallus]

How predictable and cookie cutter is that?

How about differentiating characters through personality, motivations, and action?

A combination of exceptional stats (when not everyone has them, otherwise they are indeed average)

It's the non-adventuring civilians that have the average stats. Heroes, on the other hand, tend to be really strong, smart, and charismatic (not to mention good-looking).

...and memorable sub-par scores help give a character some depth.

Sure, this can help. But it's only a help to players who are already interested in and capable of lending a PC depth.