D&D 5E Characters are not their statistics and abilities

[hawkeyefan]

If I care for a person, then I'm even less inclined to drag them along on a deadly expedition that's beyond their capacity to handle.

Sure, but you're assuming some sort of mission based structure. What if you had no choice? What if circumstances are thrust upon the characters? What if they were already in the situation and that is how they came to be friends? As [MENTION=6701872]AaronOfBarbaria[/MENTION] said, there could be many reasons for "adventuring " beyond your control.

Honestly, the story and character possibilities are endless, and lend themselves to lots of different types of fun. As long as folks at the table are cool with it, any character can be a fun option.

 

[nexalis]

I would have been tempted to agree with you, but @dave2008 mentioned playing for 30 years, and based on past conversations I think @shoak1 has been playing that long or longer.

I think it just boils down to some folks sticking more to the wargaming roots of the game, and others focusing more on the storytelling aspect.

One point I would make is that the storytelling aspect has clearly been there from the start and is not a new phenomenon.

I'm with @dave2008 on this. I've been playing since 1978 and I never even heard of power-gaming until the late 90s when I first encountered RPG forums. My first character was a morbidly obese tonsured cleric who preached the gospel of the God of Plenty, wielded a leg of lamb like a mace, and tried to push food on everyone he met. I was completely indifferent to his stats. From the very first, I viewed D&D as a distinctly different experience from the tactical wargames that were popular at that time.

 

[pemerton]

Um, the part you quote tells you right there that combat happens after every other option fails.

Apparently we read the phrase "undesired or unsuccessful" differently. You seem to read it as synonymous with unsuccessful. I don't.

A single hit from a kobold or orc has the potential of outright killing a 2nd or 3rd level PC.

A kobold does d4 damage, or weapon type. An orc does d8 damage, or weapon type. A 2nd level fighter has an average of 11 hp before CON bonuses. A 2nd level cleric has an average of 9 hp before CON bonuses. A 3rd level thief has an average of 10.5 hp before CON bonuses.

Sure, a 3rd level MU with no CON bonus has an average of only 7.5 hp, and hence can be single-shotted by an orc with a sword.

But most 3rd level PCs, and most frontline 2nd level PCs, are not in danger of being one-shotted by a kobold or orc. (Unless already depleted in hp - but that happens to PCs in other editions too.)

AD&D hasn't always been a combat first game.

What does that have to do with my post? I said that AD&D is not presented as a game in which combat is to be avoided. This is reinforced by the fact that both the PHB and the DMG say that combat will be a frequent occurence in AD&D adventures.

Whether or not combat is to be undertaken first, last, or inbetween is orthogonal to this. For instance, if a 2nd level party comes upon a chest of 1000 sp being guarded by 3 kobolds, there is nothing about AD&D that suggests combat should be avoided. Attacking those kobolds would be a rational thing to do.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm with @dave2008 on this. I've been playing since 1978 and I never even heard of power-gaming until the late 90s when I first encountered RPG forums. My first character was a morbidly obese tonsured cleric who preached the gospel of the God of Plenty, wielded a leg of lamb like a mace, and tried to push food on everyone he met. I was completely indifferent to his stats. From the very first, I viewed D&D as a distinctly different experience from the tactical wargames that were popular at that time.

Yeah, I saw it that way too. Not so much because it was different from tactical games but more because I wasn't really aware of tactical games. So my default presumption, and that of my initial gaming group, was to play this like any other game of make believe...pretend to be someone you are not.

Our early games disnt didn't really have elaborate characters because we were young and it was new, but that was definitely the route we went with it.

 

[pemerton]

A low Str fighter can be perfectly viable in D&D. Especially in 5E where there are alternate paths for characters built into the game. Rufus will simply have to try to succeed by relying on something other than his strength...whether it be his dexterity, husband tactical skill, or his teammates.

It's not really a rebuttal of someone suggesting that low STR makes a weak fighter to point out that the fighter can use DEX instead: the first comment was obviously a statement of generality, not intended as universally true - and pointing out that an alternative path to mechanical effectiveness exists is not disputing the real contention, which is that D&D is a game in which mechanical effectiveness of characters matters. Because overcoming challenges matters.

(Not far upthread from your post [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] talks about it being rational for a wizard to boost INT. Likewise it doesn't really rebut that point to note that some wizards can be built who don't use attacks or force saves, and hence who don't need INT and therefore might be better of boosting (say) CON to make Concentration checks, or better off taking some specialist feat. It's an obvious strength of 5e's design that it packs a very wide range of mechanically viable builds into the "traditional" D&D chassis of race + class + feat. But that doesn't meant that any build is mechanically viable, nor that mechanical viability is irrelevant to the typical play of the game.)

Tactical skill and relying on teammates might be different matters. If the character has tactical skill, and this manifests itself via (say) warlord-style maneouvres, then again we're just talking about different pathways to mechanical effectiveness. (Analogous to a buffing caster, say.) Lazy-lord type builds rely on their teammates similarly - in the fiction they don't contribute, but at the table they are as mechanically effective as the next characer.

If the player has tactical skill, and brings that to the table, but players a mechanically weak character, that is a differnt situation. Maybe we have an optimiser/powergamer who is deliberately dialling things down so as not to overshadow the table? Or maybe we have a wargaming prima donna who not only wants to dominate the tactical element of play, but wants to dominate the "story" side of play as well by having this quirky character suck up all the table time? In the abstract, there is no particular thing we can know to be going on.

If the player brings no particular tactical, imaginative, etc skill to the table, and if the character is not bringing any mechanical capacity to the table, then the situation is different again. Maybe the player is a good friend of others in the group?

There's no reason such a character MUST be some kind of burden.

This is true, as I've just discussed. But in the post I replied to, the character was being framed as a burden, so I was imagining the character through that lens: low STR and no DEX to compensate, the player doesn't bring any special tactical skill, the club is a poor one-handed weapon that does only d6 damage, etc.

In D&D such a character does not really help overcome obstacles as much as other, more typical characters. Whereas in Burning Wheel such a character could be a perfect vehicle for confronting obstacles. The two games, though both FRPGs, have slightly different focuses for play, which then produce different dynamics of play. One I have already noted: characters that might be weak or inferior in D&D need not be in BW. A second is that BW takes for granted a much higher failure rate for the players than does D&D (and has mechanics and guidelines to try and handle that).

do we need to search far to find a group of characters...a fellowship, let's say...where every member contributes meaningfully to their eventual success despite not all of them being physically capable individuals?

This strikes me as a completely different point. There are plenty of mechanically viable D&D characters who are not physically capable (although below-average CON is widely regarded as a burden).

That said, let's look at Sam's contribution to the success of the quest. A major form that his contribution takes is providing encouragement and moral/spiritual support to Frodo. (He also cooks a rabbit.) In real life, as in fiction, this sort of support can be crucial for overcoming despair. But how would it work in a RPG. Frodo's player is not going to be in despair, needing Sam's player to buck him/her up. Maybe we hit Frodo with some sort of despair mechanica - but then if Sam's contribution is to remove despair points/debuffs, mechanically that makes him a bard or cleric, which hardly seems right! (In 4e Sam can be a lazy lord, and Frodo likewise, but other versions of D&D don't really support that sort of mechanical build.)

D&D players don't really need the sort of meaningful support that Sam provides, and D&D doesn't tend to have the requisite mechanics either (there's no obvious mechanic - say, a "sympathy" mechanic - for modelling Pippin and Merry's influence on the Ents, either).

I think that if you sit down to play D&D, wanting a game with the sort of epic grandeur and moral depth of LotR, you are going to have to either (i) use a pretty carefully-built set of mid-to-upper Heroic tier 4e characters, or (ii) rely upon a near-overwhelming degree of GM force to make sure that everything turns out the "right" way.

the characters started out as simple cyphers...mostly with a name that was a pun on the player's name and so on. But a whole mythology built up around these early characters. So it seems that Gygax and Arneson and Kuntz and all their players quickly added that element to the game. They were building a story, not just playing a tactical game.

It's why we know a ton about Mordenkainen and Bigby and Rigby....but we have no idea what kind of tank Gary liked to use when playing war games.

I don't think they added it at all. I think it emerged pretty naturally as a byproduct of the sort of game that D&D is. In a game in which (i) each player's game piece is a single character imagined into a fictional situation, and (ii) the fiction of the situation actually matters to the resolution (completely unlike, say, a board game or most wargames), it's completely natural that people will come to think of the characrters in terms quite differently from how one thinks of the boot in monopoly, or Urza in M:tG.

In another thread, when I mentioned "character as byproduct", another poster (I think [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]) seemed to take this as a dismissal or trivialisation. But it's not that at all. The relationship between doing things on purpose and having them emerge as byproducts, and the connection of those matters to value, can actually be pretty complicated. Jon Elster has pretty good arguments that there are some valuable things that are essentially byproducts: for instance, some of the valuable things about friendship (having people you can rely on; having people you can spend time with even though there's no real common project that you want to engage in - you're just "hanging out"; etc) can probably only emerge as byproducts of deliberate action (say, asking someone to come with you to a movie; inviting someone over to your house for dinnner). I'm not at all sure they can be deliberately cultivated (eg a person who deliberately cultivates others s/he can rely on is typically a user/bludger rather than a friend, and isn't really experiencing what is valuable about friendship).

When it comes to RPGing, setting out to make story and character central to your game is very different from having them emerge more-or-less organically. And even if you set out to make those things central to your game, there are very different ways to do that. For instance, the 2nd ed AD&D PHB says (roughly) "Make up some interesting stuff about your character - eg quirks that explain his/her ability scores - and then roleplay those, thereby creating a fun and interesting experience at the table".

Burning Wheel, by way of contrast, says (roughly) "Build you character using these elements - including these Lifepaths, which have mandatory stuff on them so you have to take the bad (say, the trait Base Humility) with the good (getting the advantage of having been trained as an Arcane Devotee who might therefore be able to use magic) - and then choose some beliefs for your character, and then play those traits and beliefs to the hilt when the GM puts stuff in front of you which (i) challenges your beliefs, and (ii) puts your traits and beliefs into conflict with one another, and with those of the other PCs."

At least in my experience, BW produces experiences at the table that are as fun and interesting as you'll get from a 2nd ed AD&D character, and pretty rich swords-and-sorcery style story by FRPGing standards - but no one has to deliberately set out to make that so. It emerges as a byproduct of the players doing the things they're told to do, and the GM doing the things that s/he is told to do, by the game's rulebooks.

Personally, I think the indie-style games like BW are actually closer, in spiritual if not literal descent, to Gygax's D&D than is 2nd ed AD&D, which I think is a completely different game that just happens to use some of the same resolution rules. Part of that is because they share, and implement, a similar understanding of the relationship between deliberate action and valuable byproducts as features of gameplay - though the particular actions (ie the things players do in playing the game), and the particular byproducts, are not necessarily the same.

There is nothing wrong with playing D&D as a tactical minis game.

I don't really see how this bears on the topic of the thread.

A character might be nothing but his/her statistics and abilities, and yet the game not be a tactical minis game.

A BW character is nothing but his/her statistics and abilities. But those statistics and abilities include 3 beliefs, 3 instincts, a series of traits which include various more-or-less free descriptors as well as mechanical abilities like feats, a series of relationships, affiliations and reptuations, a set of lifepaths which determine NPCs eligible to be called upon via the character's Circles ability, etc.

And BW is not, is nothing like, and could never be played as, a tactical minis game.

This is the point that I was trying to make in the post to which you replied. The thought that an interest in mechanics as the main vehicle for, or mediator of, gameplay must be connected to a lack of interest in anything but wargaming is just false. So I'm surprised to see you making this assumption.

The equivalence, or connection, that you seem to be assuming is not borne out in my own case; it's not borne out by most of the 4e enthusiasts who have posted, or continue to post, on this board; it's not borne out by fans of Vincent Baker games or their derivatives like DitV, Dungeon World, etc. It's an assumption or contention that I most often find being made by people who think of mechanics as being limited, more-or-less, to the ones Gygax made up (to hit bonuses, damage rolls, movement rates, climbing and swimming checks, maybe a search mechanic and a reaction roll mechanic for some non-combat resolution), but who want their game to have more story depth than those mechanics alone will give you, and therefore assume that mechanics are an obstacle to story depth.

Of course it's possible to have story depth without gameplay being mediated by mechanics. In my experience, well-GMed CoC (and other BRP games) can deliver this.

But that's not the only way to do it. Because the mechanics that Gygax made up aren't the only RPGing mechanics out there.

 

[pemerton]

most players like to try at something even if they don't have the highest score in it.

<snip>

Hyper specialization is great, as long as that's the only thing you do in your games.

If you're prepared to try it even if you're not mechanically optimised for it, then what's the issue with hyperspecialisation?

The fighter/cleric in my 4e game is hyper-specialised for close combat against multiple foes using halberd and maul. But because the player doesn't mind rolling checks for which the character is not optimised, that fighter/cleric makes plenty of CHA-based checks in social situations. So the hyper-specialisation doesn't seem to be causing any problems.

4e made it all about combat.

I'll sblock a post I made on another current thread responding to this canard:

[sblock]

4e on the other hand assumes that this exploratory game - this simulation of the whole world if you will - won't be a big part of play, and instead far and away the dominate focus of play will be on producing exciting and yes cinematic combat scenes. Almost the whole game is assumed to occur within the framework of combat

<snip>

The game is paced specifically around 'encounters', which are 'combat encounters', and for which you have 'encounter powers', which are actually 'combat encounter powers'.

<snip>

The idea of the open ended negotiation of the scene implicit in 1e is almost completely gone.

From the 4e PHB (pp 9, 259):

Encounters come in two types.

*Combat encounters are battles against nefarious foes. In a combat encounter, characters and monsters take turns attacking until one side or the other is defeated. . . .

Combat encounters rely on your attack powers, movement abilities, skills, feats, and magic items - just about every bit of rules material that appears on your character sheet. A combat encounter might include elements of a noncombat encounter. . . .


*Noncombat encounters include deadly traps, difficult puzzles, and other obstacles to overcome. Sometimes you overcome noncombat encounters by using your character’s skills, sometimes you can defeat them with clever uses of magic, and sometimes you have to puzzle them out with nothing but your wits. Noncombat encounters also include social interactions, such as attempts to persuade, bargain with, or obtain information from a nonplayer character (NPC) controlled by the DM. Whenever you decide that your character wants to talk to a person or monster, it’s a noncombat encounter. . . .

Noncombat encounters focus on skills, utility powers, and your own wits (not your character’s), although sometimes attack powers can come in handy as well. Such encounters include dealing with traps and hazards, solving puzzles, and a broad category of situations called skill challenges.

A skill challenge occurs when exploration . . . or social interaction becomes an encounter, with serious consequences for success or failure. When you’re making your way through a dungeon or across the trackless wilderness, you typically don’t take turns or make checks. But when you spring a trap or face a serious obstacle or hazard, you’re in a skill challenge. When you try to persuade a dragon to help you against an oncoming orc horde, you’re also in a skill challenge.

In a skill challenge, your goal is to accumulate a certain number of successful skill checks before rolling too many failures. Powers you use might give you bonuses on your checks, make some checks unnecessary, or otherwise help you through the challenge. Your DM sets the stage for a skill challenge by describing the obstacle you face and giving you some idea of the options you have in the encounter. Then you describe your actions and make checks until you either successfully complete the challenge or fail. . . .

You can use a wide variety of skills, from Acrobatics and Athletics to Nature and Stealth. You might also use combat powers and ability checks. The Dungeon Master’s Guide contains rules for designing and running skill challenges.​

From the 4e DMG (pp 34, 70, 72):

Stripped to the very basics, the D&D game is a series of encounters. Encounters are where
the game happens - where the capabilities of the characters are put to the test and success or failure hang in the balance. An encounter is a single scene in an ongoing drama, when the player characters come up against something that impedes their progress. This chapter talks you through running combat encounters . . .

No D&D game consists of endless combat. You need other challenges to spice up and add variety to adventures. Sometimes these challenges are combined with combat encounters, making for really interesting and strategic situations. Other times, an encounter completely revolves around character skills and social interactions. This chapter is your guide to running and creating encounters that feature skill challenges, puzzles, traps, and hazards. . . .

An audience with the duke, a mysterious set of sigils in a hidden chamber, finding your way through the Forest of Neverlight - all of these present challenges that test both the characters and the people who play them. The difference between a combat challenge and a skill challenge isn’t the presence or absence of physical risk, nor the presence or absence of attack rolls and damage rolls and power use. The difference is in how the encounter treats PC actions.

Skill challenges can account for all the action in a particular encounter, or they can be used as part of a combat encounter to add variety and a sense of urgency to the proceedings. . . .

More so than perhaps any other kind of encounter, a skill challenge is defined by its context in an adventure. Adventurers can fight a group of five foulspawn in just about any 8th- to 10th-level adventure, but a skill challenge that requires the PCs to unmask the doppelganger in the baron’s court is directly related to the particular adventure and campaign it’s set in.​

I've quoted at length both for reasons of clarity, and to provide the texts that explain how encounters, in 4e, relate to the broader context of the adventure/campaign, and the role that mechanics play in them.

characters were given powers that almost exclusively were meant to be used in combat.

<snip>

No one really has daily powers like, "Find secret door." or "Initiate a Parlay" or "Decipher a clue."

Here are some abilities from the 4e PHB:

Astral Speech (Paladin Utility 2)
Daily * Divine
Minor Action, Personal
Effect: You gain a +4 power bonus to Diplomacy checksuntil the end of the encounter.

Crucial Advice (Ranger Utility 2)
Encounter * Martial
Immediate Reaction, Ranged 5
Trigger: An ally within range that you can see or hear makes a skill check using a skill in which you’re trained
Effect: Grant the ally the ability to reroll the skill check, with a power bonus equal to your Wisdom modifier.

Beguiling Tongue (Warlock (Fey) Utility 2)
Encounter * Arcane
Minor Action, Personal
Effect: You gain a +5 power bonus to your next Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate check during this encounter.

Ritual Casting
You gain the Ritual Caster feat . . . as a bonus feat, allowing you to use magical rituals . . . You possess a spellbook, a book full of mystic lore in which you store your rituals . . . Your book contains three 1st-level rituals of your choice that you have mastered. . . .

Comprehend Language (Ritual)
Level: 1
Category: Exploration
Time: 10 minutes
Duration: 24 hours
Component Cost: 10 gp
Market Price: 50 gp
Key Skill: Arcana
When beginning the ritual, choose a language you have heard or a piece of writing you have seen within the past
24 hours.

Using this ritual on a language you have heard allows you to understand it when spoken for the next 24 hours
and, if your Arcana check result is 35 or higher, to speak the language fluently for the duration.

Using this ritual on a language you have seen as a piece of writing allows you to read the language for the next 24 hours and, if your Arcana check result is 35 or higher, to write the language in its native script or in any other script you know for the duration.

Using this ritual on a language you have both heard and seen as a piece of writing within the past 24 hours allows you to understand it in both forms for the next 24 hours, and an Arcana check result of 35 or higher allows you to speak and write the language.​

These abilities can clearly be used to initiate a parlay, to find a secret door or to decipher a clue.

[/sblock]

 

[pemerton]

It would be kind of cool if Battlemaster maneuver DCs could be based off of Int as well as Str and Dex. And what if the number of superiority dice you got was modified by your Int bonus?

I smell a variant rule...

If only there had ever been D&D character builds which factored INT into the mechanics of the character's fighting so as to reflect the character's tactical knowledge and insight . . .

 

[pemerton]

The DM had NPCs which could cast them. So did your dm limit these spells? And if your xp was games with no raises, do not consider than normal.

I required PCs to pay 1000 gp plus 500 gp per level of the caster - so at least 5500 gp (per DMG p 104).

Rod of resurrection. Quick anyone with 1e DMG what is chance of getting one? And didn't some modules have a rod or raise dead scroll.

The chance of rolling "Rod, Staff or Wand" on the random treasure table is 5% (a restulf of 41-45 - DMG p 121). The chance of rolling a Rod of Ressurectin on the relevant table is 1% (a roll of 17). So roughly 1 in 2000 random magic items is a Rod of Ressurection (I say roughly, because Treasure Type B is magic weapons and armour only, Treasure Type F is no weapons, Treasure Types U and V exclude potions and scrolls, and the Magic Treasure results for treasure maps - which are 10% of "map or magic" rolls - can include various restrictions on the possible magic items, including a roll of 19 or 20 mandating a rod).

 

[pemerton]

If your fighter actually had a choice between a +3 sword and a +0 magical sword that granted +1 to Int/Wis/Cha checks, a lot of people would take the +3 sword. Like, a lot.

Agreed. I think nearly everyone I've ever played with would choose the +3 sword over the +1 mental-stat booster. Even perhaps the mental-stat-based PCs, hoping to trade in the +3 sword for something better for their mental stats or associated capabilities!

If you join some players at level 10, and you present your level 10 Fighter/Champion with Strength/Dex/Int 14, are the other PCs going to welcome you to their party?

<snip>

The out-of-character question, which some other people might care about, is will the other players be happy to see you bring this character to their table?

<snip>

There's a difference between a character that is fully optimized with every point in the right place and every decision analyzed thoroughly, and baseline expected competency. Bothering to max out your main stat is where I (personally) draw the line for baseline competency; if you don't even do that, or do something at least as obviously useful, then it's like you're not even trying.

<snip>

I'd be interested in hearing where other people draw that line

I don't think I'd particularly care what the numbers are. But I would want to see that player using his/her numbers. If you've built your fighter PC as a modest-STR character who is also competent in DEX and INT, then I want to see you using those other stats - where are the DEX checks to hide, the use of INT to learn stuff, etc?

If you're just hording those stats so you can save against fireballs and psychic blasts than I'll be a bit disappointed in your play.

 

[hawkeyefan]

@pemerton I'm not going to quote your post because yikes. But let me address each area a bit.

Rufus was an example of a suboptimal build, no? That's what I took it to be. Is there any character that would absolutely suck at everything? I suppose. Must we address such an extreme? Or do we talk about what probably actually happens...someone makes a high INT or CHA Fighter and someone else in the group gets annoyed at the "suboptimal build". My suggestions were designed to address that.

As for Burning Wheel, I am not at all familiar with it. It sounds interesting, and I'm glad you seem to enjoy it (and perhaps work there? ) but the problem you're describing isn't an issue for my group, so I'll stick with D&D.

In the Fellowship example with Sam and Frodo...I feel you are downplaying Sam's role, and also mixing up the analogy. You say the players won't need Sam's encouragement....of course not. But Frodo and other characters may. Perhaps Frodo gets advantage in corruption saves when in Sam's presence? And let's also not forget the "help" action, which is available to all characters.

Regarding Gygax and the "addition" of character, I think we are pretty much in agreement. I say that added that element quickly because the game started off as a simulation like the war games. But yes, the individual aspect, and also enjoyment of fantasy literature, made that element quickly become an important part of the game. Semantics of "quickly" versus "immediately" seems like splitting hairs...I think we agree on this overall.

My comment about the tactical minis game is because there are indeed some folks who prefer to play that way. To them, Arnak the Angry is the fighter and he gets in front and keeps the other party members from harm and that's his role and that's how they win. I believe I was responding to @shoak1 who has made his preferred style of play known and that is it. He and his group don't really worry about character and their motives beyond killing monsters and taking loot and maybe occasionally saving a pronceaa or what have you. I was commenting that any approach o play is valid, and usually isn't a problem at all as long as everyone at the table is on the same page.

For the last bit, I think you misinterpreted my assumption about game mechanics. And sure there are other games, but we're talking about D&D. But now I'm thinking you just wanted to sneak in another plug for Burning Wheel.....