D&D 5E Why I Am Starting to Prefer 4d6 Drop the Lowest Over the Default Array.

[FormerlyHemlock]

You know what your problem here is? You're doing it wrong.

You don't decide what type of character you want to play before you roll the dice. Or, at the very least, you don't remain committed to a specific concept despite what the dice provide.
Doing this sets you up for failure.

Naw, it's not wrong, it's illustrating a point. Oofta is fully aware that concept-before-stats is more compatible with point buy than with random rolls, and that rolled stats is mostly enjoyable to people who favor stats-before-concept. He's said so several times, and he's 100% correct on that point.

 

[RotGrub]

Yes, most of us realize that the larger the sample size the more normalized the results. That was kind of my point, that some people tend to base their judgements on too small of a sample, and thus it blows their mind when they miss 3 or 4 times in a row when they had a 95% to hit, despite that over a large enough sample size it is inevitable. I love the X-COM games, but the player-base of those games is notorious for whining about broken statistical probability.

Yes, it's something to consider when a player claims to have a terrible session because the group rolled for stats. In fact, die rolls are far more to blame than anything.

oh and btw, when you have DMed long enough to have witnessed a D&D house cat take out the Fighter in single combat.... yeah... you don't give a damn about rolling for stats anymore.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yes, most of us realize that the larger the sample size the more normalized the results. That was kind of my point, that some people tend to base their judgements on too small of a sample, and thus it blows their mind when they miss 3 or 4 times in a row when they had a 95% to hit, despite that over a large enough sample size it is inevitable. I love the X-COM games, but the player-base of those games is notorious for whining about broken statistical probability.

I don't want to derail the thread, but it seems clear to me as an XCOM fan that the displayed numbers don't match up to the actual hit percentages. There are hidden modifiers of some sort, which you can exploit by e.g. shooting at a closer target instead of a far-away target (will hit more often than the % would make you think), or crouching down (makes you get hit somewhat less than someone standing up). I wish I understood exactly what the rules are, but the fact that I don't know the rules exactly* is also part of the charm.

* I know them qualitatively, like "shooting near things is easier than far things," but not in a way that lets me compute the hit %. In 5E terms it's like knowing that Bardic Inspiration makes you better at hitting the demon, without knowing what the demon's AC is.

 

[TwoSix]

You know what your problem here is? You're doing it wrong.

You don't decide what type of character you want to play before you roll the dice. Or, at the very least, you don't remain committed to a specific concept despite what the dice provide.
Doing this sets you up for failure.

To generalize a bit, if you're going into a game using rolled stats, understand that fidelity to your already created character concept is no virtue. Likewise, in a point-buy game, building to a concept IS the best play, since the dice give you no guidance.

Realistically, have a couple concepts ready to go for any game; at least one that supports poor stats (moon druid?), one that supports high stats (gish?), and one that supports point buy. Walking into any game with the expectation that I'm definitely going to play THIS concept and no other is a recipe for failure. Read the group, read the situation, and adapt.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I was a horrible munchkin and enabler of munchkins back in AD&D (2nd edition) days--I used to bribe my brother to do my chores for me by offering him stat boosts to his characters--but the thing in between then and now which has, more than anything else, shaped my attitude towards stat rolling is the fact that I became a fan of XCOM: UFO Defense. I discovered that no matter how uber Manfred Geisler's stats are compared to Rudy Semmelweiss's stats, Rudy can still be an MVP tossing heavy explosives at the bad guys or running a motion tracker, and Manfred can still miss that crucial shot and accidentally kill a civilian. And they are both going to die, sooner or later, probably due to enemy mind control or a Blaster Bomb, and be replaced by Tony Valencio and Martin Shlock. Everybody dies or retires eventually--journey before destination.

The 5E ruleset helps though. It's a lot more forgiving of non-uber stat rolls than AD&D was.

X-COM is a superb game. I love every bit of it. My only complaint about the standard campaign is that it's not long enough.

D&D is not X-COM. You are not commanding a team of soldiers through a narrative with a persistent underlying theme being the bleak impersonal horror of war. You are roleplaying a single character, a hero in a tale of heroic fantasy. You might get attached to Sgt. Molly MacAuley, who goes by the nickname of "Socks" because "Fire-Haired Demon Queen of Shotguns" is too long, and be bummed out when she dies horribly because there were four chrysalids behind that door and she was only able to kill three. But you can't identify with her the way you can with your D&D character. She's not you, she's your subordinate. You've got lots of subordinates. Even before she died, you ran plenty of missions where she wasn't even there.

Sure, you can regard your D&D character with the fatalistic detachment you would an X-COM soldier. There are people here advocating precisely that playstyle. But you don't have to. It doesn't make you a munchkin to think "I want to be a dashing swashbuckler" and expect to have high Dexterity and Charisma to correspond to that idea. And it is immaterial if the 5E rules make it easier to play a supporting role with low scores: if you can't contribute to the story by doing dashing swashbuckler things, it doesn't how you can contribute, because you're still not playing the character you want to be.

(PS: For what it's worth, even X-COM has an option to normalize soldier stats. Moreover, The Long War mod has an option to randomize their skill trees, meaning those who play with that option enabled, like me, get to look down their noses at those who play with the standard rules just as those who play with the standard rules can look down their noses at those who play with normalized stats. It's all a spectrum.)

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

D&D is not X-COM. You are not commanding a team of soldiers through a narrative with a persistent underlying theme being the bleak impersonal horror of war. You are roleplaying a single character, a hero in a tale of heroic fantasy. You might get attached to Sgt. Molly MacAuley, who goes by the nickname of "Socks" because "Fire-Haired Demon Queen of Shotguns" is too long, and be bummed out when she dies horribly because there were four chrysalids behind that door and she was only able to kill three. But you can't identify with her the way you can with your D&D character. She's not you, she's your subordinate. You've got lots of subordinates. Even before she died, you ran plenty of missions where she wasn't even there.

Sounds a lot like D&D to me, especially the "you ran plenty of missions where she wasn't even there" part.

Sure, you can regard your D&D character with the fatalistic detachment you would an X-COM soldier. There are people here advocating precisely that playstyle. But you don't have to. It doesn't make you a munchkin to think "I want to be a dashing swashbuckler" and expect to have high Dexterity and Charisma to correspond to that idea.

Who said it did? I even said that I would, as a DM, consider just letting you make up your own stats freeform, especially if it were a narrative-style PCs-never-die campaign. You want Dex 18 and Cha 18? Go for it, you can have them. And I won't call you a munchkin for it.

(PS: For what it's worth, even X-COM has an option to normalize soldier stats. Moreover, The Long War mod has an option to randomize their skill trees, meaning those who play with that option enabled, like me, get to look down their noses at those who play with the standard rules just as those who play with the standard rules can look down their noses at those who play with normalized stats. It's all a spectrum.)

Are we talking about the same X-COM? (X-COM: UFO Defense, published in 1994 by MicroProse.) I think you're talking about the Firaxis remake, which I haven't played. I don't know how close it is in spirit to the original.

 

[RotGrub]

I disagree, stats can make a huge difference in characters. Let's say my wife and I want to play Tik (short for Tika) and Tok, dwarven fighter brother and sister. We're going to be the front line for the group, but we also want to synergize our capabilities and discuss in combat strategies (like taking defensive fighting style to protect each other) and feats (do both of us need to take shield master, or just one). We also discuss out of combat options like Tik being the kid that always took things apart just to put them back together (good with thieves tools and traps, a backup rogue) and Tok was always trying to smooth ruffled feathers when people were the victim of her traps so he's quite persuasive and may be able to tell a fib or two.

Ok, cool. We have our character concepts and we go to roll. I roll well (similar to another player in the last game we rolled for stats) and get 2 18s and no stat below 14. My wife rolls poorly (also similar to last game we rolled for stats) and gets a high stat of 14, a 10 and everything else below.

Suddenly Tok does 65% more damage, and can take 20% more damage than Tik. Tok has no problem being one fo the more charismatic members of the group and while he's at it he can have some other out of combat skill. Tik? Well, she had to put her 14 in strength, 10 in con, so she's going to have a negative to those thieves tools. In addition, she's not very wise, intelligent or charismatic. Tik's saving throws also suck, while Tok is sitting pretty.

We could switch Tik over to be a mediocre rogue, but then we don't have a second front line fighter that the group needs. Oh, and dwarf is not a great race for synergy with a rogue (especially with such low stats) so she should switch races as well. Suddenly the vision falls apart.

Finally, to say that these 2 are "close in capability" from a metagame standpoint is laughable. These characters do not fit the vision we had for the characters. They can't contribute (numerically) on an
even footing outside of combat either. Tok will always be better than Tik from a numerical perspective or have access to more feats.

If you like random results, that's fine. Just be willing to own up to the results.

[EDIT]
I was going from memory on extra damage and so on and goofed.
Assuming target AC 13 (average)
Both using battle axe, average damage 4.5 per hit
Tik: Strength 16, has +4 to hit, 7.5 damage for average (.45 * 7.5) = 3.375
Tok: Strength 20, has +6 to hit, 9.5 damage for average (.55 * 9.5) = 5.225

Conclusion:
Tok does 65% more damage per round.
Tik has 12 HP, Tok as 15, Tok will last 20% longer in combat, not considering his far better saves for pretty much everything.

As a player, how do you handle the situation in which another character has found and is now using a +3 magical weapon?

Do you also require that the DM open Santa's magical item bag for you at the same time?

 

[Oofta]

As a player, how do you handle the situation in which another character has found and is now using a +3 magical weapon?

Do you also require that the DM open Santa's magical item bag for you at the same time?

Is there anything new here?

Other than "you aren't playing the one true way, therefore you are doing it wrong?"

If one person gets every magical item and bonus while another receives nothing then yes, eventually I would think it's unfair. Same as if the DM looked at his buddy and said "Because I like you, I'm giving you a +3 weapon and a ring of protection +2 at first level. The rest of you are cursed and can never benefit from magical items."

If you're going to make an equivalency argument, follow it through to it's comparable scenario.

 

[Lanefan]

If you look at the numbers honestly without trying to shift the argument, they are not numerically similar. The differences are significant.

Obviously the numbers are different, and if that's all you look at then yes, the resulting abilities of the characters will also be different. (and FWIW you've given a pretty extreme pair of stat sets - 18-18-14-14-14-14 vs. 14-10-9-9-9-9 (filling in values not stated, using what you said as guidelines) - giving an average of 15.67 vs. 10.00 for the two characters. That's a huge difference, and IME extremely unlikely to happen within the same party. But, it's what you've got, so let's proceed.

If that's the game you want to play, that's fine. Just be honest about the fact that from a numbers perspective, one character is going to be significantly better than the other.

Outright going to be better? Not necessarily. Are the odds in Tok's favour? Certainly. But you won't know the actual outcome - whether, say, Tik rolls into the hall of fame while Tok lies forgotten in an unmarked grave somewhere - until the game gets played out.

Side story: the Tik-Tok situation has somewhat happened in my current campaign and is still ongoing. The brother - Kirkos, a MU - was rolled up very early in the game and had a starting stat average just over 12 (14-15-6-14-13-11). A few years later his Illusionist sister Kirke was rolled up with a starting average of 15.5 (14-17-14-17-17-14). Both are still going*, and Kirkos - despite his own best attempts (Wisdom 6 is a real problem when you're a blast mage) - has had by far the better career in terms of longevity, memorability, and stories told. In fact he's become one of the better-known characters this campaign has produced, and is in our Hall of Heroes.

* - Disclaimers: neither has been played continuously since roll-up - we cycle through which party gets played and also which characters are in which parties at any given time. Right now Kirke is active while Kirkos is on hold. They are not played by the same player. All rolls were witnessed, and we've used 5d6k3 since forever. Stats are in the proper order S-I-W-D-Co-Ch.

Lan-"stats aren't everything"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

As a player, how do you handle the situation in which another character has found and is now using a +3 magical weapon?

It would be interesting to see how that played out at different tables under the hypothetical Tik-Tok scenario, if only one very magical weapon was found. (let's say that among the party only Tik and Tok can make use of it, to keep this simple)

Do the party give it to Tik, to boost her up and even out the front line a bit; or do they give it to Tok and start to build the party around him?

Normally this is a player/character issue with minimal if any DM input; so now it's down to the players. What do they do?

The answer to this tells you how much that table cares about balance, and also tells you whether they want to build their party on the superstar-and-support model or on a balanced-but-maybe-weaker model. (and note, either way can be quite effective).

Lanefan