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

[JonnyP71]

I support mins and maxes during character creation. But all races can have individuals who keep improving while leveling.

This is the approach I will probably adopt when we next run a 5E game, setting 1E style ranges at the beginning, but then allowing the PCs to edge beyond those ranges as they develop.

I'm also thinking of dropping ASIs though, so stat gains will be from Feats only. That then gives magic items that fix a stat to 18 for example, much more meaning - and 18 becomes something to aspire to once again, with 20 being achievable by only the most powerful of adventurers.

 

[Yaarel]

This is the approach I will probably adopt when we next run a 5E game, setting 1E style ranges at the beginning, but then allowing the PCs to edge beyond those ranges as they develop.

I'm also thinking of dropping ASIs though, so stat gains will be from Feats only. That then gives magic items that fix a stat to 18 for example, much more meaning - and 18 becomes something to aspire to once again, with 20 being achievable by only the most powerful of adventurers.

If you continue to allow the feats that improve an ability score by +1, that will take the edge off, while ensuring flavorful ways of expressing the ability.

 

[Obryn]

Eh, no. The fluff must match the crunch or there is a horrendous disconnect, which causes these issues. The fluff of the halfling and half-orc indicates that the half-orc is MUCH stronger. That fluff not matching the rules is just horrible game design.

Then that's an entirely different argument, don't you think?

You can have your own opinions on whether or not you miss the racial and gender stat maximums, but you can't say that the text of the 5e rulebook supports your conclusions when it does nothing of the sort.

FWIW, this is not horrible game design, unless you are equating "game design" with "rigid simulation." And boy howdy, if it's simulation that you're looking for, are you looking at the wrong game.

 

[steeldragons]

I don't miss them, because I still use them in my homebrew.

I draw the line at gender splits. There's no need to be sexist in a fantasy game of make believe. Everyone (of a particular species) can be as strong or smart or fast or tough as anyone else.

But "racial" [species-al?] differences, imho, are made stronger and the classes races are more prone to/known for fall into place rather automatically. Say, an elf can have a naturally rolled max Int. of 19...but cannot naturally have a Con. higher than 16. Chances of someone playing an elf to gravitate toward an Intelligence based class is pretty high. That a halfling's Dex. or Con. might be innately higher [max 19] than a human is capable, but a small-sized character could not naturally gain a physical Strength above 16 just makes good sense (humans in my world/games: 3-18 in everything is the, again, "natural" range).

Additionally, making everything the "natural" limits and restrictions of a character's race gives them something to strive and adventure for (if the player/PC so chooses)...finding the necessary magical hoo-hah or mythic trainer or divine boon or whatever that will raise their attribute score beyond what is normally possible for their race. Become a LEGEND among your people!

I don't enforce minimums to BE races. But I do enforce minimums to be classes!

Minimum 9 in the primary attribute to take a class. Secondary abilities come in at a 13 min. Those incredibly rare classes with Tertiary abilities are also 13 with the secondary possibly shifting higher as well.
e.g. A PC must have a minimum Intelligence of 9 to be a Mage[wizard] PC.
To become a "specialist" magic-user, Illusionist, you need the minimum Intelligence of the mage class (9) AND a minimum Dexterity of 13.
To be a Psychic (homebrew class) PC, your Int. must be minimum 9, your Charisma and your Wisdom both must be 13 or higher.

Ability scores increase, naturally, over levels up to a point where you reach the natural maximums and then can not (automatically) gain any more points...until I think 15th level or so, I say that your Primary ability scores can exceed racial maximums.
A class' defining Ability scores of 15 or higher (in both, if there are two, in all three if there are three!) gets you your XP bonus.

 

[billd91]

Eh, no. The fluff must match the crunch or there is a horrendous disconnect, which causes these issues. The fluff of the halfling and half-orc indicates that the half-orc is MUCH stronger. That fluff not matching the rules is just horrible game design.

For the general races, sure. But players aren't playing all halflings or half-orcs. They're playing PCs, exceptional individuals within the game. It doesn't matter than halflings are generally weaker than half-orcs in the broader population. The game is about this halfling PC being played by this player at the table and the PCs should not be so limited. That's why there are no stat minima or maxima for any PCs.

 

[billd91]

In D&D 5e, all player characters cap at ability score 20. This limitation seems tolerated by the community because it is ‘fair’. It allows all races to be viable choices for a class because even if they start off lower, they can eventually reach the needed ability score. At epic levels, at Level 21+, the cap increases to 30.

This seems like a better way to go. If, for example, the Half-Orc capped at 22, then there would be significantly fewer Non-Orcs who participated in Strength-key classes.

I strongly suspect that this is far less a reason than the tendency of uncapped stats in 3e leading to imbalances. Bounded accuracy and the stat cap that comes with it are a response to historical problems with D&D that became really noticeable when everything became open-ended in 3e.

 

[billd91]

If people want to be dumb, let them. That's their choice. Smart people understand that once you hit +5, that's more than you need already. The +1 more that half-orcs would get is just overkill.

I think recent history shows that overkill isn't really a concern for a significant set of players.

 

[rabindranath72]

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...

Fully agreed. After all, that's been the basic approach of D&D from the start; in OD&D (pre-Greyhawk supplement) and Classic D&D, the concept of class includes also race.

AD&D took things a little step further, making classes a sort of special ability of races; if you want a non-human to be a cleric, you must play a half-elf or half-orc. And if you want a multi-class cleric but don't have a high enough wisdom, playing a half-orc is the only choice; also they are the only ones who can multiclass cleric with assassin; a very powerful combination.
As for level limits, they can be avoided by multiclassing with thief, which is unlimited for all races (except half-orcs, but they can be assassins.) This does tell a lot about the "feel" of the implied setting: demihuman adventurers are outsiders in the human world; the only way for them to "progress" in a human-dominated environment is to be, fundamentally, a criminal. Level limits speak more of the desire of Gygax to focus on humanity, making the game (and setting) humanocentric, than any mechanical necessity.

AD&D 2e diluted things a wee bit, but the core tropes are still there.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I would rather the D&D ‘adamantine’ be crystal and transparent, like its mythologically accurate Greco-Roman inspiration.

To the best of my knowledge there is no Greek or Roman myth where adamantine is stated to be crystal or transparent. And when they're making blades and chains out of the stuff, the smart money is that it's metallic. (Although metals are technically crystalline.)

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Level limits speak more of the desire of Gygax to focus on humanity, making the game (and setting) humanocentric, than any mechanical necessity.

As long as players aren't strongly mechanically incentivized to play nonhuman over human, and your campaign setting provides some interesting human cultures and history to provide character hooks for them, I don't think it's necessary to give nonhuman characters the hose to accomplish this.