Level Up (A5E) Do Player Characters Have Average Population Stat Distributions?

[Derren]

I can't believe an avowed anti-metagamer, anti-player-knowledge zealot posted this.

So you're claiming that what's essential for roleplaying is not just the numbers on the character sheet, but also how those numbers were generated?

That strikes me as a purely emotional, but logically indefensible, position.

Let's say we're in a game together, and the DM lets me play a new race that you didn't know about. I let you look at my character sheet. I roleplay the character according to the fluff. I show you artwork that I found on teh Interwebz. I have a hand-painted mini.

Are you seriously saying that without knowing how I arrived at my ability scores...without knowing what the racial ASIs are...you don't really have a sense of that character?

If so, perhaps you genuinely feel that way, but I'll note that to an observer such a position is indistinguishable from "I don't really have an argument for how racial ASIs impact the game, so I'm going to dig my heels in and say that it's the method, not the result, that matters."

Do you really think for roleplaying there is no difference between "Even as a child I was always stronger than other children" (put a higher value into Str), "I trained a lot in my spare time" (Put stat increases into Str) and "Strong? If you think so. Where I come from everyone can do this" (Racial Str bonus)?

 

[Maxperson]

You actually don’t need to change any rules to prevent characters from hacking down stone walls with swords. The DM adjudicates actions and can rule that an action fails without a check if it has no chance of success. Trying to hack down a stone wall with a sword has no chance of success. Maybe if you try with a trebuchet 17 AC and whatever HP and damage threshold will be appropriate.

Attacks are not an ability check and the rule about failure with no chance of success is explicitly for actions check.

The rules for attacks state that if you hit an AC 17, you do damage to the wall. We know the hit points of a wall. There is no chance to fail per RAW unless the DM creates a house rule. It's a fine house rule, though.

In other words, abstract representations of the characters’ ability to do the things the abilities’ mechanics do. There’s no reason a halfling can’t have more bodily power, athletic training, and the extent to which you can exert raw physical force than a Goliath, even though the Goliath undeniably has more muscle mass.

In 5e, yes. Which is why a Halfling can hit 20 and so can a Goliath. It's just easier for a Goliath to get there than a Halfling. You also won't see ANY Halflings with a 20 strength that aren't a PC or special NPC. It's not possible for the common Halfling to hit anything higher than 18, while there will be common Goliaths running around with 20 strengths.

 

[tetrasodium]

Why is that a problem?

Some people are born exceptional. I knew a lot of giant kids in school. And they just got bigger and better.


Even the stars need training by their coaches. There are minor leagues and local talent shows for a reason.

Really? Peewee league is for kids around age 11-12. No matter how exceptional a pro football player is, he or she was nowhere near as strong as they were all those years ago so it's silly to suggest that an "exceptional" individual on the peewee league offensive line can credibly pretend they are capable hold a candle to even the weakest pro football player. Level 1 PCs are at real risk of being killed by rats spiders zombies & even a lucky wizard's familiar, that's probably not even peewee league. The difference between those Level PCs & the average person who hired them is that the average person is almost guaranteed to be killed & as a result needs to hire a team capable of working together to handle these minor problems.

If growing & building story/world depth through those kind of threats or the hardcore combat as war planning that goes with making larger foes something first level PCs can handle is not the right fit for your campaign you can always start at a higher level or with higher stats. When the game is built around the assumption that a first level character who is at serious risk of death from a housecat has abilities not significantly below the most capable elites it's not possible to simply dial it back because the mechanical structure for that growth is missing.

 

[Maxperson]

I can't believe an avowed anti-metagamer, anti-player-knowledge zealot posted this.

So you're claiming that what's essential for roleplaying is not just the numbers on the character sheet, but also how those numbers were generated?

No. The numbers are just a side effect of the race being stronger is all. Even if both of our characters end up with a 15 strength, my playing the stronger race means that I got to my 15 with a 13 due to the race being stronger in the game. I'm still a member of the stronger race, regardless of our strength scores. My journey to the 15 was different than yours.

Let's say we're in a game together, and the DM lets me play a new race that you didn't know about. I let you look at my character sheet. I roleplay the character according to the fluff. I show you artwork that I found on teh Interwebz. I have a hand-painted mini.

Are you seriously saying that without knowing how I arrived at my ability scores...without knowing what the racial ASIs are...you don't really have a sense of that character?

Nope. I didn't say that at all, but I think you knew that.

 

[Charlaquin]

Attacks are not an ability check and the rule about failure with no chance of success is explicitly for actions check.

Citation needed.

The rules for attacks state that if you hit an AC 17, you do damage to the wall. We know the hit points of a wall. There is no chance to fail per RAW unless the DM creates a house rule. It's a fine house rule, though.

Every declaration of action by a player is subject to DM adjudication. The DM can always rule that an attack succeeds or fails without a roll.

In 5e, yes. Which is why a Halfling can hit 20 and so can a Goliath. It's just easier for a Goliath to get there than a Halfling. You also won't see ANY Halflings with a 20 strength that aren't a PC or special NPC. It's not possible for the common Halfling to hit anything higher than 18, while there will be common Goliaths running around with 20 strengths.

So what you’re saying is, player characters’ stat distributions don’t necessarily conform to the averages for their race

 

[TwoSix]

Do you really think for roleplaying there is no difference between "Even as a child I was always stronger than other children" (put a higher value into Str), "I trained a lot in my spare time" (Put stat increases into Str) and "Strong? If you think so. Where I come from everyone can do this" (Racial Str bonus)?

I think it's irrelevant how the system generates the stat. The truth of that stat's meaning comes from the player-chosen narrative (if it's a PC) or from the DM (if we're talking about setting specifics and NPCs). The system is merely a shorthand to communicate generalizations to both the players and the DM.

 

[Phoebasss]

Every step towards generic races, generic classes and so on is a step towards the Strong, Fast, Smart heroes of D&D Modern. But that's the death of D&D - for good or bad, the feeling of playing D&D includes having to choose between lots of idiosyncratic choices! I know lots of players are annoyed by D&Ds crufty choices, but please resist any and all desire to "straighten out" the choices, make them more comparable, or turning them into a buffet. The whole point is to package things to force players to take some good with some bad, since that makes up the "texture" that IS the feeling of playing D&D as opposed to some generic fantasy game.

Let's not be silly here. DnD never makes you take "the good with the bad" when it comes to race choices. You either compromise on power or flavor, unless the character you wanted to make was already a wood elf archer. If you wanted a wood elf archer, you just get all of the good things for no cost. Playing a dwarf ranger should feel different, not just weaker. And right now it just feels weaker. Dwarves and elves have interesting racial features that differentiate them far more than the stat changes, and you can just give everyone a combat relevant racial ability if you feel they need to be differentiated in combat. Something like current half-orc's "savage attacks" but not just for melee. Or extending dwarf's naturally tough aesthetic to once per day damage resistance or something. Because anything is more interesting that 5% more likely to hit.

 

[Guest 6801328]

No. The numbers are just a side effect of the race being stronger is all. Even if both of our characters end up with a 15 strength, my playing the stronger race means that I got to my 15 with a 13 due to the race being stronger in the game. I'm still a member of the stronger race, regardless of our strength scores. My journey to the 15 was different than yours.

Nope. I didn't say that at all, but I think you knew that.

On the contrary, you still seem to be saying just that. Maybe not all the way in the manner I described, but still in the same spirit. In the first paragraph you said quite clearly that a 15 without a bonus is somehow different than a 15 with a bonus. If you believe that, then it would follow that you have an incomplete image of a character without knowing its bonuses. Not sure how you can disconnect those two things.

I do agree that not all 15's are equal, but @TwoSix got it right: the only thing they have in common is that they add +2 to rolls involving that stat. Everything else is whatever fluff the player and DM agree on.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I want to stop pretending that a character’s ability scores dictate characters’ physique in any meaningful way. A Goliath with 10 strength (or even as low as 5 strength if you roll stats!) can still be 7’10” and 440 pounds, while a 2’9”, 37 pound halfling can have 20 strength. And both characters have the same carrying capacity (300 pounds). And the halfling will deal significantly more damage with melee weapons, but the Goliath can be a significantly better archer, I guess? Ability scores have never translated into physical characteristics in a way that has made any sense, and the game has consistently improved as the attempts to pretend they do have gotten relaxed. Again I say, the sooner we can just stop pretending the stats mean anything more than what they actually do, the better.


It has only ever meant that, and the game would be better if we would stop trying to make it mean more.

While I don't think every rule in a RPG must map to the fiction, I certainly think most of them should.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Let's not be silly here. DnD never makes you take "the good with the bad" when it comes to race choices. You either compromise on power or flavor, unless the character you wanted to make was already a wood elf archer. If you wanted a wood elf archer, you just get all of the good things for no cost. Playing a dwarf ranger should feel different, not just weaker. And right now it just feels weaker. Dwarves and elves have interesting racial features that differentiate them far more than the stat changes, and you can just give everyone a combat relevant racial ability if you feel they need to be differentiated in combat. Something like current half-orc's "savage attacks" but not just for melee. Or extending dwarf's naturally tough aesthetic to once per day damage resistance or something. Because anything is more interesting that 5% more likely to hit.

Yes.

I gotta say, the arguments in defense of racial ASIs are so slippery and abstract that it feels to me like it's more of a knee-jerk reaction to change (in some cases motivated by a suspicion that it's a change driven by political correctness) than anything well-reasoned. The only argument I find really solid is that the game should encourage certain race/class combinations. I mean, I don't agree with that design goal, but it's a valid design goal, and racial ASIs support it.