D&D 5E Ability Score Increases (I've changed my mind.)

[Chaosmancer]

Yep. I don't repeat monsters very often. PCs are repeated all the time. When one dies. When a new campaign starts.

And? Like I said, you would need to have 720 characters to have used all of the available combos. If you have every member of a 5 man party using the array, and every one of them created a new character at the start of every game, you would still need to have run 144 games in 5e to have seen them all. Which is 20 games a year.

You haven't done that. So, again, you have a preference, but there is no reason to force it upon others.

Absolutely. I do have them roll hit points with advantage, though. Hit points are too important in 5e to have someone roll poorly due to bad luck. This is my first campaign with the hit point advantage rule, though. It's an experiment and we will see if hit points swing too far in the other direction or not.

The advantage might be a good plan. Many DMs I have do roll and then take the average if you are below. But every time it is a choice between rolling straight or taking the average, I take the average every single time. There is zero reason to roll in my opinion.

As I've pointed out repeatedly, I've only played 5e twice as a player. Since I DM most of the time, I haven't had time to roll poorly yet.

I'm not limiting this to just characters you've personally played. Your players likely have never made a 3 strength strength fighter either.

Apparently farmers are badass, since that's exactly what the farmer's son gets for just picking up dear old dad's sword.

There is a certain amount of unrealistic things that I have to accept for the game to play. That doesn't mean I have to accept them all. I can change things like getting rid of arrays and having players roll for hit points without the game breaking down. I'm not going to make every fighter have to go to fighter training school in order to be a fighter.

So, you can't hand-wave away the potential that a fighter and a rogue might both have a 15, but you are more than willing to hand-wave a farmer picking up a sword and suddenly being able to more than match a guardsman who has the training to use their weapons?

Where do they learn to fight? How did they learn to use a Naginata? At what point did they learn how to wear platemail? When did they learn to load, draw and fire a heavy crossbow in less than 6 seconds then reload it?

This sort of stuff can shatter suspension of disbelief, but you are more concerned that two people may possibly share some numbers abstracted on their sheet instead?

At some point there's such a thing as too much realism. Where we draw the line differs from person to person. You are apparently okay with far less realism than I am, but that doesn't mean that I am trying to mirror reality.

Far less? I'm advocating for more reality than you are

Yes and no. First, Drizzt is not a Lancer. He's not a foil to the hero. He IS the hero. Second, the rebel(or against type) is itself an archetype in a general way, but it's not an archetype for that race. All the Drizzt clones in the world didn't create a new drow archetype.

He was intended to be a Lancer, but that has nothing to do with my point, which was that archetypes are recognizable, that's what makes them archetypes.

And... are you kidding me? Rebel Drow isn't an archetype? Then what do you call Eilistraee ? She's the GODDESS OF REBEL DROW. And who was the first rebel drow ever put to paper? Driz'zt. He literally created a new archetype to the point that they made a goddess to cover it.

It just takes a feat. And you get +1 strength out of it as well.

Sure, but feats aren't free and what if you want something else. Again, "but the dwarf cleric might choose differently" doesn't dispute my point. Which is that it is highly likely to see a dwarven cleric with at least a 12 Dex.

Sure +1 AC is tempting and some will take it. I'm arguing your claim that most clerics will have a 12 or higher dexterity. We don't know where dex will fall, because there are other temptations as well, such as doing better at an entire pillar by putting it in charisma instead. And then there are RP reasons for putting it elsewhere.

And if there is a charismatic rogue or bard or warlock or sorcerer the cleric might decide not to bother. Again, 4 of the 6 numbers available in the array are 12 or higher. There is a very good chance that the cleric has a 12 or higher dex. Between AC, Stealth and Initiative, many people try and get at least a little boost to dex.

In the context of PCs, it just means higher stats in general, not that they are an exception to racial bonus rules So if a commoner has 10, 10, 12, 10, 10, 10. A PC might have 12, 12, 14, 12, 12, 12.

So they are only exceptions in the way that you think is proper, not exceptions in general. Which again, is such an arbitrary thing. There is no reason to try and mechanically enforce biology onto fantasy super heroes.

Sure it does. I will bet you very good money that it works out very well for him. If it didn't, he wouldn't continue to play that way. He's been doing it for decades.

I don't even think he plays 5e, many times in discussions he has been shocked at the rules changes to the game. And it worked far better in 2e than it does in 5e.

They aren't, but you are.

Then I'm confused by your answer.

Helldritch said that the underdog is underestimated.
Bill Zebub asked "who is underestimating them"
And your answer was the "The Audience".

Well, unless you are live streaming all your games, the only audience for the table is your fellow players, so you must mean they are underestimating your character. But, now you say they aren't underestimating the character, but I am. Well, I'm not part of your audience, I don't follow your games, so you are dead wrong about that.

So... who is underestimating this character then if it isn't the audience, and it isn't the people in the party?

The average goliath commoner has a 12 strength. Yet there are still commoners with as high as 20 strength in a village of a few hundred. 1 in 200 rolling 3d6 will roll an 18. Heck, 5-6 will have an 18 and 2-3 will have a 19. Just talking commoners and not exceptional PCs and there are 8-10 out of 200 with a strength of 18+.

So no, a Goliath fighter with an 18 isn't impossibly strong. Unusually strong? For a commoner, yes. For a PC, not so much. If you assume(and you apparently do) that the player will put his highest roll into strength, he has a 56.76% chance of having an 18 strength or higher. Hardly unusual.

I'm confused again Max. the whole point is that the monsters are scared and confused right?

10/200 is 5% of goliaths are this strong.

But, using that same 3d6 method in a village of halflings, then you have about 9 of them who are str 16 through 18, and at least one of strength 18. So... 5% is common and 0.5% is impossible? Both of those actually seem incredibly low odds to me.

And yet the Goliath who has a 5% chance of existing is ho-hum to these monsters, while the halfling is a bizzare monster that shatters their view of reality.

 

[Maxperson]

Depending on what one thinks 'balance' is sure. The curve did improve if the goal is a standard bell curve.

Green options would in a Floating list, include Aarakocra, and Stout Halfing, and if thats a good thing, is up to you.

What's the big deal with green options? They aren't the best, so they're not a powergaming option. I think the inclusion of more green options and losing half of the red options is probably a good thing.

For my personal game the colors don't matter. I'll play a red option as readily as I'll play a blue one if it fits my character concept, but 5e is the already too balanced, so making a few class/race combos(red and orange to green) a bit more powerful isn't going to disrupt things. From a power standpoint it's a nothingburger.

My issue in losing the racial bonuses is for realism reasons.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No. That's not accurate. First, a mountain dwarf commoner averages those stats, but not all commoners have completely average stats.

Using the average just to save time. Besides, the whole point of Helldritch's post is that the monsters are expecting the common dwarf when BAM they get something unusual.

Second, monsters are not going to typically be attacked by commoners. They are going to be attacked by dwarven berserkers with average of 16 strength(18 if mountain dwarf), and dwarven guards with an average of 13 strength(15 if mountain dwarf), and dwarven veterans with an average of 16 strength(18 if mountain dwarf), and the equivalent of dwarven knights with an average of 16 strength(18 if mountain dwarf) and so on. There isn't a soldier NPC that I see, but if there was it would probably have an average of 13 or 14, +2 for mountain dwarves.

Those monsters are going to be used to being hit for at LEAST 1d8+4 damage and hitting much more often than +1. More damage if the NPC type has a damage ability.

Okay? So, they are totally used to +4 and 1d8+4, so why wouldn't they be shocked when it is +7 and 2d8+4? You realize that is a large spike in accuracy (15% I believe) and a large spike in damage (65% if I am correct)

Again, Helldritch's point is that seeing anything unusual will freak out the monsters, because they weren't preapred for it. And yet, it seems my example is ho-hum and business as usual despite this dwarf being massively more powerful than they should expect.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Ok. On you then. Show me a single official D&D book or novel set in a standard D&D world in which the examples I gave are the norm? And no Darksun is not a standard D&D world as it was pretty much built around shaking the standard expectations.
Go ahead. Find me a single one.

You want me to show you a single DnD book in which a Dwarven Cleric of the Forge is Normal?

Well, since Moradin is the god of the Forge, how about we just list the settings where this is to be expected?

Greyhawk
Forgotten Realms
Eberron (the forge domain would fall under Onatar, but dwarves are still master craftsmen)

I must be misunderstanding your question, because this seems like the most obviously trivial class/race combo to play, a dwarven cleric of Moradin.

 

[Helldritch]

You want me to show you a single DnD book in which a Dwarven Cleric of the Forge is Normal?

Well, since Moradin is the god of the Forge, how about we just list the settings where this is to be expected?

Greyhawk
Forgotten Realms
Eberron (the forge domain would fall under Onatar, but dwarves are still master craftsmen)

I must be misunderstanding your question, because this seems like the most obviously trivial class/race combo to play, a dwarven cleric of Moradin.

You got it the wrong way again. Show me a single example in which the examples I gave you. And here I will repeat:" The examples that I gave you."
So find me a dwarven wizard or an halfling barbarian based on strength. You did not find any and thus changed what you consider, in your mind, a good second choice to prove your point.

And by the way. It is very strange that for one advocating that you need floating ASI so that every character concepts can have a 16 in their main stat to encourage diversity of builds because lower than 16 is too weak that all of a sudden a 12 or 14 is quite great.

I sense a great contradiction.... or maybe you forgot what you were advocating earlier?

 

[Maxperson]

And? Like I said, you would need to have 720 characters to have used all of the available combos. If you have every member of a 5 man party using the array, and every one of them created a new character at the start of every game, you would still need to have run 144 games in 5e to have seen them all. Which is 20 games a year.

Nope. I only need to run one game with arrays in order to have all the PCs using the same 6 numbers for their stats. The combos are not relevant to my issue. Stop trying to make them relevant to my issue. You can't do it and it's annoying.

but there is no reason to force it upon others.

Which you know for a fact from this(and other threads) has never been my argument or position. Why even bring it up?

The advantage might be a good plan. Many DMs I have do roll and then take the average if you are below. But every time it is a choice between rolling straight or taking the average, I take the average every single time. There is zero reason to roll in my opinion.

Zero reason for you to personally choose rolling over average, but not zero reason to roll in general. There are reasons to roll, even if those reasons don't work for you. Much like stats, it's more realistic for hit points to come about randomly. Not every 17 con 5th level fighter is going to be identically hard to kill(hit point wise).

That is in fact a reason to roll instead of use average, even if that reason isn't one that works for you personally. Just like I can see and acknowledge that for a lot of people, less randomness/swing is preferred, so that's a reason for them to choose average over rolling.

I'm not limiting this to just characters you've personally played. Your players likely have never made a 3 strength strength fighter either.

Okay. Then I've seen MANY fighters with anywhere from a 7 to 11 strength due to rolling. The lowest 5e strength fighter I've seen is 14. We've only been playing 5e for about 3 years, so we have far fewer characters rolled so far.

So, you can't hand-wave away the potential that a fighter and a rogue might both have a 15, but you are more than willing to hand-wave a farmer picking up a sword and suddenly being able to more than match a guardsman who has the training to use their weapons?

No I can't handwave away that all PCs start with the same 6 numbers. One doesn't have a negative impact on the game(rolling stats), but the other has a very significant negative impact on the game(loss of a huge number of character concepts/themes). The potential for both to have a 15 isn't an issue of mine, since rolling also has that potential.

Where do they learn to fight? How did they learn to use a Naginata? At what point did they learn how to wear platemail? When did they learn to load, draw and fire a heavy crossbow in less than 6 seconds then reload it?

natural talent is a thing. 1st level characters aren't superheroes.

Far less? I'm advocating for more reality than you are

No you're not. Even in boot camp soldiers don't come out with all identical strength numbers. Their strength varies wildly. 27 pushups in a minute, and 42 situps in a minute is really easy for young people. You can do that with average strength.

He was intended to be a Lancer, but that has nothing to do with my point, which was that archetypes are recognizable, that's what makes them archetypes.

Have you ever read his books? From book 1 he was the hero. There was never anyone for him to be a Lancer to.

And... are you kidding me? Rebel Drow isn't an archetype? Then what do you call Eilistraee ? She's the GODDESS OF REBEL DROW. And who was the first rebel drow ever put to paper? Driz'zt. He literally created a new archetype to the point that they made a goddess to cover it.

She predates Drizzt. She was in Greenwoods Forgotten Realms from the beginning, but didn't make it into the D&D settings until 1991.

"Eilistraee was first detailed in Ed Greenwood's The Drow of the Underdark (1991).[2] Before being detailed in published material, Eilistraee already existed in Ed Greenwood's original Forgotten Realms. When asked to create more drow deities, the author used this opportunity to make the Dark Dancer official.[12]"

Sure, but feats aren't free and what if you want something else. Again, "but the dwarf cleric might choose differently" doesn't dispute my point. Which is that it is highly likely to see a dwarven cleric with at least a 12 Dex.

And highly likely not to.

And if there is a charismatic rogue or bard or warlock or sorcerer the cleric might decide not to bother.

That would be stupid. One, it goes against the envisioned character concept. And two, the "face" of the party isn't going to get to do anywhere near all of the talking.

So they are only exceptions in the way that you think is proper, not exceptions in general. Which again, is such an arbitrary thing. There is no reason to try and mechanically enforce biology onto fantasy super heroes.

They are exceptions in the way the game sets forth. The game only makes them exceptional through stats and character class. It explicitly says that they are part of the race that includes the racial bonuses.

From the Racial Traits section in the PHB, page 17.

"The description of each race includes racial traits that are common to members of that race. The following entries appear among the traits of most races."

Those racial traits include the racial ability score increases.

I don't even think he plays 5e, many times in discussions he has been shocked at the rules changes to the game. And it worked far better in 2e than it does in 5e.

I don't think he does, either, but it wouldn't change anything. PCs being non-special to him just means that there are craptons of NPCs with PC level stats and that have PC classes. He's more concerned with PCs and NPCs consistently having access to anything the other can do. 5e is plenty able to be run successfully with that model.

Then I'm confused by your answer.

Observers who often incorrectly believe that someone has no chance or is very likely to lose. Sometimes the underdog gets lucky, but just as often or even more often, the underdog has some ability or trains super hard and really is just as good or better than the other guy.

Well, unless you are live streaming all your games, the only audience for the table is your fellow players, so you must mean they are underestimating your character. But, now you say they aren't underestimating the character, but I am. Well, I'm not part of your audience, I don't follow your games, so you are dead wrong about that.

You're position has been that +2 is a PC just barely getting by as viable. I know from game play and looking at the way encounters are supposed to be set up that they are good. You are underestimating +2 and treating them like the underdog.

I'm confused again Max. the whole point is that the monsters are scared and confused right?

I honestly don't know where you are getting that from. Most monsters are confident and eat/kill people. Some weaker monsters might be scared of an obviously high level party, but it's not the standard monster default position.

10/200 is 5% of goliaths are this strong.

5% of goliath COMMONERS are that strong. Once you add in the soldiers, veterans, guards, blacksmiths, farriers, etc., the % goes way up. And of course PCs are that strong nearly 60% of the time.

 

[Maxperson]

Alright, then please let us know what the intent of the game is, according to the developers. But it would be nice if it was supported by something that they actually wrote rather than snippets of sentences.

It's supported by more than half the rules of the game. The combat section, class section, monster books, magic item section, spell section, etc. all deal with how to get exp, gold, magic items and level up to more powerful levels. Gaining power is at LEAST as much a part of the game as roleplaying is.

Edit: Note that gaining power is not the same as powergaming. Gaining power is an unavoidable part of D&D since it is entirely baked in everywhere. It doesn't matter what kind of PC you make for what goal, power is going to go up. You(personally) cannot make a PC that doesn't gain power as an inherent part of the game.

 

[Maxperson]

Using the average just to save time. Besides, the whole point of Helldritch's post is that the monsters are expecting the common dwarf when BAM they get something unusual.

I use average if they're stopping Joe Shmoe farmer and need him to do something. If it's a blacksmith, that blacksmith's strength and con will be very high, regardless of whether I've rolled or not. Despite being a commoner, I know he must be strong and enduring or he could not be a blacksmith. He also needs an above average dex to be able to place his blows correctly time and time again.

The common village, though, is going to have many of these "uncommon" commoners, as well as guards(militia), veterans who are retired now, etc.

Okay? So, they are totally used to +4 and 1d8+4, so why wouldn't they be shocked when it is +7 and 2d8+4? You realize that is a large spike in accuracy (15% I believe) and a large spike in damage (65% if I am correct)

I'm not sure how "used" to anything they are. If they attack even one village and are strong enough to win, they will probably be hunted down by capable individuals. Not even dragons run around sacking town after town after town. That's just guaranteed to get powerful people involved in making sure your existence ends. They certainly wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the a commoner with +4 rolling a 9 to hit an AC of 15 and a PC rolling a 6 to hit it. A hit is a hit. They're not going to sit down afterwards and attempt to calculate percentages.

Again, Helldritch's point is that seeing anything unusual will freak out the monsters, because they weren't preapred for it. And yet, it seems my example is ho-hum and business as usual despite this dwarf being massively more powerful than they should expect.

If it's overwhelming force, then yeah. I agree with that.

 

[Helldritch]

Since I am quoted for the monsters' expectations I feel I should clarify. Only intelligent monsters have expectations. A chimera does not care whether the halfling is a thief, barbarian or a whatever. But humanoids, giants, Dragons etc... will have some expectations. And when those expectations are proven wrong in a shocking and decisive way, it can lead to a rapid route.

Our dwarven mage is often confused for a fighter as she carries a maul on her back. This means that intelligent monsters see an armored dwarf with a big weapon. They thus imagine her to be a warrior type. When they get in a perfect formation for a fire ball she grins like a cat about to get the mouse. Expectations can make monsters make mistakes.

Our halfling barb did throw an orc in a fire pit to prove a point and he did climbed a dragon and hacked at it. At level 13, that halfling was relatively hard to hit and could take and give quite a punishment. No one imagine that a halfling can lift a full size orc with ease and throw him a few feet in a fire pit. A nimble halfling is not unexpected, but a strong one? Nope. And at higher levels where a build such as this was unlikely to survive, it can bring a potential surprise value.

The key here is role play. You know? The basis of the game we all love and play?

It is very strange that when RP is on the side of floating ASI it is a reasonable and expected thing, that when it is from my part, it becomes meta gaming and entirerly subjective. Floating ASI are great for role play and character concepts. But when I show that it is even better in the fixed ASI side, it is metagaming and just a personal preference unworthy of respect... very strange indeed.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Since I am quoted for the monsters' expectations I feel I should clarify. Only intelligent monsters have expectations. A chimera does not care whether the halfling is a thief, barbarian or a whatever. But humanoids, giants, Dragons etc... will have some expectations. And when those expectations are proven wrong in a shocking and decisive way, it can lead to a rapid route.

I agree with that. But can I confirm that this is the logic you are describing:
- When the rules for Dwarven PCs confer certain strengths and weaknesses (for example, good at swinging at battle axe, bad at casting spells) it follows that intelligent NPC monsters would be surprised by a Dwarven Wizard
- If the rules change such that Dwarven PC's are equally good at swinging axes and casting spells, it follows that intelligent NPC monsters would no longer be surprised by a Dwarven Wizard.

Is that it? Because, if so, can't you just decide by DM fiat that in your game world Dwarven Wizards are rare? (Maybe, as I suggested previously, because Wizards obviously prefer to live in towers, and Dwarves tend to live underground.)