D&D General How do you like your ASIs?

[Lanefan]

I'm sorry, but it's inherently not true. Individual play priorities MUST bow before table play priorities.

When the table play priority is "do your own thing", which is generally my preference, what then?

Otherwise, it's being a wangrod, playing something because you can, but someone that does not contribute to the table's objectives or that, in the worst cases, actually go against the table's objective.

As long as it stays in character, I've no problem with any of this; and sooner or later it'll get sorted one way or another.

 

[Lanefan]

Then why have stats at all? Why don't you just say "we have thrown the rule book away and we are playing out a performance where it looks like we are playing D&D"? You can say "we are playing D&D RAW, but we focus on the role-play". But that is not D&D. It just isn't. If I was the DM, that char would be dead within a session. Of course, I would never be allowed to be near a group that tolerated such a char in the first place.

What is next, a 4 Con char? Would love, just love, to see a 4 Con Wizard actually played in a combat session. Or in your game, a 4 Con Fighter.

Our all-time record low for any character's Con score is 5, "achieved" by at least two characters (one of them mine) in a system where revival from death usually knocks you back a Con point (though one of the '5' scores was for sure a legitimate starting roll; I DMed that character).

I've seen 4 scores in every other stat and even a few 3s; Con is the only one whose low record remains as high as 5.

 

[clearstream]

Nope.

He is the very definition of the perfect optimiser
His stats are all conditioned to be just what we require
His lows are somewhat lower and his highs are always higher
For he is the definition of the perfect optimiser

 

[Lanefan]

Personally, I love crazy stats; my next game I'm going to make them roll 7d20s for stats, reroll 1s and 2s, keep highest 6 as your stats. It's for Worlds Without Number, so the stats don't mean quite as much, but I'd love to use that method in 5e also. More of a challenge.

Heh - in a gonzo New Years' game a while back the stat generation method went as follows:

You started with 11 in each stat.

The DM then went to each player in turn with a bag of runestones she'd made and asked the player to pull out six of them in succession. The colour and marking on the rune dictated what was to be done to the stat for which it was pulled; with the colour representing plus or minus and the marking representing a number (and I think one of the markings signified "choose" or "infinite"; it was a gonzo game, after all).

I have never seen such whacked-out stats in my life! One character's array started at something like 14-9-9-5-5-5 while another's started with, I think, 18-18-18-x-x-x where x is a number I don't recall now.

Needless to say perhaps, but the character with the three 5s (which went into Str, Wis and Con) stole the show! We still laugh about that thing today, and none of us will ever look at peanut butter and gunpowder the same again.

 

[clearstream]

Isn't that the very definition of an optimizer?

I've come to differentiate between optimising and power gaming. Optimisers can have many goals, but power gamers all have one goal.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I disagree.

Comic relief that hurts the party is the best kind of D&D! Expescially when the whole party is that way...

If I'm laughing at the foibles of a character - be it mine or someone else's - it probably (as in, certainly) means I'm having fun, and ain't that what this is all about?

Only if they're actually funny.

 

[Lanefan]

He is the very definition of the perfect optimiser
His stats are all conditioned to be just what we require
His lows are somewhat lower and his highs are always higher
For he is the definition of the perfect optimiser

He is the very definition of the perfect optimizer
His characters are always more attractive stronger smarter wiser
He shrugs off any overrulings from the DM supervisor
And that's why he's the definition of the perfect optimizer.

 

[TwoSix]

I've come to differentiate between optimising and power gaming. Optimisers can have many goals, but power gamers all have one goal.

This, pretty much. Optimizing is letting system considerations help decide certain facets of your character, like putting your 12 in Wisdom instead of Int or Cha, or using a Greatsword instead of a Longsword because GWM is such a good feat. Powergaming is only playing a coffeelock or a SS/XBE fighter because it does the most damage.

 

[Lanefan]

I've come to differentiate between optimising and power gaming. Optimisers can have many goals, but power gamers all have one goal.

To me the terms have always been largely synonymous, though I see what you're getting at.

 

[Lanefan]

Only if they're actually funny.

IME it's extremely rare that they aren't.