D&D General The Crab Bucket Fallacy

[Oofta]

Getting real 'if I dont start with a 16 its worthless' vibes all over again.

Yep. That's been a common assumption of the thread. You have to have a 16 to contribute both for your class abilities and social charisma based skills. Anything else is pointless and don't even bother because someone somewhere has a 5% better chance of any single check.

 

[Scribe]

Yep. That's been a common assumption of the thread. You have to have a 16 to contribute both for your class abilities and social charisma based skills. Anything else is pointless and don't even bother because someone somewhere has a 5% better chance of any single check.

Which is a shame. Across all these "Wizards Rule and Fighters Drool" threads, there is a critical lack of any kind of framing of the issues, a listing of objective (hi Snarf) assumptions to baseline the discussion, nobody actually outlining the problem to be solved, and so its really just a bunch of mud flinging, to see what could possibly stick.

But it wont stick, because its really just a trojan horse for edition warring and "4e was better".

Productive.

 

[Minigiant]

Please point out where it says this is the only way to play. That you must maximize persuasion and that persuasion (or any other charisma based ability) is the only useful ability.

The default rules is 4/5 of the same ability check.

 

[Oofta]

The default rules is 4/5 of the same ability check.

Uh huh. Where does it say that? Or are you just saying that because it's the examples they give? Because when I read the book it's full of advice to do what makes sense to you and your group.

 

[Minigiant]

Uh huh. Where does it say that? Or are you just saying that because it's the examples they give? Because when I read the book it's full of advice to do what makes sense to you and your group.

I'm saying that because they don't give examples, variants, nor advice.

They designed a game that requires additional rules then didn't give examples or advise how to make them.

 

[Oofta]

I'm saying that because they don't give examples, variants, nor advice.

They designed a game that requires additional rules then didn't give examples or advise how to make them.

Then it's a good thing there are plenty of resources out there if people are confused.

Anyway ... I'm going back to ignoring talking about how terrible the game is. Have a good one.

 

[FrozenNorth]

This is very true and important.

I don’t think anyone is playing how they play because streamers. Like DMs take ideas from them, I know I’ve stolen ideas from Matt Mercer, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Aabria Iyengar, Mark Humes, Brian Murphy, Griffin McElroy, Jerry Holkins in his guise as Jerriford K Horkrims, DM of Teh C Teams, and Victoria from Broadswords, and certainly at least a few others. But nothing I’ve seen suggests that any of these shows have anything at all to do with groups not doing long adventuring days. This was a thing before the rise of streaming, and it is now dominant because anyone who isn’t playing with the baggage of old school D&D is vastly less inclined to see 6 battles in a day as reasonable.

Fair enough. I care less about why most people don’t use 6-8 encounter days and more about the fact that the game is balanced around the fact they do when the vast majority of the published adventures don’t have the party play through 6-8 encounters.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Fair enough. I care less about why most people don’t use 6-8 encounter days and more about the fact that the game is balanced around the fact they do when the vast majority of the published adventures don’t have the party play through 6-8 encounters.

Yeah, WotC adventures aren't great at hewing to the actual game they were written for.

 

[Neonchameleon]

experience comes from DM guidance and knowledge. And the 5e 0014 DMG stunk at that.

Completely agreed. And I hope D&Done does far far better. The problem is that you can't give advice by survey because advice of that sort should be crisp and opinionated and the DMG is a bland mush. (The classes work because people are picking menu items not the entire game).

 

[Scott Christian]

I've explained this.

The issue is that

Wizards of the Coast designed 5E with FOUR of their 13 classes Charisma based and made FOUR of their five Social Skills be Charisma Based while having every character in this team game have FOUR to SIX skills trained. And the default rules of 5e has most social encounters be single rolls.

I have never play a game of 5e with 4 or more people without a Charisma Class.​

"Well you aren't going to out roll the bard" Well unless you ban classes there is a high chance there will be a bard, paladin, sorcerer, or warlock. or arcane trickster. Or a Single Ability Dependent build of cleric, druid, or wizard.

Minigiant, I agree with everything you say here, with the exception of social challenges being one roll. I have seen it done with single rolls and multiple rolls, so I can't speak for most tables. But what I can speak to is it doesn't matter that you have a paladin or warlock or bard at the table with you. The roll, especially social rolls, are determined by who says what. Our bard tonight rolled zero social rolls. Our ranger rolled two. That's because while roleplaying, he was the one that prompted the DM to ask for the rolls. I believe our paladin rolled one too.

It's like I was saying, at your table, do the players determine who rolls or the DM? If it's the players, I get the confusion we have with one another. If it is the DM, then I don't understand the problem with their being multiple charisma-based characters - because the DM determines the roll based on who says what.

Sure they do.

Again none of this matters.
Because without my many houserules a fighter or barbarian can't use their 16 Charisma that they trading off from in combat.

Can you explain why they can't use their 16 charisma? I am sorry, I am a little confused.

And without Cha saving throw proficiency, 14 CHA doesn't do much in the roll. And isn't not WOTC made many CHA save spells.

This is literally what people are explaining to you about combat. 16 doesn't mean that much compared to 14. It is the same as you saying 14 doesn't mean that much in the big picture of the roll.

A fighter with 14 Strength and 16 Charisma using Core Rules isn't getting much in out of their Charisma in combat and can be easily overshadowed by a bard, paladin, sorcerer, warlock. or arcane trickster in Charisma checks in social interaction.

Not to beat a dead horse, they are getting something out of the 16 charisma, saving throws, stronger roleplay skills, and a possible multiclass later on that might prove beneficial.
But, speaking for the record, I never said the fighter trades his best skill for charisma. They don't trade their best skill for intelligence. They just happen to take a 14 or 15 strength to start with and have a different ability higher. Remember, we are talking about a +1, and maybe a +2 by eighth level difference.