D&D (2024) Rogue's Been in an Awkward Place, And This Survey Might Be Our Last Chance to Let WotC Know.

[UngeheuerLich]

Once in a while the bonus makes a marked difference, but those times are pretty rare in my experience, and often rely on the DM saying something like, "Wow! You needed to roll that 17 to stay alive!" thereby letting the player know that without every bonus he had, the PC would be dead.

That said, 5e is a very forgiving system where you are rarely even in a situation where one roll will determine life or death, and usually saves occur every round until successful. Most spells and abilities are impediments intended to be in effect for at most a round or two, and the rest deal damage and are simply resource drains(HP and healing slots/items).

I've also noticed people like to use, "Well that extra +2 means 20,000(made up number) more damage over 20 levels!" which ignores that 98% of games don't go 20 levels, and that the 20,000 hit points is spread out over 10,000 monsters. A billion dollars is a massive amount of money, but spread that over the population of the U.S. and it's a paltry threeish dollars each. That small amount of extra damage per creature doesn't mean much on its own, but means even less in 5e where much of the game balance is expressed as monsters being bags of hit points. 5e monsters have more hit points than they did in prior editions, reducing the meaning of that bonus damage even further.

I do agree with you in general. So thumbs up.

 

[Pauln6]

Yeah, my PC has been reconverted in each edition and still has broadly the same stats as 2e. She started with Dex15, Int17, and Cha14 because she was a human who dual-classed into a wizard. Over the years, in conversion, she morphed into a multiclassed sorcerer and warlock instead of wizard but I never felt any need to change her base stats in 3e or 5e. At level 16, she has Dex15, Int17, and Cha16 and is perfectly fun to play. Would she hit more often if she had Dex20, and Cha20? Obviously. Does that affect my enjoyment? No.

 

[ECMO3]

(Is there any reason a mental stat can be used for Athletics?)

Wisdom for chariott racing or boat racing or something like that?

Charisma for some team athletic event where the PC is the coach or QB?

Intimidate
Strength (Intimidate): Bend/break something with might to show what you're capable of.

This is commonly used and there is even an example in the PHB I think, but this really falls flat for me as being a stong man does not really make one intimidating except in very narrow circumstances.

Also I think there is still a heavy charisma element for this.

You give an example of Constitution to ignore pain and show how tough you are. I think this works better in a contest - 2 people go into an icy lake and see who lasts the longest. I think that is constitution, but probably Constitution (athletics), if you are tyring to intimidate your opponent it would still be charisma (you are trying to make him think you can last longer than he can) or may deception (you are acting like it doen't hurt)

 

[Pauln6]

Wisdom for chariott racing or boat racing or something like that?

Charisma for some team athletic event where the PC is the coach or QB?




This is commonly used and there is even an example in the PHB I think, but this really falls flat for me as being a stong man does not really make one intimidating except in very narrow circumstances.

Also I think there is still a heavy charisma element for this.

You give an example of Constitution to ignore pain and show how tough you are. I think this works better in a contest - 2 people go into an icy lake and see who lasts the longest. I think that is constitution, but probably Constitution (athletics), if you are tyring to intimidate your opponent it would still be charisma (you are trying to make him think you can last longer than he can) or may deception (you are acting like it doen't hurt)

Throwing someone against the wall and threatening to break them is an intimidation (str) roll without question.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Throwing someone against the wall and threatening to break them is an intimidation (str) roll without question.

Yeah, and some DMs will instead call for initiative once someone wants to grab/throw someone else.

 

[Horwath]

Yeah, and some DMs will instead call for initiative once someone wants to grab/throw someone else.

as it should be, throwing someone against the wall is no intimidating someone of what can you do to them, but displaying what you can do to them. It's a direct attack.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Wisdom for chariott racing or boat racing or something like that?

Charisma for some team athletic event where the PC is the coach or QB?




This is commonly used and there is even an example in the PHB I think, but this really falls flat for me as being a stong man does not really make one intimidating except in very narrow circumstances.

Also I think there is still a heavy charisma element for this.

You give an example of Constitution to ignore pain and show how tough you are. I think this works better in a contest - 2 people go into an icy lake and see who lasts the longest. I think that is constitution, but probably Constitution (athletics), if you are tyring to intimidate your opponent it would still be charisma (you are trying to make him think you can last longer than he can) or may deception (you are acting like it doen't hurt)

Sometimes just showing, you can do it better or that you can hurt someone really bad can be done by the most uncharismatic person. It might even increase the chance to convince the other one.

What you think of is deception or performance. You make people think you could hurt them. If your intend is really hurt them, if they don't give you information, intimidation(str) works well.

That said, i'd scrap performance as well as intimidation from the skill list and just make it persuasion and deception.

 

[Vikingkingq]

as it should be, throwing someone against the wall is no intimidating someone of what can you do to them, but displaying what you can do to them. It's a direct attack.

I think the entire legbreaker industry would disagree; it's highly intimidating.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think the entire legbreaker industry would disagree; it's highly intimidating.

Perhaps, but major armstrong has quite a few episodes where he shows that simply flexing& pantomiming an attack can convey entirely undesired & less than helpful threats

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

I think the entire legbreaker industry would disagree; it's highly intimidating.

Heh. A Strength (Intimidation) check is just... rolling initiative.