D&D (2024) Size, Carrying Capacity, Strength, Athletics, Mobility

[Yaarel]

@Scott Christian

I was unclear about your premise.

I agree that it is problematic to try split up Athletics mobility into smaller subcomponents, such as Climb checks and Balance checks, between Strength and Dexterity.

For this reason, one should use Strength Athletics to make any Balance checks, among any the other checks relating to mobility, including Jumping and landing a Jump (aka landing a Fall).

Because Dexterity is already overpowered, it is worthwhile to give all mobility to Strength Athletics only. The tortured "Acrobatics" no longer exists.



Your point about players investing in a concept, I also agree with. The character concept that specializes in agility including parkour, physical stunts, diving, speed, etcetera, can invest in Strength and proficiency and expertise in the Athletics skill. It is still possible for a low Strength character to gain training in Athletics even if lacking a talent for it.

 

[Scott Christian]

I was unclear about your premise.

I agree that it is problematic to try split up Athletics mobility into smaller subcomponents, such as Climb checks and Balance checks, between Strength and Dexterity.

For this reason, one should use Strength Athletics to make any Balance checks, among any the other checks relating to mobility, including Jumping and landing a Jump (aka landing a Fall).

Because Dexterity is already overpowered, it is worthwhile to give all mobility to Strength Athletics only. The tortured "Acrobatics" no longer exists.

I think the DM can do this with a simple dexterity-athletics check or strength-acrobatics check, no?

But I understand not wanting to force the hand of the DM to make the already overpowered dexterity even stronger.

Your point about players investing in a concept, I also agree with. The character concept that specializes in agility including parkour, physical stunts, diving, speed, etcetera, can invest in Strength and proficiency and expertise in the Athletics skill. It is still possible for a low Strength character to gain training in Athletics even if lacking a talent for it.

This is true. You can invest in skills that are not your bread-and-butter, so to speak. And, I myself, have argued many times that this is what keeps the skill system balanced. We agree. Very much so.

 

[Yaarel]

I think the DM can do this with a simple dexterity-athletics check or strength-acrobatics check, no?

It is tempting to want to use Dexterity for Athletics checks, especially if Strength defines Weightlifting.

The problem is, within the game design, Dexterity is already far too powerful. Giving Dexterity all of Athletics as well is too much too much.

That is why I advocate to clearly give all of Athletics (including Balance, Fall, and Tumble) to Strength Athletics. It makes Strength more par with other abilities. Likewise delete socalled "Acrobatics". So in terms of general rules, Dexterity no longer involves mobility. Strength Athletics is the clear design space and go-to for the concept of agility, mobility and stunts.

Thus the solution is to decouple Strength from Weightlifting, by specifying a separate Strength Weightlifting skill. While both Athletics and Weightlifting can benefit from the Strength bonus, it is possible to invest in Athletics without being a powerlifter, and invest in Weightlifting without being especially agile.

But I understand not wanting to force the hand of the DM to make the already overpowered dexterity even stronger.

Exactly. But it isnt the DMs fault, or responsibility. The D&D game design itself needs to clarify how it distinguishes between Strength Weightlifting, Strength Athletics, versus the hand-eye cautious precision of Dexterity Sleight.

This is true. You can invest in skills that are not your bread-and-butter, so to speak. And, I myself, have argued many times that this is what keeps the skill system balanced. We agree. Very much so.

Yeah.

 

[Yaarel]

By the way, "sleight" is a great word.

People often confuse "sleight" and "slight". The word "slight" means "of a small amount". In this sense, the mistake of "slight of hand" has in mind "very small" unnoticeable movements of the hand. Meanwhile to "slight" someone, means to treat one dismissively as not worth much, thus offensively. I havent heard it ordinary speech, but literature sometimes mentions a "slight build", meaning short and thin. People normally use the terms "slight" and "slightly" to mean by a "very small amount".

The term "sleight" is completely different. It relates to the word "sly", and means something clever and tricky. Hence the phrase "sleight of hand", means to learn how to use the hands slyly, in clever and tricky ways. Thus the Sleight skill relates to picking pockets imperceptibly, nonmagical legerdemain stage tricks, coin tricks, card tricks, and so on. The Sleight skill should also apply other feats of manual dexterity, especially picking locks and disarming or bypassing a trap. A character with training in both the Sleight skill and the Thieves toolset has Advantage in checks to Pick Lock and Disarm Trap. Generally when a DM narratively adjudicates how players interact with an adventuring scene, the DM can specify the Sleight skill to grant proficiency for any physical interaction that seems to benefit from minuscule manual precision.

 

[Scott Christian]

It is tempting to want to use Dexterity for Athletics checks, especially if Strength defines Weightlifting.

The problem is, within the game design, Dexterity is already far too powerful. Giving Dexterity all of Athletics as well is too much too much.

That is why I advocate to clearly give all of Athletics (including Balance, Fall, and Tumble) to Strength Athletics. It makes Strength more par with other abilities. Likewise delete socalled "Acrobatics". So in terms of general rules, Dexterity no longer involves mobility. Strength Athletics is the clear design space and go-to for the concept of agility, mobility and stunts.

Thus the solution is to decouple Strength from Weightlifting, by specifying a separate Strength Weightlifting skill. While both Athletics and Weightlifting can benefit from the Strength bonus, it is possible to invest in Athletics without being a powerlifter, and invest in Weightlifting without being especially agile.

I understand what you propose. It's just that D&D should be vague. And therefore, left up to the DM at the table. Which is how it presently works. To complicate matters only widens the gap of disparity between those that know how to game the system and those that don't.

Exactly. But it isnt the DMs fault, or responsibility. The D&D game design itself needs to clarify how it distinguishes between Strength Weightlifting, Strength Athletics, versus the hand-eye cautious precision of Dexterity Sleight.

Maybe this is where we disagree. It is the DMs fault. If they have three group members that rely on strength, then they need to build or modify the encounters to highlight their strength. DMing takes time and work. (And, as I said earlier, reading the rulebooks, DMs Guide, MM, and adventures.) If you are not going to do that, don't try to bend the system to accommodate those that refuse to the bare minimum.

 

[Yaarel]

I understand what you propose. It's just that D&D should be vague. And therefore, left up to the DM at the table. Which is how it presently works. To complicate matters only widens the gap of disparity between those that know how to game the system and those that don't.

The clear "general rule" should specify Strength Athletics is responsible for all agility and stunts. Athletics is the conceptual go-to, and the expected design space.

But. There can also be exceptional "specific rules", such as the Monk class substitutes Dexterity for all Athletics checks. Meanwhile a "variant rule" in the DMs Guide can suggest the DM substitutes Dexterity for Athletics, when mobility stunts seem to benefit from slow, cautious, precision.

Maybe this is where we disagree. It is the DMs fault. If they have three group members that rely on strength, then they need to build or modify the encounters to highlight their strength. DMing takes time and work. (And, as I said earlier, reading the rulebooks, DMs Guide, MM, and adventures.) If you are not going to do that, don't try to bend the system to accommodate those that refuse to the bare minimum.

As a DM, I prefer to think conceptually when creating challenges: thus the mobility challenge (Athletics), the brute force challenge (Weightlifting), and the manual precision challenge (Sleight).

 

[tetrasodium]

I understand what you propose. It's just that D&D should be vague. And therefore, left up to the DM at the table. Which is how it presently works. To complicate matters only widens the gap of disparity between those that know how to game the system and those that don't.

Except it's not vague to the players who outnumber the GM. 5e goes out of its way to breed strongly held certainty that acrobatics does all of the same things at every point it can. You only need to look for how often it says"str(athletics) or dex(acrobatics) check"as an example. The gm pushing back by constantly correcting player expectations and making players come up with something falling within actual mechanics only causes adversarial feelings and slowdowns in play

Maybe this is where we disagree. It is the DMs fault. If they have three group members that rely on strength, then they need to build or modify the encounters to highlight their strength. DMing takes time and work. (And, as I said earlier, reading the rulebooks, DMs Guide, MM, and adventures.) If you are not going to do that, don't try to bend the system to accommodate those that refuse to the bare minimum.

I would consider three players to be on or close to the smaller end of group size. Bump that to four or five and the "if" supporting the whole premise crumbles pretty fast to reveal something like a yes or probably.

 

[Yaarel]

The monster statblock can present more helpfully the information about abilities and skills. I am looking at the Cat statblock for comparison, and am thinking about Cat as high Strength for its Size.

For the 2024 statblock, I prefer something like the following:


CAT
Tiny Beast, Material, Unaligned
Speed 20 ft, Run x12, Climb 20 ft
Armor Class 12
Hit Points 5 (1d4)
STR +2 (15) DEX −1 (8) CON +2 (14)
INT −4 (3) WIS −3 (5) CHA −2 (6)
PROFICIENCY +2: Persuasion +0
EXPERTISE +4: Athletics +6, Perception +1, Stealth +3
Senses Passive Perception 11
Keen Smell. The Cat has Advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell.
Night Vision. If any light is in sight, the Cat can see as if in Dim Light.
Powerful Legs. The Cat has Advantage on Strength checks that rely on its hind legs.


Notes
• The Cat is a creature of the "Material" Plane. Familiars, such as Fey spirits or Celestial archetypes, are adopting the form of a Cat.
• The Speed for whether the Cat can outrun one or not, seems more immediate than the AC for whether one can hit it or not.
• The Speed of a Cat is typically slow and rarely walks at length in a straight line. But it can Run very swiftly, about 30 miles per hour. When traveling alongside a human, a reallife cat can stay at a comfortable trot at the human speed. Using D&D round numbers, this works out to be roughly "Speed 20 feet, Run x12".
• The Cat has a Climb Speed about the same as its walk Speed.
• Here, the Armor Class bonus for a Cat derives from its agile Strength, not from a manual Dexterity to block attacks.
• Despite Tiny Size, a Cat is surprisingly tough. Thus it gets the normal 3 Hit Points from its 1d4 Hit Dice, and it has a decent Constitution. One reallife cat that belonged to my mom definitely had a Constitution Score between 15 and 17. It survived eating poison. It survived starving for a month after getting itself trapped in the attic space of a neighbor who was traveling. It lived to be over 20 years old. Etcetera. This is the cat that gives the "nine lives" reputation creedance.
• The three Physical Abilities (Str, Dex, Con) and the three Mental Abilities (Int, Wis, Con) are on separate lines. An Ability is the same thing as the Ability Bonus. Its comparable "Score" is in parentheses.
• Strength has no dependence on Size. The Cat is both Tiny and high Strength proportional to its Size. The Cat is also unusually agile, jumping, climbing, running, etcetera, equivalent to an innate Expertise in Athletics.
• The Cat is strong, but lacks the Weightlifting skill or a special feature for it. The data for the reallife cat strength seems spotty, heh, partly due to lack of cooperation with tests. Generally, the average housecat should weigh roughly 9 pounds, but is typically overweight. It can easily Carry a quarter of its body mass by its mouth, which it frequently does, such as to carry a kitten or a prey. It is estimated to be able to carry upto its own body weight this way, but rarely does so. Its ability Lift, Pull and Push seems to depend on how much of a panic it is in, and its leg force for pulling or for pushing itself into something can be astonishingly strong. The housecat is proportionally stronger than the tiger, but less strong than the lion. The cat is proportionally stronger than an average human. Tentatively I am quantifying the D&D Cat as Strength +2. Thus when it feels like it absolutely must, it can Lift, Push and Pull about twice its Lean Weight: (2 + 2 Strength + 0 Weightlifting)(½ Lean Weight). Notably, the D&D Lion is Strength +3 (17), so making the Cat Strength +2 (15) seems about right. Perhaps the Tiger should be Strength +2 (14). Of course, the Lion and Tiger are Large, and the Cat is Tiny.
• The manual Dexterity of a Cat is less than an average Human but better than many other animals, so about Score 8.
• Wisdom: Heh, I prefer D&D never stats any reallife animal as if a "wise" Buddha. Normally, the mental abilities of animals range between 1 and 6, depending on the animal. Notice the low Wisdom but high Expertise in Perception, and special Perception features. If the habit of weirdly high "wisdom" is too hard to break, then redefine socalled "Wisdom" as merely Perception, while its willpower Save is really an inflexible instict. But cats seem more easily frightened than humans are, for example, so the lower Wisdom feels more accurate. Perception is a separate skill, that can be innately high, and special features can augment it. Most D&D Beasts that represent reallife animals would restat with lower Wisdom scores.
• Charisma: I get it that cats are cute, but this isnt the same thing as a mental ability. That said, dogs and cats are more social than many other animals. A Charisma Score of 6 seems fine. Note a Persuasion Proficiency.
• The Proficiency number and the Expertise number list separately. These numbers help the DM figure out special situations quickly.
• I added "Night Vision" to note and tentatively quantify something that cats are famous for. Cats are about 7x better than humans at seeing in the dark, and normally hunt during the evening and morning twilights, and to a lesser degree during the night. The idea that the Cat can "see as if in Dim Light" "if any light is in sight", including star light or a distant candle, is an exaggeration by oversimplification. But there are situations that are total darkness for humans, but merely dim for cats.


For comparison here is the 2014 statblock for the Cat.

CAT
Tiny beast, unaligned
Armor Class 12
Hit Points 2 (1d4)
Speed 40 ft, climb 30 ft
STR 3 (−4), DEX 15 (+2), CON 10 (+0) INT 3 (−4), WIS 12 (+1), CHA 7 (−2)
Skills Perception +3, Stealth +4
Senses passive Perception 13
Keen Smell: The cat has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell.

 

[Scott Christian]

The clear "general rule" should specify Strength Athletics is responsible for all agility and stunts. Athletics is the conceptual go-to, and the expected design space.

But. There can also be exceptional "specific rules", such as the Monk class substitutes Dexterity for all Athletics checks. Meanwhile a "variant rule" in the DMs Guide can suggest the DM substitutes Dexterity for Athletics, when mobility stunts seem to benefit from slow, cautious, precision.

Yeah, I don't mind the specific rule clause. But I still believe it is not difficult for a DM to listen to a player declare their character's actions, and then base the roll of strength or dexterity. In fact, one could argue it encourages roleplaying, as most people have a tendency to attempt their strengths and not weaknesses. (And I will admit, it also slightly increases the far-fetched constant ridiculousness of requests to the DM.)

As a DM, I prefer to think conceptually when creating challenges: thus the mobility challenge (Athletics), the brute force challenge (Weightlifting), and the manual precision challenge (Sleight).

Those sound-like great standards for creating challenges. I assume you design these challenges to have more than one way to success. For example, the old chest: pick the lock or pick it up and smash it (among others). The standard way is to pick the lock. That's probably the one the DM thought about first. Then designed from there. It might look like this:

• Oh, what happens if the lock is shaped like a siren, and if they fail it starts to scream. Cool. But what happens if they pick the chest up and just smash it. Hmm... what can I place inside that might have consequences for smashing. What about that wizard with knock. Well, maybe he uses it and the siren absorbs it. Now, when he rubs the sirens belly she can cast knock once per long rest. That seems cool. But what if the players hook up a pry bar to a lever and then pry it open at a distance from the side. How about it just pops open on a success. That sounds good.

Then, for the next chest, the DM tinkers with the order and success and numbers of the chest. I think that is how most planned checks work.* Unless people are just playing impromptu.

* I fully understand this is not the way of most adventure paths. But anyone that knows me, understands that I believe you need to put in some work to those paths to tailor them to the players and make them your own.

 

[Scott Christian]

Except it's not vague to the players who outnumber the GM. 5e goes out of its way to breed strongly held certainty that acrobatics does all of the same things at every point it can. You only need to look for how often it says"str(athletics) or dex(acrobatics) check"as an example. The gm pushing back by constantly correcting player expectations and making players come up with something falling within actual mechanics only causes adversarial feelings and slowdowns in play

Not to any player that trusts their DM. Might it slow play. To a slight degree, I can see that. But the rules are incredibly clear that the DM declares the skill check, the attribute associated, and the DC level.

I would consider three players to be on or close to the smaller end of group size. Bump that to four or five and the "if" supporting the whole premise crumbles pretty fast to reveal something like a yes or probably.

I am sorry, but I do not understand this statement. If the DM does the work, it doesn't matter if there are three, five, seven, or nine players. A table with a lot of players has less time to highlight individuals. That is a con to large tables. There are pros and cons to every group size.