D&D 5E I think I prefer backgrounds in 2014

[Clint_L]

[wrong thread!]

 

[Clint_L]

Again, people feel that +2 is a significant difference, thus it is a fine way to represent a significant difference.
And we don't need to assume that the scale is linear. Is tarrasque only 50% stronger than the strongest human?
That the representation is not perfect to me is not argument for getting rid of the little sense it has. At that point we might as well admit that the ability scores are just arbitrary numbers that do not represent anything, and once we do that there is no reason for them to exist at all.

Disagree with that slippery slope. They are arbitrary numbers...that the game needs in order to work as designed. But it doesn't need players to be penalized for having different points of view about how strong a halfling should be.

What makes sense to you is not the same as what makes sense to me. If one of my players wants a super strong halfling barbarian because that's what makes sense to them in D&D Land...cool. If it doesn't seem realistic to me, then I guess it's magic.

 

[abirdcall]

Yeah, but if you're going to get all technical about it, it doesn't make sense that a goliath would be just 5-10% stronger than a halfling, does it? I mean, if you're going to to go for real world accuracy, you're going to need halflings to have a strength of 3 and goliaths to have a strength of 25+. Which they will need just to move themselves about all day long. And I wouldn't expect them to be leaping across wide crevasses; the landing alone will risk breaking their ankles. So you'll have to have special jumping rules. Not to mention food; rations are going to take up a LOT more weight and space for a goliath. And so on.

Also, let's say we've decided to make strength accurately reflect real world biology. In that case, what about intelligence? Dexterity? Charisma? Wisdom? Constitution? Pretty hard to justify modifiers to any of those based on real world physics and biology.

Giving a goliath a +2 to strength over a halfling (which the halfling can eventually make up with ASIs if they want anyone) is the barest nod to realism. Why bother? All it does is deincentivise certain class/species combinations at level 1, because gamers gonna game. Let the players decide what makes sense to them. If having a super strong halfling doesn't make sense to you...don't make one?

As for backgrounds, I just assume that anyone who cares much will just use the "create your own" option, so I'm not too fussed about them.

+1 to this but also...since people don't think of halflings as the strength species people just don't actually play them that way. So regardless of the rules, we still just don't see high strength halflings.

If I were to want to play a high strength halfling I would just include in their backstory that they either have a magic item or were granted a boon or something that gives them magical strength. Then it's pretty cool that despite their size they are able to match the strength of big warriors.

There are humans alive today who can lift 1100lbs. That requires a strength of 36. The heaviest yoke used in competition is over 1500lbs which requires a strength of 50.

If we grant them powerful build they still come in at 26 strength for the yoke carry.

They weigh over 400lbs and need to consume at least 8000 calories just to maintain their weight and muscle.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Again, people feel that +2 is a significant difference, thus it is a fine way to represent a significant difference.

I think abilites like powerful build had been better.
Or size bonuses. I liked size bonuses in 3e. One of those things I had kept.

+1 to hit, +1 AC as a tradeoff to -4 str checks for grapples and only being able to use smaller sized weapons and having less strength seemed fair.

Maybe numbers need to be tweaked for 5e. Maybe advantage/disadvantage on dex or str based grapple checks. Or +2 DC. Would represent being really big better than just upping str.

And we don't need to assume that the scale is linear. Is tarrasque only 50% stronger than the strongest human?

I had prefered that stats cap at 18 for humans... or go up to 40 for monsters.

That the representation is not perfect to me is not argument for getting rid of the little sense it has.

I disagree. Only if we take @Horwath advice and just remove it from attack/damage calculations.

At that point we might as well admit that the ability scores are just arbitrary numbers that do not represent anything, and once we do that there is no reason for them to exist at all.

If we use it for skills the do represent something: being good at skills.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Disagree with that slippery slope. They are arbitrary numbers...that the game needs in order to work as designed.

But if a score called "strength" doesn't actually represent how strong your character is, then that is crap design. Like a complete failure. We have mechanics that are disconnected from the fiction. I have no use for that in a roleplaying game. The game is about the fiction, the rules are there to help us to represent it mechanically. If they cannot do that, they don't need to exist.

But it doesn't need players to be penalized for having different points of view about how strong a halfling should be.

What makes sense to you is not the same as what makes sense to me.

So to you it makes sense to you that a creature with eight times the mass of a smaller creature is just as strong as the smaller creature? Besides, as long as there are any rules at all attached to the species, the game "penalises" us for having a different idea of them. Why is my halfling penalised by not having dark vision and a breath weapon? Perhaps to me it makes sense that they would have those!

 

[UngeheuerLich]

But if a score called "strength" doesn't actually represent how strong your character is, then that is crap design.

Depends. Then everyone thst is very large should have a low dex. So decoupling it from combat stats seems good here. Or probably make an attack stat that is the average of dex and str.

So someone with 24 str and 10 dex has an attack stat of 17. As well as the smaller character with 20 str and 14 dex.

If you do this, you can give bonuses that actually matter instead of +2.

If you then use str to calculate HP and dex to calculate AC, you would have hard to hit low dex chars and easy to hit big characters with the same average effective hp...

And you don't need an extra size bonus on top. Small could just give -4 str, +4 dex. Large could give +4 str, -4 dex. And so on.
Powerful build could treat you as one size category higher.

Like a complete failure. We have mechanics that are disconnected from the fiction. I have no use for that in a roleplaying game. The game is about the fiction, the rules are there to help us to represent it mechanically. If they cannot do that, they don't need to exist.

That is a bit of an overstatement.

So to you it makes sense to you that a creature with eight times the mass of a smaller creature is just as strong as the smaller creature? Besides, as long as there are any rules at all attached to the species, the game "penalises" us for having a different idea of them. Why is my halfling penalised by not having dark vision and a breath weapon? Perhaps to me it makes sense that they would have those!

...

 

[mamba]

putting aside the blatant insults here

of what? all of mankind? Calling mankind not all that rational is not really an insult, it is just a fact, unfortunately

i feel it. i feel it a lot. and i felt it before level 8, too. that 5-10% matters a lot more then you'd think it might.

it matters exactly as much as 5% would indicate, the rest is confirmation bias

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Did you note the times where your secondary stat that is 2 points higher than on an "optimized" build made a difference?**

this is another interesting thing - there was another character in the party who was a decently combat optimized fighter. GWM, 20 in the attack stat, the works. hit way more often then i did. and yes, the stat did matter.

In 3e we had a bard with highest stat 14. And no combat stat above 10. And we made a list who was the highest damage dealer. And guess what. It was the bard who buffed his bardic inspire courage to +4 attack/damage (I think). And when we ascribed any hit from the ranger that had otherwised missed to the bard, the bard was on top.

...so your example of a character with suboptimal stats being the highest damage dealer is someone who could borderline ignore their low stats? that's. not an example in your favor, actually.

 

[GnomeWorks]

But it doesn't need players to be penalized for having different points of view about how strong a halfling should be.

Cats are not dogs.

Halfling strength is, like most things, probably a normal distribution. There are weak halflings and strong halflings, relative to their mean -- but that curve will amost assuredly be different from half-orc strength. A weak half-orc is probably around the same strength as a strong halfling.

Frankly that halflings only got a -2 to Strength in 3e was probably not reflective of how physics and biology work to begin with.

 

[CreamCloud0]

+1 to this but also...since people don't think of halflings as the strength species people just don't actually play them that way. So regardless of the rules, we still just don't see high strength halflings.

actually isn't the 'small species with giant weapon' a significantly popular archetype? i feel we would've seen many more martial halflings if their small trait hadn't directly worked against those who wanted to build into strength, as all the best STR weapons were Heavy meaning they couldn't realistically utilise them (as well as one of the best martial optimisation feats-GWM which also requires the heavy trait to activate)

If I were to want to play a high strength halfling I would just include in their backstory that they either have a magic item or were granted a boon or something that gives them magical strength. Then it's pretty cool that despite their size they are able to match the strength of big warriors.

personally i don't love the need to make the biologically disinclined species any worse at a thing than the baseline set by the other general species capability and then have to justify that that halfling weilding the greathammer has some quirk or boon that makes their concept possible, i'm happy just having the goliaths have their thing that makes them exceptional at strength-y things (though i don't think that ought to take the form of ASI boosts), so long as the halfling also get their things that make them better at stealth and other halfling-y things.