D&D (2024) Using general Feats when your ability is already 20

jgsugden said:

You're entitled to an opinion, but there is pretty insanely widespread evidence of it occurring often that you can read here on Enworld in various threads over the years that discuss how a character with high rolled stats 'ruined' a game. This is one of those threads that reappears over and over and over and over and over and ....

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Adctually I don't often read evidence of it on ENWorld. I read some people theorycrafting about it happening and a few like you saying they experienced it. But I don't often read any actual play reports (i.e. evidence) of it happening. Can you link some of these threads that appear over and over and talk about a character with high rolled stats who ruined the game?

It does not happen in the games I play in. That is not my opinion, that is factually my experience with over 40 years of playing D&D, and I backed it up with 3 example PCs from the actual game I started this thread about. That game is real, that game is ongoing and the "overwhelmingly strong" tendency you mentioned is not happening in that game, quite frankly the opposite is - a character with weaker stats is playing the "starring role".

I am not going to say it never happens, because people on here claim it has happened to them, so it obviously is there at times. But it does not happen in most of the games I play and I don't believe it happens in most or even a significant percentage of games overall. I also think that people that have experienced it and tables that are most worried about this typically play 5E using point buy, so when it comes to 5E I think it rarely happens even at the tables of people who have witnessed it being a problem and consider it a problem.

ECMO3 said:

It does not happen in the games I play in. That is not my opinion, that is factually my experience with over 40 years of playing D&D, and I backed it up with 3 example PCs from the actual game I started this thread about.

...

I also think that people that have experienced it and tables that are most worried about this typically play 5E using point buy, so when it comes to 5E I think it rarely happens even at the tables of people who have witnessed it being a problem and consider it a problem.

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It can be difficult to have meaningful discussion about anything when one person's experiences are considered incontrovertible facts, but other people's experiences can be dismissed as incorrect opinions.

Flights of Fancy said:

Right, but that's expected, isn't it?

The question is why would one PC have a 20 and another a 14 and anyone expect them to play the same in their effectiveness? I don't think anyone would nor to I recall anyone claiming they believed so, but maybe I missed it?

Originally, my point was about a single +1 modifier difference. Even a +2 isn't that noticable frankly, as I outlined in my post. That is the difference you might see if a PC is maxed at 20 by rolling and another maxes out their standard array to 17.

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difference between 18 and 20, as mentioned is give or take 20%.
will it matter in a single encounter?
probably not, to few d20s are rolled to make a difference.

will it matter in 100 combats over a part of campaign? absolutely

math is math and numbers speak.

if you want just do a number experiment with 5 characters, one party has primary 18 and other primary 20.
do 1000 simulations and add up how many HPs(if any) is left in the party after the encounter.

Back OP's question, I guess part of what to consider here is the following situation:

Player makes choices that give them a leg-up early on (capping out their main stat). Should they be able to have their cake and eat it too? Intentionally cap out the main stat, and then later benefit by having features tailored to accommodate their earlier choice.

I had something similar occur, and I was of two minds about it:

Player caps out their strength at 8th level. A month or two of play later, at 9th level, the party finds a belt of fire giant strength. The player now wants to change their 8th level +2STR ASI choice into a feat, because that +ASI is going to waste since they found this belt.

I do allow retraining of some features and feats with downtime, but I never came across the question of retraining an ASI. My gut reaction that no, the player didn't know they were going to find this belt, they don't just get to respec their character for optimal play. Then I reconsidered it, because some feats are half-feats and give +1 ASI... So there's already the precedent for undoing ASIs. That's where I landed, but its an odd situation.

Distracted DM said:

Player caps out their strength at 8th level. A month or two of play later, at 9th level, the party finds a belt of fire giant strength. The player now wants to change their 8th level +2STR ASI choice into a feat, because that +ASI is going to waste since they found this belt.

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-off topic a bit, but;

this is why I hate the design of this item.
my HR:

belt gives str of 16 or +2(max 22), whatever is higher

stronger belts are;

STR of 18 or +4(max 24)
STR of 20 or +6(max 26)

this way, belt is still very useful to wizards or others that have default 8 STR(in 99% of the time) and rewards investment in high STR.

on topic:
feats should not be tied with ASI at all. biggest fail of 5E
if they are, all feats should have floating +1 ASI by default.
there should be option to take two feats together without any ASI that they provide.

Horwath said:

-off topic a bit, but;

this is why I hate the design of this item.
my HR:

belt gives str of 16 or +2(max 22), whatever is higher

stronger belts are;

STR of 18 or +4(max 24)
STR of 20 or +6(max 26)

this way, belt is still very useful to wizards or others that have default 8 STR(in 99% of the time) and rewards investment in high STR.

on topic:
feats should not be tied with ASI at all. biggest fail of 5E
if they are, all feats should have floating +1 ASI by default.
there should be option to take two feats together without any ASI that they provide.

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I've done +str items in the past, similar to how you work yours (a fine idea it is!), but this was actually a request of a said player, they went on a quest for it, etc. So it wasn't a custom item as I've done in the past, and I had not considered altering the items as they were since the player requested it.

Of course the really funny thing is that now, right after they acquired the belt, the player realizes that using some other options (we play A5E) that they can get to 24str naturally at level 12... They don't actually need the belt that they quested for in the first place to get the strength they wanted (and free up an attunement slot etc)

Horwath said:

difference between 18 and 20, as mentioned is give or take 20%.

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Actually, that was for 17 to 20 (a +2 difference), not 18 to 20 (half the difference) . Going from +4 to +5 is actually just 10.7% average over all weapons and d20 rolls.

Horwath said:

will it matter in a single encounter?
probably not, to few d20s are rolled to make a difference.

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Right. And people think from event to event, not over the long run generally. Duing a session you might have 10 rounds of combat (3 encounters, about 3 rounds each), even in tier 2+ that is maybe 20 attacks, so barely 10 extra points of cumulative damage... against foes who will number hundreds and hundreds of hit points in that session.

Even if you look at a party of 5, making it 50 extra points of damage, in total, since 5E is very survivable I really can't see people noticing it in the long run. The game will play very well without the extra single +1 modifier bump, I think to that we all agree. I am just showing why that is the case.

Now, you make it the +3 to +5 difference, and you might start noticing some differences, Go to the extreme of +3 difference (14 to 20) and you will notice a difference in game play in my opinion.

Horwath said:

will it matter in 100 combats over a part of campaign? absolutely

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We'll just agree to disagree on this.

Horwath said:

math is math and numbers speak.

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Yep, which is why I've been doing this.

Horwath said:

if you want just do a number experiment with 5 characters, one party has primary 18 and other primary 20.

do 1000 simulations and add up how many HPs(if any) is left in the party after the encounter.

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Yeah, it's not worth it to me to code that. And I don't trust simulators online since I don't know what code others are using (so how can I trust their results??).

Flights of Fancy said:

Actually, that was for 17 to 20 (a +2 difference), not 18 to 20 (half the difference) . Going from +4 to +5 is actually just 10.7% average over all weapons and d20 rolls.

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what did you add to attacks and what hit rate did you use as basic.

with longsword:
1d8+4+2, 55% hit vs
1d8+5+2, 60% hit
it's +18,75% damage

with greatsword
2d6+4, 55% hit
2d6+5, 60% hit
+18% damage

Horwath said:

what did you add to attacks and what hit rate did you use as basic.

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1st level, so +2 proficiency. Abilities 14, 16, 18, and 20.

Across all possible ACs and d20 rolls.

I don't use a single AC or attack bonus. And I don't assuming dueling style as it is immaterial and not universal.

Flights of Fancy said:

1st level, so +2 proficiency. Abilities 14, 16, 18, and 20.

Across all possible ACs and d20 rolls.

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sure, that works, but using 60% expected hit rate as average is easier to work with.

Flights of Fancy said:

I don't use a single AC or attack bonus. And I don't assuming dueling style as it is immaterial and not universal.

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dueling actually lessens the difference as base damage is higher so +1 damage is less noticing.