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Quick question: what’s pf?

It’s called athletics and it’s been around for almost 20 years now.

I think it would be a better game if we axed ability scores and just used skills and proficiencies. Ability scores and skills are redundant and interact in annoying ways that add a lot of complexity and the illusion of choice while offering little to no actual new options for playing, and they...

It’s subjective; if a player tells you a game is unbalanced they’re saying it feels unfair. Just s guess but I’d suspect you’d get experienced players complaining at somewhere around 25% difference in overall output. (Assuming it wasn’t just a case of the d20’s being crazy) Probably more if the...

IIRC the meta-answer is to play an EK fighter with heavy armor and a shield, possibly the Defense fighting style, and then use magic to boost defenses even more (shield spell, other defensive spells, etc.) The base can get quite high (21 before any magic items, 22 on a warforged heavy fighter)...

Exactly: it's not really tunnel vision so much as figuring out that the best strategy in 5e DnD is to focus on offense. If you play a different game or use substantial houserules you might be able to change that, but you win more to-the-death fights by focusing on damage.

It's still not a good build, but if you add a couple levels of warlock you could get Agonizing Blast on Greenflame Blade, which would add +cha damage to the main and secondary damage. Or, with Spellfire Spark you can get PB/day bonus action Sacred Flames, which would be pretty goofy to spam on...

Third variant: They're part of a special social class that exists outside the normal chain of command. The best example would be a religious order: people like nuns and friars in theory, and appreciate what they do, but that doesn't normally translate to wanting to spend their free time with...

So here’s my counterpoint: You are going to have a low score with dang near any method of generating scores that offers choice. So it’s not really accurate to say it’s an issue with Point Buy. You have the same issue with Standard Array, Roll-and-Arrange, and any variation on those except “all...

By that definition, arranged scores always includes a dump stat (unless all of your scores are the same.) If that’s basically always happening, how is that a problem for the game? 5e definitely works, and works well for more players than every other edition combined, so I really don’t see how...

Is there any way to arrange scores without dumping one? If I have the following set to arrange: 18 17 16 15 14 13, then I must put the 13 somewhere - is that a dumped score?

One other dnd design element that makes high-damage builds more effective is the way resources recharge between battles. That means you have the most resources at the start of the fight, so you can do your strongest attacks in round 1, which is also the round where doing the most damage is most...

Semi-tangentially: I usually imagine low-strength high-dex characters as being not un-muscled but small; they could throw their weight around but they don't weigh much so it doesn't do anything. So grappling isn't really a good use of an action.

Is Fluttershy hiding in the back?

Keep sacred flame for a backup option, but other than managing spell slots it should work pretty well. (I have a similar build on the shelf stacking celestial warlock and gold dragon sorcerer, adding Radiant Soul and Elemental Affinity to agonizing blast for triple Cha to fire bolt or...

One Idea I had a log time ago for anime 5e was adding a "Parry AC" that you an use instead of base AC. It was roughly 12+weapon;s key ability modifier for simple weapons and 13+ weapon's key ability modifier for martial weapons, although you could also do something based on armor proficiency...

DnD has never really had a good way to mechanize the idea of “how scary you look,” which means the intimidation skill has been pulling double-duty for a long time now. Scary-ness really shouldn’t be keyed off charisma, unless you’re a sorcerer. It should be based on things like strength, gear...

One method I’ve heard of for this is tiered rolling: Put your ability scores into three tiers: A (important for the concept) B (shouldn’t be dump stats) and C (whatever). For A tier roll 5d6 drop two (or 2d4 + 10 or something equally generous). You’re druid will probably be wise and tough...

I would say a 14 in your primary attack/spellcasting stat is probably the minimum - the number is more important for weapon users, but I suspect a fighter with 14 str to start would be fine. The main reason you rarely see that is most people put their best score in their attack/spellcasting...

If we are not having fun, the question of”why aren’t we having fun?” becomes relevant, does it not?