D&D 5E Ability Score Balance: through the eyes of fresh players

[Don Durito]

No you don't. Or at least you don't really need to make up anything special for classes. A low strength means they can't carry as much - try to carry all the kits, rope, tools, and rations you want with a strength of 8. That can affect all classes, not just the warriors.

Intelligence - dump that and you won't be doing well with knowledge skills or investigate - which may be able to compensated for by having friends who are smarter than you are. And that's fine - that's part of what D&D's about. But the character will (or should) notice it when those friends aren't available.

Yes. If you don't want to change anything then don't change anything. I didn't think that needed to be said.

Honestly struggling to see what argument you're making here.

 

[billd91]

This only makes sense if you're using point-buy. Otherwise with the standard array some stat has to be an 8. If you're rolling and get a low score it's got to go somewhere. And if you're using point buy what is the goal? Is it for every player to feel they should go with 13,13,13,12,12,12.

It also makes sense when you choose where to put the 8 from the standard array and any low stat from rolling. The player chooses where they want to shine and where they want to operate below the mean. And that's fine.

If you're playing a Paladin the rational place to put your lowest score is in Intelligence. That's the way the system works. Making it suck more to have a low intelligence is not exactly going to change that fact.

Sure, it's reasonably rational to put your lowest stat in intelligence if you're a paladin. As long as the player accepts that his knowledge religion checks will suffer as will his ability to discern what is an illusion and what isn't. But it is also somewhat up to the DM to try to give the PCs opportunities to shine or fail based on all aspects of the game and the characters.

 

[Xeviat]

OP here.

So my issue isn't with dump stats. Is when the same stats are the dump stats all the time. In 3E, it was Charisma. In 4E, things were weird because of the way Defenses were calculated, but I saw all sorts of stats dumped. In 5E, I've seen Int dumped a lot.

These new players really built their characters for theme, not power. The drow ranger wasn't super optimized, neither was the tiefling rogue (I'm probably going to show her player the mastermind rogue, since her character has a 14 Int and a 16 Cha, and only a 15 Dex). But that 4 of the characters (ranger, rogue, druid, and wizard) went with an 8 Str, it was just interesting.

I do agree that enforcing encumbrance helps. In my other game with my veteran group, I use the variant encumbrance with light/med/heavy loads, and it limits people. But this new game is with new players so the one vet player and I agreed to just do things by the book to not make things weird. I also didn't want to come in after they had already made their characters and say "no".

 

[Don Durito]

It also makes sense when you choose where to put the 8 from the standard array and any low stat from rolling. The player chooses where they want to shine and where they want to operate below the mean. And that's fine.

But it's not a free choice. Certain choices are clearly not viable. An 8 Int wizard isn't a real choice, nor is a 16 Int Paladin. Choices are heavily constrained.

Sure, it's reasonably rational to put your lowest stat in intelligence if you're a paladin. As long as the player accepts that his knowledge religion checks will suffer as will his ability to discern what is an illusion and what isn't. But it is also somewhat up to the DM to try to give the PCs opportunities to shine or fail based on all aspects of the game and the characters.

Well yes. Those are the rules as they currently exist. You pretty much have to accept that you're not going to be good at those things as a Paladin (even if you don't put say an 8 in Intelligence but go as high as 12 that's still just a 10% improvement in these things). In other words you don't really have much of a choice to be good at any of these things.

What I'm saying, is that if the GM doesn't want me to dump Intelligence as a Paladin, then they'd damn well better give me a genuine reason not to, preferably by means of a carrot rather than additional sticks.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Always remember: you need a 10 in a score to auto succeed on DC 5 checks. So with Int 8 you might not have an answer to something that shoukd be common lore. With 8 Cha you might not know how to behave appropriately when everyone else does.

 

[billd91]

But it's not a free choice. Certain choices are clearly not viable. An 8 Int wizard isn't a real choice, nor is a 16 Int Paladin. Choices are heavily constrained.

An 8 intelligence wizard may be a bad choice but claiming that choices are heavily constrained is an old canard, in 5e even more than any edition since 2e.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Sorry to jump in mid stream, but why would you play a higher than average wisdom character with less than average wisdom? IMO, being: "...very impulsive, lacking insight into people..." sounds closer 8 than 12.

Because that’s the character. He isn’t bad at withstanding mental attacks, he just isn’t socially/emotionally intelligent and doesn’t care that what he is doing might be very dangerous. He heals Sahuagin on the off chance he can convince them that their defeat was a result of the treachery of a common enemy. He makes jokes in conversation with a Medusa crime lord.

He also goes against his own ethics sometimes in the heat of the moment, and if I had to pick one song to show his attitude toward life it would be What’s Up Danger from the Into The Spiderverse soundtrack.

So, because of how the mechanics of fifth edition work, he has more room to grow in terms of these traits by having an OK wisdom but no training in anything wisdom related.

 

[Don Durito]

An 8 intelligence wizard may be a bad choice but claiming that choices are heavily constrained is an old canard, in 5e even more than any edition since 2e.

No. You're wrong.

Look. Isn't this a productive way to carry out a discussion?

 

[Raduin711]

I think between INT and STR, INT is the dumpiest of the dump stats. Adventuring can take you to some precarious places and even the flat-footed scholar can be called upon to roll an athletics check every now and again. If you have low INT, it's not hard to ride on the coattails of a smart character, and even if smartypants fails, it's a pretty poor DM who restricts progress of his adventure due to a bad INT roll.

It wouldn't even be that hard to remove INT from the game. Just give all references of INT to WIS. WIS would still be in line with the other stats.

But instead of doing that, my solution would be to use INT instead of DEX for initiative, or give/take away proficiencies for each INT bonus. Maybe even both.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Yet with the standard array (as a PC proficient in heavy armor), I can dump Dex, Intelligence and Charisma, and have a good Strength and Con and a reasonable Wisdom.

Indeed, but your Initiative and ranged attacks - both important capabilities - will suffer for it.
I already specified outside of two-handed weapon builds (although good point about grapple/shove builds) you give up much less if you dump Str and boost Dex rather than vice versa. Most groups I've seen don't seem to bother with encumbrance, so the only thing you lose out on is the ability to initiate shoves and grapples.

Strength based builds are also disproportionately reliant on feats to complete them.

Heavy armor and Dex 8 gives me a better AC than even a PC with a Dex of 20, and all from a lower level.

Polearms and Great weapons (two very popular fighting styles rely on Strength) cant use Dex at all. Shield master - which is the cornerstone of any S+B build - relies on an Athletics check (so again, strength is go-to). Grappling, shoving etc all rely on Athletics (as do most of the optional combat manouvers as well).

Barbarians are forced into Strength builds as well; as is any Paladin MC combo (requiring at least a 13 Strength).

The issue isn't that Strength (and Intelligence) -based characters are not viable. Its that Str and Int are generally either primary or dump stats, with little in between. Whereas Dex is useful for any character and so is primary or secondary, and dumping it has significant downsides for almost any character.

Barbarians might be "forced" into Strength builds, but Dex still provides significant benefits.
Barbarian and Paladin MC combos require 13 Str, but Monk, Rogue and Ranger MC combos require 13 Dex.

Personally what I'd like to see is both Str and Dex being useful for any martial character, rather than being able to dump Str with few repercussions for many warriors. That has additional stat balance and bounded accuracy implications however.