D&D 5E Ability Scores Are Different Now?

[Steely Dan]

I figured out you use the right tool for the right job a long time ago, it seems to me some of you want to hammer in your nails with a screwdriver.

Seems like you were not using the tools correctly to begin with.

 

[Zhaleskra]

As a non-optimizer, I applaud the inability to front-load your stats (too much). Why am I non-optimizer? I'd rather have a character who doesn't have a significant handicap in anything he's not optimized for, so that I don't get bored until I get to do "my guy's thing". Of course, that's just tabletop.

On a computer fantasy game, I will optimize, but really only because it's the only choice available. If I don't, I may still win, but it will be a much harder victory.

 

[SkidAce]

Thats around the age I realised that there was more to gaming than D&D, I was running Ghost Buster, Traveler, Rifts, Robotech, TMNT, Warhammer Fantasy, and a few more that only got played once or twice.

It was when I was 16 and Vampire came out that me and my friends sat down our D&D books for a long period of time and got heavy into political social roleplaying, why because the game encourages and supports that style of play. We also dabbled with Amber a diceless roleplaying game and that was OK but not my cup of tea.

Every system out there has it's own feel, it does something better than the next system hopefully that thing is to encourage a certain playstyle.

I figured out you use the right tool for the right job a long time ago, it seems to me some of you want to hammer in your nails with a screwdriver.

I also have played other games than D&D. Some more "suited" for differing styles than others, perhaps. Traveler, Rifts, Champions, Top Secret, WHF, Rolemaster etc.

We always came back to D&D, it was our main game. It satisfied ALL the styles we wanted to play.

---

Your analysis of games and how they lean towards play styles is not wrong. But for many groups D&D is a round peg in a round hole, because it works for them.

I'm not offended, because I feel I understand what you may be trying to say...but it could be considered insulting to claim that "you figured out the right tool" a long time ago, and that we are stupid for using a screwdriver when obviously the hammer is better.

Consider that YOU have nails...and we have screws.

 

[evileeyore]

You CAN do that sure, and have fun doing it. But that is not what the game is designed to do...

Yes it is. Your definition is flawed. It's fine for you, but it holds no water with me.

Ohh and we got sort of side treked here, the main point is yes to succeed in doing all these things you need good ability scores, in 5e they are more important than in some of the previous editions.

For everything I listed ability scores barely mattered.

If you want to limit the game for yourself in such a manner, fine, but many of us realised D&D could be more than that by the age of 13 or so.

Everything I listed was done in games when I was 10, 11, and 12. Dice rolls mattered far less than plans, rolepplaying, and being awesome.

When I turned 13 we still did all those awesome things, I just understood what we were playing with a slightly more matured eye.

I'm 40 now. On Friday night my Jawa Outlaw's "plans" only served to continually take 'easily winnable' situations and turn them into terrible, terrible ... well we still won, but it was awesome digging ourselves out the holes I kept throwing us into.

 

[the Jester]

If you build a character with less than a 16 in primary ability score you are hurting not only yourself but your whole team of fellow players. Your character has a job to do and if they can't hold their own, why in the world would the rest of the characters take you along on adventures. Now your job might not be damage dealing, but whatever it is it still uses one key ability score to be effective.

...in YOUR game.

Not all D&D groups freak out if you average one less point of damage per round (or even 4 less damage per round). It's fine that you think the way you do, but you get awfully one-true-way here.

This has been true in all the past editions for the most part, and will always stay true. In 5e honestly with the feats we have seen so far it will almost always be the most optimal choice to increase your primary ability score up to 20 as fast as you can.

Or you could, you know, make choices for you character that make sense for his or her personality and experiences. Maybe you take Tavern Brawler because you keep getting in bar fights. Who cares if you miss out on a +2 bonus to your Intelligence or whatever? It makes sense for your character and seems fun!

Honestly, if another player tried to tell me that I had to level-up my character a specific way, I would tell them to screw right off. It isn't your character, it's mine.

If your character doesn't hit, or if the monster resists your spell, you pretty much wasted your round.

Everyone misses sometimes.

D&D is a game about delving into the dark places of the world to fight against monsters, if your character can't contribute meaningfully to the fighting or delving then your character should not be in a D&D game. There are plenty of roleplaying games out there about espionage, social climbing, and basket weaving D&D is not one of them.

SOME D&D games are about deliving into the dark places etc etc. Not all. There are plenty of campaigns that rarely dungeon delve, and some where the dice don't even come out every session. There are games where the pcs run an inn and have a blast doing it. They are not doing it wrong, although you seem to imply (okay, you're not implying at all) that they are.

As for espionage, social climbing and basket weaving- D&D has had rules for spying since 1e (the assassin class specialized in it, among other things). Social climbing was an integral part of early D&D, with followers and strongholds and so on. As for basket weaving, you may actually have a point on that one, but I've yet to see or hear of anyone playing a game that revolved around it.

It is about spending time and having fun with your friends, while you play a game about characters delving into dark places and fighting monsters.

So an adventure where the pcs spend most of their time investigating a strange cult, trying to find out what's going on and eventually rooting it out isn't D&D? Oh wait, that's Against the Cult of the Reptile God. Or an adventure where the main encounter is a feast and the pcs have to navigate amongst the social intricacies- oh wait, that was Prince of Redhand. (And yes, both of these have potential dungeony bits, but those are NOT the focus.)

Those are just two examples of many, many, many from throughout D&D's history.

D&D is not some catch all universal roleplaying game that supports narrative over gamist ideals, there are plenty of rpg's out there that do that FATE comes to mind right away. D&D is all about Dungeons (dark places) & Dragons (monsters), it is a game that supports and encourages what it says right on the cover and in the book itself. You play heroes that go to monster infested places, kill said monsters, and take their stuff.

In some campaigns, this is true. But I think you either underestimate the capacity of a DM to make a system sing whatever song they want or else you have serious blinders on.

D&D is all about whatever the DM and his group want it to be about.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with your playstyle. However, insisting that it is THE playstyle for D&D- the only 'correct' one- crosses the line from "This is how I have fun" to "YER DOIN' IT WRONG BADWRONGFUN!!!!!" And that's terrible. You aren't the boss of anyone (or at least not anyone here), you aren't the game's designer (or even one of them), you aren't the Proper Fun Enforcer, and you certainly aren't an authority on other peoples' games. So have fun playing the game you enjoy, but please stop the "YOUR GAME AIN'T D&D" stuff. Frankly, it's insulting to everyone who plays a different style of campaign from you.

 

[Remathilis]

The badwrongfun is strong in this one.

 

[pemerton]

D&D is all about Dungeons (dark places) & Dragons (monsters), it is a game that supports and encourages what it says right on the cover and in the book itself. You play heroes that go to monster infested places, kill said monsters, and take their stuff.

I agree that monsters are a pretty central part of the D&D experience - it has books and books and books of them. Exploration of "dark places" looms larger in some editions (eg B/X and 1st ed AD&D) than in othes (a lot of 2nd ed tended to eschew it, and I think it's a pretty optional part of 4e). As for killing monsters and taking their stuff, my feeling is that this may have peaked, as part of the game, in 3E. In classic D&D acquiring stuff is important, but killing things less so. And in 4e, with its treasure parcel system replacing the more traditional treasure tables, there is no inherent connection between killing things and acquiring treasure. Treasure can just as easily be a reward for services rendered, a boon from the gods, or dropped altogether and replaced with inherent bonuses and DMG2-style "alternative rewards".