D&D 5E Ability Scores

[The Crimson Binome]

We also tend to roleplay the mental stats. I don't always want to play an unsociable character. If someone plays an 8 cha character I expect they will roleplay it as such - in our group of course

Fair enough, but a score of 8 is almost-imperceptibly below average. You'd have to spend a lot of time with someone before you started picking up on that.

And the fighter is still only likely to benefit from that relative +3 on checks when the outcome isn't terribly important. If you have a bard or paladin or whatever, then they are the one who is going to be addressing the king, especially when failure is going to get you thrown in prison.

 

[Oofta]

By character, do you mean fighter?

Replace fighter with character...


A weapon using character (regardless of class) IMHO that focuses on strength is penalized in multiple ways compared to dex based.


A dex based character will have a bonus in what is probably the most common saving throw, gets a bonus on initiative, skills that are probably going to be useful in combat (i.e. stealth), has good melee and ranged options.


A strength based character has good melee options. That's about it.


So allowing heavy draw weight strength bows in my campaign balances that out a little bit. A fighter/paladin/cleric/etc that has a higher strength than dex isn't sidelined on attacks more than 30 feet away.


Doing that and asking for skill checks that rely on a variety of attributes (sometimes in combat) is my way of balancing out the disparity.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Look, I'm not going to sit here and argue about this all day long with you, but just...no. I do use the exploration and social rules, and, even so, it could not be more obvious that the actual ruleset emphasizes combat over the other two pillars, regardless of what WotC actually says about the intent.

This is not true, and is a common fallacy. Just because there are more pages for combat rules, does not mean it is "obvious the actual ruleset emphasizes combat over the other two pillars." Again, you're making assumptions based on your preferred playstyle. If that logic were true, than 90% of all PCs would be casters, because spells take up most of the page count in the PHB. And we know that isn't true. Just because combat may require more technical rules because it can be more complex, doesn't mean it's obvious the game emphasizes this. For example...

After all, it originated as a wargame, not a world simulator..

It was inspired as a wargame, but was created because they wanted what a wargame wasn't giving: roleplaying. This is important. If you're going to invoke the history of D&D, then I'd hope you had considered that for most of D&D's history (1974 to 2000), combat was the last resort of the party. Not only does it flat out tell you this in the AD&D DMG, but the rules made combat extremely dangerous and not rewarding. The reward was XP and treasure--things you got without combat for the most part. The XP awards for monsters was pretty small as part of the XP pie. You were encouraged to avoid combat whenever necessary. You had no idea how many encounters you would have, and every encounter could be deadly in an instant--even to higher level PCs.

So I'm sorry, but history is not on your side here. Nor is the design. And clearly several other players have also said their playstyle is different. I get that it's your preferred playstyle, and that's cool, but you need to stop assuming your style is the one true way or even the default way to play D&D. Rather, the great thing about D&D is that it allows most of us to play in the style we like, which is a very notable accomplishment.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I've proposed that damage for melee and thrown attacks is always str, and attack is always dex.

As for int, i simply make knowledge and investigation more important to success, and add the Riddle and Languages skill, which are both also often important.

And i allow warlocks to choose int instead of Cha for spellcasting, as part of my revamp of the warlock's flavor and some of it's crunch.

 

[Einlanzer0]

This is not true, and is a common fallacy. Just because there are more pages for combat rules, does not mean it is "obvious the actual ruleset emphasizes combat over the other two pillars." Again, you're making assumptions based on your preferred playstyle. If that logic were true, than 90% of all PCs would be casters, because spells take up most of the page count in the PHB. And we know that isn't true. Just because combat may require more technical rules because it can be more complex, doesn't mean it's obvious the game emphasizes this. For example...



It was inspired as a wargame, but was created because they wanted what a wargame wasn't giving: roleplaying. This is important. If you're going to invoke the history of D&D, then I'd hope you had considered that for most of D&D's history (1974 to 2000), combat was the last resort of the party. Not only does it flat out tell you this in the AD&D DMG, but the rules made combat extremely dangerous and not rewarding. The reward was XP and treasure--things you got without combat for the most part. The XP awards for monsters was pretty small as part of the XP pie. You were encouraged to avoid combat whenever necessary. You had no idea how many encounters you would have, and every encounter could be deadly in an instant--even to higher level PCs.

So I'm sorry, but history is not on your side here. Nor is the design. And clearly several other players have also said their playstyle is different. I get that it's your preferred playstyle, and that's cool, but you need to stop assuming your style is the one true way or even the default way to play D&D. Rather, the great thing about D&D is that it allows most of us to play in the style we like, which is a very notable accomplishment.

This is literally one of the silliest arguments I've ever had in my life. The PHB itself states that "combat is the most structured element of a D&D session", as if it wasn't the most intuitively obvious thing in the universe skimming the basic rules. Even if you spend as much time in social engagements and exploration as you do in combat, the gameplay behind it is intentionally designed to be much softer and simpler, to facilitate a free-flowing theater-of-the-mind approach. Therefore, mechanics that are incorporated into the social and exploration parts of a standard game do not carry the same weight as mechanics incorporated into the combat aspects of the game, unless your DM goes out of their way to really de-emphasize combat and base a lot of large scale success-and-failure rules on singular skill or ability checks, which doesn't really seem like a great way to run sessions.

If exploration and social elements were really intended to be as big a part of the game as combat, then the rules for those things would be a lot more granular than they are. If you're in doubt, try rolling a character that's particularly good at the exploration/social game but can't contribute in combat. The only way that could work would be if there was a significant imbalance in both the frequency and difficulty of social/exploration activities relative to combat activity, which isn't the norm.

 

[Sacrosanct]

This is literally one of the silliest arguments I've ever had in my life. The PHB itself states that "combat is the most structured element of a D&D session", as if it wasn't the most intuitively obvious thing in the universe skimming the basic rules. Even if you spend as much time in social engagements and exploration as you do in combat, the gameplay behind it is intentionally designed to be much softer and simpler, to facilitate a free-flowing theater-of-the-mind approach. Therefore, mechanics that are incorporated into the social and exploration parts of a standard game do not carry the same weight as mechanics incorporated into the combat aspects of the game, unless your DM goes out of their way to really de-emphasize combat and base a lot of large scale success-and-failure rules on singular skill or ability checks, which doesn't really seem like a great way to run sessions.

You never played TSR era D&D, have you? You can call it silly all you want, but all that does is show your ignorance of 25 years of D&D's lifespan. I already told you that Gygax literally comes out an tells you that combat is a last option when all other options fails. It simply isn't worth the risk in TSR D&D. And again you double down with the "it has the most rules so therefore it must be the most important and biggest part of the game" fallacy. I've already explained why this isn't true. You're making another mistake thinking that if a mechanic isn't as granular, then it doesn't carry as much weight. That's another argument of fallacy. All mechanics are equally important whether they are super detailed or simple, if they have an impact on gameplay at your table. As I said, and INT check is incredibly simple mechanically, but it comes up a lot at our tables (just like the basic ability check in AD&D which came up A LOT). Therefore, it has just as much weight to the impact of the game as the most detailed mechanic. And also like I already mentioned, you can do narrative in combat as well. Heck, Matt Mercer does that. Have you ever seen his livestream games? A lot of the combat rules he completely ignores in favor of the narrative approach.

If exploration and social elements were really intended to be as big a part of the game as combat, then the rules for those things would be a lot more granular than they are. If you're in doubt, try rolling a character that's particularly good at the exploration/social game but can't contribute in combat. The only way that could work would be if there was a significant imbalance in both the frequency and difficulty of social/exploration activities relative to combat activity, which isn't the norm.

What? It's super easy to roll someone who is extremely good at the other two pillars and not focused on combat. What kind of question is this? For one "can't contribute" is false anyway, because pretty much everyone can contribute, regardless of your PC's stats and/or abilities. So toss that idea right out. I'll assume you mean "not combat focused", which is very easy to do. "Isn't the norm". Once again, you're taking your personal preferences and assuming everyone else plays like that. It seems clear to me that you came into D&D when it was "tabletop combat!" era, and thus you assume that's what the game is always about. Which simply isn't true. Skyrim probably has less code devoted to walking the world than it does for all the combat abilities/powers/spells/rules, but people spent more time exploring Skyrim than in actual combat, I'm betting. For every hour of gameplay spent in actual combat, I probably spent 2 just walking around exploring things.

By your own statements here, it clearly implies that your particular table narrates the other two pillars when you have to deal with that part of the game (apparently infrequently). Good on you. If you're having fun, that's all that matters. But please stop with your false assumptions about the game.