Again another example of CHA as dump stat

[UltimaGabe]

But what stats does an epic hero have? Did Frodo have 18's across the board? I don't think so. Yet, he's an epic hero, for he succeeded in bringing the Ring to Mount Doom.

I'm afraid I must argue. The writers of the Lord of the Rings trilogy knew exactly what was going to happen before they wrote it- they were not depending on the luck of dice rolls in order to find out whether Frodo would climb up the side of the mountain, or see if he would be able to keep himself from trying to save Gandalf, or find out if he could survive the heat of Mt. Doom. Even if Frodo was a one-armed leper, if the writers wanted him to accomplish the same thing that the Frodo we knew accomplished, it wouldn't matter what his stats were. Therefore, that's a bad example.

A character's stats in D&D don't determine what they're capable of- they DO, however, determine what they'll do most of the time. If a person never has more than a +1 on any attack roll or skill check, he has a very, very low chance of succeeding at something with a DC 15 or higher. A person with low stats is much less likely to succeed at thwarting the evil warlord's plans by singlehandedly fighting off his armies of undead than the person with very high stats. True, an epic hero is defined by his accomplishments- but there's no way that he could have accomplished some of the things he did if he wasn't as strong, quick, hardy, and intelligent as he was.

Stats DO make the character, no matter how you look at it.

 

[jessemock]

Epic heroes are those with 21 or more levels

But what stats does an epic hero have? Did Frodo have 18's across the board? I don't think so. Yet, he's an epic hero, for he succeeded in bringing the Ring to Mount Doom. Your deeds, not your stats, determine whether you are epic. The other is just the power level - you can have a great hero with 25 Points Buy.

...

Frodo is level 21?

I think the whole point of Frodo-as-Epic-Hero is that he's atypical--he's the opposite of Achilles.

But it's Achilles, not Frodo, who is the model for what 'Epic' means in D&D.

 

[DarkMaster]

I'm afraid I must argue. The writers of the Lord of the Rings trilogy knew exactly what was going to happen before they wrote it- they were not depending on the luck of dice rolls in order to find out whether Frodo would climb up the side of the mountain, or see if he would be able to keep himself from trying to save Gandalf, or find out if he could survive the heat of Mt. Doom. Even if Frodo was a one-armed leper, if the writers wanted him to accomplish the same thing that the Frodo we knew accomplished, it wouldn't matter what his stats were. Therefore, that's a bad example.

A character's stats in D&D don't determine what they're capable of- they DO, however, determine what they'll do most of the time. If a person never has more than a +1 on any attack roll or skill check, he has a very, very low chance of succeeding at something with a DC 15 or higher. A person with low stats is much less likely to succeed at thwarting the evil warlord's plans by singlehandedly fighting off his armies of undead than the person with very high stats. True, an epic hero is defined by his accomplishments- but there's no way that he could have accomplished some of the things he did if he wasn't as strong, quick, hardy, and intelligent as he was.

Stats DO make the character, no matter how you look at it.

About the book, it is not a bad example, you could build a character with stats and level that would represent Frodo, and allow him to do the task described in the book.
When I put a lock with a DC 25 I know the rogue in my group can open it because she has +10 in open lock (no luck here) When I prepare a Combat I evaluate the character to make sure that they won't all be killed (some very controlled luck here). If I put climbing a cliff has a challenge for level 1 character I will make sure that it is an easy cliff to climb DC 12 for a character with +5 and they can use rope to prevent a fatal fall. Basically when I prepare an adventure It is like writting the book I put challenges that I know my hero can survive or not (If I don't want them to go somewhere now). After DMing different style of campaing I can tell you that Stat actually don't matter that much. Strong stat character means harder hazzard and strong stat monster, the reverse is also true.

If you think about it a rogue with 14 Str, 16 Dex and 14 Int, is an amazing person around 140 IQ(refering to older version), able to lift 175 pounds above his head, with amazing reflex and the grace of a cat (Dex is hard to quantify but you see the picture).

 

[Felix]

A person with low stats is much less likely to succeed at thwarting the evil warlord's plans by singlehandedly fighting off his armies of undead than the person with very high stats.

Any DM worth his salt would modify those armies of undead such that the PC has a hard time defeating them no matter his stats. If the game is 20 point buy, then the 4th level PCs will be fighting skeletons. If the game is 40 point buy, then they'll be fighting vampiric lich leigons with the feindish template. Either way, they fight an army of undead and should get the same XP.

The absolute value of stats is meaningless. You must compare it to the power level of the game to have any meaning. So in a low power game a character whose highest stat is 14 will be as powerful, relative to his world, as the PC who has three 18s and lives in a high power world.

In the end it's a stylistic choice. Do you prefer fighting hordes of skeletons or would you rather face off against feindish half-draconic vampire wights? Answer that question and you will have revealed your prediliction for high or low power games.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It's pretty hard in core D&D to give characters a good assortment of skills without being a rogue or someone with an obscenely high Int stat;

Actually it is quite easy, as long as you don't think that every skill has to be maxed out. Most people probably specialise in certain skills because bigger bonuses are better, but the issue is similar to the singleclass spellcaster vs multiclass spellcaster - it is perfectly possible for the majority of the classes to spread their skill points around and have a lot of skills at, say, half their level in ranks.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

As a side note, I'll be running Sunless Citadel tomorrow. With a 32-point* buy, these are the average scores of the 4 characters:

STR 13,5
DEX 16,5
CON 13,5
INT 9,5
WIS 13,75
CHA 8,75

(the characters are a human rogue, a human katana-wieldig monk, a human full-blade wielding fighter and an elven cleric)

* I gave them 32 because I thought there would be only 3 characters. Anyway, they're going to need it, since they have no Arcane spellcaster.

AR

 

[DarkMaster]

As a side note, I'll be running Sunless Citadel tomorrow. With a 32-point* buy, these are the average scores of the 4 characters:

STR 13,5
DEX 16,5
CON 13,5
INT 9,5
WIS 13,75
CHA 8,75

(the characters are a human rogue, a human katana-wieldig monk, a human full-blade wielding fighter and an elven cleric)

* I gave them 32 because I thought there would be only 3 characters. Anyway, they're going to need it, since they have no Arcane spellcaster.

AR

No real need for arcane spell caster at low level.
BTW this is a good example of CHA as dump stat. Good call, charisma is not needed at all in the Sunless Citadel(another Wotc product)

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

No real need for arcane spell caster at low level.
BTW this is a good example of CHA as dump stat. Good call, charisma is not needed at all in the Sunless Citadel(another Wotc product)

Well...

Spoiler

the characters are supposed to make Diplomacy checks to get the kobolds on their side... Of course, being with Meepo gives them like a +10 bonus to their check...

AR

 

[Stalker0]

What I don't like is that diplomacy pretty much covers all the main aspects of cha, making the ability by itself fairly worthless unless you have a class feature using it.

 

[DarkMaster]

What I don't like is that diplomacy pretty much covers all the main aspects of cha, making the ability by itself fairly worthless unless you have a class feature using it.

.
No, look at how many skills are dependant of Cha, the set of skill cover pretty much all aspect of charisma not only diplomacy.