D&D 5E Array v 4d6: Punishment? Or overlooked data

[Celtavian]

I never noticed such a correlation because the group I play with nobody consistently exploits dump stats. Thus, on average, the physically strong are still mentally superb relative to the 10.5 of the general populace (albeit the effect is probably weaker than seen from groups that usually roll), and vice versa. From this point of the view, your expected positive correlation actually holds.

If you are using the point buy system in the PHB, this can't possibly be true. Even choosing one 14 requires a lower stat elsewhere. At best you could choose five 13s and a 10 to obtain an array somewhat close to what you claim. You could also do two 14s, 3 12s, and a 9. There's little way you could spread your stats very far and obtain anything other than very average with a +2 modifier on a couple of stats enhanced by racial modifiers. That probably means our idea of mentally superb differs or your characters are truly gimping themselves using point buy. Or you use a non-standard point buy system.

 

[Celtavian]

You may not agree with verisimilitude as a reason, but you've got to admit that it isn't nostalgia. Among other reasons, I find it unaesthetic that stronger people under point buy are stupider and sicker than weaker people (due to limited point budget), that healthier people are less charismatic, that wiser people are less intelligent, etc., etc. As near as I can tell, in real life these correlations go the other way. Under random stats they are uncorrelated.

You don't have to agree that verisimilitude is a good thing (some people don't care) but it's a thing, and it matters to people like me (simulationists).

Edited to add: and yes, historical baggage (what you call "nostalgia") is a reason too. Specifically, the fact that with point buy it is physically impossible to have stats below 8 or above 15 offends me aesthetically. To my gut intuition, 3-18 is the "real" range of stats. If 5E were point-buy only I actually probably wouldn't be playing it because it would feel fake. So yeah, nostalgia is a factor. It's just not the only factor.

This is the reason the majority of our group enjoys rolling as well and generally rolling with a system that allows for high stats. Point buy creates limits on characters that exist neither in stories nor real life. Athletes are don't lack intelligence, wisdom, and charisma because they have extraordinary physical stats. Scientists don't necessarily have to physically inept or lack charisma. Life seems to randomly assign strengths and weaknesses that allow you to excel at a particular profession. Rolling tends to simulate this reality better than point buy. That's why the majority of our group prefers it. Point buy tends to unnecessarily penalize a player for wanting to make a character that excels in a couple of areas and my players don't role-play low stats anyway.

It seriously ruins my verisimilitude if I DM when a fighter with a 15 str doesn't play his 8 int and cha. If my players aren't going to play their dump stats, then what is the point of having them? I don't want to deal with trying to force players to play someone that is on the mentally deficient side or lacking in social capability. I also don't want to deal with seeing the stat on the paper while they play like their great at both.

I use a generous rolling system that lets them be like Aragorn or Conan, where they lack for little in any area regardless of how great they are in other areas. Makes them more like special operations soldiers or extraordinary athletes or fighters. That is how I picture adventurers. Only the strongest, most capable adventurers survive, the cream of the crop of their race.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

This is the reason the majority of our group enjoys rolling as well and generally rolling with a system that allows for high stats. Point buy creates limits on characters that exist neither in stories nor real life. Athletes are don't lack intelligence, wisdom, and charisma because they have extraordinary physical stats. Scientists don't necessarily have to physically inept or lack charisma. Life seems to randomly assign strengths and weaknesses that allow you to excel at a particular profession. Rolling tends to simulate this reality better than point buy. That's why the majority of our group prefers it. Point buy tends to unnecessarily penalize a player for wanting to make a character that excels in a couple of areas and my players don't role-play low stats anyway.

Another thing that just occurred to me is that point buy also never forces you to make a weaker-than-average character. I have realized that I actually have a lot of fun with arrays like 9 9 14 7 10 6 (looks like a smelly, burly, surly AC 21 Heavy Armor Master Eldritch Knight to me), as long as I also have the freedom e.g. to play my 17 11 12 8 12 14 guy on other days, and because of the way character trees work, playing either strengthens the other so it doesn't feel like a waste. Playing the weaker stats feels like putting in work to "earn" the payoff of playing the high stats guy, although in actuality they're not that different except that the high-stats guy can be more of a generalist with more tactics-for-every-occasion and the low-stats guy is more pigeonholed. But within his pigeonhole he's still quite competent, so even the "work" isn't really work. (And with the low-stats guy I can relax, be less tactical and less paranoid, because he's expendable in a pinch.)

 

[Parmandur]

A rogue with a Charisma of 3 who takes Expertise in Persuasion has an equal chance of passing a Persuasion check as the next guy. In actuality, even a 3 is not that big a difference and is as "bad" as it gets.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

A rogue with a Charisma of 3 who takes Expertise in Persuasion has an equal chance of passing a Persuasion check as the next guy. In actuality, even a 3 is not that big a difference and is as "bad" as it gets.

That is, if the "next guy" is an untrained Cha-10 guy (+0 modifier). Or if the Rogue is level 20 (+8 modifier).

But yeah, even a Strength 8 monk untrained in Athletics makes a decent grappler in a pinch if you slap Enhance Ability (Strength) on her, simply due to the high variance on a d20 and the multiple attempts she gets from extra attacks. Stat penalties simply aren't prohibitive under bounded accuracy.

 

[S'mon]

The question is whether it adds to, or detracts from, the game when the PCs have significant variation in mechanical capability.
[/QUOTE]

I think this depends hugely on the campaign. Arguably the more linear the campaign, and the more encounter-centric, the more vital is mechanical balance, because in a typical linear AP that is the only way the players contribute. If everyone has to do the same thing, especially the same pre-written thing, then everyone needs to be able to contribute roughly equally.

I'm finding that rolled stats work well in my Classic D&D game, which is pretty sandboxy. and I think Point Buy would hurt the tone. With 4e D&D I'd only ever consider point buy or array. My Pathfinder AP game uses 4d6-in-order-swap-one and that seems to work at least inasmuch as class imbalance vastly overshadows stat imbalance. Conversely I'm using default array in my 5e sandbox game, and that has worked great, especially as it gave me space to have different human races get different attribute modifiers.

I don't think there is one right answer, but the 3e-5e system of attribute bonuses (+2 attribute = +1 bonus) makes stat numbers extremely important and disfavours rolling IME, whereas the older systems favour it - at least favour roll-in-order. The worst system IME is roll-then-arrange, this essentially is 'variable point buy'.

Re complaints & compromise - if the rest of the group can accommodate the complainer without lessening their own fun, sure go ahead. If it will make the rest of the group less happy, they have no duty to
accommodate the complainer.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Inspired by this thread, I decided to write up the story of what happens in 5E when a character who rolls substandard stats (11 10 12 9 14 7) has a double-deadly encounter. If low stats were really hopeless you'd expect it to end in bloody murder, but it turns out that you can still impact the fiction in a positive way when you have +0 in a given stat. Here goes:

This is the story of Moffet. Moffet was a fighter. He drank too much and he chased skirts. Actually, Moffet was really a soldier. He'd been a soldier for a long time, but now he was done with soldiering and was working as a merchant with a wagon. His business wasn't doing so hot because he spent all of his money on beer. One day when Moffet was driving his wagon across the plains, he discovered that he was being chased by two orcs on horseback. He knew that the orcs would be there soon, but luckily Moffet was wearing his armor and carrying his bow. He knew that he had the choice between hiding under the wagon to ambush them or shooting them with his arrows. Moffet decided to shoot them while they were coming.

Moffet shot one arrow at the orcs when they were 600 feet away. It hit one orc in the neck (4 points of damage). The orcs rode closer. Now they were only 480 feet away, so Moffet shot them at them again. This time he missed so badly that the arrow hit a cactus instead of an orc. Now the orcs were only 360 feet away on their horses, so Moffet shot at them again and missed, but on the next shot he hit the orc again for 7 points of damage. Now the orcs were only 120 feet away, and they were really excited, whooping and hollering as they came, so Moffet put down his bow and picked up his shield and his axe. The one Moffet had shot pulled out a javelin and threw it at Moffet as he rode by the wagon, but it clanged right off Moffet's armor. The other orc swung a gigantic axe right at Moffet's waist. CRASH! It was the sound of the huge axe splintering the wood of Moffet's wagon. Moffet would have to get that fixed. But Moffet hit the orc's leg as he rode by (8 points of damage), and he screamed his ferocious battlecry: "Gerroff, you stupid orcs! I ain't done nothing to you!" Both of the orcs were hurt now, and for a second Moffet thought it was going to work but then they came back at him (Intimidation: 7/10) and he knew he was going to have to hurt them some more. The one orc rode by him again on his horse and swung at him with his axe, and this time it clanged right off Moffet's chain mail armor. Moffet swung his axe at the orc as it rode by though and hit it, in the leg (8 points of damage). The orc tumbled off his horse, and Moffet yelled ferociously. The other orc threw another javelin at Moffet and then missed, and then he rode off. Moffet yelled some more, then put down his shield again and shot two more arrows at the orc as he was riding away, but missed. Then he got down from his wagon to look at the orc on the ground. It was still alive so he cut its throat, and then took its axe. He thought he could sell the axe for some money when he got to town. It was a good thing orcs are so stupid, thought Moffet. I wonder how much beer I can get for this axe.

The end.


Moffet, Human Soldier, Fighter 2.
Str 15 Dex 12 Con 14 Int 11 Wis 7 Cha 10 HP 20
Style: Defense
Feats: Heavy Armor Master
AC 19 (Chain mail + Shield + Defense)
Skills: Athletics, intimidation, persuasion, perception, stealth.

[Moffet got a +2 AC bonus for being behind half-cover on his wagon, and he got kind of lucky in that only one orc ever rolled a total of 19 to hit him, which was good enough to hit his cover but not good enough to hit Moffet through the cover. He missed a lot with his bow because he has only +2 to attack, and he was shooting with disadvantage.]

 

[billd91]

I don't think there is one right answer, but the 3e-5e system of attribute bonuses (+2 attribute = +1 bonus) makes stat numbers extremely important and disfavours rolling IME, whereas the older systems favour it - at least favour roll-in-order.

I have never agreed with this analysis. The 3e-5e system of bonuses, in my estimation, frees the PCs from needing sky high stats because it lowers the threshold for bonuses and smooths the progression. In 1e/2e, it's true that there was very little difference from about 7 to 14, but the upper ranges spiked the bonuses pretty high - encouraging players to find creative dice rolling cheats to get those 16+ stat values. In 3e-5e, you don't need that - you start getting benefits for being even slightly above average and the higher end of the normal range isn't as far ahead.

If 3e added any features to encourage PCs to boost their stats, it was in how they used stat bonuses to drive class features like spell save DCs, a paladin's save bonus and laying on of hands, etc. But even those mainly spread the incentives around rather than concentrate them in combat-heavy stats like 1e/2e did with strength, dexterity, and constitution.

 

[Celtavian]

Another thing that just occurred to me is that point buy also never forces you to make a weaker-than-average character. I have realized that I actually have a lot of fun with arrays like 9 9 14 7 10 6 (looks like a smelly, burly, surly AC 21 Heavy Armor Master Eldritch Knight to me), as long as I also have the freedom e.g. to play my 17 11 12 8 12 14 guy on other days, and because of the way character trees work, playing either strengthens the other so it doesn't feel like a waste. Playing the weaker stats feels like putting in work to "earn" the payoff of playing the high stats guy, although in actuality they're not that different except that the high-stats guy can be more of a generalist with more tactics-for-every-occasion and the low-stats guy is more pigeonholed. But within his pigeonhole he's still quite competent, so even the "work" isn't really work. (And with the low-stats guy I can relax, be less tactical and less paranoid, because he's expendable in a pinch.)

I don't mind playing bad stats on occasion as well. Most of my players don't though. I do have one player that does play a bad stat like a low wisdom fool or naïve person. Or a rotten charisma prick or socially tactless person belching and saying things that get him into trouble. Or even someone weak and crippled. I had fun playing a crippled Synthesist that generated his eidolon to be able to travel the world. If his eidolon was dispelled, he was a cripple with little capacity to help. I played a priest that had been tortured to the point of physical disability with extraordinary mental stats that was angry about his loss of physical perfection.

That's another thing I enjoy about rolling. Sometimes the stats start to inspire a character background that is interesting.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I have never agreed with this analysis. The 3e-5e system of bonuses, in my estimation, frees the PCs from needing sky high stats because it lowers the threshold for bonuses and smooths the progression. In 1e/2e, it's true that there was very little difference from about 7 to 14, but the upper ranges spiked the bonuses pretty high - encouraging players to find creative dice rolling cheats to get those 16+ stat values. In 3e-5e, you don't need that - you start getting benefits for being even slightly above average and the higher end of the normal range isn't as far ahead.

I agree. I love AD&D, but as far as stats go I think 5E is more forgiving of mediocre stats, which makes mediocre stats more fun. E.g. in AD&D there was HUGE pressure to get Int 18-19 so you could have unlimited spells and cast 9th level spells, but in 5E even an Int 10 wizard can cast 9th level spells. Not to mention the whole 18/00 thing.