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

[GMforPowergamers]

Yes it does, it allows for the creme de la creme, prime specimens to rise above the rest in terms of natural aptitude. That's plausible and realistic. Some people appreciate a little variety and realism. Real life is not balanced in terms of equality of opportunity. Some people are born smarter, stronger, AND better looking too. It's what you do with the hand you're dealt that matters, not what you are born with.

It teaches you about life, hard work and determination matter more than raw talent most of the time.

wait... your argument is that unfairness in the game is the point?

well if that's the case it's a bad point... the game is supposed to be fun first and realistic somewhere between 2nd and 5,000th depending on your play style.... but always fun first

 

[Ranes]

I'm not familiar with the deva but the ½ damage on sneak attacks and critical hits is interesting. My players have at some point used all the other classes you mention with the exception of dread necromancer, favoured soul and ToB classes.

Anyway, thanks for the reply.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I mentioned melee clerics because [MENTION=67338]GMforPowergamers[/MENTION] did, and because I've had the experience personally in an AD&D game, where my melee cleric, due to superior stats, outshone the melee fighters. I'm not making any point about CoDzilla, which is an artefact of one edition of the game that I have played very little of.

In that case, I'll point out that in other editions, a melee cleric's damage output with weapons could usually be bettered by a warrior type due to weapon selection, better base odds of hitting, increased number of attacks, and a wider variety of weapons to choose from.

Once you factor in the melee cleric's spells & granted powers, though, you're back to a proto-CoDzilla issue.

wait... your argument is that unfairness in the game is the point?

Die rolling isn't unfair: everyone has exactly the same odds of getting any result on the bell curve. That is perfectly fair.

well if that's the case it's a bad point... the game is supposed to be fun first and realistic somewhere between 2nd and 5,000th depending on your play style.... but always fun first

For some people, the chance of rolling/actually playing the paragon of human ability IS fun. For others, the chance of rolling/actually playing the dregs who succeed against all odds IS fun. By taking away those possibilities, some feel the game is made smaller. See also Phillip K. Dick's "Harrison Bergeron."

 

[spinozajack]

wait... your argument is that unfairness in the game is the point?

well if that's the case it's a bad point... the game is supposed to be fun first and realistic somewhere between 2nd and 5,000th depending on your play style.... but always fun first

Yes, actually unfairness, come to think of it, is indeed the point of D&D. And that's why it's timeless and has lasted 40 years. Because the dice make it realistic, much more so than other games. Contrary to what Einstein believed, God does indeed play dice.

The real question is, why do people believe that fantasy worlds should be more fair than the real one? The onus is on them to prove that the real one, despite it being grossly unfair, can't still be fun. Very fun. And given that fact, why on earth would you believe that everyone must be created equal in D&D worlds?

The answer can be put succinctly in the famous quote from The Princess Bride. Who on earth told you that life was fair, anyway? Fairness in ability attributes is unrealistic to the point of being a straightjacket. In the middle ages, everyone would take Strength and Charisma (conning nobles), whereas in the modern world, most everyone would, given the chance, max out intelligence.

Thank the heavens that life isn't fair. It would be boring beyond conception. And that's a very good reason why strict balance in ability score bonuses is a bad idea, generally speaking. Fairness didn't make the most balanced edition the most fun, did it.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Fairness didn't make the most balanced edition the most fun, did it.

I think the most balanced version of D&D was the best so far... but 5e has been surprisingly good too

 

[Parmandur]

Actually, yeah: the lack of fairness is part of my fun, too. Making something of a sub par character or going gonzo with a great character? Amazing either way.

 

[spinozajack]

I think the most balanced version of D&D was the best so far... but 5e has been surprisingly good too

I'm not going to debate personal opinion, but the fact is, 5th edition was driven by Mike Mearls who boiled D&D's essence down to "the thrill of a natural 20, the agony of a natural 1".

So there's a man who clearly understood the central role that dice have in the game, and what makes it special. Dice aren't fair. You don't get that natural 20 when you need it (but sometimes you do!), and you often get a natural 1 at the worst possible time, it seems. That surprise is also central to human experience. You don't know when you're going to have that chance encounter that changes your life, or get hit by that hurricane and lose everything.

Injustice is a necessary prerequisite for justice. It's much more satisfying to overcome long odds than fair ones, and makes a more interesting story.

Balanced encounters are a bad thing, basically. You want to drop that boulder (how ungentlemanly) on the lich and finish him before he can disintegrate you. You want to face overwhelming hordes of undead and cunningly get them stuck in a bog and light them all on fire. Unbalanced encounters are best.

 

[redrick]

The problem isn't with rolling for ability scores. There are plenty of campaign situations where rolling for ability scores is the way to go.

The problem is the attitude that not rolling for ability scores is the same as not playing D&D. Or some sort of lesser D&D lite. Seriously, spinozsajack and others, please stop conflating the 4d6 (drop 1) with the d20. Plenty of peoe who don't like rolled ability scores love to run their game by the whim of the d20. They like "unfair" challenges and fights that can't be won.

What is unfortunate is when people who are not playing the kind of game where rolling for abilities thrives (high character turnover, through death, character tree or retirement), feel that they need to play their game with rolled scores, and then get locked into those rolls for months or more. When the feat system doesn't work as well because most of the pcs start with 18+ in their prime stat.

Rolling for abilities is great, but there are lots of good reasons to not do it and those reasons don't make you a poor sport, a shiner, an entitled player, a "roll-player" or a communist.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I'm not going to debate personal opinion, but the fact is, 5th edition was driven by Mike Mearls who boiled D&D's essence down to "the thrill of a natural 20, the agony of a natural 1".

yes and at no point does that d20 he uses or you quote make up random character gen (unless I missed the roll 1d20 for stat options.... )

So there's a man who clearly understood the central role that dice have in the game, and what makes it special.

yes he does, when an out come needs to be determained in a random way roll 1d20 higher is better... nothing about stats though

Dice aren't fair. You don't get that natural 20 when you need it (but sometimes you do!), and you often get a natural 1 at the worst possible time, it seems. That surprise is also central to human experience. You don't know when you're going to have that chance encounter that changes your life, or get hit by that hurricane and lose everything.

and if everyone starts with tharray, or point buy, or just takes 3 18's and 3 17's or the DM assigns stats... this entire paragraph changes not one bit... and as such doesn't matter for rolling dice for stats...

Injustice is a necessary prerequisite for justice.

nope... there is no need for something bad to off set something good. There is no need for someone to commit a crime to make a place crime free... Justice can stand on it's own with no injustice....

It's much more satisfying to overcome long odds than fair ones, and makes a more interesting story.

100% agree here... infact that is my DMing motto

Balanced encounters are a bad thing, basically.

no... sorry gotta stop you there... there is a time and place for inbalanced ones but in general balanced is better (not saying never use, or even that balanced means even... easy, mediam, hard, and deadly are all balanced... and some times you throw something under easy or over deadly... but not regularly)

You want to drop that boulder (how ungentlemanly) on the lich and finish him before he can disintegrate you.

or you want your fighter to stand there disrupting his spell casting while your wizard reddies a counter spell and your cleric fights his minons....

You want to face overwhelming hordes of undead and cunningly get them stuck in a bog and light them all on fire. Unbalanced encounters are best.

what about an unbalanced encounter makes that better?

if my 5th level party does that to 100 cr 1/8th zombies, or my 20th level party does that to 1,000 cr 1 zombies, or my 1st level party does that to 100 cr 10 zombies... it's still cool... what about unbalanced makes it better?


my party once killed a Cr24 dragon with 1 5th level spell, we remember and joke about it... my 18th level mystic theurge/archmage once leveled a castle full of level 5 knights we talk and joke about that... last Tuesday my party beat a necromancer that was a hard encounter by xp budget but it was a ton of fun, I bet we will talk about it too...

 

[spinozajack]

Ask Han Solo what he thinks of those million to one odds. Balanced encounters means the invisible hand of god is stepping in to make things fair which really have no place being. Generals don't try to square up their armies so they have a fair fight ahead of them, they try to eke out every possible advantage to crush their enemies. As they should do to PCs. So PCs should learn to run. If they always expect each encounter to be balanced, that's just reducing the game to combat as sport. And combat is not a sport, it's dangerous and should be avoided at all costs if you want to live long. What I see here is a philosophy of having your cake and wanting to eat it too. You want a glorious outcome from long odds, but want those odds to be fair (whaaat?), so that there's equality of opportunity for every participant.

That's not how warfare works, not in human history, and not in most fantasy. Most of the time, the good guys are besieged by long odds and are the underdog. That's the classic trope that's also the most rewarding. It seems to me like you want the story benefits of the underdog vs favorite trope to be played out by even odds, fair fight maths. Actually not even. In 4th edition a "balanced" encounter was one that PCs were definitely expected to win most of the time, so in effect it's a lie. It's dishonest to call such skewed odds "balanced", because if they were 50-50, PCs would last at most a handful of battles. And that's not how it played out, and you know it.

A 50-50 chance of winning in typical D&D battles, even once in a while, would be substantially increasing the difficulty of the game, even in 5th edition where PCs die more often (at low levels, at least). So if you mean by "balanced", an substantial increase of what the current monsters have over PCs, then that would be an improvement. But not in the sense that you think. Because the game is already mechanically way too easy. It's moderately harder to survive the lower levels than in 4th edition, but after level 5, PCs are next to unkillable.