NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8116845" data-attributes="member: 29398">Where to me the frustration of failing at stuff - even occasionally to the point of having to abandon the adventure and find something else - is just part of the game.I suppose the question becomes one of how great a divergence from the norm one is willing to accept.  In my case, I'll accept 'slight' but could live with 'none'.You're off on this one: many otherwise-right-handed people bat left in baseball or shoot left in hockey. (in hockey, finding players who shoot right for certain positions can be a challenge, as most shoot left)What you're pointing out here is IMO a failing of how 5e handles checks - too easy for an expert to fail and also too easy for a non-expert to succeed.  I far prefer the 1e roll-under mechanic, in which an all-18's character would at worst have a 10% chance of blowing it, reduced by whatever outside bonuses they can apply.  Pleasant side effect: odd-numbered stats have a purpose again. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Yes, I always presume that...but then, I've been in more or less the same group since I started.  We also turn over characters fairly quickly, particularly at low level, as our games tend to be (by modern standards) hella lethal; so there's little point in getting married to a concept* as chances are strong that it won't make it to its third adventure anyway.I never ever EVER assume that the character I start a campaign with will be the one I finish it with.* - exception: concepts intentinally designed as one-hit wonders or shooting stars.Point-buy (or worse, locked-in array) bores me as it means I'm starting with the same chassis every time, and that chassis by design can't have any extremes on it.And, you're on about 'watching it evolve' again, where my expectation is that - unless my luck runs consistently hot - I'm far more likely to watch it die.  My main hope is that I can somehow make that death entertaining and memorable. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />If your life situation has you bouncing from one town to another every year or two, I can't offer much by way of suggestion.  But if you're living somewhere long-term, I suggest finding an equally-stable group and going in for the long haul.  Start (or get someone else to start) an open-ended campaign (old-school works best for this) with a projected duration limited only by the lifespans of the people at the table, and see what buy-in there is.  You might be pleasantly surprised. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Yes - that's the 'slight' special-ness I was referring to above.Here we differ hugely, as I see the game as very luck-based and prefer if the setting tries to simulate its own reality at the very least.Though this general idea has been present since 1e or earlier, I've never bought in.In my view, every member of the city watch, the militia, or the queen's army is a fighter-in-training (or, put another way, is already a 0th-level Fighter) and most have the potential to become a 1st-level Fighter and go on from there.  The main thing that makes an adventurer (or veteran soldier, etc.) different is that said person followed up on that potential and made it real.When you leave the 'slightly's in there I can get behind this.  It's when adventurers are automatically assumed to be hugely above the norm I get annoyed - see for example the tremendous degree of difference between a 1st-level character and a commoner in 4e.You're forgetting the roll-under mechanic in early editions, which made stats rather important.  If by extreme stats having 'merit' you mean they had bonuses/penalties attached, those aren't everything: being a 13 in something gave you significantly greater odds of success than someone with an 8 in the same stat, even though the modifier on each was +0.</blockquote>

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