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!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8117022" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Again, you seem to be reading me as saying, "I never want to fail ever." That isn't what I've said, and I've repeatedly stated the opposite. I just want a mixture that is more favorable than a goddamn roulette wheel.Out of curiosity, then, how do you feel about the quoted and image-capped stuff from the 1e PHB above? The stuff Gygax himself wrote about needing some 15s (aka needing some actual bonuses) in order to survive?Er...that's...not what I was talking about. About 10% of people are left-handed overall. Specifically in interactive sports, and not JUST baseball, most of them (hence why I mentioned tennis...), the ratio of "using left hand dominantly" is closer to 50/50. Whatever the reason--even if the person in question is normally right-hand dominant--it would be incorrect and lead to errors if you presumed that dominant-handedness has the same distribution in that group as it does in the overall population. That is just one, singular, example of how a relevant statistic can be radically different among a group of people who share a common divergence from society at large. Such differences can be subtle, profound, or anywhere between.Okay, but you're talking in a thread about 5e, and making broad-stroke assertions. If you always meant to talk about something four editions gone, it would be a lot easier to get your point (and save a lot of pointless replying) if you specified that sooner.Then you should be aware that these things are not how most people play D&D anymore. It is not, at all, bad to play this way. But it is atypical to play this way now, and speaking of rules design as though everyone not only can, not only does, but should play this way will lead to exactly the kind of discussion we're having now.See, Lanefan, here's a critical problem: My desired system is compatible with your interests, but your desired system isn't compatible with mine.A system where things can evolve can still be pushed hard enough that death occurs often and can be entertaining and memorable. But a system where death is frequent (whether or not it is entertaining and memorable) prevents evolution from occurring in the first place. Using an actual biology analogy: you need selection pressure to permit evolution, and sometimes selection pressure does rise high enough that things just die rather than having the time to evolve. But if death rates are consistently extremely high, evolution can never take place because things don't live long enough to reproduce at all.If one of us has a design strategy that can, if massaged, accommodate both interests, while the other has a design strategy that can only accommodate one interest, which strategy is better for us to use?I deal with severe social anxiety and have reasons why travelling around the city where I live (even with its reasonably good public transit) isn't ideal. All of my gaming experiences have been over the internet, pretty much by necessity.Unlikely. I have played actual, legit old-school D&D (well, Labyrinth Lord). It wasn't my cup of tea. The lethality, the mercenary attitude, the cavalier disregard...it gets to me. It feels, not so much "painful," as "wearying" I guess. I derive far too little joy from it to consider it a pleasant activity.So...I'm really confused. You're okay with +2s (since 3e's minimum rolling rules guarantee characters with at least a 14 in their highest stat), but not +3s? A single extra plus is enough to take you from, "Ah, that's slightly special," to "Holy mother of mercy, how can anyone relate to this person?!"? Because...uh...that's an opinion I can't relate to.Again: if I wanted a roulette wheel, I'd go to a casino. Being probabilistic and being ToTaLlY rAnDoM bRo!1!1 are not at all the same thing, and having some degree of control over what risks you take is thoroughly precedented in D&D even all the way back to OD&D. It's not a crap shoot--and asking for it to be, indeed, saying that's how it should be for everyone, is DEFINITELY going to ruin the fun for a LOT of people.Okay so...now you're not even playing 1e as described. You're inventing this whole other D&D that never actually existed, where your views are validated by the rules? And you think everyone should be expected to play that way?I think I'm deeply misunderstanding your point here, because as presented this...is a pretty surprising statement."Tremendous"? Really? Let's take a look at an actual level 1 "commoner-type" creature. There is no such thing properly in 4e (the only things like a "commoner" proper are minions, which are explicitly only 1/4th of a typical creature anyway), so I'm looking at the level 1 Human Street Entertainer. If that doesn't meet your standards, well, I'm sorry, there aren't very many options for an ordinary village humanoid at creature level 1. The Entertainer has 29 HP (slightly less than a high-Con Defender, more than most middling-Con characters), AC 15 (lowish but not horrible), slightly weak non-AC defenses (12/14/13). It has a d8+4 basic attack (+6 to hit vs AC), all of which is typical for a 1st level character with an 18 in their primary attack stat and a +2 proficiency weapon.Not really seeing where this "tremendous" gap is. Yes, if you compare a minion creature to a PC, you'll see a gap, but that's pretty clearly not an apples-to-apples comparison!Not forgetting. I'm consciously ignoring a mechanic D&D hasn't used for twenty years, in part because it is highly counter-intuitive for many people (that "low" results are good for this specific thing, and "high" results are good for most everything else--initiative, damage dealt, saving throws). Again, this is a thread about 5e, and you have been speaking in very generic and sweeping terms until very recently.</blockquote>

Verification