D&D is weird. It's the trade-off between simplicity and simulation.
D&D 5E Bringing a Real World Character to a Fantasy World
- Thread starter Shades of Eternity
- Start date
Theo R Cwithin
I cast "Baconstorm!"
Tbh, I find it much stranger that the same ability that enables a character to avoid blows and dodge fireballs is the same ability that determines how well they pick locks and play guitar.
I'm quite fond of the idea of a fish-out-of-water game. Then again, I like exposition, both as a player and GM. I think if everyone is on board, it could be a lot of fun. Look at FF Tactics Advance and Hello From the Magic Tavern for two totally different ways to see that type of parallel world.
If players have an issue with stats - let them stroke their ego and hit them with a John Carter thing like the gravity being slightly less, or everyone being slightly dumber - boosting their relative stats.
If players have an issue with stats - let them stroke their ego and hit them with a John Carter thing like the gravity being slightly less, or everyone being slightly dumber - boosting their relative stats.
Son of the Serpent
Pupil
I feel like it would still besimple and more accurate though to multiply your strength by 50 for 0 movement though and just gain movement of up to your normal movement speed by 10 for every 15 less than the max multiplier of 50. Actually i think im gonna start doing that. Would result in a strength 20 character having normal movement speed at 100 pounds.
(Edit: better idea. Multiplier of more than 45 up to 50=no movement, more than 35 up to 45=10 feet, more than 20 up to 35=20 feet, up to 20=normal movement)
I actually already play with a rule that your performance (for musical instruments) is actually your int, dex, and cha mods added together divided by 3 and rounded up. Then plus your invested skill rank. But i dm 3/3.5. Obviously 5e is not equiped to use that rule completely.
Picking locks is dex plus int divided by 2 rounded up plus skill rank.
We made stuff like dodging attack (fireballs and swords and whatnot) be dex.
I use ability score mod combinations. It took a few years to figure out how to balance it. Was harder on the dm end of things. Not so much for the players.
Has resulted in a much more organic and smooth feeling spread of rolls.
My group very early on found we were all in agreement that the abilities in d&d were good but just felt odd because some skills are clearly a combination of them. And some skills have a lean. Some are "pure" like knowledges. You only have to do the math once. At level up. And we play with a very slow rate of leveling.
At any rate i think ill approach them soon about adding something to address the weirdness with strength. Still gotta figure out how this will effect "hustling" with weight.
(Edit: better idea. Multiplier of more than 45 up to 50=no movement, more than 35 up to 45=10 feet, more than 20 up to 35=20 feet, up to 20=normal movement)
I actually already play with a rule that your performance (for musical instruments) is actually your int, dex, and cha mods added together divided by 3 and rounded up. Then plus your invested skill rank. But i dm 3/3.5. Obviously 5e is not equiped to use that rule completely.
Picking locks is dex plus int divided by 2 rounded up plus skill rank.
We made stuff like dodging attack (fireballs and swords and whatnot) be dex.
I use ability score mod combinations. It took a few years to figure out how to balance it. Was harder on the dm end of things. Not so much for the players.
Has resulted in a much more organic and smooth feeling spread of rolls.
My group very early on found we were all in agreement that the abilities in d&d were good but just felt odd because some skills are clearly a combination of them. And some skills have a lean. Some are "pure" like knowledges. You only have to do the math once. At level up. And we play with a very slow rate of leveling.
At any rate i think ill approach them soon about adding something to address the weirdness with strength. Still gotta figure out how this will effect "hustling" with weight.
Last edited:
I look at the good fiction in this mode - Gaiman's Neverwhere and Stardust, Greg Bear's "Songs of Earth and Power" books - and the important thing is really the ignorance of the main character.
So, I probably wouldn't do this with D&D. The game is well known, so the players know what's going on, even if the character doesn't, and it is very difficult (and, I expect, less fun) to keep player knowledge apart from character knowledge for this case. I'd pick a system my players were not deeply familiar with, teach them the basics of resolution, and let them discover things from there.
I've done this with urban fantasy - so, the characters start as average people, and get introduced to the supernatural world over time. I used the core World Of Darkness rules, but didn't tell my players what supplements or variants I was using, and I didn't use the common WoD setting and organizations. This had the benefit that while the characters were fish out of water dealing with the supernatural, all the normal things of the world did still hold - they knew how to go about getting themselves fed and housed, and such.
It also had the benefit of making it far easier for players to make characters that had skills that would still be relevant in play, even if they didn't know anything supernatural yet.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
It would have to be the absolute strongest man alive. It’s the hard limit.
The guy who played the Mountain on Game of Thrones probably has a 20, because he is breaking mythic records for feats of strength, but if he somehow isn’t true he strongest, then clearly his level of strength is only 18-19.
Son of the Serpent
Pupil
He's one of a handful of 20s id argue. I say this because although he wins "world's strongest man" competitions he's not the only one. And among that hanful of others it occasionally goes back and forth whether hes the one winning or someone is beating him. Tldr its a very predtigious league hes in and its at the very tippy top of human capability but as small as the number of members are hes got just a couple men in his league. Barely. Oh. Btw. The records hes setting? Hes setting them at the icelandic competition i mentioned. Those guys dont bother with the olympics as that wpuld be below them. WSM competition is far more impressive than the olympics frankly.
Edit: lol. Forgot the competition isnt actually icelandic. The winners are just of icelandic descent obscenely often (population of only around 300,000. For some reason no country even touches this one on strength. You wanna know what a strength 20 human looks like? Just pick any decade and go find iceland's 10 strongest men. They all will qualify). WOOPS!
Last edited:
Comparing D&D stats with real world measurements is always difficult. You could approximate strength, but any test you do is probably going to be fuzzy. Do you measure based on bench press? Caber toss?
But that is something you could probably come close to measuring. But what about the other stats? We measure intelligence using IQ tests but what does an IQ of 140 really mean in D&D terms? The easy answer is IQ/10 = INT*, but how accurate is it?
Assuming that 20s can be achieved by humans in the real world, then we are looking at the top tier in that ability. But the top 1%? Top 5%? Heck if I know.
Which is just my way of saying that I wouldn't try to take myself or a person that I know and assign scores. I just let people create a PC using whatever method you use for ability scores and go with it. So Bob can play a professional athlete even though he's a wimp.
*And no, I don't want to argue about that again.
But that is something you could probably come close to measuring. But what about the other stats? We measure intelligence using IQ tests but what does an IQ of 140 really mean in D&D terms? The easy answer is IQ/10 = INT*, but how accurate is it?
Assuming that 20s can be achieved by humans in the real world, then we are looking at the top tier in that ability. But the top 1%? Top 5%? Heck if I know.
Which is just my way of saying that I wouldn't try to take myself or a person that I know and assign scores. I just let people create a PC using whatever method you use for ability scores and go with it. So Bob can play a professional athlete even though he's a wimp.
*And no, I don't want to argue about that again.
Son of the Serpent
Pupil
Your stated interpretation of int score translation to iq score was stated by gygax to be correct if i remember corectly. I dont see how anyone could argue with you on that. Seems it would be extremely absurd to do so.
But why would this quote
Which is just my way of saying that I wouldn't try to take myself or a person that I know and assign scores.
Cause issues for this quote
I just let people create a PC using whatever method you use for ability scores and go with it. So Bob can play a professional athlete even though he's a wimp.
How does figuring out how an IRL person would score in d&d restrict what scores a character they play as in d&d can have? I dont think figuring out someone's irl score in anyway causes a problem for letting them play whatever they want. That was a weird connection to make or else i misunderstood something. It shouldnt matter. The way someone's out of game money doesnt effect how much gold they have in game. You can still figure out how much gold they would have realistically if they were in d&d though and it doesnt cause any sort of issur that i can see.
..
140 is Genius level, IRL average is between 85 and 105 depending on which region you live in.
I never took offial tests but did the Karpov test and some other tests for myself, and i reached a score between 135 and 145. Some more modern IQ tests try to measure also social intelligence, but that gets a bit esoteric.
I consider myself to be above average, but surely not in the world top 1% or even top 5%, well maybe within the top 10-15%, that is my guess, but only with those older IQ tests which are based mostly on logic.
But intelligence also has an aspect of learned knowledge, not simply learned facts, but facts and how to implement and combine them.
IQ tests only can test common logic combination skills, and someone who is illiterate or does not know mathematics could still be quite intelligent, but would fail miserable at the test.
IRL IQ of 160+ is very rare, Einstein is rated to have probably had 165.
So your scaling is somewhat off (as is the common base for IQ tests eventually, who knows?), if we assume Int 20 aka IQ 200 people to exist
Similar Threads
