D&D 5E Chaladin

[Halivar]

So the objection is that putting your higher score in CHA is a trap choice?

One of the promises that bounded accuracy is making is that you won't need to max out ability scores in order to ably contribute. If that is true, then while you won't want to dump STR, you also won't need to max it out. Having a 14 STR and a 16 CHA should be as viable as the other way around.

(Of course if it fails to deliver on that promise, that's another story, but we're engaging in hypotheticals here...IF everything works as intended...does it work for some of the Chaladin fans?)

We'll have to see how it plays out. It could also turn out that, due to bounded accuracy, getting a +3 instead of a +2 on your main attack is a definite advantage. When you're throwing +40's and +35's like in 4E, maybe not so much. I don't know; just throwing stuff out there.

 

[I'm A Banana]

We'll have to see how it plays out. It could also turn out that, due to bounded accuracy, getting a +3 instead of a +2 on your main attack is a definite advantage. When you're throwing +40's and +35's like in 4E, maybe not so much. I don't know; just throwing stuff out there.

Pretty fair point, that blade does cut both ways. Though I wonder if it, in practice, won't be the difference between a 70% chance and a 75% chance or somesuch. Notable, but either way, you're probably going to hit most critters.

This is kind of a place where the monster and skill DC maths are going to let us know if this particular expression of the concept is viable. Which just continues to annoy me by not having a full game here to play, at least until [MENTION=84774]surfarcher[/MENTION] can give us that stat analysis!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Pretty fair point, that blade does cut both ways. Though I wonder if it, in practice, won't be the difference between a 70% chance and a 75% chance or somesuch. Notable, but either way, you're probably going to hit most critters.

This is kind of a place where the monster and skill DC maths are going to let us know if this particular expression of the concept is viable. Which just continues to annoy me by not having a full game here to play, at least until [MENTION=84774]surfarcher[/MENTION] can give us that stat analysis!

It's going to be kind of a giant tease until the MM comes out, I suspect, because we won't know higher-level monster math, or if the lower-level stuff we have is representative.

My feeling (instinctive rather than fully worked out!) is that, in a smaller pool, a bonus is more noticeable, not less. So I feel like with bounded accuracy will mean people are even more keen on maxing their main combat stats.

But like you say, we don't know the numbers, and I think that, yes, if it's 70% vs. 75% typical hit rate, rather than 50% vs. 55%, or even, ugh, 30% vs 35%, then there will be more breathing room, and less reason to max stuff.

 

[Manbearcat]

I think I stated my reasons upthread.

In the 4e PHB there are two main paladin options presented: a STR-based paladin, whose attacks are melee weapon attacks; and a CHA-based paladin, whose attacks are a mix of melee weapon attacks (using CHA as the attack stat) and spells (also using CHA as the attack stat).

I hadn't thought of such a thing until I read it, but when I read it I was immediately taken by it: the STR paladin is Lancelot or Arthur, inspired by the divinity; the CHA paladin is Galahad, infused with divine grace.

Indeed, it makes a lot of sense for a magic-infused class. If one just think of it as "LOL FIGHTAN WITH CHARISMA? WAT?!" it's pretty silly, but in the context of this strongly-magical, divinely-graced character, it works.

The Chaladin was more like holy magic sword guy. He channeled his divinity into the sword and it becomes sharper or a lightsaber. Half the Cha powers in 4e were "i hit you and white hot lights in the sword burn you in some way."n

Like a doctor character in a book that came out this year.

If this all remains true, would this meet the needs for a Chaladin, or is there some specific process or result that this doesn't quite achieve?

There are two reasons that I love 4e's non-Str/Dex as primary attack state model.

1) The first reason is actually simulatory, both process and genre. One of the problems of D&D attribute model is that almost all martial enterprise is a combination of multiple inputs. Its not just your fast twitch explosion. Its not just your proprioception and sense of body balance. Its not just your small muscle coordination. Its also determined by:

a) Constitution - Your physical fortitude and ability to endure/ignore the demands of your biology.

b) Intelligence - Your ability to understand the concepts of your craft and hone and perfect those fundamentals and techniques. Further, its the speed at which you process information (from multiple vectors), spit out the best response possible, and send your musculoskeletal system into action. If Arcane, there may be some magic-infusion.

c) Wisdom - Your spatial perception. This is absolutely HUGE in determining outcomes of exchanges of bodies in motion. Further, if Divine or Primal, there may be some augmentation via answering of prayer or deliverance of boon/insight by primal spirits.

d) Charisma - Your will to act, your cool/poise under pressure, and your deeply internalized committment to cause. This is a big one as well. If Arcane, this may be a bloodline thing if a sorcerer, a patron/pact thing if a Warlock. If a Paladin, this may be actual infusion of the divine in augmenting all of the above such that those things become supernatural.

Regardless, all of a - d above are hugely important in our world, and certainly important within the conceits of the genre. A Bladesinger using Int as his MBA stat is of course using Strength/Dex (and the others) to perform his amazing bladeowrk. However, his extraordinary mind is the most important factor of all. This is what separates him from a common warrior. He understands his craft more deeply than would otherwise be possible. His mind performs permutations and spits out a response so fast that its borderline precognitive. And maybe there is some Arcane infusion. A Chaladin's is still using Str (etc) to attack (of course). But more important than his Str is his supernatural will to act/cool/poise/committment to cause. He is a "grinder" (as the saying goes in sports). Without that will and "hard-hat" mentality, he would be "just another guy." But with it, he becomes legend.

2) The second reason is the game balance one; the MAD one. Unless the game's machinery is uniformly predicated upon stat dilution across all classes/builds (13th Age does a good job with this from a defense perspective by making the determinative stat for your defenses be the middle score of 3), you're going to have certain classes/builds, those that are disproportionately dependent upon multiple ability scores, suffer in performance simply due to the strain on the system's math.

 

[I'm A Banana]

My feeling (instinctive rather than fully worked out!) is that, in a smaller pool, a bonus is more noticeable, not less. So I feel like with bounded accuracy will mean people are even more keen on maxing their main combat stats.

The second reason is the game balance one; the MAD one. Unless the game's machinery is uniformly predicated upon stat dilution across all classes/builds (13th Age does a good job with this from a defense perspective by making the determinative stat for your defenses be the middle score of 3), you're going to have certain classes/builds, those that are disproportionately dependent upon multiple ability scores, suffer in performance simply due to the strain on the system's math.

My rather limited experience with Basic so far is that the hard cap of 20 plus the speed of combat and the broader adventure focus does a LOT to incent people to not care too much about one stat (especially one fightin' stat).

Folks thought processes as I've seen them include

• "Well, I just need to hit 20 by level 20, and I'm already 15, and I've got a lot of levels."
• "Okay, so I hit on a 6 instead of on a 7, and the goblins already go down in one hit. It's not a big deal."
• "Your STR can kill a guy, but my CHA can get us through him without losing any HP and he'll thank us for it."

Anecdote ain't worth much, but I do think that overall there's a change in the focus on high ability scores that, heck, even 1e and 2e kept pretty intense (ah, Prime Requisites). 5e might prove to be very accommodating of mediocre scores. I hope that's the case!

There are two reasons that I love 4e's non-Str/Dex as primary attack state model.

1) The first reason is actually simulatory, both process and genre. One of the problems of D&D attribute model is that almost all martial enterprise is a combination of multiple inputs. Its not just your fast twitch explosion. Its not just your proprioception and sense of body balance. Its not just your small muscle coordination. Its also determined by:
<snip>
Regardless, all of a - d above are hugely important in our world, and certainly important within the conceits of the genre. A Bladesinger using Int as his MBA stat is of course using Strength/Dex (and the others) to perform his amazing bladeowrk. However, his extraordinary mind is the most important factor of all. This is what separates him from a common warrior. He understands his craft more deeply than would otherwise be possible. His mind performs permutations and spits out a response so fast that its borderline precognitive. And maybe there is some Arcane infusion. A Chaladin's is still using Str (etc) to attack (of course). But more important than his Str is his supernatural will to act/cool/poise/committment to cause. He is a "grinder" (as the saying goes in sports). Without that will and "hard-hat" mentality, he would be "just another guy." But with it, he becomes legend.

So if I'm hearing right, it sounds like keying different ability scores to swingin' around swords helps play a character that actually swings around swords in different ways. Just as the "finesse" wielder (using DEX) uses precision and fine motor control, a "tactical" wielder (using INT) might read body language and remember attack patterns, and a "driven" wielder (using CHA) would stare her targets directly in the eyes as her blade comes for their throat.

That sounds cool! And it definitely looks like this version of the paladin doesn't do that out of the box. They can augment their powerful sword blows with divine blessings and grace, but it is still clear that they are driving these blows with their muscles as they don't ignore STR, either.

Hmm...might not be a bad alternative for lay on hands?
[SECTION]Indomitable Attacker
When making a melee attack with a weapon, you use your choice of Strength or Charisma modifier for the attack and damage rolls, using the same modifier for both rolls.[/SECTION]
I think where I'd most like to see this, though, rather than in a subclass, is in a more flexible option that any character can use for any ability score. Something perhaps akin to the feat in 4e that let you use whatever ability score for basic attack rolls you wanted ("martial training" IIRC?).

Tentatively, I could see a feat in 5e that lets you use an ability score of your choice for melee or ranged attacks (or even as a spellcasting ability or AC!), and gives you a +1 to that ability score. There's a tradition of zen archers and the like. And it'd be kind of awesome to see STR-powered wizards and CON-powered axe-throwers. There's no reason to believe that we'll see such a feat in the PHB, but that feels in the realm of "things a feat can do."

I can see a few reasons why the designers might not have wanted to go this route (for instance, if you just dog-pile your melee attacks, ranged attacks, spellcasting, AC, even saving throws just all onto DEX, then suddenly you're better than everyone else and all you had to do was link everything to DEX!), but with finesse weapons and monk and barbarian AC's and the like, there is some dabbling in this area, so they can't be TOO averse to it.

If there's some deeper reason, it might be a good DMG module anyway. Swapping an ability score out for another should be a pretty painless exercise.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My rather limited experience with Basic so far is that the hard cap of 20 plus the speed of combat and the broader adventure focus does a LOT to incent people to not care too much about one stat (especially one fightin' stat).

Folks thought processes as I've seen them include

• "Well, I just need to hit 20 by level 20, and I'm already 15, and I've got a lot of levels."
• "Okay, so I hit on a 6 instead of on a 7, and the goblins already go down in one hit. It's not a big deal."
• "Your STR can kill a guy, but my CHA can get us through him without losing any HP and he'll thank us for it."

Anecdote ain't worth much, but I do think that overall there's a change in the focus on high ability scores that, heck, even 1e and 2e kept pretty intense (ah, Prime Requisites). 5e might prove to be very accommodating of mediocre scores. I hope that's the case!

I hope it does, I'm just a bit skeptical, given they didn't actually make any real shift of mechanical weighting away from attributes below cap, and on to class default stuff.

What they did do was shift weighting away from Feat/power stuff and options in general, and on to proficiency/attribute.

The cap is a factor, because it means there's no infinite attribute sprawl, so there's no putting points into an already-20 stat, but until you get there, attribute mod is going to be the biggest fixed bonus to hit and damage for everyone (and biggest save-DC-increaser), until what, level 17, when proficiency finally exceeds it.

If they wanted to make stats matter less, without lowering the stat mods, what they would have had to do would be (I mean, this is one way!):

1) Make the proficiency bonus much bigger than the max stat bonus - say +4 through +12.

2) Increase the damage of weapons and cantrips (not spells, they're already mostly like this) so that the +1 to +5 from stats seemed a much smaller deal (you could adjust HP for PCs and monsters to deal with this). Simply doubling weapon/cantrip dice would do that. Increasing HP dice would also mean CON's fixed HP bonus counted for less (a win if you want less-important stats).

Just thinking out loud!

Anyway, what I expect to see is people very keen to get stats to +4/5 mods, then they'll chill a bit. I don't think anyone I know will think +2/3 in their "prime" stat is "okay", even if I tell them it is!

 

[Remathilis]

There are two reasons that I love 4e's non-Str/Dex as primary attack state model.

God, this is going to cut close to a 4e attack, but...

How 4e handled ability scores was the worst possible way short of % strength.

I get what they were intending; a class is good with its prime stat and doesn't need much else. However, I saw the following when I played:

1.) There was never a reason to ever start without a 18+ prime stat. It was going to do ALL your heavy lifting. Splitting your stats was pointless, so much so that V-shaped classes quickly died before PHB2 and much of the first round of X Power books were devoted to fixing Conlocks, Straladins, and Strangers.

2.) Since your defenses were based on the better of two scores, it meant you could safely drop 2 scores to 8 and not suffer, 3 scores if you were the right class combo. And since some scores were flat-out important to a class than others, there was never a reason for a fighter to have anything but an average con, a rogue to put anything into Intelligence, a Wizard to pump dexterity, etc.

3.) I shouldn't say ANY. Str mattered to armor proficiency, Dex to Init and Con to HP. Int/Wis/Cha? Unless you cared about those skills, you got no extra benefit. So given a choice between Str or Con, pick Con. Int or Dex? Dex. Wis or Cha? Flip a coin.

4.) There was never a trade-off. A paladin wasn't either a monster with his sword or a mystic with his spells. He was always both. Even in the few odd cases where there was a trade-off (melee basic attacks/OA) Melee Training/Intelligent Blademaster came in and allowed you to attack with your con, wis, cha, or any stat you wanted. (and until HoFK, as good as with Str).

5.) All of this made sure you stayed within the parameter's of your role and often "picked" your powers for you; it was very rare to pick a power that didn't augment your chosen prime/secondary stat combo. It was dumb for a artful dodger rogue to ever pick a strength-based power, which often meant that even though there were 3-4 powers in the PHB to pick, you really only got a choice of 1 (maybe 2) powers at a given level. So much for "flexible".

All of this really raised the question: Why even have ability scores? Unless you purposefully built your character to suck (or absolutely avoided the patch feats to make them work) you always used the same narrow build: your prime stat fueled your primary attacks/defense, your secondary score (determined by your build) augmented attacks and gave you a middle defense, and then you sank a few points in one of your remaining scores to raise your third defense. Put the rest in Con (if you hadn't done so already) and sit on two 8s. You could have built all that into the 1/2 level math and ignored SDCIWCh altogether!

Ugh, rant over. Continue on about Paladins.

 

[Minigiant]

So a 1st-level paladin in 5e has a mix of melee weapon attacks (using STR as the attack stat) and Lay on Hands. And going by Alpha stuff and its usual caveats, by 3rd level (the "equivalent-to-4e-first-level" threshold), he's got CHA-based spells and a CHA-based attack buff (for lightsaber action -- it literally glows), and a fighting style.

Even from first level, the 5e paladin seems to be both Lancelot and Galahad, both inspired by divinity (to hit things with swords) and infused with divine grace (to heal allies with a touch). And they have a lasersword by level 3.

If this all remains true, would this meet the needs for a Chaladin, or is there some specific process or result that this doesn't quite achieve?

Don't know.
Part of the point of CHAladins was that you are rolling Charisma 70%+ of the time. You only rolled strength for opportunity attacks, grapples, shoves, and thrown weapons (when you ran out of the few range spells you had)

So if the 5e Chaladin doesn't roll nor add Charisma to at least two thirds of the time...

 

[I'm A Banana]

Don't know.
Part of the point of CHAladins was that you are rolling Charisma 70%+ of the time. You only rolled strength for opportunity attacks, grapples, shoves, and thrown weapons (when you ran out of the few range spells you had)

So if the 5e Chaladin doesn't roll nor add Charisma to at least two thirds of the time...

If the things in the Alpha remain true, a Devotion paladin will be adding Charisma to every attack roll she makes with her shiny sword in basically every encounter where she doesn't want to turn evil (like turn undead, but plus fiends) at 3rd level and beyond.

Would that be enough?

How 4e handled ability scores was the worst possible way short of % strength

Any of these might be reasons the 5e team decided not to go this route, but I think the approach to ability scores in 5e is probably an interesting topic in it's own right as it is different than 4e, 3e, 2e, and 1e, so NEW THREAD TIME!

 

[Manbearcat]

So if I'm hearing right, it sounds like keying different ability scores to swingin' around swords helps play a character that actually swings around swords in different ways. Just as the "finesse" wielder (using DEX) uses precision and fine motor control, a "tactical" wielder (using INT) might read body language and remember attack patterns, and a "driven" wielder (using CHA) would stare her targets directly in the eyes as her blade comes for their throat.

That sounds cool!

It is cool!

Swapping an ability score out for another should be a pretty painless exercise.

So long as the math of the system can handle it, it would be ideal. I like what 13th Age did with defenses. I think D&D attacks could be handled similarly. Take 3 ability scores that make sense in being the primary arbiters in attack resolution for the given archetype. The middle one wins. Rogues are Dex, Int, Cha. Paladins are Str, Wis, Cha. Fighters are Str, Dex, Wis. Etc, etc. Make the math work and you're good.

God, this is going to cut close to a 4e attack, but...

I don't see that as much of an attack. Looks like orderly, cogent, clear analysis to me. I don't agree with all of it but that doesn't look to be vacuous, uninformed, ARGGGGGG4EANGRYFIST edition warring. It doesn't look like a rant either.

I get what they were intending; a class is good with its prime stat and doesn't need much else. However, I saw the following when I played:

1.) There was never a reason to ever start without a 18+ prime stat. It was going to do ALL your heavy lifting. Splitting your stats was pointless, so much so that V-shaped classes quickly died before PHB2 and much of the first round of X Power books were devoted to fixing Conlocks, Straladins, and Strangers.

D&D very much has a hardcore gamist culture at its core. We try to pretend that it isn't in our collective bloodstream, but it certainly is. So those temptations are always going to be present.

That being said, I really think this is dependent upon the play agenda. I know people dispute this, but 4e has very robust noncombat conflict resolution. I'm used to running noncombat conflict resolution in a number of games and my home 4e games have probably featured a 60:40 ratio of its conflicts being noncombat:combat. Further, the combats are all pretty intensive and often have another agenda beyond "kill dudes and take their stuff" or "maximize resource efficiency." My players have created the types of characters they want, but they have certainly been aware that a brutally minmaxed combatant is going to have invested in PC build resources that are useless for a considerable portion of the game.

For instance, the solo PBP I'm running is for a player that was in both of my 1-30 home games. She has a level 7 Elf Fighter (Slayer). At level 7, her ability score spread is:

Str: 12
Con: 14
Dex: 18
Int: 14
Wis: 16
Cha: 10

That is with + 2 Dex/Wis and + 1 Dex/Wis from level 4.

Of her four feats, only one gives her direct combat potency (expertise). Two of the others are noncombat directly (Wizard multi which gives her Nature and Ritual Casting and JoaT) and the last one lets her use Dex for MBAs (relevant to our discussion) to capture the elfy finesse archetype. Both of her Utilities are Skill Powers, with one being a noncombat juggernaut (Mighty Sprint). Her Theme severely plays into noncombat conflict resolution proficiency rather than combat potency (Ghost of the Past - trained History and reroll a check 1/encounter). Her Neck Slot item has a passive skill bonus and an activatable one. Her Armor Slot has a passive one.

She has a Bear Companion character.

Point being, its not surprising that she has created this character. She is still a BA in combat (its impossible not to be as a Fighter-Slayer), but she is pretty stunningly awesome outside of it. All of the characters created for all of the 4e games I've run have this in common.

I think I'll just stick with that and leave the rest of your points be. I'll just say that I can understand how they would be informed by a certain play experience with 4e. I don't want to go any deeper than that and risk derailing the thread any further.