Adam_Coath
First Post
I'm current involved in a campaign with quite high ability scores. The ability score totals are roughly in the mid eighties which puts all the character in the top 5% of what you would expect rolling 4d6 and dropping the lowest die.
This has had a significant impact on class balance. In particular classes that benefit from multiple high ability scores, such as monks and paladins, tend to be more powerful than those that don't benefit as much such as straight fighters or druids.
In this case the fighter's armor class will tend to be even less than the monk's because the monk is benefiting from having both dex and wisdom bonuses to her armor class, as well as likely getting mage armor from a friendly wizard, while the fighter typically only gets AC 21 (9 for dex+armor and 2 from his shield). A monk with 18s in dex and wisdom and mage armor will have AC 22 at first level.
Futhermore the monk is doing more damage. At first level fighting a typical AC 15 foe (an kobold) the monk is hitting on 13+ with her flurry of blows giving an expected damage of (3.5 + 4 x.4 *2= 6 points with her two attacks. The fighter is hitting on 10+ with his bastard sword doing an expected damage of 9.5 * .55 = 5.225 pts of damage.
If they had 14 str the monk would be doing 3.3 and the fighter 3.375
Now I'm not saying that the monk, for example, is a overpowered class. What I am saying that it's power relative to a fighter increases with high ability scores.
The druid is another example of a class that does better in a low ability score game. The ability to get the ability scores of an animal is largely pointless if you ability scores are already phenomenal.
What ability score level do people think is best to keep the classes balanced with one another?
This has had a significant impact on class balance. In particular classes that benefit from multiple high ability scores, such as monks and paladins, tend to be more powerful than those that don't benefit as much such as straight fighters or druids.
In this case the fighter's armor class will tend to be even less than the monk's because the monk is benefiting from having both dex and wisdom bonuses to her armor class, as well as likely getting mage armor from a friendly wizard, while the fighter typically only gets AC 21 (9 for dex+armor and 2 from his shield). A monk with 18s in dex and wisdom and mage armor will have AC 22 at first level.
Futhermore the monk is doing more damage. At first level fighting a typical AC 15 foe (an kobold) the monk is hitting on 13+ with her flurry of blows giving an expected damage of (3.5 + 4 x.4 *2= 6 points with her two attacks. The fighter is hitting on 10+ with his bastard sword doing an expected damage of 9.5 * .55 = 5.225 pts of damage.
If they had 14 str the monk would be doing 3.3 and the fighter 3.375
Now I'm not saying that the monk, for example, is a overpowered class. What I am saying that it's power relative to a fighter increases with high ability scores.
The druid is another example of a class that does better in a low ability score game. The ability to get the ability scores of an animal is largely pointless if you ability scores are already phenomenal.
What ability score level do people think is best to keep the classes balanced with one another?
