Level Up (A5E) Do Player Characters Have Average Population Stat Distributions?

[Phoebasss]

I have no issue with you not liking the fact that racial benefits can be better for some combinations than others.
I have no issue with you saying that this leads you to not want to play a non-optimal combination.
I do have an issue with the claim that the game does not allow people to play a non-optimised combination

If I were to put my point more formally, I might say that the game doesn't want me to play a non-optimal combination either.

 

[Maxperson]

Max, cut it out. We don't even have to agree on what the definition of "suppression" is, you just have to acknowledge how we are using it. If it helps you, pretend we made up a new word that means "the unintentional influence over subconscious decision-making that leads to statistical patterns suggesting certain biases" and then in your mind replace "suppression" with that word. Please respond to the argument instead of engaging in this semantic quibble.

It's not semantics. Words mean things.

 

[Minigiant]

5e is more or less designed around PCs starting with a 16 in their primary ability score.

As a DM I would be more suspicious of a PC starting with a 14 or 15 as a powergamer as I'd think they were up to something.

 

[Maxperson]

If I were to put my point more formally, I might say that the game doesn't want me to play a non-optimal combination either.

Why would it want you not to play a non-optimal character, but want me to play one? That doesn't make sense. The game wants me to play one and told me so by lowering the math of the game and reducing the challenge level such that non-optimal combinations are very viable. I think this is more that you are not really listening to what the game is telling you.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Latching onto arguments about the definitions of words, or the difference between "not allowing" and "discouraging" (or whatever) seems like a refusal to engage with the actual argument being made, which leads me to conclude the people doing it are afraid to do so, knowing they don't actually have an argument.

I'll say it again: if people think that the game should encourage some race/class combinations, and discourage others, just say so. I literally have no argument to make against that position. It's an opinion, and I hold the opposite opinion.

Why is this so hard?

 

[Phoebasss]

This, though, is not true. The options are there for you whether you choose to avail yourself of them or not. That there would be more that you would choose to do is correct. That there would be more options is not correct.

The game does a good job of convincing a majority of its playerbase that sub 16 in a main stat isn't an option for them. I could, theoretically, with point buy and racial ASIs, start with 13 in every stat. Is that, really, an option though? The game doesn't present it as worthy of choice, it gives me no reason to want to do that. So why would I do that? Choices have to be worthy of choice, or they aren't really choices.

 

[Guest 6801328]

It's not semantics. Words mean things.

Except it's pretty obvious that we disagree on the meaning, and you know what meaning we mean. All you are doing is preventing the discussion from addressing the actual points being made. It's childish.

If you really, really, really want me to copy and paste the definitions I looked up when this started, so that we can all agree that it's easy to find such things in support of our own positions, so that we can get past this distraction and move on, then I will do that. For you. Because I care.

Really.

 

[Maxperson]

I'll say it again: if people think that the game should encourage some race/class combinations, and discourage others, just say so. I literally have no argument to make against that position. It's an opinion, and I hold the opposite opinion.

I don't want the game to discourage anything, and it currently doesn't. The game does encourage things like Orc Wizards by making it so that those sorts of non-optimal class/race combinations are very viable. They do quite well. Any "discouragement" is on the part of the player through his perception(or misperception) of what the game is offering.

 

[Phoebasss]

Why would it want you not to play a non-optimal character, but want me to play one? That doesn't make sense. The game wants me to play one and told me so by lowering the math of the game and reducing the challenge level such that non-optimal combinations are very viable. I think this is more that you are not really listening to what the game is telling you.

I have a hard time believing that you're engaging with this in good faith. Your definition of encouragement is so far off the beaten path that it could be applied to all sorts of absurd things. When you say the game encourages half-orc wizards, you mean it doesn't discourage them that much. When I say it suppresses alternative builds, you say it doesn't, but you mean it doesn't that much. 5e, by no definition in any dictionary, encourages non-optimal race/class combos. It just doesn't discourage them as much as you think it should.

 

[Haldrik]

It's not semantics. Words mean things.

Heh, that is an ironic turn of phrase.