D&D 5E Do you miss attribute minimums/maximums?

[Ganymede81]

After scanning the latter part of this thread, I'm reminded of the other reason that I thought race/gender min/max/mod were useful. If someone was going to inject his real-life politics with which I disagree into the game, it would show up during chargen and I could kick him to the curb immediately, rather than putting effort into his character before disinviting him. Fortunately, this never actually came up in one of my games.

I made a slight edit to your quote here to insert a portion you undoubtedly forgot to type out.

 

[Lichemaster]

That's longitudinal balance, though, a really crummy form of balance. It was a part of the whole "non-humans are better at low levels and worse at higher levels" schtick that scarred the early editions.

That's like, your opinion man

 

[Arilyn]

That's like, your opinion man

But saying a character is not balanced at individual levels, but balances out (hopefully) over the long run is objectively poor game design. Why not balance per level? Since the Gygaxian philosophy of balance was never embraced by subsequent game designers, I think we can assume it wasn't a great idea. Tools in the designers' toolbox have come and gone, and are constantly being refined. We are not seeing longitudinal balance make a comeback.

 

[Sadras]

I miss it, the races are unbalanced. If played correctly darkvision is over powered and even a bonus feat for humans at level 1 does not fix it.
min/max should return

Light is a Cantrip.
You're welcome

 

[Obryn]

If there are no analogs in the real world for dragonborn and gnomes, etc., and therefore there can be no racism for them, then there are no real world analogs for female dragonborn and gnomes, etc, and therefore there can be no sexism for them, either.

Female is primarily an adjective. Female dragonborn, female gnome, etc. In those instances where it is used as a noun, it is in direct reference to a being. For example, what sex is that dragonborn? It's a female. You can't separate female from the fictional races in the game, so if you're going to claim sexism for stat penalties for dragonborn, you open the door to the racism that exists due to dragonborn and gnomes being unequal.

Which is it going to be? Are there both sexism and racism in D&D, or do those things not apply to a fictional PC?

Yes there can be. And yes, they can.

When we're talking elves and gnomes, we're talking species - like altogether different biology and physiology - even though it's called a "race" in the game. This is of course not true on Earth, where it's all homo sapiens sapiens. Light skin or dark skin, same species. (And since of course, there are no elves or gnomes or dragonborn on earth, there's a level of separation, there, to make any changes comfortable.)

With that said, yeah, we can (and have) talked about fantasy racism, where there are at least two separate conversations. First, the is the idea of 'inherently evil' people like orcs; and second, whether or not racism is informing certain elements of the fantasy world. But that's a whole 'nother two buckets of worms.

 

[Lanefan]

That's longitudinal balance, though, a really crummy form of balance.

I disagree with this. If you allow that longtudinal balance is OK then you've opened yourself up a huge amount of design space allowing short-term or medium-term imbalances that over the long run cancel each other out. And I'm quite fine with this.

It was a part of the whole "non-humans are better at low levels and worse at higher levels" schtick that scarred the early editions.

Didn't scar 'em for me.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

But saying a character is not balanced at individual levels, but balances out (hopefully) over the long run is objectively poor game design. Why not balance per level? Since the Gygaxian philosophy of balance was never embraced by subsequent game designers, I think we can assume it wasn't a great idea. Tools in the designers' toolbox have come and gone, and are constantly being refined. We are not seeing longitudinal balance make a comeback.

Yeah. Sad, isn't it?

And even balance per level is too imbalanced for some - they want balance per round, balance per action, balance per day...oh, and balance per campaign, too.

Micro balance is not that important. Macro balance is, and tells me the designer was looking at the game overall rather than just the minutae.

 

[MechaPilot]

The primary problem with balance over time is that it assumes a group will start at first level and advance enough levels for it to kick in. When I played BECMI, AD&D 2e, and 3e, a lot of people started at third level just to have some measure of survivability. Plus, few campaigns ever had characters get very far into the double digits, especially the classes that were designed to shine at later levels and who advanced at slower rates in BECMI & 2e.

If you balance at the character level, then you can start at any level, play to any level, or even never gain any levels at all and be balanced for the whole run.

 

[Ganymede81]

I disagree with this. If you allow that longtudinal balance is OK then you've opened yourself up a huge amount of design space allowing short-term or medium-term imbalances that over the long run cancel each other out. And I'm quite fine with this.

Lanefan

Yeah, but they don't cancel out, because the math doesn't work like that. Imbalance is imbalance, whether something is underpowered or overpowered. If a class spends one half of its lifespan underpowered and one half of its lifespan overpowered, that does not magically average out to be balanced overall. That is instead a class that is imbalanced 100% of the time.

But yeah, you are right on one level. If I allow that E Coli contaminated beef is OK, I've opened myself up to a huge amount of new culinary experiences.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Micro balance is not that important. Macro balance is, and tells me the designer was looking at the game overall rather than just the minutae.

In a game where a party can spend weeks, months, or the entirety of the campaign at a given level... that's not "micro balance" any more.