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

[Hriston]

Do you miss the time when a 4 Intelligence character couldn't be an Elf, or when a female human couldn't have 18/00 strength? Would the re introduction of racial and gender minimums and maximums add anyting to 5E, or would it be pointless? Would it detract?

I still sometimes use the First Edition AD&D racial minimums / maximums and class restrictions as a guideline when creating NPCs for my 5e games. I don't impose them on PCs however, and I disagree with [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] that this practice is contrary to anything written in the DMG. I'm not sure what passage he refers to, but it seems to be a misinterpretation on his part. All I see there is a menu of options that includes PC score generation methods, using a monster stat block, or creating your own monster stat block. The majority of human commoners, for example, follow the Commoner NPC statblock (allowing for racial increases of course) and in a medieval society account for around 90% of the human population, a distribution you won't get by using PC ability score generation methods.

As for sex-based minimums / maximums, I don't use them, never have, even for non-humans. One way I've adapted the distinction made in the old rules between the sexes in monster populations, however, is whenever a certain percentage of the number appearing is indicated as additional females (as in the AD&D MM), I reinterpret that number as pertaining to noncombatant members of the group and generally assume that the regular fighting members can be both male and female depending on the monster-type / society in question.

 

[Maxperson]

Balance is not a pipe dream; it's a broad term that encompasses several different paradigms, including the BECMI/AD&D 2e concept of balance over time, plus balance at the character level, balance per adventuring day, balance through equivalent options, etc.

2e was not balanced over time. Not even close. BECMI was similarly unbalanced for the entire duration. Balance is a pipe dream, because it cannot be accomplished and still leave an enjoyable RPG.

If you want to say that the AD&D 2e classes were clones of each other because they were balanced (using the over-time paradigm) you're welcome to make that claim, though I think you'll find few supporters.

If you want to respond with something other than a Strawman, do so. I never even remotely said that 2e classes were clones because they were balanced. Probably because they were not balanced. Not in the moment, and not over time.

 

[Maxperson]

Balance over time is a kind of balance, regardless of how well or poorly it was executed.

No. Something does not become balanced if it was poorly executed. It remains an unachieved goal. 2e had the goal of balance over time, but failed to even come close to achieving it. There was no balance there.

 

[MechaPilot]

No. Something does not become balanced if it was poorly executed. It remains an unachieved goal. 2e had the goal of balance over time, but failed to even come close to achieving it. There was no balance there.

2e used a paradigm for "this is how we plan to balance the classes in the game." Poverty of execution itself doesn't revoke the existence of a plan for balancing the classes, and it doesn't even impugn the overall method, just the details of how they tried to implement it.

Also, might I point out, that there were sections where 2e actually achieved some real measure of balance. This is the "sweet spot" that the designers of recent editions of D&D have often talked about. It didn't extend for a particularly large swath of play in 2e, I will certainly grant that. But it was there. 2e's method of balance had a small section of play where it actually worked. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

 

[Maxperson]

2e used a paradigm for "this is how we plan to balance the classes in the game." Poverty of execution itself doesn't revoke the existence of a plan for balancing the classes, and it doesn't even impugn the overall method, just the details of how they tried to implement it.

The plan and method are irrelevant to whether or not something is balanced. It's all fine and good to plan and prepare a method, but if you can't execute it, you have failed.

Also, might I point out, that there were sections where 2e actually achieved some real measure of balance. This is the "sweet spot" that the designers of recent editions of D&D have often talked about. It didn't extend for a particularly large swath of play in 2e, I will certainly grant that. But it was there. 2e's method of balance had a small section of play where it actually worked. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

I played 2e extensively. There was no sweet spot of balance. Wizards sucked until about 5th level when they got third level spells, had a decent number of spells due to level and specialty, and enough hit points to survive a hit or two. Up until then, fighters outclassed them. At 5th level they outclassed fighters. Balance was never achieved. Clerics were essentially heal bots until higher levels, and they never caught up to wizards. They did pass fighters and rogues by, though.

The sweet spot was just were it wasn't quite so badly out of balance as the rest of the time.

 

[Sadras]

If you assume that halflings are built to the same body plan as humans, then yes, you are correct. They probably only weigh 30 pounds, and that severely limits maximum strength. You might assume that halflings are no more strong than toddlers.

However, humans are built along one of the lowest strength to mass ratios of any animal their size - built for caloric efficiency and endurance, not power. A typical 80 pound female chimpanzee is stronger than a typical 200lb male human. Supposing that halflings are built along the same body plan as chimpanzees, with relatively thicker bones and larger attachment points for muscles, and more fast muscle and less slow muscle gets us a very different answer. Such a body plan might also explain why halflings are afraid of water in the source material - they don't have near neutral buoyancy the way humans do, and instead sink like rocks. It also explains why halflings would be so athletic for their size.

Interesting. I remember @Lylandra mentioning something similar early on in the thread.
At the outset I'm no expert in this field, so my response is purely from a layman's perspective. I realise you are not disputing me on this but for the sake of the debate, the reason I'm reluctant to follow the chimpanzee/thicker bones or muscle idea is due to the following factors:

(1) Physical characteristics of halflings resemble humans.
(2) The lifestyle and movement style of a chimpanzee is different to a halfling. The halfling moves and lives much like humans do.
(3) In the 2e Gnome & Halfling's Handbook the book is filled with numerous references about how quick wits and agility are their defense against brute strength which would certainly reflects that a strong physiology doesn't even enter the equation as a factor for defence. Furthermore every Halfling (including Kender) except for the Athasian Halfing has a maximum STR of 17 or 16. In 2e the 17 STR would provide a +1 to hit/+1 dmg whereas humans could go as far as 18/00 which would have a +3 to hit/+6 dmg. Furthermore the halfling weight allowance is 85 as opposed to 335 at the human maximum.
Those are large differences.
(4) Halfings of D&D are but an analogue for Hobbits in LOTR. Hobbits don't have chimpanzee STR.

Now I could carry on on with this line of thought, but the crux is if the designing fathers had intended to reflect a different in muscle tissue/bone structure it was not reflected in the history of Halfling in the game and neither in the ability stats or fluff.

5e has tried to be all inclusive and included BA so the ability differences between the races in his edition are not vast, hence we have this thread

 

[Coroc]

.... <snipped>

5e has tried to be all inclusive and included BA so the ability differences between the races in his edition are not vast, hence we have this thread

This exactly did get not viewed exactly enough in the whole discussion.
Even if we came to a conclusion that racial mods should be introduced somehow the BA concept is a system immanent showstopper on that.
That is exactly the reason I got some headaches on how to convert DS races to 5e
Mul = Halforc that one is easy, but how do I do a Halfgiant without breaking BA?
And please don't point me to any Goliath, Goliaths are munchkin sorry if I have to point that out.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Yes, as far as I'm concerned that's a given.

It's... not, though.

I really don't know what else to say. Your argument is resting on premises that simply do not obtain.

True, though at cost of denying or closing off some design options.

Designing the game to be played with physical dice and nothing more than the simplest arithmetic closes off some design options.
Deciding the game is going to be in the heroic fantasy genre closes off some design options.
Accepting the standard societal norms against offensive content closes some design options.
Avoiding copyright infringement closes some design options.

So it's true, writing a balanced game closes off some design options, but not all options are good options. Cardinal rule of game design: just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Yes, you could write a system that relies on longitudinal balance. You could also write a virulently racist cyborg character named "Marvel's Wolverine" whose attacks deal damage equal to the natural log of a d417 roll. But if you did, you would be actively making your game worse.

I've seen (and run) campaigns that spent weeks and-or months at each level - in fact, that's what I prefer - but never seen an entire campaign (other than one-offs) stay at one level. Sometimes macro balance does take years to manifest, but then my campaigns tend to be many years long.

Then you're not really "looking at the game overall", are you? Because the game overall does include short campaigns and fixed-level campaigns.

And speaking personally, I would not at all be interested in a campaign where my character undercontributes for several years straight, and then when I do finally get powerful, it's my friend's turn for their character to undercontribute for however many more years it takes until the campaign ends or the character dies.

 

[Mercule]

Do you miss the time when a 4 Intelligence character couldn't be an Elf, or when a female human couldn't have 18/00 strength? Would the re introduction of racial and gender minimums and maximums add anyting to 5E, or would it be pointless? Would it detract?

I'm going with: it depends.

Overall, no. I prefer a player deterministic approach to the point where I'm really not even thrilled about racial modifiers, let alone floors and ceilings. If you envision dwarves as being super strong, then spend your points on strength. If you want to play a puny dwarf, for whatever character-driven reason, then put the points elsewhere. I do not care. As a GM, I'll just describe the dwarven race as being stronger and stat them accordingly. Obviously, there are limits to this; if, say, you allow a hill giant PC, then that can't be built by the normal character creation rules. But.... that can't be built be the normal character creation rules, so we're talking about a different baseline, anyway.

AD&D, however, was balanced around a different aesthetic. Character creation used dice, not points. For dwarves to be sturdier, they had to get a bonus to constitution. There was no way to separate the narrative from the mechanics. Along with that came a preference to reward good rolls at character creation. I suspect some of it was to throw the PCs on a different XP table and to give them multiple dependencies, but that's somewhat beside the point. Characters were viewed as somewhat more expendable. Sure, many of them made it to name level, but those were often semi-retired, with their henchman taking the spotlight. New PCs generally started at 1st level, even if the rest of the characters were 8th or 9th. Enjoy that Ranger for the 30 minutes you're going to get to play it (unless you're pretty savvy). I would totally be willing to play this way, but it'd have to be whole-hog -- if we're playing with random stats, all PCs start at 1st level, there are "dead levels", no attempt at defining a balanced encounter, etc.

But, I digress. You can have racial adjustments and min/maxes without the randomization. Hero uses soft caps (pay double points above 20, with setting rules available for racial variation) and it's a fine game. I still use the racial mods in 5E because it'd be more work to try to remove them (and, while I like home brew, I've grown to appreciate the value of standardization). Even where caps exist, I've never really used the caps by sex. Part of that may have been due to having all-male groups until 2E came out (which, IIRC, did away with them -- either that, or the women never wanted to play the brutes), so we never had cause to think about it.

So, I guess my answer is "No, I don't miss them." But, I didn't hate them, either, for a certain play style.

 

[MechaPilot]

The plan and method are irrelevant to whether or not something is balanced. It's all fine and good to plan and prepare a method, but if you can't execute it, you have failed.

First of all, did they actually fail? Some people think they didn't. Not me, I mean, I think they failed; though they came a lot closer than 3e did. Also, it's okay as long as you're in the ballpark. Your words, right. How big is the ballpark?

I played 2e extensively. There was no sweet spot of balance. Wizards sucked until about 5th level when they got third level spells, had a decent number of spells due to level and specialty, and enough hit points to survive a hit or two. Up until then, fighters outclassed them. At 5th level they outclassed fighters. Balance was never achieved. Clerics were essentially heal bots until higher levels, and they never caught up to wizards. They did pass fighters and rogues by, though.

The sweet spot was just were it wasn't quite so badly out of balance as the rest of the time.

I also played 2e extensively, and I disagree. Second level spells were pretty nice. Third spell level was where some of the more iconic and transformative stuff comes into play, but second spell level had some good stuff. I also disagree that wizards outclassed fighters at 5th level. They definitely did at 9th level. But, you also can't compare straight levels in 2e because of the different advancement rates. If you want a real comparison, you have to compare at the xp amount: i.e. a 2k xp fighter vs a 2k xp wizard, and so on.