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Lord Ernie

First Post
Yeah, and it INFURIATES me as to how you need multiple high stats to be a passable character.

What...so I need high strength, and constitution, and WISDOM to be a decent fighter? So I can't be an awesome bladeswinger and mail wearer unless I'm like Socrates with a sword? Why?

I agree; gone are the days of stats that actually represented your character. Now, it's like they are simply mechanics for Cool Things to Do (TM) and you have to roleplay around them and ignore them.

*sigh*
Oh, please. First of all, you don't need 3 good stats to be a decent fighter. A high strength is required, yes, because you're trying to hit people with large bits of steel. But putting anything higher than a mid-value in constitution is actually detrimental for most fighters, as the HP gain isn't that big, you should have enough healing surges, and it doesn't give you any extra defense. Only Battleragers and Knights really get much of a benefit from having a high constitution, and they pay for it with weak reflex and will defenses. A high wisdom (which represents alertness and self-control... not at all important for a warrior, right? </sarcasm>) is more beneficial, but hardly a necessity. Before you make claims like these, please do your research.

Second, you can't complain that stats are meaningless along with saying you need three high stats to make a decent fighter. They can't both be meaningless and important.

Third, claiming stats are no longer a roleplaying aid is downright baloney. Such things are, and have always been, player and DM dependent. A Charisma score of 3 (something our Barbarian had, back in 3.5) is meaningless if the DM never uses social skills. Likewise, having a high wisdom cleric act like an impetuous fool is something the player decides, and IMO boils down to nothing less than bad roleplaying.
 

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Jhaelen

First Post
It stretches my suspension of disbelief that it has a Dexterity of 21. The thing weighs 10 metric tons, and is more nimble than Baryshnikov?
I guess, seeing a modern tank in action also stretches your supension of disbelief?

They weigh many times more than 10 tons and are definitely faster than Baryshnikov :)
Gun turrets can swivel at a speed that would snap the necks of the crew.

I have no trouble imagining the fantasy version of a tank, i.e. a dragon with a Dex much higher than 21. Particularly since a pc can have a Dex as high as 30 (at level 30).
 

In the Monster Vault thread, there's a listing of the Dragons included in MV. No ancient dragons, so we can't tell (yet) if frightful presence has left the game alltogether.
 

turnip

First Post
Oh, please. First of all, you don't need 3 good stats to be a decent fighter. A high strength is required, yes, because you're trying to hit people with large bits of steel. But putting anything higher than a mid-value in constitution is actually detrimental for most fighters, as the HP gain isn't that big, you should have enough healing surges, and it doesn't give you any extra defense. Only Battleragers and Knights really get much of a benefit from having a high constitution, and they pay for it with weak reflex and will defenses. A high wisdom (which represents alertness and self-control... not at all important for a warrior, right? </sarcasm>) is more beneficial, but hardly a necessity. Before you make claims like these, please do your research.

Second, you can't complain that stats are meaningless along with saying you need three high stats to make a decent fighter. They can't both be meaningless and important.

Third, claiming stats are no longer a roleplaying aid is downright baloney. Such things are, and have always been, player and DM dependent. A Charisma score of 3 (something our Barbarian had, back in 3.5) is meaningless if the DM never uses social skills. Likewise, having a high wisdom cleric act like an impetuous fool is something the player decides, and IMO boils down to nothing less than bad roleplaying.

Seems like a touched a raw nerve, there.

Let's see here....you need wisdom (common sense, perception, self-discipline, empathy) to gain effective combat superiority.
We can take a classic example from recent literature, and see if we can fit him in: Sandor Clegane from ASOIAF. Were I to draft up his stats, he'd have a wisdom of LESS THEN 10; probably in the 6-7 range. He is violent, rash, near-sociopathic in his lack of empathy, a drunk, and horrifically ill-tempered. These things are what makes him a hellish fighter - he is a terrifying weapon of destruction but would be either be nerfed to hell and back because of his horrid wisdom stat OR you'd have to ignore his stat in roleplaying to grant him his battlefield capabilities.

Just an example, mind you.

If anything, I'd tie the combat superiority to dexterity (hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, balance) not wisdom. I can't really think of any wise fighters in literature or history...maybe wise commanders (as in a warlord class)...

Also, for the roleplaying aspect, I feel that 4e has taken the stats way out there. So many classes rely on multiple high (12+) stats to gain access to basic attributes of the class that beginning characters are more and more like body-building philosophy-spouting quantum mechanics-solving circus acrobats, stat-wise. It's just an awkward mechanic sometimes.
 

turnip

First Post
I guess, seeing a modern tank in action also stretches your supension of disbelief?

They weigh many times more than 10 tons and are definitely faster than Baryshnikov :)
Gun turrets can swivel at a speed that would snap the necks of the crew.

I have no trouble imagining the fantasy version of a tank, i.e. a dragon with a Dex much higher than 21. Particularly since a pc can have a Dex as high as 30 (at level 30).

No, that doesn't compute in my head. The things that the M1 Abrams does were impossible 50 years ago, and are powered by the height of engineering and technology. If you want to compare a high-tech mechanical dragon construct, that's cool. A living beast doesn't compare.
And even with a tank...the reason that they don't utilize them that much anymore is because they still aren't very agile. That is why the government spends it's money on light armored vehicles instead of main battle tanks. I would not be surprised to find that the M1 is the last MBT our country produces. (It's like a battleship...they are, for their size, very maneuverable and fast, but smaller ships just are harder to hit with those big guns, and their size makes them easy missile/bomb targets.) In WWII, tanks were terrifying...until you outmaneuvered them and got behind before they could see you/swivel the turret and fire.

I'm not saying that a dragon wouldn't be agile. I would only imagine it would be very agile as a predatory beast with a counter-balancing tail and warm-blooded nature..but it would be relative to its size.

I feel that stats are arbitrarily inflated. 18 should be incredibly high for a humanoid; 30 is ridiculous. I'd house-rule that stuff out; whatever happened to the adventurer of myth and legend, the Frodo and Bilbo and Taran and Arthur etc...normal people with something extraordinary about them that is only revealed after they are thrust way in over their heads.
The way D&D is in 4e feels like a bunch of Supermen strutting about. It's not hard to fight crime if you are bullet-proof...

So I just house-rule and make roleplaying and skill challenges and altered monsters and whatnot the norm. It feels more...heroic to me.

IMHO, of course. All this is.
 

Klaus

First Post
Seems like a touched a raw nerve, there.

Let's see here....you need wisdom (common sense, perception, self-discipline, empathy) to gain effective combat superiority.
We can take a classic example from recent literature, and see if we can fit him in: Sandor Clegane from ASOIAF. Were I to draft up his stats, he'd have a wisdom of LESS THEN 10; probably in the 6-7 range. He is violent, rash, near-sociopathic in his lack of empathy, a drunk, and horrifically ill-tempered. These things are what makes him a hellish fighter - he is a terrifying weapon of destruction but would be either be nerfed to hell and back because of his horrid wisdom stat OR you'd have to ignore his stat in roleplaying to grant him his battlefield capabilities.

Just an example, mind you.

If anything, I'd tie the combat superiority to dexterity (hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, balance) not wisdom. I can't really think of any wise fighters in literature or history...maybe wise commanders (as in a warlord class)...

Also, for the roleplaying aspect, I feel that 4e has taken the stats way out there. So many classes rely on multiple high (12+) stats to gain access to basic attributes of the class that beginning characters are more and more like body-building philosophy-spouting quantum mechanics-solving circus acrobats, stat-wise. It's just an awkward mechanic sometimes.
Sandor Clegane would be a Battlerager, almost impossible to bring down.

Still, you don't *need* Wisdom. In place of Combat Superiority, a Fighter can take Combat Agility (Opportunity Action, shift Dex modifier squares towards the target and make a Str vs. AC attack, Hit = 1[W] + Str + knock prone).
 

Lord Ernie

First Post
Seems like a touched a raw nerve, there.

Let's see here....you need wisdom (common sense, perception, self-discipline, empathy) to gain effective combat superiority.
We can take a classic example from recent literature, and see if we can fit him in: Sandor Clegane from ASOIAF. Were I to draft up his stats, he'd have a wisdom of LESS THEN 10; probably in the 6-7 range. He is violent, rash, near-sociopathic in his lack of empathy, a drunk, and horrifically ill-tempered. These things are what makes him a hellish fighter - he is a terrifying weapon of destruction but would be either be nerfed to hell and back because of his horrid wisdom stat OR you'd have to ignore his stat in roleplaying to grant him his battlefield capabilities.
I'd build him as a Slayer with high strength and dexterity, but that's neither here nor there :).

That being said, you don't need a high wisdom to be a good fighter. There are good Str/Con, Str/Dex, etc. builds. The wisdom-based bonus is just the option presented in the PHB; if you want support for other archetypes, there's other options out there. This is nothing new.

If anything, I'd tie the combat superiority to dexterity (hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, balance) not wisdom. I can't really think of any wise fighters in literature or history...maybe wise commanders (as in a warlord class)...
Eh. Interpretation of what each mental stat represents has always been a sticky issue. What we call 'wise' has very little in common with some of the aspects of D&D's Wisdom score. Wisdom represents such things as perceptiveness, intuition and willpower, as well as more classical definitions of 'wise' such as patience and insight.

Besides which, dex-based fighter archetypes have Combat Agility to fall back on, which replaces Combat Superiority with a dex-based approach; alternatively, take the Agile Superiority feat, and you can use Dex for Combat Superiority.

Seriously, the fighter is the most well supported class in 4E, with literally hundreds of feats and powers. I would say that while they can't represent every warrior archetype out there 100%, I think they're close enough.

Also, for the roleplaying aspect, I feel that 4e has taken the stats way out there. So many classes rely on multiple high (12+) stats to gain access to basic attributes of the class that beginning characters are more and more like body-building philosophy-spouting quantum mechanics-solving circus acrobats, stat-wise. It's just an awkward mechanic sometimes.
You're going to have to give examples here, because this is literally the first time I've heard anybody say this. You need certain scores to get access to certain feats (and thus builds), but that's nothing new. What class requires you to have high scores in multiple stats to be effective, exactly?

As a sidenote, note that the suggested stat generation method is point-buy, which starts with no points spent at 5 10's and an 8. Getting a 13 in one of your secondary stats is really not much of a pain at all. To give an example, my elf cleric|invoker at level 1 had Str 8, Dex 13, Con 16, Int 13, Wis 18, Cha 10. Having both 13 Int and Dex do literally nothing for me rules-wise, but I felt it fit the character a lot better that way; most importantly, he's a scholar-type, and I wouldn't accept anything less than 13 Int :).

EDIT: Ninja'ed. And I'd stat big brother Gregor as a Battlerager, but Sandor definitely looks Slayer, to me :). Also, sorry for dragging this thread off-topic.
 
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Jhaelen

First Post
I feel that stats are arbitrarily inflated. 18 should be incredibly high for a humanoid; 30 is ridiculous.
Why, though? It's just numbers! Nowhere in the game is any definition what an '18' means.

Personally, I feel 3 billion would be a bit exaggerated (though it might be fine for a superhero game). I kind of like the idea of having a '42' in an ability, but that's probably just me ;)

More seriously, the stats themselves are largely irrelevant in 4e. I would have been fine if they'd just removed them entirely and just used the ability modifiers, i.e. a range starting at -1 (or even better 0) with no upper limit.
 
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turnip

First Post
Also, sorry for dragging this thread off-topic.

Yeah; me too. I'll submit after this post. :p I appreciate all the info and comments, though; it's just something that personally irks me. To take your example: your cleric/invoker is not only exceptionally wise (18 Wis scales to the top of the charts) but also well above-average intellect, dexterity, and has the constitution of a U.S. Marine. So, he's like a world-class philosopher who happens to train at Camp Pendelton, takes advanced math at the community college for laughs and skittles, and teaches gymnastics on the side. (obviously, my interpretation.. ;) )

Or like the DMG guide's humans, for example: Human noble with 15 Str, Slaver with 17 Str 16 Dex, Guard with 16 Str, 15 Con, 14 Dex...these are like World-Class olympic athletes!
Hell, the Human Rabble have 3 stats above average!

Anyway...back to the topic. No more about stats! :blush:
 


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