D&D 5E How much do you value your Con score?
- Thread starter CTurbo
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CapnZapp
Legend
[MENTION=6801311]KahlessNestor[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6704184]doctorbadwolf[/MENTION]
I am obviously talking from the player's perspective. I am talking about what the average is for a player character. My only viewpoint here is a new player vaguely uncertain which numbers are the most important, and one that goes to look at the pregens as good templates.
My point is that you shouldn't be fooled about how a 10 is a perfectly acceptable score in any other stat (unless you rely on that stat obviously).
A 10 Con is a very low stat for a player character, and WotC should stop issuing pregens with that low Con scores.
If you know what you're doing, knock yourself out with a Con 8 if you like. Regardless of whether you do it because you like the challenge, because it fits your "concept" or whether you know your DM isn't heavily into combat doesn't matter. Con 10 characters are an outlier and has no place for a Rogue issued with melee weapons.
It makes for a very bad example. And the problem is that the writer in all likelyhood was just thinking like you guys: "10 is not below the average so it's fine". But that's false thinking. For a player character, anything below 14 should really need to be questioned and explained. And for a pregen (which by definition is targeting newbies more than the general gamer) any such attempt should have been shot down long before the pregen saw (pdf) print.
I am obviously talking from the player's perspective. I am talking about what the average is for a player character. My only viewpoint here is a new player vaguely uncertain which numbers are the most important, and one that goes to look at the pregens as good templates.
My point is that you shouldn't be fooled about how a 10 is a perfectly acceptable score in any other stat (unless you rely on that stat obviously).
A 10 Con is a very low stat for a player character, and WotC should stop issuing pregens with that low Con scores.
If you know what you're doing, knock yourself out with a Con 8 if you like. Regardless of whether you do it because you like the challenge, because it fits your "concept" or whether you know your DM isn't heavily into combat doesn't matter. Con 10 characters are an outlier and has no place for a Rogue issued with melee weapons.
It makes for a very bad example. And the problem is that the writer in all likelyhood was just thinking like you guys: "10 is not below the average so it's fine". But that's false thinking. For a player character, anything below 14 should really need to be questioned and explained. And for a pregen (which by definition is targeting newbies more than the general gamer) any such attempt should have been shot down long before the pregen saw (pdf) print.
CapnZapp
Legend
[MENTION=6801311]KahlessNestor[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6704184]doctorbadwolf[/MENTION]
I am obviously talking from the player's perspective. I am talking about what the average is for a player character. My only viewpoint here is a new player vaguely uncertain which numbers are the most important, and one that goes to look at the pregens as good templates.
My point is that you shouldn't be fooled about how a 10 is a perfectly acceptable score in any other stat (unless you rely on that stat obviously).
A 10 Con is a very low stat for a player character, and WotC should stop issuing pregens with that low Con scores.
If you know what you're doing, knock yourself out with a Con 8 if you like. Regardless of whether you do it because you like the challenge, because it fits your "concept" or whether you know your DM isn't heavily into combat doesn't matter. Con 10 characters are an outlier and has no place for a Rogue issued with melee weapons.
It makes for a very bad example. And the problem is that the writer in all likelyhood was just thinking like you guys: "10 is not below the average so it's fine". But that's false thinking. For a player character, anything below 14 should really need to be questioned and explained. And for a pregen (which by definition is targeting newbies more than the general gamer) any such attempt should have been shot down long before the pregen saw (pdf) print.
I am obviously talking from the player's perspective. I am talking about what the average is for a player character. My only viewpoint here is a new player vaguely uncertain which numbers are the most important, and one that goes to look at the pregens as good templates.
My point is that you shouldn't be fooled about how a 10 is a perfectly acceptable score in any other stat (unless you rely on that stat obviously).
A 10 Con is a very low stat for a player character, and WotC should stop issuing pregens with that low Con scores.
If you know what you're doing, knock yourself out with a Con 8 if you like. Regardless of whether you do it because you like the challenge, because it fits your "concept" or whether you know your DM isn't heavily into combat doesn't matter. Con 10 characters are an outlier and has no place for a Rogue issued with melee weapons.
It makes for a very bad example. And the problem is that the writer in all likelyhood was just thinking like you guys: "10 is not below the average so it's fine". But that's false thinking. For a player character, anything below 14 should really need to be questioned and explained. And for a pregen (which by definition is targeting newbies more than the general gamer) any such attempt should have been shot down long before the pregen saw (pdf) print.
CapnZapp
Legend
No he's probably not.
Why?
Because there is absolutely no reason to assume the Dex is lower.
At most, feel free to compare a Dex 18 73 hp Rogue with a Dex 20 53 hp Rogue at tenth level, because no later than level 12 any "Dex-gap" will have been closed completely, if it even existed at all.
You talk as if going with a Con 10 opens up whole new avenues of "roguing", but you completely forget how basic survival (i.e. hit points) is a fundamental part of "roguing" or indeed any other aspect of adventuring (possibly outside of the social pillar).
Go ahead. I'm daring you to explain how a +1 difference in primary ability bonus is more useful than two whole levels worth of hit points.
Meanwhile, let me reiterate that a Rogue (or indeed any character) with only fifty hit points at tenth level is a HUGE LIABILITY for the team.
And by the way, the pregen Rogue in question IS issued with melee weaponry. If you want to argue a Rogue should never be in melee, that is actually supporting my own claim that 5E has gone too far making ranged combat almost completely free from consequence and drawbacks, which is bad for the game's ability to uphold the genre it purports to be in (fantasy).
But this pregen does not have any feats, and any "ranged only" strategy definitely needs at least one out of the Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert feats. You can't expect never to be in melee if you need to stay only 30 feet away from the baddies. And you definitely can't allow yourself to have your ranged mojo shut down by being in melee.
KahlessNestor
Adventurer
I didn't say the rogue should never be in melee. I said he isn't designed to stay in melee. Unlike past editions, the rogue doesn't go and plant himself in flank position with the tank. 5e gives him the ability to move in, get off his sneak attack damage, and then bonus action disengage. Enemy isn't going to go chase him down without risking a huge OA from the tank.
My 10 Con fighter works just fine. He has 16 Dex and studded leather, 15 Strength, and a longspear and the mobile feat. He will eventually get the Lunge maneuver. That's incredible reach and he knows not to stand up thereand try to tank. He's a skirmisher, just like a rogue is. He's never gone down, even if he has to switch to dual weilding short sword and torch because he needs the light. Hit and run away is what he does, and what that rogue should be doing.
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My 10 Con fighter works just fine. He has 16 Dex and studded leather, 15 Strength, and a longspear and the mobile feat. He will eventually get the Lunge maneuver. That's incredible reach and he knows not to stand up thereand try to tank. He's a skirmisher, just like a rogue is. He's never gone down, even if he has to switch to dual weilding short sword and torch because he needs the light. Hit and run away is what he does, and what that rogue should be doing.
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AaronOfBarbaria
Adventurer
No. No to all of this. You are stating your preferences as objective and universal truth, which they are not.
That doesn't make any sense. Are you meaning to be specifically only talking about Constitution with this sentence and weren't clear, or did you really mean to claim that someone all of a player character's ability scores should be questioned and explained if they aren't at least 14 (so only a character with no scores less than 14 isn't raising questions and demanding explanation)?
Either way, that doesn't line up with the standard assumptions the game makes - even if it does line up with the assumptions you personally choose to make.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Con is checked when you've been swimming too long, drink too much/drink and adventure, and for saves of various kinds. It's useful, but I think you exhagerate the case here.
When would eating lead to a con check?
Dusty rooms? Seriously? If a 10 doesn't deal with dusty rooms just fine, the DM is being a weirdo.
And con isn't relevant to just being tired, you gotta go beyond normal endurance for a check to matter.
Most games ive seen, con is checked for that sort of stuff pretty infrequently.
CapnZapp
Legend
No I didn't really mean something utterly ridiculous. So just stop it - you're only embarrassing yourself, Aaron.
From the start to the end, I am talking about Constitution for player characters. The average is +2 bonus. Shame the WotC intern prepping those pregens couldn't see that.
Prism
Explorer
It seems to me that you run/play in a fairly optimized group, both from this thread and others. You have already said that monsters feel a bit on the easy side - maybe because the designers do not assume that a player will have decent hit points amongst other things. If a group of players determine to place at least 14 in Con (btw I'm not arguing that this isn't a optimal thing to do) then that's all fine, but in our group I would say 14 con is the highest I have seen and 9-12 far more typical. Letting down the team is not something we remotely think about when creating a character - and yes falling in combat isn't that unusual for us. I don't not feel the job of those creating pregens is to guide on character building beyond putting the highest stat in the right place. I also wouldn't want to see them with the same best feats and best spells either.
AaronOfBarbaria
Adventurer
Glad to hear it.
I refuse to be embarrassed that I didn't understand exactly what you were talking about and asked for clarification, and I have no idea why you think that my admission that I wasn't sure what you meant should be embarrassing in the first place.
The average isn't a +2 bonus. Or maybe it is, that doesn't actually matter right now. What matters is that you don't have enough information to state with certainty what the average Constitution bonus is - only what the average Constitution bonus of characters made by a specific, limited, known to be non-representative of the hobby community at large, sample (those folks that answered the survey you got that info from) is.
And, even if we do know the average Con bonus of all D&D characters played in 5th edition, that doesn't change that the game itself makes no assumption of what that average bonus is and as a result does not require anyone to adhere to that average bonus or suffer un-fun gaming as a result.
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