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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 9226797" data-attributes="member: 6801228">There are a lot of your most recent posts I could try and use as a jumping off point, but this one is a good enough place because you seem to have some really deeply ingrained misconceptions. For example, your main thrust here is that we "want" to circumvent every strength challenge with clever tactics or magic. But... do we? Take encumbrance, that is supposedly a strength challenge. Do we want to overcome that with magic? Or do we have magic to overcome it that seems stupid not to use since we have it? Sure, in Gygax's games Tenser created the Floating Disc spell to overcome the limits of his strength... but that was LONG before most modern players, and LONG before this edition of the game. So, if I am a player in an encumbrance game, and I take ritual caster to get this spell, and I circumvent encumbrance... is that because I desired to ignore strength, or simply because I had the option to do so? Apply this logic more broadly, do I take fire resistance spells and items to face fire-using foes because I desire to call those enemies weak, or because I am solving the challenge I am presented with? But, I do think you had a point when you indicated the issue may lie in the attributes and point-buy. You presented it in the worst possible light, but there are some grains of truth in what you were saying. [USER=2525]@Mistwell[/USER] had a very salient point when they said this "A lid of something, a portcullis, a slab door, something always seems to be in the way that requires a high strength character." but I don't think the significance of it is obvious. Multiple adventures, over a decade, and what is it that comes to mind for a high strength character? Something heavy is blocking the path and needs moved. This is the VAST majority of strength challenges, you cannot progress unless you move this heavy thing, and you need high strength to move said heavy thing. But... that's a problem, isn't it? Let's say you have a massive slab door that requires a DC 21 strength (Athletics) check to move and you cannot progress further in the adventure unless you move it. Well, you've made a bad design for your adventure. You've gated success behind a specific check, by actively blocking the way forward unless that check is passed in the approved manner. But, if you all players to use clever physics and ropes and pulleys to move the door so that they don't need strength... then the vast majority of strength challenges don't actually require strength. It is a bit of a Catch-22. And, even if you accept that the game is "more balanced" by requiring every character to have at least a 13 strength if they want to participate... no one seems to ever be happy with that. And that is because strength is so mono-focused. Outside of combat is has one real use. Pick up and move heavy thing. The rules don't require strength for climbing, unless it is a ridiculous climb. The rules don't require strength for swimming, unless it is a ridiculous swim. So by enforcing challenges that can only be defeated by strength, and forcing players to have no other options... you are just creating a tax on their characters. That is exactly how the Artificer I wanted to play felt the moment I was told I had to use variant encumbrance. I didn't particularly want a weak character, but to be a functional character under those rules I needed at least a 13 strength... and then to never pick up a single item in the game. It was going to be my third highest stat, and the only reason I was going to have it, its only use, was to prevent from being penalized for having my starting gear. I'm not speaking from the perspective of ignorance, this isn't a "why rules not work when I ignore rules?" situation. This is me looking at the rules, and noticing that, more often than not, making Strength matter for more than combat requires me to make the game less fun, and less well-designed, because there is something fundamentally missing in how we handle and deal with strength within the game. It is never presented as offering a boon in and of itself, but as avoiding penalties.</blockquote>

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