Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7217595" data-attributes="member: 996">Which does affect how it models a concept.  If you want a 'strong' character, 13 might let you lift a bit more than 12, but the +1 bonus is probably more significant.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> But, it's also all relative.   You are a 'strong character' if you have a 14, and the rest of the party has 8,10,13, and 16.  And the guy with the 16 is clearly also a strong character, and can feel safe in his concept of 'big dumb guy.'  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  OTOH, it's harder to paint yourself as a 'strong character' with your 14, when the next-lowest STR in the party is a 16, and everyone else is 18+.  You're prettymuch the weak guy, at that point.Of course, it also gets into the world, if you're constantly meeting 18 STR blacksmiths and 24 STR town guards, it's different than if the strongest NPC you ever meet has a 14. In a village implied by ordinary people statted with the ol' 3-18 bell curve, the strongest man probably doesn't have an 18, unless it's rather large for a medieval village.  Maybe a village of 500 or so, including women and children. Since you specified /man/ and villages tend to have women & children, too, maybe a 16 or 17.  If everyone's rolling 3d6.  OTOH, if almost everyone else in the village is a straight-10 commoner NPC, with a few using the 13-STR 'guard' stats, and the local blacksmith has a 14 (because someone up thread went there, I think), 15 should do it.  Like I told Oofta, it's relative.   And it's true, if you take into account all the players at the table, all the time.  Sure, rolling will let you play exactly the character you want, some of the time - when you happen to roll just the right stats - but it will fail you the rest of the time.  Point buy will let everyone play the character they want, which may mean some of them have to curb their expectations as to what exact numbers may be involved in modeling what they want, relative to what everyone else wants. Exactly, and that's why the strength you do grudgingly acknowledge - balance - is key.  We don't all have the same vision of character concepts, the game gives us stats with which to start reconciling those visions.  By putting limits and giving context to those stats, point-buy lets everyone play the character they want - as long as they don't get hung up on numbers or on concepts outside the scope of the game.  (And, it's worth noting that random generation also gives a context, the 3d6 bell-curve, and limits, or, rather, bounds, it just doesn't necessarily generate the character you wanted, even in that context, and with everyone necessarily being within those bounds.) Again, you've resorted to a litmus test that nothing can pass.  To disprove a claim about a system, you need only find one player who isn't satisfied with it?  That's easy, this board is choked with dissatisfaction!  Finding the player who wants to play Hercules instead of Little John in a Robin-Hood game is not hard.  Jerks are plentiful.If, OTOH, we stick to players who are going to be reasonable, yeah, everyone at the table can realize their concept - to the standards of the game and in the context of the party & the corresponding setting.  Yes, some concepts are simply out of bounds, inappropriate to the campaign in some way.    If the DM wants a higher-power campaign, he'll use more than 27 points. 5e has a cap on STR, so it works fine, you're tied for 'strongest' with everyone else who has ever had a 20.  It'll take you some ASIs, but you'll get there.In 1e, you'd've needed an 18/00 you'd only have to roll up 21,600 characters (3d6, in order) to be reasonably certain of getting one. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  And, you'd still be tied with a lot of other humans assuming a largish population...</blockquote>

Verification