Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7236672" data-attributes="member: 29398">And that little bit right there answers all these questions...well, sort of except one.Every character ... defined by six ability scores.&nbsp; 'Every' incudes NPCs, so we're now clear that all NPCs have stats - we just might not know what they are.&nbsp; Adventurers range from 3-18.&nbsp; This is important because of what it does not say: that adventurers start out with a range of 8-15.&nbsp; This tells me a 3-18 range, regardless how it might be arrived at, is the assumed default...and while there's various ways of arriving at a 3-18 range including pick yer own, linear d20 ignoring 1-2-19-20, 5d4-2, and so forth the 3d6 method is the most ingrained and thus the most likely to be used.&nbsp; More relevant to the overall discussion, however, is this: as neither point buy nor array as written can possibly allow the default-as-defined 3-18 range then neither can be the game's default character generation method...not unless the writers want to contradict themselves; also a long and storied tradition in D&amp;D. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Monsters [range from 1 to 30].&nbsp; It's good that this is mentioned as it explicitly allows for stats outside the 3-18 (or 3-20) range.But what's missing here?&nbsp; They hit adventurers (both PC and NPC), they hit monsters, but in a rather glaring oversight they don't hit non-adventuring non-monster NPCs.&nbsp; Or do they...?And here's the answer.&nbsp; Saying &quot;A score of 18 is the highest that a person usually reaches&quot; and then going on to differentiate adventurers (they can go to 20) rather strongly implies that by &quot;a person&quot; they mean any ordinary inhabitant of the game world...which includes non-adventuring NPCs.It's not much of a reach to extrapolate from this that the implied low is 3 and the implied range is 3-18 but for some reason this isn't made clear.&nbsp; What is said, in the earlier quote, is that only monsters can get down to 1, meaning non-adventurers have an implied low of 2?&nbsp; Messy.This hasn't ever been in question, I don't think.&nbsp; The questions are around how to generate non-adventuring NPCs and-or what model (if any) the overall population assumptions are based on.Lan-&quot;a clarification from Mearls or Crawford would help here&quot;-efan</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7236672, member: 29398"] And that little bit right there answers all these questions...well, sort of except one. [COLOR="#FFFF00"]Every character ... defined by six ability scores.[/COLOR] 'Every' incudes NPCs, so we're now clear that all NPCs have stats - we just might not know what they are. [COLOR="#FFFF00"]Adventurers range from 3-18.[/COLOR] This is important because of what it does [B]not[/B] say: that adventurers start out with a range of 8-15. This tells me a 3-18 range, regardless how it might be arrived at, is the assumed default...and while there's various ways of arriving at a 3-18 range including pick yer own, linear d20 ignoring 1-2-19-20, 5d4-2, and so forth the 3d6 method is the most ingrained and thus the most likely to be used. More relevant to the overall discussion, however, is this: as neither point buy nor array as written can possibly allow the default-as-defined 3-18 range then neither can be the game's default character generation method...not unless the writers want to contradict themselves; also a long and storied tradition in D&D. :) [COLOR="#FFFF00"]Monsters [range from 1 to 30].[/COLOR] It's good that this is mentioned as it explicitly allows for stats outside the 3-18 (or 3-20) range. But what's missing here? They hit adventurers (both PC and NPC), they hit monsters, but in a rather glaring oversight they don't hit non-adventuring non-monster NPCs. Or do they...? And here's the answer. Saying "A score of 18 is the highest that a person usually reaches" and then going on to differentiate adventurers (they can go to 20) rather strongly implies that by "a person" they mean any ordinary inhabitant of the game world...which includes non-adventuring NPCs. It's not much of a reach to extrapolate from this that the implied low is 3 and the implied range is 3-18 but for some reason this isn't made clear. What is said, in the earlier quote, is that only monsters can get down to 1, meaning non-adventurers have an implied low of 2? Messy. This hasn't ever been in question, I don't think. The questions are around how to generate non-adventuring NPCs and-or what model (if any) the overall population assumptions are based on. Lan-"a clarification from Mearls or Crawford would help here"-efan [/QUOTE]

Verification