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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7811605" data-attributes="member: 71699">As I dig into this, I feel more sure race needs to be taken into account. Envision -Cards-3 13, 13, 13, 11, 7, 6Points-3 14, 14, 14, 10, 10, 10Cards-2 15, 14, 10, 9, 9, 6We choose monk for cards-3 and points-3, and fighter for cards-2, thus -Cards-3 + Human 12, 14, 14, 7, 14, 8Points + Wood elf 10, 16, 14, 10, 15, 10Cards-2 + Mountain dwarf 17, 10, 16, 9, 9, 6 assuming fighterCards-2 has 1 better attack and damage, 1 more hit point per die, 4 better ac against cards-3.Cards-2 has 1 more hit point per die, and 3 better ac against points-3.Points-3 has 1 better ac, attack and damage over cards-3, and that is intentional: cards should be worse than points-buy, for my harder-difficulty campaign.Cards-3 + Human + ASI 12, 16, 14, 7, 14, 8Points + Wood elf + ASI 10, 18, 14, 10, 15, 10Cards-2 + Mountain dwarf + ASI 17, 10, 16, 9, 9, 6Adding an ASI closes the ac gaps by 1 (plate doesn't improve, the bonus from Dexterity does), otherwise the picture remains much the same.I'm confident that the difference between cards and points-buy for monk equates to the intended harder-difficulty for my campaign. In choosing my card mix I set the baseline ability scores deliberately lower than points-buy.I believe about 3 points of ac is intended class discrepancy (fighters are intended to have higher ac than monks). Cards-3's net modifiers are 3 better than cards-2, meaning they will be more versatile with better saving throws. On the other hand, they have taken a knock of 1 worse across salient combat abilities (their initiative is significantly better, but everything else is worse).On balance, I'm very comfortable with where that lands. I expected MAD classes to be 1 worse and they are: this is well inside the bounds of playing style to cope with and any overshadowing will be down to that (and to other finesses the players might think of). I'm also comfortable that ideal MAD characters should be scarce: that will reflect the positioning of those classes in the world narrative.</blockquote>

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