D&D 5E Rolled character stats higher than point buy?

[thecasualoblivion]

Strict, but with character trees per 2nd Edition rules. Most players have two or three PCs total. No fudging or cheating.

So, use the best of three sets of stats, then when your character dies your dog ate the other 2? Either way, that qualifies as fudging in my book.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

So, use the best of three sets of stats, then when your character dies your dog ate the other 2? Either way, that qualifies as fudging in my book.

No. The player chooses a different PC each session. All PCs see play.

In fact, the most common reason to leave a PC on the sidelines is if they don't want to risk them getting killed before leveling up.

Read up on 2nd Edition character trees if you want to understand the details.

 

[Celebrim]

My games are simultaneously combat-light and combat-as-war. I can honestly say I've never seen a fight play out with the football-like mentality I see in your example above.

I still don't understand your context.

I run a game you might describe as 3e with old school sensibilities. It's heavily inspired by my background in 1e, and at present very much plays out when in combat as medium sized tactical skirmishes.

Current party composition:

Sir Gareth Gorinthar: Human 9th level Champion of Aravar
- Pestus, his Hippogriff Steed
- Sir Astin Crevencor, his retainer: Human 5th level Fighter
Karl: Sidhe 7th level Rogue/1st level Explorer
Grakar: Orine 7th level Hunter
Varsha: Half-Elf 8th level Shaman
- A Grizzly Bear, her pet
- A Leopard, her pet
- A Jaguar, her pet
Mother Gail Lightbringer: Human 8th level Cleric of Showna
- Banner Corporal Admondo Blunt, her henchmen: Human 4th level Fanatic
- Templar Spence Carter, her henchmen: Human 3rd level Fanatic
- Templar Leverett Dawson, her henchmen: Human 3rd level Fanatic
Malcolm: Half-Elf 6th level Sorcerer/2nd Level Explorer

That's 6 PC's, 4 'pets', and 4 henchmen plus the occasionally summoned 'wall of wolves' (ei Summon Nature's Ally II). Against low AC opponents, they typically do over 100 damage a round. Collectively they have probably 600 or so hit points, though a third of that is the Champion and the pet bear - who tend to act as party 'meat shields'. They also have 3 spell-casters capable of casting healing spells, although typically the champion has just two cure light wounds at his level. One hundred points of healing might go out in a single combat. They might absorb 300 points of damage in a fight - and I've had this whole party in single digits before. Lately they have been in combat with as many as 50 foes, though 12-20 are more usual, and occasionally you get fights against things like an Undead Warmachine or Tyrannosaurus Rex where it's just one huge opponent. Still combat is complex and sometimes slow less from the system than the sheer number of participants. Individuals can become isolated and require rescue. Tight formations, well planned flanking moves, understanding your role in the combat, and good battlefield control are required for success. They have to break up large groups of foes into smaller groups, surround them, and avoid being surrounded themselves. And they have to not get worn down while doing it and risk a death spiral as characters drop and party resources start diminishing. Bad choices in how to deal with tactical problems can lead to things getting very dicey in a hurry.

In 1e terms, and in terms of my campaign, this is a very powerful group. At mostly 8th level, and beginning to have a lot of stature in the world, they are on the border between 'mid-level' and 'high level'.

I don't understand what you mean about abilities not mattering, or what you mean as "combat as sport". Sir Gareth Gorinthar owes his stature over the rest of the party by having survived 6 years of gaming, and now countless battles and difficulties - the only original PC still standing. He's got a 21 AC and like 103 h.p. plus a steed that can soak up quite a bit of damage (he's effectively a Paladin, so the steed is pretty powerful on its own). He's the party 'tank', and spends most of his time trying to make sure that he's in front of the engagement and the vulnerable spell-casters aren't. Varsha's deep investment in social skills and spell-casting power might make her the most powerful member of the party, but she has a 12 AC and something like 40 hit points. If she ever is on the front line, she could be dead in a single round despite all her power. But if she had Gareth's 18 CON, that would boost her hit points up to 72 by itself. How can you say ability scores don't matter? That would like double her survivability on its own, and pretty much lift her out of any realistic threat of being one turned. On the other hand, Gareth has a 10 DEX, and is frequently handicapped by that. For example, it means he's never fought well in heavy armor except when mounted, because it's just too big of a armor check penalty to offset in a typical natural environment. But he also can't benefit as fully from his medium armor as he would like, so his AC isn't nearly as high as he'd like it to be. Why does he have 10 DEX? Because as a Champion he has huge MAD, needing Str, Con, Wis, and Chr. He'd clearly be much more powerful with more DEX and more STR, but then he'd probably outshine the rest of the party. But on the other hand, if he wasn't as tough as nails, he'd be sort of mediocre, clumsy fighter, largely incapable of laying the beat down some other members of the party (or some now dead past PCs) could do. And so on and so forth. Everyone has gaps that higher ability scores would fill, and strengths that wouldn't really shine without good ability scores to support them. Any one PC off on their own is as dead because anything that is a threat to this 6 PC's will rip apart a single PC, something that they've repeatedly had to learn (and which has nearly got the Champion killed like 4 times in the past year owing to getting a bit of a big head). Of the 10 PC deaths in six years, 9 have occurred because of a split party, and that's largely been the cause behind the dozens of near death experiences.

Is this 'sport-like'? I'm not sure what you mean except that at a meta-level it's a game.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I still don't understand your context.

I run a game you might describe as 3e with old school sensibilities. It's heavily inspired by my background in 1e, and at present very much plays out when in combat as medium sized tactical skirmishes.

Current party composition:

Sir Gareth Gorinthar: Human 9th level Champion of Aravar
- Pestus, his Hippogriff Steed
- Sir Astin Crevencor, his retainer: Human 5th level Fighter
Karl: Sidhe 7th level Rogue/1st level Explorer
Grakar: Orine 7th level Hunter
Varsha: Half-Elf 8th level Shaman
- A Grizzly Bear, her pet
- A Leopard, her pet
- A Jaguar, her pet
Mother Gail Lightbringer: Human 8th level Cleric of Showna
- Banner Corporal Admondo Blunt, her henchmen: Human 4th level Fanatic
- Templar Spence Carter, her henchmen: Human 3rd level Fanatic
- Templar Leverett Dawson, her henchmen: Human 3rd level Fanatic
Malcolm: Half-Elf 6th level Sorcerer/2nd Level Explorer

That's 6 PC's, 4 'pets', and 4 henchmen plus the occasionally summoned 'wall of wolves' (ei Summon Nature's Ally II). Against low AC opponents, they typically do over 100 damage a round. Collectively they have probably 600 or so hit points, though a third of that is the Champion and the pet bear - who tend to act as party 'meat shields'. They also have 3 spell-casters capable of casting healing spells, although typically the champion has just two cure light wounds at his level. One hundred points of healing might go out in a single combat. They might absorb 300 points of damage in a fight - and I've had this whole party in single digits before. Lately they have been in combat with as many as 50 foes, though 12-20 are more usual, and occasionally you get fights against things like an Undead Warmachine or Tyrannosaurus Rex where it's just one huge opponent. Still combat is complex and sometimes slow less from the system than the sheer number of participants. Individuals can become isolated and require rescue. Tight formations, well planned flanking moves, understanding your role in the combat, and good battlefield control are required for success. They have to break up large groups of foes into smaller groups, surround them, and avoid being surrounded themselves. And they have to not get worn down while doing it and risk a death spiral as characters drop and party resources start diminishing. Bad choices in how to deal with tactical problems can lead to things getting very dicey in a hurry.

In 1e terms, and in terms of my campaign, this is a very powerful group. At mostly 8th level, and beginning to have a lot of stature in the world, they are on the border between 'mid-level' and 'high level'.

I don't understand what you mean about abilities not mattering, or what you mean as "combat as sport". Sir Gareth Gorinthar owes his stature over the rest of the party by having survived 6 years of gaming, and now countless battles and difficulties - the only original PC still standing. He's got a 21 AC and like 103 h.p. plus a steed that can soak up quite a bit of damage (he's effectively a Paladin, so the steed is pretty powerful on its own). He's the party 'tank', and spends most of his time trying to make sure that he's in front of the engagement and the vulnerable spell-casters aren't. Varsha's deep investment in social skills and spell-casting power might make her the most powerful member of the party, but she has a 12 AC and something like 40 hit points. If she ever is on the front line, she could be dead in a single round despite all her power. But if she had Gareth's 18 CON, that would boost her hit points up to 72 by itself. How can you say ability scores don't matter? That would like double her survivability on its own, and pretty much lift her out of any realistic threat of being one turned. On the other hand, Gareth has a 10 DEX, and is frequently handicapped by that. For example, it means he's never fought well in heavy armor except when mounted, because it's just too big of a armor check penalty to offset in a typical natural environment. But he also can't benefit as fully from his medium armor as he would like, so his AC isn't nearly as high as he'd like it to be. Why does he have 10 DEX? Because as a Champion he has huge MAD, needing Str, Con, Wis, and Chr. He'd clearly be much more powerful with more DEX and more STR, but then he'd probably outshine the rest of the party. But on the other hand, if he wasn't as tough as nails, he'd be sort of mediocre, clumsy fighter, largely incapable of laying the beat down some other members of the party (or some now dead past PCs) could do. And so on and so forth. Everyone has gaps that higher ability scores would fill, and strengths that wouldn't really shine without good ability scores to support them. Any one PC off on their own is as dead because anything that is a threat to this 6 PC's will rip apart a single PC, something that they've repeatedly had to learn (and which has nearly got the Champion killed like 4 times in the past year owing to getting a bit of a big head). Of the 10 PC deaths in six years, 9 have occurred because of a split party, and that's largely been the cause behind the dozens of near death experiences.

Is this 'sport-like'? I'm not sure what you mean except that at a meta-level it's a game.

Oh, my.

I hadn't realized until this post that we're talking about entirely different games. I had assumed, because this is the 5E forum, that you were talking about 5E, which is a very different game from AD&D 2nd edition (my previous edition of D&D) despite superficial similarities and quite a lot of adaptable/shared content.

I appreciate the fact that it must have taken quite a lot of time for you to write up your PCs in such detail, but since you're talking about a game which I have zero exposure to except via two video games (Temple of Elemental Evil and Icewind Dale II) please understand that my knowledge of the game you're playing is superficial and a lot of what you've written is meaningless to me out of context. For example, I can't quite tell whether AC 21 and 103 HP is intended to be impressively high or low. I can tell you, based on your comments about his MADness, that his stats would matter a lot less in 5E. For example, you mention the "handicap" of his Dex 10 and "it means he's never fought well in heavy armor except when mounted," which seems to be related to his AC--but in 5E, Dex doesn't matter at all for AC purposes when you're wearing heavy armor, although it still affects ranged weaponry and initiative rolls and Dex saves. I also recall that in IWD2, character classes tried to make use of every stat (e.g. undead turning was based off of Charisma, so clerics were forced to some extent to boost both Wisdom and Charisma) and you say he needs Str/Con/Wis/Chr. In 5E, if you translate him to a Paladin, that Wisdom dependency goes away, and his Aura of Protection compensates for poor Dex and other saves. Instead of needing Str/Dex/Con/Wis/Cha, you now have a character who just needs Str and Cha plus some Con--and because of bounded accuracy, he doesn't even need all that much Str or Con. It's possible there are other factors in your 3E game that make stat rolls extremely important to you but I'm afraid I'm not in the best position to analyze 3E for you, since I'm just guessing at things based on your descriptions. For example, I don't know 3E's rules for going to zero HP, and how much danger your 40 HP sorceress is when she's at 7 HP. In 5E she may or may not be in much danger at all, depending on how she got to 7 HP in the first place--if it's a single giant who just critted her for 33 HP, she's pretty safe, but if a swarm of giant rats just hit her six times for 33 HP total she's likely in mortal danger and should drop a Fireball on herself if there's no other way to get clear. Number of hits tends to matter more than the size of those hits in 5E (broadly generalizing), and I don't know if that's true in 3E because my videogame PCs rarely dropped to zero HP.

As for Combat As War: this thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...s-War-a-Key-Difference-in-D-amp-D-Play-Styles) originated the terms, and I'd say that if you read posts #1 and #5 you'll pretty much know how I'm using them, especially the comment about "For CAW, an entire module is a game." The short version is that I run a sandbox with a high degree of player agency and an emphasis on heterogeneity and information uncertainty, and I expect players to approach problems pretty much as if it were a real fantasy world. That doesn't mean I rule out exciting adventure-generating coincidences--my players know they are Weirdness Magnets--but it does mean, for example, that just because there are two orcs in front of you is not a signal that you should commence making attack rolls. I've modified 5E rules in a few ways: my most important house rules are that

(1) odd ability scores give you an extra +1 to ability checks, but not attack rolls or saving throws (to make odd scores not pointless/demoralizing)
(2) instead of cyclic initiative, I use an AD&D-style variant similar to the 5E DMG's Speed Factor rules, but without any speed factors. I.e. everyone declares, then everyone acts, and when it's both unclear and important who acted first we roll an initiative contest to see who went first. This unifies combat and noncombat under the same set of mechanics (e.g. "did you manage to hide before the guard investigated the noise? roll an initiative contest"). Also, action declarations happen in order of intelligence, from lowest to highest, so high-Int characters have more information when they make their action declarations.
(3) I use the DMG spell point variation for all classes, although warlocks obviously require a different points-per-level table, which is straightforward to derive.

If you'd like some concrete examples of recent adventures and ways in which stat bonuses were almost trivialized compared to player decisions/tactics and usage of (non-stat-dependent) class abilities, I can supply some. But I am reluctant to do so without invitation for fear that my examples would be as much gibberish to you as your 3E musings are to me.

 

[seebs]

LOL

Rolled stats are always, and I mean always, rerolled until they are higher than the expected average. In this case, average is set by the point buy, so all rolled stats will always be higher than point buy.

This simply isn't true, though. People do in fact take the stats they roll sometimes.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

This simply isn't true, though. People do in fact take the stats they roll sometimes.

In my 20 years of playing D&D, I've yet to see it in person.

At minimum the DM let you reroll if you weren't happy with what you rolled. I was typically fond of rolling multiple characters and playing the one with the best stats(with the DM's tacit permission), which kind of defeats the purpose.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

In my 20 years of playing D&D, I've yet to see it in person.

At minimum the DM let you reroll if you weren't happy with what you rolled. I was typically fond of rolling multiple characters and playing the one with the best stats(with the DM's tacit permission), which kind of defeats the purpose.

No wonder you are so quick to jump to conclusions about other people.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

No wonder you are so quick to jump to conclusions about other people.

Assume what? People say they roll stats and accept the results, I'm inclined to believe them. That doesn't change the fact that I've never seen it happen in 20 years of playing D&D. People trying to imply that it's typical goes against my experience that's all.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Assume what? People say they roll stats and accept the results, I'm inclined to believe them. That doesn't change the fact that I've never seen it happen in 20 years of playing D&D. People trying to imply that it's typical goes against my experience that's all.

Post #131 for example. You jumped to the wrong conclusion despite having enough information ("2nd edition-style character trees") to know better. At the time I couldn't figure out why you would think that 2/3 of the PCs are just phantoms which exist to pad out your stable with more stat rolls until "your dog [eats them]", because that would be such a dumb thing to do with your character tree--but it turns out you were just assuming that everyone plays like you used to. It's an understandable assumption for a human being to make, but in this case it was wrong.

 

[Arial Black]

At minimum the DM let you reroll if you weren't happy with what you rolled. I was typically fond of rolling multiple characters and playing the one with the best stats(with the DM's tacit permission), which kind of defeats the purpose.

That's not a bug, that's a feature!

Neither totally random nor totally controlled is ideal. Some of each is best, even if part of that control/random balance is re-rolling crappy sets of ability scores!