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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6862507" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Okay, but then I'll point out that you haven't been playing 5E for 3-5 years yet either. Color me skeptical, especially given 5E's bounded accuracy and the continuing relevance of mooks at higher levels. I've had 2nd and 3rd level PCs and NPCs alongside 14th level PCs and NPCs and yet had no issues (from a gameplay standpoint--obviously there were tactical issues to be solved, but the low-level (N)PCs had an impact). If a 10-level disparity doesn't pressure me into bumping all the NPCs up a few levels, why should I believe that a 4-point stat disparity would pressure me into cheating up the NPC stats to all 18s? Why would I cease to believe that a 16 Int NPC wizard is actually pretty impressively smart?In short, I don't buy your assertion that PCs in 5E don't interact with NPCs who have normal-ish stats. If it were true, there would have been some evidence before now. I think you're conflating 5E with other games with different dynamics.I use character trees (old 2nd edition Darksun-style rules). The PC I alluded to previously with mediocre stats was a converted NPC hobgoblin who had bog-standard hobgoblin stats straight out of the MM, but because of events had accumulated several levels of dragons sorcerer. He didn't get that much play time, in part because I frankly told the player that playing a sorcerer with a Charisma of 9(!) was definitely playing D&D on "hard mode", and he wound up being unsatisfied with how well his spells worked in practice (wound up relying a lot on Magic Missile because it's not Charisma-dependent). Most of his play time went toward his point-buy death cleric instead, who had stats distributed as evenly as he could make them: 13 12 13 12 13 12 or something close to that, plus whatever he gained from ASIs (8th level or so by the time he died for the last time).That particular player has had more deaths and therefore more characters per campaign than anyone else in the past year (year and a half, I guess) of play. In the new campaign started several weeks ago he's already abandoned one PC (Winged Tiefling with awesome stats, BTW, at least one 18, which became a Dex 20 due to racial bonus) in favor of another with pretty nice stats (hill dwarf cleric with a natural 17, rolled in front of me BTW--I'm not sure where he allocated that but presumably to Wisdom for Wis 18) who promptedly threw a Molotov cocktail at an orc when everyone else was being sneaky, and therefore got dismembered by the enraged orc and his buddy. He showed up to last night's session without having created a replacement PC so I slotted him in as an NPC. He and another player are simultaneously playing in a one-shot that lasted two sessions, and his 5th level white dragonborn paladin (decent rolls, natural 16 leading to 20 Str after dragonborn +2 Str and a +2 Str ASI) bit the dust thanks to HP depletion and some giant rats, following which the other PC went full-on stealth and managed to escape the dungeon without fighting anything else.In short, there's one player who's probably had ten PCs so far, but with no sign of power creep (or he would have kept his high-stats Winged Tiefling), and four other players (two regular, two occasional) who probably average two or three PCs per campaign each.Hypothesis: maybe this is the difference between our experiences--our respective attitudes may affect player behavior. If you as a DM are hyper-aware of what PC stats are, and you make a big deal of it in play, perhaps the players are more driven to optimize with stats? At my table it's more likely to be a big deal that someone just rolled a 34(!) on a Stealth check despite having only a 5 Dex, and therefore made it all the way across the rice paddy while stepping entirely in another PC's tracks and not disturbing a single particle of mud. This was achieved through a combination of luck (open-ended d20 roll: 20 on the first roll, then a reroll at +10 yielding 27, plus +10 for Pass Without Trace but -3 for having only Dex 5, total = 34). It was also a big deal when someone miffed his Intimidation check with an 8 (total) and yet still managed to intimidate both enemy bodyguards because they rolled a 5 and a 6 respectively on their Wisdom checks--turns out both guards were phobic of helmets. The players looooove that kind of thing, but it has very little to do with stats.I'm honestly not sure if my players even know what each others' stats even are. I sure don't keep close track of them--if not for the fact that I have a good memory, I wouldn't even have been able to supply the data on stats that I've supplied. Maybe they are secretly raging with envy inside over the fact that someone has a higher stat than they do, but the closest I've seen to player jealousy/infighting was when the aforementioned Int 8 paladin (white dragonborn) and the Int (?) sorlock were fighting over who got to keep the Book of Six Seals (Tome of Intellect Enhancement) that the dragonborn paladin had found. He wanted to no longer be stupid, and the sorlock wanted it because... I'm not sure, maybe he just wanted to be smarter. Later on they found a Mace +1 and agreed that the sorlock got the book and the paladin got the mace. Then the paladin died so the sorlock got them both.In short, no seething stat jealousy that I've seen anywhere.Edit: And stats just don't seem to matter much at my table anyway, compared to other factors like tactics. There are relatively few situations I've seen as a DM where higher stats would have made a big difference to the outcome of play.</blockquote>

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