Something Awful leak.

[Greg K]

Except that a save or die effect that targets a character's dump stat means that character is pretty much hosed. A high ability score, even a maximized one, for a character will most likely not equate to an equally hosed opponent. So you end up with a moderate advantage in one area for a completely detrimental flaw in another.

Then, don't treat something as a dump stat so that you can max out other scores! You want that 18 instead of a 16 (which is well above average), then pay the price (my opinion of course).

 

[Saagael]

And? Targetting a monster with a vulnerability to fire with a scorching ray is going to hose them. Why should PCs not have to work around their flaws?

Considering they have made mention of 2 step save-or-die effects also involving hit point threshholds, it won't likely end up being the apocalypse you seem to think.

Utilizing an enemy's vulnerability to a type of damage isn't quite the same though. With save-or-die effects (of which I haven't heard of this 2-step process, so any link to a source of this info would be appreciated), there is no vulnerability or weakness other than "you picked the wrong dump-stat".

I'm also doubting that there will be powerful creatures that can be one-shot as long as the players have the correct damage type. Though I can't say for sure as I have never played 1st or 2nd edition, and don't know if that kind of thing existed then.

With the way stats work now, and this could change though I doubt it, a character can't really be great at what they're supposed to do unless they have one or two stats that are low. So you're asking a fighter or rogue to give up with marginal abilities they have, compared to a caster, in order to shore up lower stats.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There are several things that I would not mind being carried over from 4e including:
Removing level drain
Removing 3e XP costs
Balancing casters and non casters across levels
Disease track
Removing the non-biological (ok, 4e didn't do this completely, but close) and making them feats
Giving martial characters cool things to do (but I would prefer going with a Book of Iron Might approach)
Rangers as non-casters
At wills for spellcasters
Magic Missile requiring a hit roll
Backgrounds and themes
Feywild.

Choose between two ability mods for a save bonus without requiring a feat or via a spell, however, is something that I hope is not on my list. It just encourages dump stats, in my opinion.

Yeah, I like all of the things you list, though I think there are even more fundamental aspects of 4e's approach that I like.

Dump stats are much fairer than expecting a player to keep 6 stats high, and punishing them if they don't, especially when the system makes it mechanically impossible to keep 6 stats high.

The thing is, sure, you 'encourage dump stats', but IMHO it is all a two-edged sword, as GreyICE is saying here. Beyond what he's said though, what if I WANT a character with an 8 WIS? Am I just supposed to be utterly helpless? I mean its my choice and I am fine with (WANT) there to be some consequence to that so I can play the character as a dufus or whatever, but literally having no chance of making most defense checks on that stat? That seems harsh. I think the difference between the best and worst should not be more than say 30-50% more often hit, which translates to a numeric range of around 5 points total. 10 points is kinda steep, lol.

In other words, you're DISCOURAGING of dump stats is not really giving players any more freedom than encouraging them was. Remember, 4e for instance, gave tangible benefits to any PC for pretty much any stat. There were actually a fair number of reasons to want to spread your points out some. You just want to be able to do either thing and not have the consequences be TOO extreme either way.

The other thing is, this whole discussion is moot if you're rolling your stats, and it seems pretty clear that's the designated standard approach in 5e (I really doubt they'll change this). Point buy is going to be there, but if you really hate the way players allocate stats, just tell them to follow the standard rules. I've never been terribly against rolling stats anyway. It can produce some bad results, but it can also add interest to the game. So I would just say this whole thing is really likely a non-issue for the most part. Double up the stats on the defenses, and get the more stable math, then let people roll up their characters, and you have no worries about dump stats.

 

[Iron Sky]

Even if defenses weren't tied to stats, you could do something to make them non-obvious dump stats. For example: Strength - carrying capacity, Con - hp, Dex - Initiative, Int - bonus skills and languages, Wis - bonus crit damage maybe?, Cha - starting wealth/buy prices/built in Leadership?

I like the idea of having to do at least some cost-benefit analysis of my stats, in part because it makes the stats you choose more valuable because you see what you are giving up and makes the characters that chose differently a way to shine in a different way than your character.

"You're wearing the super-heavy plate and it's not even slowing you down? Damn!" "Yeah, but you've got those 5 guys that practically worship you from the last town that will step in front of a dragon for you!" OR "Man, your guy is like McGyver, you disabled that trap AND read the dwarven runes in the crypt and now you know ancient illithid lore too?" "Yeah, but your guy shrugged off a crit from that orc that would have taken me straight to perma-dead!"

Having 90% of my 4e characters packing 8 int or cha because they are the "least useful" stats and I can pretty much ignore the -1 is lame - if I've got a number in a stat, I want it to mean something!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And? Targetting a monster with a vulnerability to fire with a scorching ray is going to hose them. Why should PCs not have to work around their flaws?

Considering they have made mention of 2 step save-or-die effects also involving hit point threshholds, it won't likely end up being the apocalypse you seem to think.

Nobody is advocating the non-existence of flaws. You may want to study 4e some because it is QUITE common for characters to have weak points. Dump 10's into STR and CON (quite common for your average wizard) and you're right there with a baseline 10 FORT.

 

[Hassassin]

The thing is, sure, you 'encourage dump stats', but IMHO it is all a two-edged sword, as GreyICE is saying here. Beyond what he's said though, what if I WANT a character with an 8 WIS? Am I just supposed to be utterly helpless?

If it means someone with Wis 8 is utterly helpless, I agree. But if it just means that character is weaker against <10%* of monters, sounds good. Again you seem to be assuming the designers will screw everything up. Any idea is going to look bad if you assume they'll use it with mechanics and numbers that would not work with it.

*Supposing 50% of monsters really only attack against AC and the rest call for uniformly distributed saves.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Again, where are you going to 'pencil in' this number? In a box on your sheet called "effective dexterity" or something? Now how many numbers am I remembering? It isn't 10 (4 stats plus 4 defenses), it is now 15! Again this is because you WILL HAVE STATIC MODIFIERS to your defenses. WILL HAVE. This is inevitable.

Now, lets imagine what you would have if you DID NOT have static modifiers. Instead you'd have to have modifiers to your ability scores directly. Every single effect would have to directly change them. You'd STILL have to write this adjusted number down, but NOW all the things that are derived from it would ALSO change!!!

There's simply no way that this change is an improvement. It might SEEM like one to you now without a lot of reflection, but believe me, I did the exercise of actually sitting down and saying "OK, suppose the rules look like this, what does my sheet look like, and how does this play?" and the answer is it makes things more complicated to 'remove' the 3 stat-based defenses. I know that might seem counter-intuitive to people, but ACTUALLY SIT DOWN AND INVENT A CHARACTER and you will see. Imagine this character with bonuses and penalties and items and etc on his/her sheet and you'll very quickly see that 'eliminating defenses' is the 'missing number falacy'. Just because you remove a number from your sheet does not make that number go away.

hmmh... sorry, but i never had problems with my memory. In the worst case I have a sheet next to me where i make dashes.

Stats as defenses are no problem for me. Maybe my core assumprion about what is he core of 3.5 and yours differ.
In my games, those modifieres were rare. Except in the group where the bard sang all the time. But neither did it slow down play, as the bonus was usually the same every time. And my players are not stupid either. They can add +4 to all their rolls. (Sometimes they forget, but who cares)

Assuming that there are 1000s of fiddly modifiers in 5e seems a bit too quick right now.

edit: i bolded the part where you make the mistake: we don´t have enough information to make an estimated guess about any rules. I can imagine a system, where non armor defenses are usually not modified at all.
Also: if my dexterity drops, it is elementary school math to reduce anythin dexterity related by 2 points or so. It is much more difficult if there are effects: reflex saves -2, dexterity -4, acrobatic -3. And suddenly you have different penalties that effectively reduce the same game statstic by different numbers simultaneously.

 

[GreyICE]

What 4e, the system going away after not even 4 years of being in print, did to balance spell casters and non-spellcasters has nothing to do with "punishing" classes for having certain stats being low.

Just because some people took the time to min-max their wizard to the gills doesn't change the fact that for a majority of players who didn't scour the optimatization boards, a golem with SR-ALL was a big challenge.

Either way, having a low stats should be a detriment. Just like having a high stat is a advantage.

It required scouring the optimization boards to realize that all the Spell resistance in the world doesn't do a damn thing against Summon Monster *?

Hmmm. And here I thought I realized it the first time I encountered spell resistance as a concept back with the 3E manual.

Y'know, it really didn't take scouring the optimization boards to realize the total dominance of Clerics and Druids in 3.5, and Wizards were only a smidge behind until they were optimized (then they jumped ahead). How to break the game with these classes was easy and readily apparent to players in possession of the 'Player's Handbook'

 

[the Jester]

What 4e, the system going away after not even 4 years of being in print...

The 4e PH came out in June of 2008. DnDN will not be out by this June; the favorite bet at this point seems to be GenCon 2013. Let's not play the "factually incorrect assertions about 4e" game, shall we?

 

[jsaving]

I dunno, given that what it's supposed to be is a very early Alpha version, it's entirely possible that those sorts of mistakes might be present. Alpha is Alpha after all.

I wish more people would keep this in mind. Even if these rules are real -- and I will point out that only some of them line up with what the 5e team *says* it's doing -- they're only a working draft to set the process in motion.

I'm also surprised to see so much debate over whether we can "trust" Monte and the others to incorporate player input into 5e. To me, it seems naive to say WotC is motivated purely by an altruistic desire to satisfy the player base -- they're a business and always will be. At the same time, though, they've evidently concluded it makes business sense to incorporate player input into 5e to stop the hemorrhaging of gamers to Pathfinder and unite the role-playing community behind a new edition. So I think there's room to be at least somewhat optimistic about 5e no matter where one comes out on the "trust" issue.