Stats Have Suffered From Inflation

[Aus_Snow]

From what I remember from 1e, a fighter got laughed at if he only had 17 Strength; you needed an 18/?? to matter.

Geoff.

Heh, yep.



18/00 was da sheet...

...the entire subsystem for which, I might add, was absolutely ridiculous!

 

[Quasqueton]

However, when we finally grab the Rogue gallery, which included stats for Gygax and friends' player characters, it became obvious that was not the way they were doing.

Anyone who has ever seen the ability scores for Mordenkainen . . .

Add up the point buy value of early edition characters and you'll see.

Nowadays, you can play a decent paladin with no ability above 14. It used to be that you had to have a 17 just in Charisma -- a true dump stat in earlier editions.

Quasqueton

 

[Quasqueton]

I don't know about you, but I never heard of somebody who could lift 1040 lbs. over his head even for one second. Most weightlifting is done in the range of 300-500 lbs., and that's not even in the Strength 18 range?

SRD:

A character can lift as much as his or her maximum load over his or her head.

18 Strength = 300#
22 Strength = 520#

Quasqueton

 

[francisca]

In B/ED&D, a 17 Strength was +3 (just like in D&D3). In AD&D, a 17 Strength was +1. I never saw anyone with a high roll of 17 play as a fighter; as Geoff Watson said, a fighter needed an 18/?? Strength to matter.
Quasqueton

Nitpick: 17 STR in B/X is +2

Lots of sweeping generalizations and assumptions in this thread. In the 1e game I'm currently DMing, one of the the party tanks has a 17 STR, the other has an 18/03.

Take 15, 14, 12, 10, 9, 8 and apply racial mods. You then have 3 points to use to kick ability scores, but can not take anything above 18. So, if someone really wants an 18, they can have it, but will suffer elsewhere.

It's working well. They're all 4th-6th level, and there has been no stat inflation. Players keep coming back every other week and keep asking to go weekly, so I assume they are enjoying themselves.

 

[Staffan]

18/00 was da sheet...

...the entire subsystem for which, I might add, was absolutely ridiculous!

And was demonstrated to be so by Dark Sun 1st ed, which had PCs rolling stats on 4d4+4 (5d4 for "commoners"), and with at least three races with a positive racial adjustment to Strength (half-giant +4, mul +2, and dwarf +1). This really showed the huge difference between the guy with Str 17 (+1/+1) and the guy with Str 19 (+3/+7).

Fortunately, Dark Sun revised had a different table for Strength that ditched the whole 18/xx thing.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

SRD:18 Strength = 300#
22 Strength = 520#

Quasqueton

My bad...confused lifting off ground with lifting over head.

 

[fusangite]

The 18/## strength discussion sure brought the memories flooding back. My solution in 1E was just never to play a fighter. Still, I never ceased to marvel at how characters with 18/00 strength were a little over-represented amongst those I saw compared to the 1 in 21,600 at which they should naturally have appeared.

 

[BOZ]

I remember playing D&D in the 80's and the players freaking out cause the brick of the party had a 17 Str. Now it seems that players are used to 20, 21 or even 22 Str and a fighter type with a 17 Str is merely laughed at for being weak. Is this just my group or is it in other places too?

Also, I remember when this was AAAALLLLLL farm land as far as the eye could see....

must have been you. in AD&D, i had more than a few warrior-type character with Str 17 and over. non-warriors got the big numbers in other stats.

in 3E, most of the characters in our group have had less than 18 Str (though some fellows have had much higher, for one reason or another...)

 

[BSF]

I have players that think they must have high stats to be effective. I try to provide opportunities for any character to be effective. When it comes down to using something based wholly on your stats, then your moment in the spotlight probably comes across as a bit weak. I also moved to point buy, and have been dropping the point buy level for each campaign. It is all an effort to point out that the character is the thing, not the stats.

It seems to be working. Slowly, to be sure. But I hear less stat posing around the table.

 

[Storyteller01]

I don't know about you, but I never heard of somebody who could lift 1040 lbs. over his head even for one second. Most weightlifting is done in the range of 300-500 lbs., and that's not even in the Strength 18 range?

Googled this:

"For example, the first 1,000 pound barrier in the three Olympic lifts was made by Steve Stanko back in York in 1941."

Apparently, the record has been broken several times since then. Although, I believe this is a total weight, not weight in a single lift.