D&D General The Crab Bucket Fallacy

[Thomas Shey]

That's not solving ability scores. That's removing them.

Note the latter two cases still have them, they just weigh them differently. That is a solution. If ability scores being too core to effectiveness is a problem, having them not be so is a solution. It may not be one you like, but it makes no sense to claim it isn't.

 

[Scott Christian]

The issue is: There will always be a problem for a group that plays with segregated pillars and uses a single frontman. Why?

Because if you play a frontman, and direct your character creation resources to be the frontman, but someone else does it with a +1 better bonus, oh well, sit to the side and be quiet.

So even if they propose to "fix" the fighter, and give them great social skills - they still will not be as good as the bard. So the phrase will be: "Hey, we fixed the fighter. But you still have to sit down and shut up because the bard is still a bit better."

When you do not mix the pillars. When you do not have organic conversations. And when you do not allow the game to be played per DMG and PHB suggestion, then you will - and can never - "fix" the game.

If you do, do those things, the classes play just fine.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The issue is: There will always be a problem for a group that plays with segregated pillars and uses a single frontman. Why?

Because if you play a frontman, and direct your character creation resources to be the frontman, but someone else does it with a +1 better bonus, oh well, sit to the side and be quiet.

I think this is overly reductionist. While some people are going to be obsessive about even that little difference, most of the time when this comes up, its about a lot bigger gaps than that in any game, and again, often where the consequences of failure are more severe than people want to deal with.

 

[Scott Christian]

I think this is overly reductionist. While some people are going to be obsessive about even that little difference, most of the time when this comes up, its about a lot bigger gaps than that in any game, and again, often where the consequences of failure are more severe than people want to deal with.

Literally, per the three replies I received when asked regarding this matter, the answer is I am not being a reductionist. I am simply stating how their table plays.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't remember seeing one adventurer RPG that has fixed the ability score problem

Have you ever seen Hero System? Stats have different costs based on how powerful they are. DEX costs triple what STR or INT cost, for instance. Or is it not adventurey enough?

Of course, that there are better games out there doesn't matter when 'most everyone enters the hobby thru the current ed of D&D...

 

[Zardnaar]

Apologies if I missed this in the intervening 20 pages I haven't caught up on...

So how close to a Warlord in terms of ability can one get using the various extant classes like Cleric, Bard, and Paladin and just ignoring that they're using magic?

Not sure. I'm playing an order cleric and I was attack granting yesterday to level 5 rogue. Said rogue did more damage than rest of the party put together.

For attack granting Fighter3/order cleric one and by level 10 fighter (battlemaster) 6/ Order cleric 4.

With tashas you can use your turn undead to get a spell back.

I'm not sure the sword and board fighter is to happy though he rarely gets fed an attack.

Order cleric took both the fae and shadow touched feats.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Literally, per the three replies I received when asked regarding this matter, the answer is I am not being a reductionist. I am simply stating how their table plays.

I think you're overstating at least two of those responses.

 

[Scott Christian]

I shouldn't have to take barred levels and gain the spell casting that comes with it in order for my barbarian to mimic the archetype of being the chief's son and having some diplomacy powers as well as being a raging brute in battle.

You literally don't. I just showed you my build for my fighter, who has good social skills. The things I gave up, an extra +1 strength bonus, does not hinder me that much. It is called a tradeoff. When the wizard takes their spells for the day, there is a tradeoff happening. When the rogue decides to play an assassin and not a thief, there is a tradeoff. When the player decides to not take a feat and instead increase their ability score, that is a tradeoff. When a player chooses to be a gnome fighter instead of a half-orc fighter, that is a tradeoff. It is what the entire character creation ruleset is based on.
But what makes it worse, and the part that completely blinds people, is not understanding that a +3 in persuasion at first level is very close to having a +5.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Have you ever seen Hero System? Stats have different costs based on how powerful they are. DEX costs triple what STR or INT cost, for instance. Or is it not adventurey enough?

Of course, that there are better games out there doesn't matter when 'most everyone enters the hobby thru the current ed of D&D...

Though that's less true these days (largely because a lot of figured attributes have been peeled off), but then, when it comes to skills specifically, boosting attributes was newer the most efficient way to push up skills anyway; Levels were.

As I said anyway, the easy answer is not to have skills quite as attribute dependent, and there's all kinds of systems that do that (including, far as that goes, Hero where attributes matter, but not enormously within the human range).

 

[overgeeked]

The issue is: There will always be a problem for a group that plays with segregated pillars and uses a single frontman. Why?

Because if you play a frontman, and direct your character creation resources to be the frontman, but someone else does it with a +1 better bonus, oh well, sit to the side and be quiet.

So even if they propose to "fix" the fighter, and give them great social skills - they still will not be as good as the bard. So the phrase will be: "Hey, we fixed the fighter. But you still have to sit down and shut up because the bard is still a bit better."

When you do not mix the pillars. When you do not have organic conversations. And when you do not allow the game to be played per DMG and PHB suggestion, then you will - and can never - "fix" the game.

If you do, do those things, the classes play just fine.

A simple solution to that would be making exploration and social more robust. Something like the baked in but often ignored combat roles. We see this in Activities while Traveling as well, with the various roles characters take. Or the expanded Journey rules from C7. Group checks with different characters rolling different skills could work, too. The traditional "face" would be the equivalent to the party tank instead of the singular character who can do anything meaningful or useful during the interaction.