D&D 5E The Perils of Dump Stats

[ezo]

How much did you fail the save by? Unless it was by exactly 1, having a 9 CHA instead of a 10 didn't cost you.

Ignoring your specific roll and looking at it in the abstract, even if you'd had a 20 CHA your saving throw would have only been 6 points higher. That means that there was at most only a 30% chance that your choice on how to allocate your stats could have affected the outcome of this saving throw.

So don't blame yourself! It was bad luck that got your character, not bad stat allocation.

The big difference is in the 1 CHA point per hour drain.

With a CHA 10, the DM might allow the NPC priest to long rest for 8 hours, prepare Remove Curse, and save the PCs "just before" the curse killed us at CHA 2. It is a stretch on the timing thing, but possible.

However, any CHA 11 or higher, we both would have survived without an issue, even with the unlucky rolls.

if you can die on a 9 you can probably die on a 13 in most situations or even higher.

As you can read above, a CHA 13 would have easily allowed us to both survive.

In situation like the Shadow STR drain of 1d4 per hit, 3 hits would have over a 30% of totaling 9 or higher, resulting in death. However, a STR 13 would be over 85% likely to survive even a fourth hit (and 3 hits--barring criticals???-- would never kill STR 13 PC).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The big difference is in the 1 CHA point per hour drain.

Which applies to one single monster in the entire game - almost none of the other examples except low CON are really "low stat" issues. I'm not trying to drag us off topic, just pointing out how ultra narrow and beyond corner-case that example is.

Also I take it was summer or the "long daytime" part of the year, because you seem to be saying "there are only 8 hours of darkness". In a equatorial region, or in winter/long dark, there are a lot more - 12+ and thus you can't rely on the dawn to put a brake on things unless your stat is a lot higher. The timing here is very specific. Get bitten at 6pm in an equatorial region and you'll lose 12 CON before the sun comes up again.

 

[ezo]

Which applies to one single monster in the entire game - almost none of the other examples except low CON are really "low stat" issues. I'm not trying to drag us off topic, just pointing out how ultra narrow and beyond corner-case that example is.

Luckily, there aren't many such cases, no. Offhand, only the Shadow STR-drain has ever been a scary issue IME since often enough arcane-types will dump STR, as will monks and rogues commonly unless they want the Athletics bump (or non-penalty).

Also I take it was summer or the "long daytime" part of the year, because you seem to be saying "there are only 8 hours of darkness". In a equatorial region, or in winter/long dark, there are a lot more - 12+ and thus you can't rely on the dawn to put a brake on things unless your stat is a lot higher. The timing here is very specific. Get bitten at 6pm in an equatorial region and you'll lose 12 CON before the sun comes up again.

No, no, no... you are misreading it then.

It was very late autumn, early winter! We had too much darkness, so we would have needed even higher CHA to have sunlight save us.

The timeline was generally this as I understood it:

The adventure (a one-shot) began at 6 pm roughly, on a dark and cloudy day.
Around 6:30 the "sun set" and we were in darkness instead of dim light.
Our adventures took roughly 1 hour until we were able to get in a 1 hour short rest, ending around 8 pm or so.
The encounter with the Vargouilles took place less than an hour later, say 9 pm at the latest.
So, we had seven hours, until 4 AM, to get help with our CHA 9 dropping to CHA 2 (which we couldnt' get help and we died).

The point about a bit higher CHA being safe was with CHA 10, the NPC priest would have gotten in a long rest and saved us, albeit subject to DM leeway. With CHA 11 or better, we wouldn't have even need to rely on the DM leeway.

But otherwise you are corrent, to have sunlight save us, we would have needed CHA 15 or better probably!

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Three of the five characters in our party have 9 Wisdom, and only one is proficient in saves.

We haven't run into a lot of casters yet, but when we get to higher levels...

But really, it is so appropriate for groups of people who take up professional adventuring.

 

[Ogre Mage]

I have not had any of my PCs die in 5E because of a dump stat. I'm virtually certain it happened in earlier editions, but I did not play 4E and earlier than that my aging self cannot remember.

But I have had PCs crippled in combats due to low stats. I hate intellect devourers because of what they did to my 8 Int cleric. Luckily my companions kept the creature from body snatching me.

As an optimizer I avoid making Dex, Con or Wis a dump stat. At worst I make it a 10. Str, Int or Cha are my dump stats of choice. But that certainly came back to bite me in the case of the intellect devourer.

Under 27 point buy it is hard to not have at least one dump stat. You just have to hope it isn't a killer.

 

[R_J_K75]

What about a dump cake...plenty of peril in those...its not like Lambas Bread

 

[James Gasik]

Looking at the fact that every non-Monk or Paladin character is designed to have four bad saves (three if Feats are allowed), and not every class even has a reason to invest heavily in the stat they have a good save for (Wizards and Wisdom saves, for example), it seems certain that not making a very high DC save is in the future for 5e characters.

Though I keep getting told this isn't a problem, even though I've totally had an old ass blue dragon look at me funny and send me packing from a DC 18 Wisdom save before, and watched another player's Ranger get disintegrated in a Curse of Strahd tie-in adventure!

I suppose it has to do with the fact that actual "save or die" effects are kind of rare in 5e, and if something deals insane damage, it's still unlikely to bring you to negative max hit points, and that most really bad effects allow for multiple saves.

Plus, with the right party makeup, you can mitigate weak points.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Dumping a stat vs not dumping it, so you have -1 to a save versus +1, makes all of a 10% of a difference. Failing higher-level DCs 80% of the time, instead of 70%, won't feel any different. Getting to +3 starts requiring sacrifices elsewhere, and now you're up to a 20% difference, so you fail only 60% of the time... guess what, it still feels very bad.

And if you're worried about mind-control spells in particular, and pump up your Wisdom (an actually useful stat) and pick up Resilient for the save proficiency... casters will just mind-control you with their Charisma-targeting spells, because of course those are a thing.

The game is purposefully designed so that you are useless in 3-4 saves, and increasingly so as the levels increase.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Looking at the fact that every non-Monk or Paladin character is designed to have four bad saves (three if Feats are allowed), and not every class even has a reason to invest heavily in the stat they have a good save for (Wizards and Wisdom saves, for example), it seems certain that not making a very high DC save is in the future for 5e characters.

Though I keep getting told this isn't a problem, even though I've totally had an old ass blue dragon look at me funny and send me packing from a DC 18 Wisdom save before, and watched another player's Ranger get disintegrated in a Curse of Strahd tie-in adventure!

Right now it is a problem, as some spells and effects did not get the memo.

5e saves are not designed to be used as a one time save or die. A single failed save should only be (highly) inconvenient.

They should only be used as a duration mechanic or a damage mitigation tool.

I really hope 2024 takes care of it. I guess this was not tested in UA, as there actually is no question that those rare effects need to be changed.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Dumping a stat vs not dumping it, so you have -1 to a save versus +1, makes all of a 10% of a difference. Failing higher-level DCs 80% of the time, instead of 70%, won't feel any different.

Those 10% differences start to matte however, when it is not a single saving throw but a series of throws.

Lets assume a DC of 13 at level 1 (not unheard of) and a save bonus of +1 vs - 1.

With +1, your chance to save is 40% = 0.4, with -1, it is just 30% = 0.3.

Gemometric distribution has an expectation value of 1/p. So if you are hit, with a +1 bonus you look at ab average disable time of 1/0.4 = 2.5 rounds. With a -1 bonus you look at an average of 1/0.3 = 3.33. Nearly one round longer, or about 33% longer disable time. Which is quite significant.

I spare you the math, but...
... if the DC is 14, it is a 40% increase.
... if the DC is 15, it is a 50% increase.
... if the DC is 16, it is abouta 67% increase.
... if the DC is 17, it is a 100% increase.
And so on.

So the conclusion is: a +2 bonus does matter if nothing depends on a single save.