D&D 5E The tyranny of small numbers

[tetrasodium]

I see a lot of advice to new players about what is imperative. As an example, I have seen a 16 as an attack stat characterized as insufficient even at lower levels.

I have seen advice about the pointlessness of strength clerics because a 16 str is all that can be managed if you have a decent wisdom.

It got me thinking what about magic items? Are we telling people they must have a +1 sword or the character is doomed? Or what about people that roll slightly lower or fairly evenly distributed?

I think it’s a shame if people don’t try different things for the sake of a +1 or 2 no bonus early on. Similarly, I think the focus on SAD is overblown.

When I see people saying how bored they are with the same old EB warlock, I wonder “why do that?” There are lots of other ways to build one…if you can tolerate a slightly smaller bonus here or there.

There seems to me to be optimizing oneself to boredom in some cases.

Ironically it feels like the laser focused hyperoptimized must be best with perfect gear or it's doomed is somehow even worse now than in the old days. As much flak as 3.x charop sometimes still gets it was never so nakedly shameless.

One simple example might be choosing between two weapons (one used one newly found) with different crit range/multiplier & damage die/type maybe even differing +N that makes it tough. In the past players might think on & even have some discussion about the pros & cons of the two while now it's just an instant "meh guess we can sell $A tsince $Bis better so nobody would ever use it". That's made worse by the fact that instead of needing a regularly improving assortment of +skill +stat +weapon +armor gear each with its own item specific slot players really only feel like they need one thing& things never really conflict

 

[DND_Reborn]

I would like to add that the problem with "small numbers" for ability scores is that proficiency bonus is relatively "equal size" to them.

This means that higher level PCs can't excel simply due to proficiency, but (often) players feel like they must also keep their scores high to keep pace.

It would be better (IMO) if proficiency maximum was relatively twice ability (instead of 6 to 5).

Perhaps making ability modifiers smaller a la Basic (18 = +3) and allow proficiency to go to +8, so you still have the same +11 maximum:
+5 ability and +6 proficiency would be replaced by +3 ability and +8 proficiency.

I know BA was designed to keep the numbers smaller, so I can understand if people don't want to see them grow again LOL, but I think it went too far and 40 instead of 30 would have been a better "max target" (so to say). This way, you could keep ability modifiers as they are, but allow proficiency to go to +8, 10, or slightly higher even?

 

[Horwath]

I would like to add that the problem with "small numbers" for ability scores is that proficiency bonus is relatively "equal size" to them.

This means that higher level PCs can't excel simply due to proficiency, but (often) players feel like they must also keep their scores high to keep pace.

It would be better (IMO) if proficiency maximum was relatively twice ability (instead of 6 to 5).

Perhaps making ability modifiers smaller a la Basic (18 = +3) and allow proficiency to go to +8, so you still have the same +11 maximum:
+5 ability and +6 proficiency would be replaced by +3 ability and +8 proficiency.

I know BA was designed to keep the numbers smaller, so I can understand if people don't want to see them grow again LOL, but I think it went too far and 40 instead of 30 would have been a better "max target" (so to say). This way, you could keep ability modifiers as they are, but allow proficiency to go to +8, 10, or slightly higher even?

it does not matter if proficiency+ability is 6+5 or 8+3, as long as ability modifier matters.
if you lose +1 bonus due to lower ability, it is still lower chance of success. if you have 60% hit chance with optimal ability and 55% with little lower, that is still 9% lower efficiency in your primary role.

Then it's up to you to see if other things(versatility) is worth that lost efficiency in primary role.

if we ditch ability modifiers from attack, saves, AC and DCs, and just use double proficiency. And keep ability bonuses only for ability checks, then we would not see that large imperative to max your primary score.

 

[Jer]

What's hilarious is that if your new players don't frequently watch D&D YouTube channels or go on reddit and don't get that advice they keep up just fine with the optimizers who do.

Unlike with 3e, where if you make a suboptimal characters and as you level up your "luck" seems to be getting worse and worse (because you aren't keeping pace with increasing AC of threats - which feels like bad luck if you don't analyze it and realize what's happening), with 5e it doesn't matter. You can sit an optimizer next to a non-optimizer and in general they're both doing fine even as the optimizer gets that extra 5% here or there. If you start from a baseline of hitting roughly 60% of the time and difficulties to hit don't scale with level, optimization just doesn't have that much impact at the table. (In fact my little optimizer is a bit frustrated with 5e at this point because optimization just doesn't give them the benefits at the table that they think they should be getting. Ah the teenager learning about how uniform distributions are not bell curves via experiential learning is a joy to watch...)

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I would like to add that the problem with "small numbers" for ability scores is that proficiency bonus is relatively "equal size" to them.

This means that higher level PCs can't excel simply due to proficiency, but (often) players feel like they must also keep their scores high to keep pace.

It would be better (IMO) if proficiency maximum was relatively twice ability (instead of 6 to 5).

Perhaps making ability modifiers smaller a la Basic (18 = +3) and allow proficiency to go to +8, so you still have the same +11 maximum:
+5 ability and +6 proficiency would be replaced by +3 ability and +8 proficiency.

I know BA was designed to keep the numbers smaller, so I can understand if people don't want to see them grow again LOL, but I think it went too far and 40 instead of 30 would have been a better "max target" (so to say). This way, you could keep ability modifiers as they are, but allow proficiency to go to +8, 10, or slightly higher even?

I agree. I think it would be better if stat bonuses capped at +2 and proficiency capped at +9 or 10

 

[DND_Reborn]

it does not matter if proficiency+ability is 6+5 or 8+3, as long as ability modifier matters.

It DOES matter. Players (some) feel they need to keep ability maxed out because it has such a strong impact and they have to do it to remain viable at higher levels. Reduce the impact, and have proficiency count for more, and maxing out abilities doesn't become as important.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

It DOES matter. Players (some) feel they need to keep ability maxed out because it has such a strong impact and they have to do it to remain viable at higher levels. Reduce the impact, and have proficiency count for more, and maxing out abilities doesn't become as important.

But if an 18 capped out at +2 and 14 to 17 was a +1 there would be less of a push to increase your 15 because the effort wouldn’t be worth the ASIs. There would be a bigger focus on interesting feats. And feats that offer a +1 would less useful to min/maxing unless you wanted to invest all your feats in stat boosting ones.

 

[Horwath]

It DOES matter. Players (some) feel they need to keep ability maxed out because it has such a strong impact and they have to do it to remain viable at higher levels. Reduce the impact, and have proficiency count for more, and maxing out abilities doesn't become as important.

what players feel does not affect the mathematical fact.

And the fact is, if you reduce your ability bonus to your roll by 1(and it does not matter if that is going from 5 to 4 or from 2 to 1 or from 15 to 14), you(on average) go from expected 60% to 55% hit chance. Ignoring possible bonus to damage from ability bonus, that is 9% reduction in efficiency.

 

[Horwath]

But if an 18 capped out at +2 and 14 to 17 was a +1 there would be less of a push to increase your 15 because the effort wouldn’t be worth the ASIs. There would be a bigger focus on interesting feats. And feats that offer a +1 would less useful to min/maxing unless you wanted to invest all your feats in stat boosting ones.

I would rather see them go 1-by-1
...
9: -1
10: +0
11: +1
12: +2
...
15: +5, MAX without magic

 

[DND_Reborn]

But if an 18 capped out at +2 and 14 to 17 was a +1 there would be less of a push to increase your 15 because the effort wouldn’t be worth the ASIs. There would be a bigger focus on interesting feats. And feats that offer a +1 would less useful to min/maxing unless you wanted to invest all your feats in stat boosting ones.

Even if 18 capped at +3, and you went with the Basic

13-15: +1
16-17: +2
18-19: +3
20: +4 (optional?)

Even something like increases on the odds instead of the evens:

13-14: +1
15-16: +2
17-18: +3
19-20: +4 (optional?)

Either way, decreasing ability modifiers and increasing proficiency allows for leveling to naturally offer more benefit towards keeping the numbers viable in the long term.

And yes, it makes feats more interesting if ability modifier increases were every three points instead of every two. Then you could have:

0 - 2: -3
3 - 5: -2
6 - 8: -1
9 - 11: +0
12-14: +1
15-17: +2
18-20: +3

The above would be my personal preference. Then allow proficiency to range from +2 to +8, keeping the +11 "maximum".

EDIT: Actually, you could just do proficiency as +4 to +8, keeping it as a 4-point increase, as this will keep the typically starting totals in the +5 to +6 or so range....

How you handle Expertise with such changes depends on if you want to keep BA at 30 or allow it to go higher...

what players feel does not affect the mathematical fact.

And the fact is, if you reduce your ability bonus to your roll by 1(and it does not matter if that is going from 5 to 4 or from 2 to 1 or from 15 to 14), you(on average) go from expected 60% to 55% hit chance. Ignoring possible bonus to damage from ability bonus, that is 9% reduction in efficiency.

You just aren't getting the point...