D&D 5E The tyranny of small numbers

[Charlaquin]

But if you don't roll, you can't get super-high stats at all!

Exactly. Everyone gets the same stuff to work with.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Exactly. Everyone gets the same stuff to work with.

Sure, but that's only good for other people, not for you. Anyone who thinks this way is going to want super-high stats irrespective of what other players have.

 

[tetrasodium]

Exactly. Everyone gets the same stuff to work with.

It's possible to make a pointbuy system where everyone can have the same stuff to work with and come away with dramatically different stuff, d&d just doesn't do that & everyone takes the same stuff as a result

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I don't agree with either of those principals.

#1 it depends entirely on the game, the social contract and really the size of the party. If the players got together and all agreed upfront to play characters with a specific role and you do not optimize towards that role you are to a degree breaking that social contract. Most games I play are not like that though. Most are "play what you got". In that case the opposite is almost true. If we are playing a 3-person party with 2 melee battlemasters and a Barbarian then everyone "optimizing" will actually hurt the group, and picking up a "terrible" featlike Magic Iniate for healing word or ritual caster is going to generate a lot more value for the group. If it is a 10 person party with specialists for every single thing they may come across, then not optimizing does "hurt the party". In either of those extremes though you are playing you, you are not playing "the party" so it is really not relevant if it hurts the group.

#2 Is not true either. I do find the optimizers, particularly those who take multiple high-impact melee feats (crusher, PAM, GWM) paint themselves into a corner in combat. I don't think that causes roleplay problems other than it limits how they fight. Warlocks can be in the same boat with EB.

What players play should up to them. Sometimes when DMing with young (teen) players I have to tell players "you be you". If the cleric does not want to prepare healing spells that is his choice, if you think the party needs more healing them you can take a level or two in a class with healing spells.

On your last point here: I do what I want and recommend others I play with to do the same.

I never have subscribed to the healbot in 5e (unless you have fun doing it). I play offensive clerics, ‘cause fun.

I don’t object to helping the party and at times risk my character to do it but the idea of prescribed actions and roles is not for me.

To that end, we just play. We don’t ask who will play the cleric either. The real question is who can play Friday? I don’t think we have had too many character deaths all said not more than say one party wipe so why not?

 

[Charlaquin]

Sure, but that's only good for other people, not for you. Anyone who thinks this way is going to want super-high stats irrespective of what other players have.

Sucks for them?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

When one only speaks of extremes, extremes are all that enter the conversation. When those extremes involve people, that means only extremists are discussed.

The vast majority of discussion regarding optimization takes one of two forms:
1. If you aren't hardcore optimizing, you're actively hurting your group, and that makes you a bad player.
2. If you are optimizing to any degree, you don't care about roleplay or fun, and that makes you a bad player.

And a significant reason this is the case is that almost everyone who talks about optimizing only refers to extremist players: those who actively anti-optimize because apparently being physically incapable of participating in anything the party does is True Roleplaying, or those who treat the game purely as though it were a calculus question trying to find the global maximum of a multivariable function without any color or charm or life. Even situations like this one, where there was no intent to do this, still lead to it because all we talk about are the extremes.

Yes, extremes are bad. This is a truism. It doesn't add anything to the conversation. What is actually productive is trying to understand why folks optimize, or try to avoid optimizing; trying to find ways that folks with disparate interests can play at the same table and get the experience they desire; trying to break down places where the rules themselves provide perverse incentives or foster behavior some find undesirable, and discussing tools to address them.

Instead, we get thread after thread after thread after thread of people viewing the world as hyperreductionist black-and-white, where either you're a filthy powergaming munchkin rollplayer (as opposed to a serious, mature, invested roleplayer) or you're a deadweight disruptive "but it's what my character would do!" non-player (as opposed to a serious, mature, invested player.)

Right, instead I think most people are more like myself. I WILL pick more potent mechanical solutions, but it isn't going to happen at the expense of RP.

So, for instance, the last 5e game I played in I created this Tabaxi street urchin character (why I don't know, I did, it was a year or two ago) but I had this idea that the character would be really fascinated with magic, but he's a kind of street fighting scrabbling sort of creature. So, I thought I'd probably make him become an Eldritch Knight, but it didn't seem to fit well with Tabaxi or whatnot, so instead I just made up this story where the character stole a 'magic book' and it taught him 'fighting tricks', so he's mechanically a Battlemaster. Because he found some magical +1 claws I expediently picked TWF as a fighting style. So, its not like incredibly optimized, but I did pick certain things based on "this is mechanically better" vs story, and the character is PRETTY good, mechanically. His story required a bit of reflavoring of maneuvers as 'magic' but everyone was just like "whatever, go for it." I mean, apparently his flavor of magic doesn't run into big problems with anti-magic, maybe because its internal. Maybe someone would get steamed about that, but whatever.

The point really is that this is probably pretty typical for a LARGE segment of players in my long experience playing FRPGs. Most players don't totally min/max and might make some sub-optimal choices, but to a great degree when faced with a better and a worse choice mechanically, they will either work out a thematic interpretation of the better choice, or reflavor something. Now and then they'll make a sub-optimal choice if it really matters.

 

[Staffan]

I think the problem, such as it is, comes from two sources.

1. Players have too much control over ability scores via methods like point-buy or arrays. If you want to start with a 16 in your primary stat, you can.
2. Too much single-ability dependency. A Strength-based fighter can do perfectly fine with Dex 8, because heavy armor removes Dexterity from the AC equation, and javelins make perfectly cromulent weapons at moderate distances. A caster "needs" to pump their casting stat above all else, because they get both prepared spells, spell attack, and spell DC from it.

If you have more randomness in your stats, it becomes more about playing to the stats you have rather than setting the stats to match your class. If you also have more variety in what stats do, that can lead to some more interesting combinations. For example, what if spells known or prepared was based on Intelligence, spells per day on Wisdom, and spell attack/DC on Charisma? That could give some interesting choices, with intelligent casters having a better chance of being prepared for a particular thing, wise casters more endurance, and charismatic casters having more oomph with the spells they do cast.

Another option would be to decouple ability scores from the primary things you use entirely. You're a 6th level fighter? In that case you have an attack bonus of +7, deal +4 damage, and have AC 18 (+2 with a shield) and 62 hp. Ability scores can then be used for ability/skill checks, and possibly unlock various special abilities you can choose. Maybe high Strength lets you Strike a Mighty Blow once per fight for double damage, or add a free Shove or something. That would paradoxically both make a high Strength less necessary (because it doesn't help with the round-over-round stats) and more impactful ("Haha! Taste my Mighty Blow, evil-doer!").

 

[M_Natas]

Sure, but that's only good for other people, not for you. Anyone who thinks this way is going to want super-high stats irrespective of what other players have.

I think that is a small minority that has problems finding anyone who wants to play with them.
In my small experience, a 14, 16 or 18 as a main ability score only matters, if another players has a different (higher) score, especially when they fill the same part role (like a barbarian and a melee fighter were one is the way better tank).
That's why I as a DM only allow standard array or point buy going forward. That also helps tremendously with encounter balance, because the math is based and balanced around starting main stats ranging from 14 to 16.

 

[overgeeked]

I think that is a small minority that has problems finding anyone who wants to play with them.

Depends on the game. D&D 5E? Loads of people. Anything D&D-like? Still quite a few people. Anything media franchise related? Some. Anything else? Maybe a few thousand world wide. Good luck finding them and scheduling a game. It's clearly possible because people do it everyday...but it's way harder to pull of than D&D 5E.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Anything D&D-like? Still quite a few people.

Unless it's 4e.