D&D 5E What if 15 equaled 20???

[Horwath]

Yeah, that's more or less how Storyteller (White Wolf) games work. If you have 0 dots in something, you're garbage at it, perhaps even taking a penalty (e.g. rolling one less than your Strength if you have 0 Athletics or whatever). If you have 5 dots, you are the peak of human performance; anything beyond 5 dots is necessarily supernatural in one way or another.

E.g. as a werewolf in Crinos or "war" form--the full blend of man and wolf--my character has 8 dots of Strength, making him well beyond what even the most physically fit and trained human could ever achieve. However, that only gives him a total of 10 dice for Strength+Athletics rolls, as he only has two dots of Athletics, which means that his supernatural abilities "only" put him in the realm of the absolute top-tier human with maximum natural Strength and Athletics training. Should he train up Athletics and Strength further, he could potentially get to the point of rolling 14 dice for a Strength+Athletics check in Crinos form, which is...a lot. That's just a lot of dice. Even at, say, difficulty 9 (so you need a 9 or 10 to succeed), you'd have a 67% chance to succeed without pulling in any other bonuses, which is really damn high (and you'd only have a 3.75% chance to botch, aka critically fail, which is very low.)

Worth noting: you can normally only have 0 dots in the various "skill-like" things (called Abilities), not the various "stat-like" things (called Attributes.) The idea generally being that most living people have at least a certain minimum competence with all the various things. Being genuinely incompetent at baseline abilities is a major penalty, usually coming from some kind of debility or supernatural influence. E.g. your Charisma is 0 for the purpose of interacting with non-werewolves while in Crinos form, because you are a literally supernaturally-terrifying monster.

In WoD it's score of 2 average, so you have only 3 steps from average Joe to pinnacle of humanity.

but when you roll one dice per attribute, I guess that low end has to be some number above 0.
with adding to the roll a fixed number, you can start with 0.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In WoD it's score of 2 average, so you have only 3 steps from average Joe to pinnacle of humanity.

but when you roll one dice per attribute, I guess that low end has to be some number above 0.
with adding to the roll a fixed number, you can start with 0.

Depends on which WoD you mean, surely? Having 1 dot isn't good, it's "bare minimum competence." Someone with 1 Strength is weak, but still physically capable. Someone with 0 Strength is outright disabled when it comes to physical actions. I would absolutely consider that to be "1 dot is +0, you don't get any benefits but you aren't penalized either." 2 dots and above is "you are actually competent at this." 0 dots means you either have no knowledge of how to do it (Abilities) or are pretty much literally incapable of stuff in that general category of action (Attributes.)

 

[Yaarel]

In a 5e context, within bonded accuracy, something like:

ABILITY
6: Epic
5: Super human
4: Peak human
3: Exceptional
2: Above average
1: Average
0: Below average



STR AND CON PREREQS: SIZE
9: Gargantuan
7: Huge
5: Large
3: Medium (heavyweght)
1: Medium (lightweight)
-1: Small

 

[DND_Reborn]

Yeah, that's more or less how Storyteller (White Wolf) games work.

Yep. Shadowrun worked similarly.

But with those games 1 is lowest for "abilities", but "skills, etc." could be 0.

I saw a the close parallel to the modifiers in 5E a while back, but don't think D&D would move to the "dot" system (although I find it superior in many ways...).

 

[DND_Reborn]

In a 5e context, within bonded accuracy, something like:

ABILITY
6: Epic
5: Super human
4: Peak human
3: Exceptional
2: Above average
1: Average
0: Below average



STR AND CON PREREQS: SIZE
9: Gargantuan
7: Huge
5: Large
3: Medium (heavyweght)
1: Medium (lightweight)
-1: Small

I always equated Intelligent with IQ standard deviations:

0 - 85
1 - 100
2 - 115
3 - 130
4 - 145 (genius)
5 - 160
etc.

In Shadowrun, 6 was the normal cap, but "exceptional" people could go as high as 9. It is much the same in White Wolf systems, but with 5 being normal human maximum and 10 (IIRC the highest).

 

[Yaarel]

I always equated Intelligent with IQ standard deviations:

0 - 85
1 - 100
2 - 115
3 - 130
4 - 145 (genius)
5 - 160
etc.

In Shadowrun, 6 was the normal cap, but "exceptional" people could go as high as 9. It is much the same in White Wolf systems, but with 5 being normal human maximum and 10 (IIRC the highest).

Yeah, I had that in mind, for a sense of rating. Here were my numbers.

5: 180
4: 160
3: 140
2: 120
1: 100
0: 80