D&D 5E What if applying ASIs to worse abilities gave greater bonuses?

[Horwath]

I've been using 30 points, with a max of 16, to allow Race/Class combinations that don't give +1 to a primary stat.

Though ... I've been really considering removing offensive ability score contribution entirely and just applying double proficiency bonus to Attack and Saves and proficiency bonus to weapon damage (and any time someone earns +primary stat to damage). I'd have to go and add a lot more side ability scores to stuff, and change Consitution, but this way ability scores could be changed to be more about describing your character rather than being their power.

I would add to your's that you add your ability modifier instead of proficiency bonus if your ability modifier is higher.

That way if someone wants to be strong he will have the starting bonus from it. But eventually everybody will catch up and even overtake him.

So that leaves us with skills and AC in light/no armor and to a degree in medium armor.

Do I smell massive point buy invest and ASI in constitution? With little to force you to buy 20 in your attack stat that leaves to having 20 con at lvl8 or 12 the latest.

Maybe remove HP bonus from CON and give all max HP per HD then.

 

[CapnZapp]

I guess my question is...Why? Characters should be spending time overcoming weaknesses. I don't give out participation trophies in my games. You wanna place your points in the spots that make you awesome at A, well then you suffer at B. This is the whole point picking where you put your stats and not just giving everyone 18's across the board. A lot of the fun in the game comes from finding ways to use your strengths while avoiding your deficits. It also makes the game fun because this is a team game full of classes that have different things they are and are not good at. This encourages people to work together to win. Making changes that let players be good at everything just ruins the game imo.

No, you misunderstand.

His proposed change is precisely to get people to do what you want.

He simply acknowledges that improving your strengths is such a better move in D&D, that to get people to focus on their weaknesses, you need to offer them more.

Besides, the problem with 5E in particular is that you CAN'T overcome your weaknesses. The game is simply designed in such a way that, at high level, your mediocre Strength or Wisdom or whatever, no longer gives you a fair shot at success. Being asked to make a DC 22 save with a +1 bonus is neither fair, nor fun.

All his scheme does is encourage people to turn their 8's into 12's. This is all good for the game, since at high level a 12 is still definitely a weakness.

It's just a weakness that you CAN overcome, rather than a weakness guaranteeing automatic failure.

 

[CapnZapp]

Easiest way: hand out point buy points. I would give 4 of them and have stats above 15 also cost 2 per increase. So no point buy abuse.

Am I the only one that doesn't understand what you mean.

Are you talking about handing out PB points on top of a rolled character?

Or handing out 4 more points to the 27 PB already gives you?

Also, what do you mean by stats above 15 costing 2 per increase? 2 PB points? Why even allow you to raise stats above 15 - isn't that directly counter to the OP's want of getting people to care about their low scores?

Please elaborate

 

[CapnZapp]

This. It's been years (like on the 2E dnd-l listserve, IIRC), but I was part of a conversation about optimizations. There was one guy who was extremely good at it and he made a distinction between what he called "min-max" and "max-min". I may get them backwards, but his definition was something like this:

Min-Max: Minimize your maximums such that you put a laser focus on what you do well. Sacrifice everything to be the best at one thing. Once you're the perfect hammer play as if everything is a nail. Yes, you may end up with some ridiculous weaknesses, but your strategy is to do everything in your power to beat nails -- then rely on your team to cover for screws, etc. At a certain point, you may decide to diversify, but do so judiciously; the more you water down your strengths, the more those weaknesses matter.

Max-Min: Maximize your minimums such that your weaknesses are covered. This is, essentially, defensive optimizations. You may not solve problems as well as the Min-Maxer, but you also don't have to worry as much about your flank. Once you're comfortable that your weaknesses are sufficiently dealt with, you may start to better develop a couple of tools.

I've never seen that distinction made, since, but it stuck with me. Most optimizers in D&D are min-max. D&D is a team sport and you get more bang for your buck by having the Fighter be stronger, the Wizard smarter, etc. The more PCs are in the group, the higher the rewards of this style play. Such things as the 3E spiked-chain master are clear, but effective, one-trick ponies.

If you're in a small group, especially a solo game, the max-min style makes sense. Save-or-suck is indistinguishable from save-or-die. Also, "fifth player" characters, like the Bard, have a certain amount of max-min flavor. Also, some kinds of heavy RP games, like a group of Sharn inquisitors, might be well suited to max-min because you're likely to be able to work towards slow success, but also more likely to be able to be isolated from the safety of your team.

The idea of making ASIs favor low stats tends to nudge people in the direction of max-min play. If you're in a standard D&D game, I'm not sure that sort of play is strategically beneficial. If you're in a high RP game, you might actually end up making the problem worse. About the only time I think it would be beneficial is if you have a group that's heavy into the min-max mindset but you're playing a campaign where a max-min might be better. Even then, once they shift their gears, it'll probably do more harm than good.

Let me just say I wasn't that guy, but I could have been.

Yes, this is a good explanation why "covering your weaknesses" doesn't generally lead to as effective results as "focusing on your strengths".

This is also what is behind a seismic shift in what "jack of all trades master of none" characters get.

In 3E, the naive (but understandable) idea was that if you are good at everything, you should probably only be half as good as those that are best. If a Fighter gets +10 at fighting and a Wizard gets +10 at spelling, a Bard gets +5 at both. All three gets a total of +10 so that's fair, right?

But what you have expressed in your post tells us, is that only being best really counts.

And so 5E bards are more like getting +8 at fighting and +8 at spelling. Even though their total is now +16, they still feel balanced.

This is the real insight that separates somebody not introduced to minmaxing from someone that is: being best at one thing is probably better than being good at three things.

IRL, there are too many things to be good at in most cases / for most people. But in D&D, the number of things is quite limited. So a party can easily afford the luxury of divvying up the things among the party members, and are amply rewarded for it.

 

[Horwath]

Also part of the blame is on d20 as a die.

By having 3d6 instead you need to invest less to be certain that you are almost in no fail zone(90% succes). As many people will try something if they are certain that they would succed on it.

I.E. for DC 15 you need +12 modifier to have 90% succes rate with d20, while with 3d6 you need only +8.
for DC 20 and 75% cance to succed, you need +14 modifier with d20 and only +11 on 3d6.

 

[Mercule]

Also part of the blame is on d20 as a die.

Eh.... I know lots of folks like to bash the flat d20 vs. the curve of 3d6. I don't buy it. The 3d6 gives you more of a cliff, both directions, than the d20. IMO, smooth progression is better for a game.

It's like the hex vs. square battle mat argument -- there's a case to be made, either way. It depends partly on what your goals are and partly on what feels "natural" to you. (FWIW, I'm firmly in the square camp. Most TTRPG movement, IME, is lateral or straight ahead. In war games, the diagonals can matter, but I tend to prefer just breaking out the tape measure, in those cases. If it bothered me for D&D, I'd break out the tape measure, there, too.)

 

[MoonSong]

This. It's been years (like on the 2E dnd-l listserve, IIRC), but I was part of a conversation about optimizations. There was one guy who was extremely good at it and he made a distinction between what he called "min-max" and "max-min". I may get them backwards, but his definition was something like this:

Min-Max: Minimize your maximums such that you put a laser focus on what you do well. Sacrifice everything to be the best at one thing. Once you're the perfect hammer play as if everything is a nail. Yes, you may end up with some ridiculous weaknesses, but your strategy is to do everything in your power to beat nails -- then rely on your team to cover for screws, etc. At a certain point, you may decide to diversify, but do so judiciously; the more you water down your strengths, the more those weaknesses matter.

Max-Min: Maximize your minimums such that your weaknesses are covered. This is, essentially, defensive optimizations. You may not solve problems as well as the Min-Maxer, but you also don't have to worry as much about your flank. Once you're comfortable that your weaknesses are sufficiently dealt with, you may start to better develop a couple of tools.

I've never seen that distinction made, since, but it stuck with me. Most optimizers in D&D are min-max. D&D is a team sport and you get more bang for your buck by having the Fighter be stronger, the Wizard smarter, etc. The more PCs are in the group, the higher the rewards of this style play. Such things as the 3E spiked-chain master are clear, but effective, one-trick ponies.

If you're in a small group, especially a solo game, the max-min style makes sense. Save-or-suck is indistinguishable from save-or-die. Also, "fifth player" characters, like the Bard, have a certain amount of max-min flavor. Also, some kinds of heavy RP games, like a group of Sharn inquisitors, might be well suited to max-min because you're likely to be able to work towards slow success, but also more likely to be able to be isolated from the safety of your team.

The idea of making ASIs favor low stats tends to nudge people in the direction of max-min play. If you're in a standard D&D game, I'm not sure that sort of play is strategically beneficial. If you're in a high RP game, you might actually end up making the problem worse. About the only time I think it would be beneficial is if you have a group that's heavy into the min-max mindset but you're playing a campaign where a max-min might be better. Even then, once they shift their gears, it'll probably do more harm than good.

I've been using it wrong, I've been using max-min as basically optimizing your weaknesses. Get as much meaningful weaknesses as you can while still remaining viable, while you are at it, maximize you dump stats that you won't use anyway so they eat-away resources.

 

[CapnZapp]

Also part of the blame is on d20 as a die.

By having 3d6 instead you need to invest less to be certain that you are almost in no fail zone(90% succes). As many people will try something if they are certain that they would succed on it.

I.E. for DC 15 you need +12 modifier to have 90% succes rate with d20, while with 3d6 you need only +8.
for DC 20 and 75% cance to succed, you need +14 modifier with d20 and only +11 on 3d6.

Eh.... I know lots of folks like to bash the flat d20 vs. the curve of 3d6. I don't buy it. The 3d6 gives you more of a cliff, both directions, than the d20. IMO, smooth progression is better for a game.

It's like the hex vs. square battle mat argument -- there's a case to be made, either way. It depends partly on what your goals are and partly on what feels "natural" to you. (FWIW, I'm firmly in the square camp. Most TTRPG movement, IME, is lateral or straight ahead. In war games, the diagonals can matter, but I tend to prefer just breaking out the tape measure, in those cases. If it bothered me for D&D, I'd break out the tape measure, there, too.)

The proponents of 3d6 are right in that it is vastly better in simulating reality.

What they forget to ask themselves is "why would anyone want to do that?"








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When we play D&D we (most of us at any rate) deal with only the most exciting and dramatic of moments, and thus a very small sample of die rolls. Since we roll so few rolls (especially out of combat) each and every one of them needs to carry the potential for drama.

It simply isn't fun to have realistic results where the skilled one almost always succeeds and the unskilled one almost never succeeds. Where 3d6 almost never gives you the upset.

Besides, it is a good thing that a hero can fail even the simplest task a Commoner can do in her sleep.

Why? Because you rolled.

If you didn't count for the possibility of failure, why even roll?

A d20 works admirably, as long as you only roll when it's important to defer the outcome to the dice.

Feel free to not roll every time you "should" succeed, when success doesn't add anything, and failure just kills the drama. It's okay to not roll in those cases. It's okay to replace "no" with "yes but..." in those cases.

But don't touch my d20.

When I do roll I want my hero to have a good shot at success, even if my skill bonus is low. And 3d6 just doesn't deliver that.

 

[Mercule]

I've been using it wrong, I've been using max-min as basically optimizing your weaknesses. Get as much meaningful weaknesses as you can while still remaining viable, while you are at it, maximize you dump stats that you won't use anyway so they eat-away resources.

Keep in mind, this is me remembering terms used by one guy 20ish years ago -- and the guy was already a grognard, at that time. I wouldn't get too concerned about "proper use".