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<blockquote data-quote="Snoweel" data-source="post: 5074180" data-attributes="member: 4453">I think he means the idea that every adventuring party contains only characters that are absolute paragons of one of the 6 ability scores is a verisimilitude-shattering coincidence.I agree, however just like how 4e has redefined the relative power of character levels (i.e. a level is no longer as powerful as it was in previous editions) it has also redefined an 18 in an ability score as the human maximum (though 3e already did this with ability score increases every 4 levels).This is further reinforced by 4e's decoupling of NPCs from PC generation mechanics - if I wanted a human NPC who was 'the strongest man in the kingdom' - an absolute hulking freak who can barely straighten his arms - I could just give him a 25 STR (and maybe a 6 DEX) despite only making him 'low heroic tier' (roughly level 1-4) in power.I think a lot of the criticism of 4e comes from the long-held baggage of assumptions carried over from previous editions; assumptions that don't necessarily apply to the new edition.Sure the standard array (16, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10) leads to just about every character having an 18 in an ability score but an 18 in 4e doesn't necessarily mean what it did in 2e (where a score of 18(00) was effectively a score of 23).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Snoweel, post: 5074180, member: 4453"] I think he means the idea that every adventuring party contains only characters that are absolute paragons of one of the 6 ability scores is a verisimilitude-shattering coincidence. I agree, however just like how 4e has redefined the relative power of character levels (i.e. a level is no longer as powerful as it was in previous editions) it has also redefined an 18 in an ability score as the human maximum (though 3e already did this with ability score increases every 4 levels). This is further reinforced by 4e's decoupling of NPCs from PC generation mechanics - if I wanted a human NPC who was 'the strongest man in the kingdom' - an absolute hulking freak who can barely straighten his arms - I could just give him a 25 STR (and maybe a 6 DEX) despite only making him 'low heroic tier' (roughly level 1-4) in power. I think a lot of the criticism of 4e comes from the long-held baggage of assumptions carried over from previous editions; assumptions that don't necessarily apply to the new edition. Sure the standard array (16, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10) leads to just about every character having an 18 in an ability score but an 18 in 4e doesn't necessarily mean what it did in 2e (where a score of 18(00) was effectively a score of 23). [/QUOTE]

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