What is the standard ability score set? Are most games playing too high?

[Thurbane]

We always roll - never use a point buy or array system (except for minor NPCs)...

 

[Doug McCrae]

If you are wielding a light mace, and your strength is 3, your damage is going to be 1d4-4. You cannot kill anything. You can heroically beat monsters about the head and shoulders all day long. It doesn't matter. You can't hurt anything.

Penalties can't reduce damage below 1. PHB page 134.

 

[oracleofbargth]

When I DM, the only time I use point buy is for online games, where not everyone is in the same room to roll stats.

In other games, my group always rolls 4d6. I can never roll a high set of stats to save a character's life, though. (I even tried using weighted dice, still couldn't get above a 12. My dice are cursed.)

Even my attack rolls rarely get above a 5. Makes combat comical, though. I get to describe fumbles in excruciating detail.

 

[molonel]

Penalties can't reduce damage below 1. PHB page 134.

Then allow me to rephrase my point:

If you are wielding a light mace, and your strength is 3, your damage is going to be 1d4-4. You cannot kill anything unless it is willing to stand there while chip away at it 1 hit point at a time. You can heroically beat monsters about the head and shoulders all day long. It doesn't matter. If you consider that heroic combat, great. It doesn't sound that way to me.

Whether it's 0 points of damage, or 1 per hit, my main point remains unmolested.

 

[Hussar]

*snip*
Except for that part where they feel that stats make on heroic and I don't. I say the actions define heroic. A character with all 18's that does not is not heroic. A character with all 3's though that tries to save lies has a chance to be successful and a heroic. And that small chance is still greater then the all 18 guy that does nothing.

I just feel that a characters action define a heroic character more then a character's stats.

And, I can agree with that. I think we can all agree that actions make one heroic. However, the point of all of this has nothing to do with heroism. It has to with being effective. Now, a low point character isn't inneffective - he can still do things, I completely agree with Crothian about this. However, he is far less effective than the high point character.

So, yes, you can be heroic with low points, but, at the end of the day, who cares? You can be equally heroic with high stats. What you can't be with low stats is as effective as the high stat characters. And, at a certain point, you are totally inneffective, as Molonel has pointed out.

By kind I mean play style and campaign style. A DM can have simpler encounters knowing the PCs have lower stats. The DM can make sure that he's not asking the PC to do something that is impossible for them because of their stats.

Which gets back to the point I made earlier that the DM is basically fudging to make the low stat character effective. In other words, change the goalposts to the point where the low stat character is as equally effective as the high stat character.

So, effectively, by changing the goalposts, you've created high stat characters to make them heroic.

Just because you might not see the distinction doesn't mean it is not there. Higher stats don't allow you to accomplish heroic actions. It's not like a DC 15 is a normal check and a DC 20 is all of a sudden heroic. Higher stats do increase the chances that some types of actions will be more successful.



There is were the good playing and planning comes in. The player finds a way to do something else and be heroic that the character can do. Not every character needs to be herioc in the same ways.

But, at some point, you cannot be heroic at all. In a campaign, as Emrikol has mentioned, that goes from 1st to 20th level, a 15 point character is screwed. Even with the best stat buffing gear out there, he won't have access to higher level spells, his save DC's will be crap and the fighter type's HP's will be in the basement. Never mind any class that suffers from MAD. It's bad enough to play a monk or paladin with 25 points, try it with 15 at about 13th level onward.

All the smart play in the world won't save you.

 

[Technik4]

But, at some point, you cannot be heroic at all. In a campaign, as Emrikol has mentioned, that goes from 1st to 20th level, a 15 point character is screwed. Even with the best stat buffing gear out there, he won't have access to higher level spells, his save DC's will be crap and the fighter type's HP's will be in the basement. Never mind any class that suffers from MAD. It's bad enough to play a monk or paladin with 25 points, try it with 15 at about 13th level onward.

All the smart play in the world won't save you.

But they'll sing songs about your character long after you've left the group for anything heroic you manage to do

 

[el-remmen]

Then allow me to rephrase my point:

If you are wielding a light mace, and your strength is 3, your damage is going to be 1d4-4. You cannot kill anything unless it is willing to stand there while chip away at it 1 hit point at a time. You can heroically beat monsters about the head and shoulders all day long. It doesn't matter. If you consider that heroic combat, great. It doesn't sound that way to me.

Whether it's 0 points of damage, or 1 per hit, my main point remains unmolested.

It is possible to be heroic and lose. It is possible to be heroic and never had a chance to succeed to begin with.

 

[hong]

It is possible to be heroic and lose.

You misspelled "loose". Hope this helps!


Hong "heroically loose - in bed" Ooi

 

[Fishbone]

I would like to play a game with no stat increases every 4 levels, 25 point buy, and stat increasing gear cost is doubled.
That is the only "low magic" I want.
Too much stat focus in the game nowadays.

 

[Piratecat]

It is possible to be heroic and lose. It is possible to be heroic and never had a chance to succeed to begin with.

You have just proven to me that heroic does not necessarily equal fun. I have no interest in playing an ineffective - or, perhaps, an undereffective character - for the long term. I do recognize that other people might, but I play D&D to pretend that I'm stronger than I actually am.