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Wow, do I hate rolling for stats!
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<blockquote data-quote="Nifft" data-source="post: 5390505" data-attributes="member: 6562"><p>They certainly do work -- for the casino.</p><p></p><p>The difference between the stats of two PCs is the difference between two different zero-sum <strong>combat</strong> games. The PC with lower stats gets hit more often (lower defenses), has fewer HP, and his fight takes longer to win because he hits less often and deals less damage when he hits.</p><p></p><p>In 3.x, it's worse than that, because of the geometric nature of power by level. If your Con is 4 lower than mine at 1st level, that's only +2 HP difference. By 20th level, it's a difference of +40 HP. Now, that +2 HP is nothing to sneeze at because you have them for every single fight, but the +40 HP is staggering.</p><p></p><p>Same deal with 3.x spells. Sure, +1 to attacks and +1 (or +1.5) damage is nice, but the real power of higher stats is more high-level spell slots each of which has a higher save DC (so you're at least +2 more likely to "hit", and your spell deals more damage or imposes a worse condition than a lower-level spell could... AND you get to keep the lower-level spell just in case this one didn't work).</p><p></p><p> I think you're saying that if a player has such a poor attention span that he can't recall how well a fight has gone so far, then the effect of a +1 bonus tends to be lost on him. If you're saying something else, you should re-phrase, because your scenario is irrelevant to any game I've seen.</p><p></p><p>The players aren't outside observers with anterograde amnesia. They get to watch everyone's history of success and failure play out. They can see that one guy hits on a 9 and the other guy misses on a 10.</p><p></p><p> In my experience, players are aware of the effect of their exact bonuses 10% of the time: when they hit by one, and when they miss by one.</p><p></p><p>Here's a trick: never tell your players the AC of a monster, and see how long it takes them to figure it out amongst themselves. In my experience, it's about 2-3 rounds of attacks before they've got it. (This is a mini-game one of my players enjoys, so I got to observe this process.)</p><p></p><p>That's the exact same information as would be required to know who is <strong>better</strong> than whom. So you've got 2-3 rounds of "statistical equality" in life before reality sets in and everyone knows how much you suck.</p><p></p><p>Cheers, -- N</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Nifft, post: 5390505, member: 6562"] They certainly do work -- for the casino. The difference between the stats of two PCs is the difference between two different zero-sum [B]combat[/B] games. The PC with lower stats gets hit more often (lower defenses), has fewer HP, and his fight takes longer to win because he hits less often and deals less damage when he hits. In 3.x, it's worse than that, because of the geometric nature of power by level. If your Con is 4 lower than mine at 1st level, that's only +2 HP difference. By 20th level, it's a difference of +40 HP. Now, that +2 HP is nothing to sneeze at because you have them for every single fight, but the +40 HP is staggering. Same deal with 3.x spells. Sure, +1 to attacks and +1 (or +1.5) damage is nice, but the real power of higher stats is more high-level spell slots each of which has a higher save DC (so you're at least +2 more likely to "hit", and your spell deals more damage or imposes a worse condition than a lower-level spell could... AND you get to keep the lower-level spell just in case this one didn't work). I think you're saying that if a player has such a poor attention span that he can't recall how well a fight has gone so far, then the effect of a +1 bonus tends to be lost on him. If you're saying something else, you should re-phrase, because your scenario is irrelevant to any game I've seen. The players aren't outside observers with anterograde amnesia. They get to watch everyone's history of success and failure play out. They can see that one guy hits on a 9 and the other guy misses on a 10. In my experience, players are aware of the effect of their exact bonuses 10% of the time: when they hit by one, and when they miss by one. Here's a trick: never tell your players the AC of a monster, and see how long it takes them to figure it out amongst themselves. In my experience, it's about 2-3 rounds of attacks before they've got it. (This is a mini-game one of my players enjoys, so I got to observe this process.) That's the exact same information as would be required to know who is [b]better[/b] than whom. So you've got 2-3 rounds of "statistical equality" in life before reality sets in and everyone knows how much you suck. Cheers, -- N [/QUOTE]
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