D&D General You Were Rolling Up a New Character, and Just Rolled a 3. What Is Your Reaction?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

A wizard with 2 hp + 1 per level. Who should never get hit.

I think con should not be a stat anymore. Or at least not influence total hp. There are no skills attached to it. Maybe it should affect starting hp and recovery. Not HP each level.

Maybe I will try at some point:
HP = max hd * level + con modifier only at level 1.

Level 1 will still be hard for a wizard, but at later levels, it will be ok. Although recovering hit points with short rests will be hard.

Draw Steel got rid of Constitution, for example. It has only Might, Agility, Reason, Intuition and Presence.

4E had Endurance and 3E had Concentration as Constitution skills, I think that was it.
4E used Constitution for some classes (Warlock for example), however. (I think 3E did for some of the Psionic Classes or powers, IIRC?)

 

[Clint_L]

If there isn't, there 100% should be...or at least an extremely strong suggestion.

And IMO the role-playing needs to suggest the bolded.

To add context, I wrote, "Also, plenty of dumb people think they’re smart, bores think they’re charismatic, wimps think they’re tough, fools think they’re wise, and so on. The rolls will be what the rolls will be."

Let me build on that: I don't think policing whether players are properly RPing according to their ability scores is a good idea, but I also think that, with the type of extremely low scores this thread is about, the scores police themselves.

Let's imagine a player who decides to play their barbarian, Int. 3, like they're Sherlock Holmes. Every time they roll an investigation check, they are going to fail. There will be a massive disjunction between what they are saying and what their character is actually doing, and they will know it and so will everyone else at the table.

Sherlock the Barbarian: "This lock can probably only be opened by solving this series of cleverly interlocking tiles. I'm on it!"

Watson the Wizard: "You bet, Sherlock. Ummm...let me just "assist" you a bit with that..." [Both players roll. Sherlock rolls a -2, Watson rolls an 18].

Party: "Way to go, Sherlock! You've done it again!"

Everyone knows what just happened. All laugh. "Oh, that Sherlock!"

 

[ECMO3]

Looks like I have a 3 Intelligence .... unless I am a Wizard and then it is a 3 Charisma.

 

[Lanefan]

Sportsmanship? Seriously? It's not sportsmanlike to play a character the way you think they should be played?

Seems like you have it backwards.

The ability scores are convenient game numbers that don't accurately reflect anything about how humans really are (example: according to ability scores, a human can be stronger than an adult male gorilla, or dumb as a cow or a dog but still be an adventurer with multiple languages, social functioning, and a complicated skill set).

It's a flaw in the rules that allows very-low-Intelligence characters to know three languages when in reality they would barely know one.

If you're not willing to roleplay a dumb or clumsy or weak character then don't put the low roll there.

Also, keep in mind we're talking about the extreme-outlier ends of the bell curve here. Further, 3-4-5e with their linear bonus structure suggest a far greater practical difference between a 8 and a 14 in any stat than do the IMO much more reasonable 1-2e setups where the bonus is j-curved at each end to better match the bell curve and has a big +0 region in the middle.

 

[Lanefan]

To add I context, I wrote, "Also, plenty of dumb people think they’re smart, bores think they’re charismatic, wimps think they’re tough, fools think they’re wise, and so on. The rolls will be what the rolls will be."

Let me build on that: I don't think policing whether players are properly RPing according to their ability scores is a good idea, but I also think that, with the type of extremely low scores this thread is about, the scores police themselves.

Let's imagine a player who decides to play their barbarian, Int. 3, like they're Sherlock Holmes. Every time they roll an investigation check, they are going to fail. There will be a massive disjunction between what they are saying and what their character is actually doing, and they will know it and so will everyone else at the table.

Sherlock the Barbarian: "This lock can probably only be opened by solving this series of cleverly interlocking tiles. I'm on it!"

Watson the Wizard: "You bet, Sherlock. Ummm...let me just "assist" you a bit with that..." [Both players roll. Sherlock rolls a -2, Watson rolls an 18].

Nitpick perhaps, but if Watson is assisting Sherlock doesn't that merely give Sherlock a small bonus on his roll rather than giving Watson a roll of his own?

Also, your point is valid if-when things are decided mostly by rolls. In a less-structured setup where things are more driven by actual roleplay (i.e. most social situations, planning and tactics, and some exploration) then the dice can't cover this off nearly so well.

Party: "Way to go, Sherlock! You've done it again!"

Everyone knows what just happened. All laugh. "Oh, that Sherlock!"

Sure, and that works in this case as an ongoing amusement piece.

 

[Clint_L]

Nitpick perhaps, but if Watson is assisting Sherlock doesn't that merely give Sherlock a small bonus on his roll rather than giving Watson a roll of his own?

It would give him advantage, except the other option is that both players attempt the roll separately, and that's what Watson is doing here, but calling it an "assist." Because everyone knows Sherlock is dumb.

Also, your point is valid if-when things are decided mostly by rolls. In a less-structured setup where things are more driven by actual roleplay (i.e. most social situations, planning and tactics, and some exploration) then the dice can't cover this off nearly so well.

Yeah, and that's where I don't like forcing players to RP to the arbitrary concepts loosely represented by attribute scores. What it can mean is players or the DM policing each other's RP choices and contributions to strategy, etc.

I run a weekly game with teenagers, 13-17, mostly novices. I think it's wonderful when they RP even a little, and I am not going to quash their choices (well, unless they violate our session 0 agreements, but that's a different thing). My home game has different levels of experience, but IMO any RP is good RP, again as long as it is within our agreed upon boundaries. If a player wants to play their character as kind of dumb (the atribute that mostly gets RPed) then that's awesome. But I'm not gonna enforce it (though, full disclosure, I love playing my Int. 8 monk as kinda clueless).

IRL, intelligence is not a single thing. All folks are brilliant at some things and hopeless at others. An Int. 3 character is still a functional, highly skilled person, per the rules, so obviously a 3 is not meant to represent someone incapable of being an adventurer. Instead, it represents their facility with specific D&D functions, like casting spells or (in the case of 5e) Investigation checks and the like. Maybe they're a math savant as well (c.f. The Hangover) - that would be fine with me. I would never tell a player "No, you can't play your character that way" because of some arbitrary numbers.

The rules already take care of what happens in the cases where the attribute is meaningful in a game sense. A character with Int. 3 is not going to make a viable wizard or investigator. But they can act like they are all they want.