Optimized standard array is the baseline on which the game math was built. And a point's difference is not "5% more sucky". recall that the game math is already assuming a failure rate of 35%, even for characters who hit all the right notes and build "correctly".
Horse poopy. The game math assumes a 35% failure rate if you optimize, yes. But....
OPTIMIZED =/= BASELINE
You May have a 35% failure rate when optimized, but the game actually has an expected failure rate of 35%-45% with an average of 40% being expected.
They way you're born impacts your character. The way you're raised impacts your character. And the way you're trained impacts your character. Not "the way you're born is the only thing that ever matters, period and forever, and if you ever go against your species norms you're bad at D&D and should quit the game now, please".
Horse poopy. If that is all D&D counted then it wouldn’t need levels 2-20. Come on Yurei, you can do better than that weak sauce argument, I believe in you.
Everyone is losing their god damned minds over the thought of a half-orc that starts with 16 Intelligence instead of 15, or a goliath with a +1 Strength instead of a +2, when all it takes for any of that to roll right out the heckin' window is somebody rolling for stats and scoring a Heroic array.
There’s a real simple answer for that. Roll your gorram stats.
Everyone is losing their god damned minds over the thought of a half-orc that starts with 16 Intelligence instead of 15, or a goliath with a +1 Strength instead of a +2, when all it takes for any of that to roll right out the heckin' window is somebody rolling for stats and scoring a Heroic array.
There’s a real simple answer for that. Roll your gorram stats.
There is a legitimate point here: rolling for stats is way more likely to produce an overpowered or underpowered character than a +1 racial bonus. Of course, there's a reason I don't roll for stats; it's because it's too likely to produce a Star or a Gump.
Everyone is losing their god damned minds over the thought of a half-orc that starts with 16 Intelligence instead of 15, or a goliath with a +1 Strength instead of a +2, when all it takes for any of that to roll right out the heckin' window is somebody rolling for stats and scoring a Heroic array.
There’s a real simple answer for that. Roll your gorram stats.
There is a legitimate point here: rolling for stats is way more likely to produce an overpowered or underpowered character than a +1 racial bonus. Of course, there's a reason I don't roll for stats; it's because it's too likely to produce a Star or a Gump.
So you roll a low stat character. So what? The DM’s job is to help make everyone feel like a Star. Trust the DM to do their job. And if you cannot, switch groups.
Maybe I'm stupid for jumping down this rabbit hole and posting here, but I have an anecdote to share.
My school was starting a D&D club and I volunteered to help new players learn the rules and make characters. There was one person who showed about who knew literally nothing about D&D. I don't even know if they knew what it stood for when they went to the club. However, they caught on pretty quick and we moved on to making characters. As I went through each class and described it, they latched onto the idea of playing a Ranger. I think they just liked the description of it, because they were very inexperienced about mechanics. They also wanted to play a Dwarf for their race/species. When we went to assign ability scores and bonuses, they noticed that the wizard next to them had the same dexterity that they had. (They were playing a High Elf wizard.) They said that that was kinda annoying, because their character was meant to have a high dexterity, yet the person next to them had the same number. They also didn't really want the strength bonus, because their character wouldn't use strength for much of anything. The next week we played a one shot together, and they had a lot of fun. However, they were still annoyed that even if their dwarf had spent their entire life training and using bows, the elf would have the exact same dexterity.
I think that a rule that allows you to assign bonuses would allow players like this to be more satisfied with their D&D experience.
And there are plenty of singers in the world who train all their lives and never have perfect voices. There are plenty of dancers who are lucky to manage anything outside of a strip club. Training does not compensate for everything.... and that is just within the human race. Plus if they are archery specialized, with hunter or monster slayer, the dex difference is almost certainly more than offset.
The biggest problem is 'I am supposed to have a high dex' is being used as 'I am supposed to have the highest dex.'
Also, the variant rule wouldn’t necessarily change the outcome. People give wizards high dex to make up for not having any armor. Even with the ability to shift around bonuses the same person could end up putting more into dex than int because 17 provides no additional bonus than 16, so if using point buy give 15 int +1 to get to 16 and 14 dex +2 to get to 16. More survivable to get to level 4 and use the ASI. In this specific case the ability to move the bonus might have given them a higher dex, but that wouldn’t always be the case. Besides, if stats were the problem, why not take hill dwarf instead of mountain? Then they would have had dwarven toughness and still been a dwarf.
Everyone is losing their god damned minds over the thought of a half-orc that starts with 16 Intelligence instead of 15, or a goliath with a +1 Strength instead of a +2, when all it takes for any of that to roll right out the heckin' window is somebody rolling for stats and scoring a Heroic array.
There’s a real simple answer for that. Roll your gorram stats.
There is a legitimate point here: rolling for stats is way more likely to produce an overpowered or underpowered character than a +1 racial bonus. Of course, there's a reason I don't roll for stats; it's because it's too likely to produce a Star or a Gump.
So you roll a low stat character. So what? The DM’s job is to help make everyone feel like a Star. Trust the DM to do their job. And if you cannot, switch groups.
also, It shows the genetic variation that Y'all are talking about. Some gnome may roll an 18 and put it in strength, but the average gnome wont be any stronger than usual.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Everyone is losing their god damned minds over the thought of a half-orc that starts with 16 Intelligence instead of 15, or a goliath with a +1 Strength instead of a +2, when all it takes for any of that to roll right out the heckin' window is somebody rolling for stats and scoring a Heroic array.
There’s a real simple answer for that. Roll your gorram stats.
There is a legitimate point here: rolling for stats is way more likely to produce an overpowered or underpowered character than a +1 racial bonus. Of course, there's a reason I don't roll for stats; it's because it's too likely to produce a Star or a Gump.
So you roll a low stat character. So what? The DM’s job is to help make everyone feel like a Star. Trust the DM to do their job. And if you cannot, switch groups.
also, It shows the genetic variation that Y'all are talking about. Some gnome may roll an 18 and put it in strength, but the average gnome wont be any stronger than usual.
“DING DING DING!!! Gutter, tell her what she’s won!” --Dross (PCU)
I've read a lot of posts here, not the entire thread of course, but the main idea I'm seeing is that people somehow think that a +2 and a +1 to some abilities are what make all races unique. Well I guess if that floats some people's boats, then sure. Let that +2 define your race instead of the DM's world building and your own ability to roleplay as your character.
A floating stat boost that isn't tied to race isn't going to break anything because it's not like the other racial features are that powerful to begin with. Except Magic Resistance. Not sure what Wizards was thinking with on that one. But hey! If you don't like the features, don't use them at your table. Problem solved. Not really a big deal with D&D just lets you ignore a lot of things you don't want to use.
Honestly the main thing I want fixed out of races is that a Dragonborn's Breath Weapon should be a little more powerful but that'll never happen.
So I'd written up a much longer post than this one's gonna be, getting deep into the weeds detailing how stats worked for the character I run in our group's current longest-running game. But half of it was character braggadocio nobody cares about it and the other half was just anger. Managed to save y'all that. Instead, let me just say this.
I've got this character. She's a tiefling, but her Intelligence is significantly higher than her Charisma and has been since I made her. She doesn't look much like a tiefling, either (and before somebody gets on my case, I personally commissioned and paid for that piece, so I can use it freely and publicly as character art). She's an artificer, not a warlock or a bard. She wasn't raised by other tieflings; she was instead raised by a tabaxi merchant clan. She also started the game with a magic item, that being her prosthetic right arm.
According to most of the prevailing logic in this thread, this character of mine should be deleted with extreme prejudice. She's just not a proper tiefling. She's super pale and human-colored instead of cherry red. She's not a Charisma caster. She's book-smarter than she is cunning and deceptive. She's not haunted by devilish whispers in her blood, and up until the very last session I played with her, nobody's really batted an eye at her for having horns and a tail (which she's constantly teased about for being 'thicc') and eerie orange-red eyes. Nothing about her or how I play her screams "TIEFLING HERE!", which must by necessity mean she's just a human in a tiefling-shaped wrapper and I should be absolutely ashamed of myself for daring to despoil her birth species with my shitty roleplaying and awful character stories, ne? There's just absolutely no way a DM could possibly do anything with this horrible mess of a character; she should be flushed and replaced with either a proper Fiendlock or a proper gnomish tinkerer right myeow.
There's just, y'know...no way her ancestry just became critically important and a major plot point in the entire Curse of the Dark story the DM's telling. No DM could ever manage to build towards tension with her adoptive sister, putting me and the player behind the tabaxi monk into the position of figuring out what these revelations mean for their relationship and how this will impact Star's place in the Driving Rains clan. It's just not heckin' possible that the DM used a random detail of her artwork I decided on because I just liked how it looked - that being her unnaturally pale skin - to hit me with a twist that left me almost literally gasping for air and had the rest of the table whispering "ooooooooh" like a bunch of excited schoolkids who'd just heard the juiciest gossip.
Man. I'm really glad this thread was here to tell me how wrong I was about how to D&D, so I didn't get to enjoy the absolute heckin' Matthew Mercer mic drop moment that was finding out who Star's birth father was. I'll make sure to color inside the lines with my next character so the DM can properly tell the story of how Lego Lass the elven archer secretly thinks humans are actually mostly all right but wishes we'd stop getting between her and her bishie half-elven Forbidden Love with our annoying need to Save The World and shyte.
Everyone is losing their god damned minds over the thought of a half-orc that starts with 16 Intelligence instead of 15, or a goliath with a +1 Strength instead of a +2, when all it takes for any of that to roll right out the heckin' window is somebody rolling for stats and scoring a Heroic array.
There’s a real simple answer for that. Roll your gorram stats.
No, I reject that. Rolling is not a good system for my tables, this will (based on hope) be.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
So you roll a low stat character. So what? The DM’s job is to help make everyone feel like a Star. Trust the DM to do their job. And if you cannot, switch groups.
The point of a game system is to make things easier for the game master and players. That means not dumping responsibility on the GM when the system can take care of it. Sure, as a DM I can even things out, but that's effort I'd rather spend on things like a good story.
Everyone is losing their god damned minds over the thought of a half-orc that starts with 16 Intelligence instead of 15, or a goliath with a +1 Strength instead of a +2, when all it takes for any of that to roll right out the heckin' window is somebody rolling for stats and scoring a Heroic array.
There’s a real simple answer for that. Roll your gorram stats.
No, I reject that. Rolling is not a good system for my tables, this will (based on hope) be.
What’s so wrong about rolling for stats? I’ve been rolling stats since the early ‘90s and it’s never been a problem.
So you roll a low stat character. So what? The DM’s job is to help make everyone feel like a Star. Trust the DM to do their job. And if you cannot, switch groups.
The point of a game system is to make things easier for the game master and players. That means not dumping responsibility on the GM when the system can take care of it. Sure, as a DM I can even things out, but that's effort I'd rather spend on things like a good story.
Then you are unprepared for the responsibility of DMing and need a crutch.
The DM’s job is to curate an experience for their players. That means wearing many hats, including a Game Designer’s hat sometimes. Thems just the breaks.
What’s so wrong about rolling for stats? I’ve been rolling stats since the early ‘90s and it’s never been a problem.
Mainly, because it's random. I like the idea of it, and have used it in many games, but I don't use it anymore because my core principle for character generation in D&D is that you should be able to choose who you play. When you roll for stats, you don't choose, you roll.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Only so many hours in a day, Sposta. I have to spend half of them doing my get-paid-so-I-can-eat job, and I like spending at least some of them playing games, reading stories, or chatting with folks. Every hour a DM spends on fixing their game to somehow work such that someone who rolled a 45-point array can contribute to the same degree as someont who rolled an 87-point array is an hour they don't get to spend working on some other aspect of game preparation.
Our table started with rolled stats. We moved to the custom 77HiLo system demonstrated on Star up there. We've since moved from that to Enhanced Progression SA. Each move because it makes the DM's job easier. DMing is difficult and obnoxious enough as it is; players do not need to make it more so by having wildly disparate arrays.
What’s so wrong about rolling for stats? I’ve been rolling stats since the early ‘90s and it’s never been a problem.
Mainly, because it's random. I like the idea of it, and have used it in many games, but I don't use it anymore because my core principle for character generation in D&D is that you should be able to choose who you play. When you roll for stats, you don't choose, you roll.
Then it sounds to me that you might prefer a point-buy game. WotC shouldn’t have to change D&D to suit people who would prefer a different game, that’s why there are different games.
What’s so wrong about rolling for stats? I’ve been rolling stats since the early ‘90s and it’s never been a problem.
Mainly, because it's random. I like the idea of it, and have used it in many games, but I don't use it anymore because my core principle for character generation in D&D is that you should be able to choose who you play. When you roll for stats, you don't choose, you roll.
Then it sounds to me that you might prefer a point-buy game. WotC shouldn’t have to change D&D to suit people who would prefer a different game, that’s why there are different games.
I didn't say D&D had to change, or that no one is allowed to roll for stats anymore. I understand people like playing different ways, and I like that the game has options for that/want more options for that (which has been my stance for this whole thread).
I personally use Point Buy or Standard Array for stats, and that's the rule at my table. I will in no way try to force anyone to use these 2 systems, and as a player, I make absolutely no fuss about it if the DM says to roll for stats, because I'm not a jerk.
Come on, Sposta. I thought you knew me better than that. Only a jerk would force a way of play on another person, I'm not that kind of guy.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Only so many hours in a day, Sposta. I have to spend half of them doing my get-paid-so-I-can-eat job, and I like spending at least some of them playing games, reading stories, or chatting with folks. Every hour a DM spends on fixing their game to somehow work such that someone who rolled a 45-point array can contribute to the same degree as someont who rolled an 87-point array is an hour they don't get to spend working on some other aspect of game preparation.
Our table started with rolled stats. We moved to the custom 77HiLo system demonstrated on Star up there. We've since moved from that to Enhanced Progression SA. Each move because it makes the DM's job easier. DMing is difficult and obnoxious enough as it is; players do not need to make it more so by having wildly disparate arrays.
IMO, doing whatever is necessary to curate a meaningful experience for the other Players is my responsibility as a DM. Sometimes that means giving a weaker PC a super magic item to compensate. One of my players rolled poorly and had a Barbarian with a 10 in each Str and Dex. (They put their stats where they wanted, and stuck their 18 in Con) I gave them a magic Greatsword that does 3d6, and *poof* insta balances. 🤷♂️ Took longer to program into DDB than it did to invent, and the whole job took less than 10 minutes. I knew the job when I signed on, and so did you my friend.
Horse poopy. The game math assumes a 35% failure rate if you optimize, yes. But....
OPTIMIZED =/= BASELINE
You May have a 35% failure rate when optimized, but the game actually has an expected failure rate of 35%-45% with an average of 40% being expected.
Horse poopy. If that is all D&D counted then it wouldn’t need levels 2-20. Come on Yurei, you can do better than that weak sauce argument, I believe in you.
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There’s a real simple answer for that. Roll your gorram stats.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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There is a legitimate point here: rolling for stats is way more likely to produce an overpowered or underpowered character than a +1 racial bonus. Of course, there's a reason I don't roll for stats; it's because it's too likely to produce a Star or a Gump.
So you roll a low stat character. So what? The DM’s job is to help make everyone feel like a Star. Trust the DM to do their job. And if you cannot, switch groups.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Also, the variant rule wouldn’t necessarily change the outcome. People give wizards high dex to make up for not having any armor. Even with the ability to shift around bonuses the same person could end up putting more into dex than int because 17 provides no additional bonus than 16, so if using point buy give 15 int +1 to get to 16 and 14 dex +2 to get to 16. More survivable to get to level 4 and use the ASI. In this specific case the ability to move the bonus might have given them a higher dex, but that wouldn’t always be the case. Besides, if stats were the problem, why not take hill dwarf instead of mountain? Then they would have had dwarven toughness and still been a dwarf.
also, It shows the genetic variation that Y'all are talking about. Some gnome may roll an 18 and put it in strength, but the average gnome wont be any stronger than usual.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
“DING DING DING!!! Gutter, tell her what she’s won!”
--Dross (PCU)
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I've read a lot of posts here, not the entire thread of course, but the main idea I'm seeing is that people somehow think that a +2 and a +1 to some abilities are what make all races unique. Well I guess if that floats some people's boats, then sure. Let that +2 define your race instead of the DM's world building and your own ability to roleplay as your character.
A floating stat boost that isn't tied to race isn't going to break anything because it's not like the other racial features are that powerful to begin with. Except Magic Resistance. Not sure what Wizards was thinking with on that one. But hey! If you don't like the features, don't use them at your table. Problem solved. Not really a big deal with D&D just lets you ignore a lot of things you don't want to use.
Honestly the main thing I want fixed out of races is that a Dragonborn's Breath Weapon should be a little more powerful but that'll never happen.
Oh, Yurei. Amazing post. I'm not gonna quote it, because it is way too big, but you nailed it. Great post.
Yeah, basically, what Yurei said. If it doesn't cause problems for you, stop whining.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
So I'd written up a much longer post than this one's gonna be, getting deep into the weeds detailing how stats worked for the character I run in our group's current longest-running game. But half of it was character braggadocio nobody cares about it and the other half was just anger. Managed to save y'all that. Instead, let me just say this.
I've got this character. She's a tiefling, but her Intelligence is significantly higher than her Charisma and has been since I made her. She doesn't look much like a tiefling, either (and before somebody gets on my case, I personally commissioned and paid for that piece, so I can use it freely and publicly as character art). She's an artificer, not a warlock or a bard. She wasn't raised by other tieflings; she was instead raised by a tabaxi merchant clan. She also started the game with a magic item, that being her prosthetic right arm.
According to most of the prevailing logic in this thread, this character of mine should be deleted with extreme prejudice. She's just not a proper tiefling. She's super pale and human-colored instead of cherry red. She's not a Charisma caster. She's book-smarter than she is cunning and deceptive. She's not haunted by devilish whispers in her blood, and up until the very last session I played with her, nobody's really batted an eye at her for having horns and a tail (which she's constantly teased about for being 'thicc') and eerie orange-red eyes. Nothing about her or how I play her screams "TIEFLING HERE!", which must by necessity mean she's just a human in a tiefling-shaped wrapper and I should be absolutely ashamed of myself for daring to despoil her birth species with my shitty roleplaying and awful character stories, ne? There's just absolutely no way a DM could possibly do anything with this horrible mess of a character; she should be flushed and replaced with either a proper Fiendlock or a proper gnomish tinkerer right myeow.
There's just, y'know...no way her ancestry just became critically important and a major plot point in the entire Curse of the Dark story the DM's telling. No DM could ever manage to build towards tension with her adoptive sister, putting me and the player behind the tabaxi monk into the position of figuring out what these revelations mean for their relationship and how this will impact Star's place in the Driving Rains clan. It's just not heckin' possible that the DM used a random detail of her artwork I decided on because I just liked how it looked - that being her unnaturally pale skin - to hit me with a twist that left me almost literally gasping for air and had the rest of the table whispering "ooooooooh" like a bunch of excited schoolkids who'd just heard the juiciest gossip.
Man. I'm really glad this thread was here to tell me how wrong I was about how to D&D, so I didn't get to enjoy the absolute heckin' Matthew Mercer mic drop moment that was finding out who Star's birth father was. I'll make sure to color inside the lines with my next character so the DM can properly tell the story of how Lego Lass the elven archer secretly thinks humans are actually mostly all right but wishes we'd stop getting between her and her bishie half-elven Forbidden Love with our annoying need to Save The World and shyte.
Thanks, DDB Forum Userbase!
Please do not contact or message me.
No, I reject that. Rolling is not a good system for my tables, this will (based on hope) be.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
The point of a game system is to make things easier for the game master and players. That means not dumping responsibility on the GM when the system can take care of it. Sure, as a DM I can even things out, but that's effort I'd rather spend on things like a good story.
What’s so wrong about rolling for stats? I’ve been rolling stats since the early ‘90s and it’s never been a problem.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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Then you are unprepared for the responsibility of DMing and need a crutch.
The DM’s job is to curate an experience for their players. That means wearing many hats, including a Game Designer’s hat sometimes. Thems just the breaks.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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Hardcovers, DDB & You
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Mainly, because it's random. I like the idea of it, and have used it in many games, but I don't use it anymore because my core principle for character generation in D&D is that you should be able to choose who you play. When you roll for stats, you don't choose, you roll.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Horse poopy. Nobody has said that. Not once. Play your Tiefling however you like. You’re the one who’s saying anything sub-optimized is garbage.
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Only so many hours in a day, Sposta. I have to spend half of them doing my get-paid-so-I-can-eat job, and I like spending at least some of them playing games, reading stories, or chatting with folks. Every hour a DM spends on fixing their game to somehow work such that someone who rolled a 45-point array can contribute to the same degree as someont who rolled an 87-point array is an hour they don't get to spend working on some other aspect of game preparation.
Our table started with rolled stats. We moved to the custom 77HiLo system demonstrated on Star up there. We've since moved from that to Enhanced Progression SA. Each move because it makes the DM's job easier. DMing is difficult and obnoxious enough as it is; players do not need to make it more so by having wildly disparate arrays.
Please do not contact or message me.
Then it sounds to me that you might prefer a point-buy game. WotC shouldn’t have to change D&D to suit people who would prefer a different game, that’s why there are different games.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I didn't say D&D had to change, or that no one is allowed to roll for stats anymore. I understand people like playing different ways, and I like that the game has options for that/want more options for that (which has been my stance for this whole thread).
I personally use Point Buy or Standard Array for stats, and that's the rule at my table. I will in no way try to force anyone to use these 2 systems, and as a player, I make absolutely no fuss about it if the DM says to roll for stats, because I'm not a jerk.
Come on, Sposta. I thought you knew me better than that. Only a jerk would force a way of play on another person, I'm not that kind of guy.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
IMO, doing whatever is necessary to curate a meaningful experience for the other Players is my responsibility as a DM. Sometimes that means giving a weaker PC a super magic item to compensate. One of my players rolled poorly and had a Barbarian with a 10 in each Str and Dex. (They put their stats where they wanted, and stuck their 18 in Con) I gave them a magic Greatsword that does 3d6, and *poof* insta balances. 🤷♂️ Took longer to program into DDB than it did to invent, and the whole job took less than 10 minutes. I knew the job when I signed on, and so did you my friend.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting