The totals are all over the place what do you mean?
For just the first 5:
62
67
66
80
71
So your lowest total score is 22 points lower than your highest and well below the 72 point "average"....that is a huge difference.
If you are saying this is a "balanced" party then I guess we will have to disagree. I think having appropriate challenges for this party would be difficult to not nuke the 62 while not making it to easy for the 80.
This only highlights why true rolling is bad anyway IMO.....
So it proves the first point I have: Rolling produces uneven parties.
Nobody disputes rolling can produce uneven parties. What I dispute is that this is a problem. A DM can nuke whoever they want regardless of stats anyway. A DM can favour challenges that play into the wheelhouse of characters with fewer strengths. Items can be provided to shore up egregious weaknesses. Tactics can be adjusted. I've never had any problems making every member of a party relevant regardless of disparate stats.
What these arrays also show is that rolling produces statlines that are both viable and significantly different from the standard array - which rebutts the "why roll if you are going to get the same numbers" argument.
But why make it harder by having a party with such a drastic difference in ability scores? Its not making anything easier and pretty much only has the potential of creating problems...
The benefits are......lol randomz? Not sure...
I'm not trying to pile on here, especially since you have another post where you're really trying to understand the perspective of those of us who like to roll for stats (thank you for that). But I wanted to say, I've been playing and DMing for close to 40 years, rolling for stats the whole the time, and I've never had party balance be an issue. It's actually a situation where the swinginess of the D20 comes to help, since the number on the die will typically overwhelm the bonus. In this edition for example, Maybe one person has a fighter with a +1 str modifier while the other has a +3. To me, the difference of a +2 isn't really going to be noticeable. (and when you factor in the proficiency bonus where both characters will have the same number, the percentage difference between the modifiers gets smaller, and shrinks with each tier). Certainly over time, the person with the +3 will hit more often. (Maybe 10 percent more often? I'm not a math person) but unless you're actually keeping track of it, it ends up getting spread out over dozens and dozens of rolls, to the point I don't think you'd really notice. Granted, maybe other people aren't as oblivious as I am to such things. And as a DM, it never really occurred to me to worry about scaling my encounters to the various stat arrays of the party. I assume some will be higher, others lower, and people will be doing lots of different things, so the edges will get smoothed out.
So while I certainly see the appeal of point buy/array, and there's absolutely a lot of very good reasons to use that system, I haven't found party balance to really be one of them.
Right on @Xalthu. If D&D used a dice pool instead of a d20, there would be no rolling stats, but because the d20 exists and is insanely swingy, a character with all 10s will be distinct from a character with all 12s a whopping...one in twenty rolls. That's not a big difference. The stats might look different on paper, but if you didn't have the paper, you could play those characters for dozens of sessions before realizing one was slightly better—if you did at all.
Right on @Xalthu. If D&D used a dice pool instead of a d20, there would be no rolling stats, but because the d20 exists and is insanely swingy, a character with all 10s will be distinct from a character with all 12s a whopping...one in twenty rolls. That's not a big difference.
Fewer, I believe, since rolls where the difference doesn't matter (because the margin of success or failure is too large) don't count.
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But I wanted to say, I've been playing and DMing for close to 40 years, rolling for stats the whole the time, and I've never had party balance be an issue. It's actually a situation where the swinginess of the D20 comes to help, since the number on the die will typically overwhelm the bonus.
It's most significant to stats that add to something other than d20 rolls. For a first level fighter, the difference between +4 to hit and +5 to hit is something like 8% in average damage output, and for 'save for half' effects the difference between DC 12 and DC 13 is around 3%. However, the difference between 1d8+4 and 1d8+5 is 13%, and the difference between Con 12 and Con 14 is typically a 15-20% increase in HP.
The totals are all over the place what do you mean?
For just the first 5:
62
67
66
80
71
So your lowest total score is 22 points lower than your highest and well below the 72 point "average"....that is a huge difference.
If you are saying this is a "balanced" party then I guess we will have to disagree. I think having appropriate challenges for this party would be difficult to not nuke the 62 while not making it to easy for the 80.
This only highlights why true rolling is bad anyway IMO.....
So it proves the first point I have: Rolling produces uneven parties.
Nobody disputes rolling can produce uneven parties. What I dispute is that this is a problem. A DM can nuke whoever they want regardless of stats anyway. A DM can favour challenges that play into the wheelhouse of characters with fewer strengths. Items can be provided to shore up egregious weaknesses. Tactics can be adjusted. I've never had any problems making every member of a party relevant regardless of disparate stats.
What these arrays also show is that rolling produces statlines that are both viable and significantly different from the standard array - which rebutts the "why roll if you are going to get the same numbers" argument.
But why make it harder by having a party with such a drastic difference in ability scores? Its not making anything easier and pretty much only has the potential of creating problems...
The benefits are......lol randomz? Not sure...
I'm not trying to pile on here, especially since you have another post where you're really trying to understand the perspective of those of us who like to roll for stats (thank you for that). But I wanted to say, I've been playing and DMing for close to 40 years, rolling for stats the whole the time, and I've never had party balance be an issue. It's actually a situation where the swinginess of the D20 comes to help, since the number on the die will typically overwhelm the bonus. In this edition for example, Maybe one person has a fighter with a +1 str modifier while the other has a +3. To me, the difference of a +2 isn't really going to be noticeable. (and when you factor in the proficiency bonus where both characters will have the same number, the percentage difference between the modifiers gets smaller, and shrinks with each tier). Certainly over time, the person with the +3 will hit more often. (Maybe 10 percent more often? I'm not a math person) but unless you're actually keeping track of it, it ends up getting spread out over dozens and dozens of rolls, to the point I don't think you'd really notice. Granted, maybe other people aren't as oblivious as I am to such things. And as a DM, it never really occurred to me to worry about scaling my encounters to the various stat arrays of the party. I assume some will be higher, others lower, and people will be doing lots of different things, so the edges will get smoothed out.
So while I certainly see the appeal of point buy/array, and there's absolutely a lot of very good reasons to use that system, I haven't found party balance to really be one of them.
And I appreciate you framing the discussion ahead of your thoughts! Good common curtesy here for all which I am trying to be better about.
I guess where I disagree is the +2 not having a big impact on balance in this particular system. In bounded accuracy (as I have been lead to believe at least) +2 is a huge increase to effectiveness. For example, a fighter's base attack bonus in Pathfinder scales from +1 at lvl 1, to +20 at lvl 20. In 5th edition the equivalent to base attack bonus is your proficiency bonus, which is +2 at lvl 1 and +6 at level 20, so it only scales up 4 in 20 levels.
So having one player having a +2 (in some of these examples its actually closer to a +3 or +4!) it is like comparing the growth between a level 1 and level 9 character....or worse if the gap is wider.
So you have a player who is hitting creatures that a level 9 character might find easy to hit in a party with a character who will struggle with creatures rated for a Level 1 party/player.
Granted several factors add in to this and you could have a mix and match of creatures in the game to match the appropriate levels for you players....but it does not take much to completely overwhelm that lower level character with a creature that would just merely challenge the higher ability character.
Can a DM arrange around this? Yes for sure. I am constantly amazed at what good DMs can do and handle in any given moments.
Can all DMs do this? No....not even close. I would not even say that the majority of DMs can handle this especially on the fly in combat where they might have to make some tough calls.
So is it a good method for building? It depends....for new players I think it is the single worst way to have them learn the game. in my opinion no as it is more of a niche use of building characters for when you want to challenge experienced players.
I am glad it exists for that reason as I do ultimately believe choices/options is the best call overall.
They are ******* ecstatic when they find a +3 weapon.
The game puts two rarity grades between those two numbers, which comes with two orders of magnitude in price increase. A +1 longsword is a 500gp object at most (by DMG pricing); a +3 longsword is a 50,000gp object instead.
Therefore, a case can be made that a fighter with 16 strength is worth 49,500gp more than a fighter with 12 strength, and that's purely from a combat perspective. People like to say that a 12-strength fighter or the 9-Intelligence orc wizard is not even the slightest bit bad, that "the gains you get elsewhere totally make up for your weaker stat!" or "you don't need a big number to be a good roleplayer!" They then proceed to do cartwheels of joy when they get an item whose only benefit is granting higher numbers.
Does that not strike people as a little weird? And ever-so-slightly hypocritical?
But I wanted to say, I've been playing and DMing for close to 40 years, rolling for stats the whole the time, and I've never had party balance be an issue. It's actually a situation where the swinginess of the D20 comes to help, since the number on the die will typically overwhelm the bonus.
It's most significant to stats that add to something other than d20 rolls. For a first level fighter, the difference between +4 to hit and +5 to hit is something like 8% in average damage output, and for 'save for half' effects the difference between DC 12 and DC 13 is around 3%. However, the difference between 1d8+4 and 1d8+5 is 13%, and the difference between Con 12 and Con 14 is typically a 15-20% increase in HP.
Good point. It's still not a big difference (compared to say, a point in the Star Wars RPG or Genesys system, which is massive) but it's a little bigger than I originally thought.
But I wanted to say, I've been playing and DMing for close to 40 years, rolling for stats the whole the time, and I've never had party balance be an issue. It's actually a situation where the swinginess of the D20 comes to help, since the number on the die will typically overwhelm the bonus.
It's most significant to stats that add to something other than d20 rolls. For a first level fighter, the difference between +4 to hit and +5 to hit is something like 8% in average damage output, and for 'save for half' effects the difference between DC 12 and DC 13 is around 3%. However, the difference between 1d8+4 and 1d8+5 is 13%, and the difference between Con 12 and Con 14 is typically a 15-20% increase in HP.
Also (as I mentioned in one of my previous comments) there are class abilities (especially in Tasha's content) that scale the number of uses with an ability score. I think this is the most prevalent in the artificer where several class abilities scale with your Int modifier. Not to mention, for some caster classes the number of spells you know scale with your spellcasting modifier as well. Have an extra spell on hand can make a huge difference in the right situation
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I agree that 3 is better than 1. Not a math guy, but I can do that much, in fact, I said as much. And of course, there are people who are math people who can rattle off exactly how much better a 3 is than a 1 in any given circumstance. And they are, I'm going to assume, correct. But folks are fixating on that difference, when that wasn't my point. My post said that differences in ability scores has never had an impact on my DMing. Of course characters with higher modifiers will be more reliably able to accomplish things. There is no argument about that. My point was, that I don't think, in actual play, people notice the difference. More importantly, I was responding to a concern that differing scores between party members make it harder to DM. I disagree with that assertion, and said it's not been a consideration for me as a DM when developing encounters. I'm not trying to tell people they should roll if they don't like to. Again, there's lots of good reason to use an array. I'm saying that in my experience playing, I've not found, at least some, of the drawbacks people ascribe to rolling be as pronounced in actual play as they are in theory.
They are ****ing ecstatic when they find a +3 weapon.
The game puts two rarity grades between those two numbers, which comes with two orders of magnitude in price increase. A +1 longsword is a 500gp object at most (by DMG pricing); a +3 longsword is a 50,000gp object instead.
Therefore, a case can be made that a fighter with 16 strength is worth 49,500gp more than a fighter with 12 strength, and that's purely from a combat perspective. People like to say that a 12-strength fighter or the 9-Intelligence orc wizard is not even the slightest bit bad, that "the gains you get elsewhere totally make up for your weaker stat!" or "you don't need a big number to be a good roleplayer!" They then proceed to do cartwheels of joy when they get an item whose only benefit is granting higher numbers.
Does that not strike people as a little weird? And ever-so-slightly hypocritical?
Yes and no.
Sure, the pure number is one of the factors but IMO not the deciding one. After all, 4e was based and balanced around the fact that at some point you had to get a +6 weapon/implement and I don't recall people cartwheeling when they got one.
You said it yourself - the game itself puts a price tag on the weapon and provides its rarity. Players wouldn't be so ecstatic if +3 sword was an uncommon item. Only the combination of factors - a bonus that is supposedly not accounted for in balance calculations AND the fact that they are repeatedly told to the death how rare and special magic items are supposed to be - makes them cartwheel with joy.
Also, like Matt Colville says - players just like getting cool shit which is why I have personally never even contemplated running without magic items.
And similarly to what you wrote, I sometimes want to laugh when people say "you don't need 20 Str, a 16 is a valid one" and then proceed to "OMG this +3 weapon is totally unbalanced and destroys my game"
By DMG guidelines, characters can come across +1 weapons at first level. I don't think they should, necessarily, but the guidelines allow for the possibility. +3 weapons in contrast shouldn't appear until level 11, still according to the DMG. There's a hype difference, if nothing else. It's like me getting to drive around the Nürburgring in an Audi TT RS vs in a Koenigsegg or a Bugatti. The latter is 50 times as expensive as the former, give or take, but I don't think that makes them 50 times better (particularly with me behind the wheel). In terms of experience though, just getting to sit in one of those super cars and revv the engine is already incomparable to driving that Audi (which is a mindblowingly good car for the price).
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I understand that the comparison is hardly perfect. I merely wished to point out the ludicrousness in assuming that one's numbers do not matter when any yayhoo that rolls well on the loot table and gets that +3 sword will be celebrating the find for weeks.
D&D is a math game. One can be good at the math or bad at the math, and in modern games focused on creating great stories one can enjoy the game regardless of their math competence. That does not change the underlying systems, and telling people who're good at the math that they're terrible people because of that does no one any good.
Nobody's saying the numbers don't matter (I think). There's a tendency to attribute more value to the numbers than warranted though. Subjective and objective assessments don't always line up.
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It baffles me a little when I hear that shit, though. "Numbers don't matter, you won't notice when you fail because your primary stat is 11 instead of 16!" Like...I'm not capable of seeing that I flubbed a roll by 3 or less and knowing I would've hit that roll if I had a decent score? I know I'm not a terribly observant sort, but I can, in fact, extrapolate information.
Again, people flip schitts over hard-to-find statboosting gear, but they're all supposed to just blow off their own innate abilities as no big fly? Finding a +2 instead of a +2 is all amazing and shit, but starting with no number higher than 7 is supposed to be no big deal? Why? I just don't get it.
They are ****ing ecstatic when they find a +3 weapon.
The game puts two rarity grades between those two numbers, which comes with two orders of magnitude in price increase. A +1 longsword is a 500gp object at most (by DMG pricing); a +3 longsword is a 50,000gp object instead.
Therefore, a case can be made that a fighter with 16 strength is worth 49,500gp more than a fighter with 12 strength, and that's purely from a combat perspective. People like to say that a 12-strength fighter or the 9-Intelligence orc wizard is not even the slightest bit bad, that "the gains you get elsewhere totally make up for your weaker stat!" or "you don't need a big number to be a good roleplayer!" They then proceed to do cartwheels of joy when they get an item whose only benefit is granting higher numbers.
Does that not strike people as a little weird? And ever-so-slightly hypocritical?
I walk away for a number of hours and this is what I find. When did you flip your position and accept that numbers matter and the reason people roll 4d6 for better numbers, couched in terms like "variation, and roleplay". Because mathematically, 4d6 provides better numbers, and yeah, a 4, 6, or 12 starting point differential is monumental, and power-gamers grasp that better than anyone.
Nobody's saying the numbers don't matter (I think). There's a tendency to attribute more value to the numbers than warranted though. Subjective and objective assessments don't always line up.
Objectively speaking, a level 1 two weapon fighter with 16 Dex averages 9.1 dpr against AC 12; with 14 Dex they average 7.15 (21.4% less). If you count a 5% chance for initiative being better in a relevant way in a 3 round combat, it's about 23%. If you include relative survival because of better ac and dex saves, it's around 30%. These numbers are in fact relevant.
Nobody's saying the numbers don't matter (I think). There's a tendency to attribute more value to the numbers than warranted though. Subjective and objective assessments don't always line up.
Objectively speaking, a level 1 two weapon fighter with 16 Dex averages 9.1 dpr against AC 12; with 14 Dex they average 7.15 (21.4% less). If you count a 5% chance for initiative being better in a relevant way in a 3 round combat, it's about 23%. If you include relative survival because of better ac and dex saves, it's around 30%. These numbers are in fact relevant.
And? D&D isn't a competition! Unless you of course join a competitive D&D group.
I'm not flipping my position. People roll 4d6kh for any of a wide number of reasons. I was speaking to the point a few folks were trying to make that 'nobody notices a one-point difference in scores' and as such there's no need for DMs to worry about numbers at all. Many DMs are experienced and confident enough to handle a thirty-point swing in scores. Many other DMs are not. And at no point does someone not notice a one-point difference in scores in a system where total success and abject failure both hinge on a single number. Especially once one lets go of the absolute scale of the game and realizes that relative differences can have an enormous impact.
A hobgoblin, for example, is an enemy a first-level party could reasonably end up facing, and has an armor class of 18. A fighter with strength 16 has a +5 to hit wth a basic melee attack, meaning he needs 13 or higher on the d20. 40% hit chance. The same fighter with a Strength of 12 has only a +3 to hit, and needs a 15 or higher on the d20 to hit. 30% hit chance. "That's only a ten percent difference, who cares?!", says the non-Path of Exile player.
Nah.
The 12-strength fighter has a full 25% reduction in their hit chance against this heavily armored target as compared to the 16-strength fighter, and his hits are worth significantly less when they do get through.
The devs have repeatedly said that they balanced the game, overall, to aim for a roughly two-thirds success chance on any d20 the players throw (exempting saves), overall across the game. A 65%, as the closest easy-d20 number to hit. Being two points behind down at a 55% generic success rate puts you a little over 15% behind your peers, since that 65% is the actual baseline for success, not the mythical never-achieved 100%, and your odds fall more sharply the higher the success point for a given check is. People like to claim this is all just numbers wankery to make things look worse than they are, but those people don't work with numbers. Relative rates and relationships are a thing, and being heavily behind makes it all the more apparent.
I don't like being behind. At all. I don't mind not being ahead, but I do quite hate being behind.
Nobody's saying the numbers don't matter (I think). There's a tendency to attribute more value to the numbers than warranted though. Subjective and objective assessments don't always line up.
Objectively speaking, a level 1 two weapon fighter with 16 Dex averages 9.1 dpr against AC 12; with 14 Dex they average 7.15 (21.4% less). If you count a 5% chance for initiative being better in a relevant way in a 3 round combat, it's about 23%. If you include relative survival because of better ac and dex saves, it's around 30%. These numbers are in fact relevant.
And? D&D isn't a competition! Unless you of course join a competitive D&D group.
The basic currency of an RPG is "do cool things". If I do 30% fewer cool things over the course of a campaign, that meaningfully affects my enjoyment of the game. In any case, you're shifting the goalposts -- my point was "objectively, fairly small differences in stats do matter".
I'm not trying to pile on here, especially since you have another post where you're really trying to understand the perspective of those of us who like to roll for stats (thank you for that). But I wanted to say, I've been playing and DMing for close to 40 years, rolling for stats the whole the time, and I've never had party balance be an issue. It's actually a situation where the swinginess of the D20 comes to help, since the number on the die will typically overwhelm the bonus. In this edition for example, Maybe one person has a fighter with a +1 str modifier while the other has a +3. To me, the difference of a +2 isn't really going to be noticeable. (and when you factor in the proficiency bonus where both characters will have the same number, the percentage difference between the modifiers gets smaller, and shrinks with each tier). Certainly over time, the person with the +3 will hit more often. (Maybe 10 percent more often? I'm not a math person) but unless you're actually keeping track of it, it ends up getting spread out over dozens and dozens of rolls, to the point I don't think you'd really notice. Granted, maybe other people aren't as oblivious as I am to such things. And as a DM, it never really occurred to me to worry about scaling my encounters to the various stat arrays of the party. I assume some will be higher, others lower, and people will be doing lots of different things, so the edges will get smoothed out.
So while I certainly see the appeal of point buy/array, and there's absolutely a lot of very good reasons to use that system, I haven't found party balance to really be one of them.
Right on @Xalthu. If D&D used a dice pool instead of a d20, there would be no rolling stats, but because the d20 exists and is insanely swingy, a character with all 10s will be distinct from a character with all 12s a whopping...one in twenty rolls. That's not a big difference. The stats might look different on paper, but if you didn't have the paper, you could play those characters for dozens of sessions before realizing one was slightly better—if you did at all.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Fewer, I believe, since rolls where the difference doesn't matter (because the margin of success or failure is too large) don't count.
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It's most significant to stats that add to something other than d20 rolls. For a first level fighter, the difference between +4 to hit and +5 to hit is something like 8% in average damage output, and for 'save for half' effects the difference between DC 12 and DC 13 is around 3%. However, the difference between 1d8+4 and 1d8+5 is 13%, and the difference between Con 12 and Con 14 is typically a 15-20% increase in HP.
And I appreciate you framing the discussion ahead of your thoughts! Good common curtesy here for all which I am trying to be better about.
I guess where I disagree is the +2 not having a big impact on balance in this particular system. In bounded accuracy (as I have been lead to believe at least) +2 is a huge increase to effectiveness. For example, a fighter's base attack bonus in Pathfinder scales from +1 at lvl 1, to +20 at lvl 20. In 5th edition the equivalent to base attack bonus is your proficiency bonus, which is +2 at lvl 1 and +6 at level 20, so it only scales up 4 in 20 levels.
So having one player having a +2 (in some of these examples its actually closer to a +3 or +4!) it is like comparing the growth between a level 1 and level 9 character....or worse if the gap is wider.
So you have a player who is hitting creatures that a level 9 character might find easy to hit in a party with a character who will struggle with creatures rated for a Level 1 party/player.
Granted several factors add in to this and you could have a mix and match of creatures in the game to match the appropriate levels for you players....but it does not take much to completely overwhelm that lower level character with a creature that would just merely challenge the higher ability character.
Can a DM arrange around this? Yes for sure. I am constantly amazed at what good DMs can do and handle in any given moments.
Can all DMs do this? No....not even close. I would not even say that the majority of DMs can handle this especially on the fly in combat where they might have to make some tough calls.
So is it a good method for building? It depends....for new players I think it is the single worst way to have them learn the game. in my opinion no as it is more of a niche use of building characters for when you want to challenge experienced players.
I am glad it exists for that reason as I do ultimately believe choices/options is the best call overall.
Additional point of order.
Players are happy when they find a +1 weapon.
They are ******* ecstatic when they find a +3 weapon.
The game puts two rarity grades between those two numbers, which comes with two orders of magnitude in price increase. A +1 longsword is a 500gp object at most (by DMG pricing); a +3 longsword is a 50,000gp object instead.
Therefore, a case can be made that a fighter with 16 strength is worth 49,500gp more than a fighter with 12 strength, and that's purely from a combat perspective. People like to say that a 12-strength fighter or the 9-Intelligence orc wizard is not even the slightest bit bad, that "the gains you get elsewhere totally make up for your weaker stat!" or "you don't need a big number to be a good roleplayer!" They then proceed to do cartwheels of joy when they get an item whose only benefit is granting higher numbers.
Does that not strike people as a little weird? And ever-so-slightly hypocritical?
Please do not contact or message me.
Good point. It's still not a big difference (compared to say, a point in the Star Wars RPG or Genesys system, which is massive) but it's a little bigger than I originally thought.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Also (as I mentioned in one of my previous comments) there are class abilities (especially in Tasha's content) that scale the number of uses with an ability score. I think this is the most prevalent in the artificer where several class abilities scale with your Int modifier. Not to mention, for some caster classes the number of spells you know scale with your spellcasting modifier as well. Have an extra spell on hand can make a huge difference in the right situation
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I agree that 3 is better than 1. Not a math guy, but I can do that much, in fact, I said as much. And of course, there are people who are math people who can rattle off exactly how much better a 3 is than a 1 in any given circumstance. And they are, I'm going to assume, correct. But folks are fixating on that difference, when that wasn't my point. My post said that differences in ability scores has never had an impact on my DMing. Of course characters with higher modifiers will be more reliably able to accomplish things. There is no argument about that. My point was, that I don't think, in actual play, people notice the difference. More importantly, I was responding to a concern that differing scores between party members make it harder to DM. I disagree with that assertion, and said it's not been a consideration for me as a DM when developing encounters. I'm not trying to tell people they should roll if they don't like to. Again, there's lots of good reason to use an array. I'm saying that in my experience playing, I've not found, at least some, of the drawbacks people ascribe to rolling be as pronounced in actual play as they are in theory.
Yes and no.
Sure, the pure number is one of the factors but IMO not the deciding one. After all, 4e was based and balanced around the fact that at some point you had to get a +6 weapon/implement and I don't recall people cartwheeling when they got one.
You said it yourself - the game itself puts a price tag on the weapon and provides its rarity. Players wouldn't be so ecstatic if +3 sword was an uncommon item. Only the combination of factors - a bonus that is supposedly not accounted for in balance calculations AND the fact that they are repeatedly told to the death how rare and special magic items are supposed to be - makes them cartwheel with joy.
Also, like Matt Colville says - players just like getting cool shit which is why I have personally never even contemplated running without magic items.
And similarly to what you wrote, I sometimes want to laugh when people say "you don't need 20 Str, a 16 is a valid one" and then proceed to "OMG this +3 weapon is totally unbalanced and destroys my game"
By DMG guidelines, characters can come across +1 weapons at first level. I don't think they should, necessarily, but the guidelines allow for the possibility. +3 weapons in contrast shouldn't appear until level 11, still according to the DMG. There's a hype difference, if nothing else. It's like me getting to drive around the Nürburgring in an Audi TT RS vs in a Koenigsegg or a Bugatti. The latter is 50 times as expensive as the former, give or take, but I don't think that makes them 50 times better (particularly with me behind the wheel). In terms of experience though, just getting to sit in one of those super cars and revv the engine is already incomparable to driving that Audi (which is a mindblowingly good car for the price).
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I understand that the comparison is hardly perfect. I merely wished to point out the ludicrousness in assuming that one's numbers do not matter when any yayhoo that rolls well on the loot table and gets that +3 sword will be celebrating the find for weeks.
D&D is a math game. One can be good at the math or bad at the math, and in modern games focused on creating great stories one can enjoy the game regardless of their math competence. That does not change the underlying systems, and telling people who're good at the math that they're terrible people because of that does no one any good.
Please do not contact or message me.
Nobody's saying the numbers don't matter (I think). There's a tendency to attribute more value to the numbers than warranted though. Subjective and objective assessments don't always line up.
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It baffles me a little when I hear that shit, though. "Numbers don't matter, you won't notice when you fail because your primary stat is 11 instead of 16!" Like...I'm not capable of seeing that I flubbed a roll by 3 or less and knowing I would've hit that roll if I had a decent score? I know I'm not a terribly observant sort, but I can, in fact, extrapolate information.
Again, people flip schitts over hard-to-find statboosting gear, but they're all supposed to just blow off their own innate abilities as no big fly? Finding a +2 instead of a +2 is all amazing and shit, but starting with no number higher than 7 is supposed to be no big deal? Why? I just don't get it.
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I walk away for a number of hours and this is what I find. When did you flip your position and accept that numbers matter and the reason people roll 4d6 for better numbers, couched in terms like "variation, and roleplay". Because mathematically, 4d6 provides better numbers, and yeah, a 4, 6, or 12 starting point differential is monumental, and power-gamers grasp that better than anyone.
Objectively speaking, a level 1 two weapon fighter with 16 Dex averages 9.1 dpr against AC 12; with 14 Dex they average 7.15 (21.4% less). If you count a 5% chance for initiative being better in a relevant way in a 3 round combat, it's about 23%. If you include relative survival because of better ac and dex saves, it's around 30%. These numbers are in fact relevant.
And? D&D isn't a competition! Unless you of course join a competitive D&D group.
I'm not flipping my position. People roll 4d6kh for any of a wide number of reasons. I was speaking to the point a few folks were trying to make that 'nobody notices a one-point difference in scores' and as such there's no need for DMs to worry about numbers at all. Many DMs are experienced and confident enough to handle a thirty-point swing in scores. Many other DMs are not. And at no point does someone not notice a one-point difference in scores in a system where total success and abject failure both hinge on a single number. Especially once one lets go of the absolute scale of the game and realizes that relative differences can have an enormous impact.
A hobgoblin, for example, is an enemy a first-level party could reasonably end up facing, and has an armor class of 18. A fighter with strength 16 has a +5 to hit wth a basic melee attack, meaning he needs 13 or higher on the d20. 40% hit chance. The same fighter with a Strength of 12 has only a +3 to hit, and needs a 15 or higher on the d20 to hit. 30% hit chance. "That's only a ten percent difference, who cares?!", says the non-Path of Exile player.
Nah.
The 12-strength fighter has a full 25% reduction in their hit chance against this heavily armored target as compared to the 16-strength fighter, and his hits are worth significantly less when they do get through.
The devs have repeatedly said that they balanced the game, overall, to aim for a roughly two-thirds success chance on any d20 the players throw (exempting saves), overall across the game. A 65%, as the closest easy-d20 number to hit. Being two points behind down at a 55% generic success rate puts you a little over 15% behind your peers, since that 65% is the actual baseline for success, not the mythical never-achieved 100%, and your odds fall more sharply the higher the success point for a given check is. People like to claim this is all just numbers wankery to make things look worse than they are, but those people don't work with numbers. Relative rates and relationships are a thing, and being heavily behind makes it all the more apparent.
I don't like being behind. At all. I don't mind not being ahead, but I do quite hate being behind.
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The basic currency of an RPG is "do cool things". If I do 30% fewer cool things over the course of a campaign, that meaningfully affects my enjoyment of the game. In any case, you're shifting the goalposts -- my point was "objectively, fairly small differences in stats do matter".
Well said, Not-A-Cockroach.