Out of curiosity, with the boon of immortality and something like the Tome Of Leadership And Influence, if you spent enough time hiding in a hole, could you potentially increase your charisma to say- 40? What's your guy's thoughts on the matter?
For those who don't remember or can't find the page in the dmg, it's text says;
This book contains guidelines for influencing and charming others, and its words are charged with magic. If you spend 48 hours over a period of 6 days or fewer studying the book's contents and practising its guidelines, your Charisma score increases by 2, as does your maximum for that score. The manual then loses its magic, but regains it in a century.
20 is the normal cap for PCs. That can be raised via things that explicitly raise the cap (such as these books, boons, Barbarian's level 20 feature, etc), so I wouldn't place a ton of stock in 30 being a hard-cap for the entire system.
Out of curiosity, with the boon of immortality and something like the Tome Of Leadership And Influence, if you spent enough time hiding in a hole, could you potentially increase your charisma to say- 40? What's your guy's thoughts on the matter?
... no, you definitely can't do this. You can only benefit from reading the Tome of Leadership and Influence once. Even if you're alive long enough to encounter the book more than once, it's still the exact same book you've already read and benefited from.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
... no, you definitely can't do this. You can only benefit from reading the Tome of Leadership and Influence once. Even if you're alive long enough to encounter the book more than once, it's still the exact same book you've already read and benefited from.
This is definitely not RAW. It's a magical book not How to Win Friends and Influence People.
... no, you definitely can't do this. You can only benefit from reading the Tome of Leadership and Influence once. Even if you're alive long enough to encounter the book more than once, it's still the exact same book you've already read and benefited from.
This is definitely not RAW. It's a magical book not How to Win Friends and Influence People.
You're right, I was mistaking it for being like the Book of Exalted Deeds, which absolutely does not allow you to benefit from it more than once. My bad.
[edit] I was also wrong in being generous with regard to what the absolute hard cap on ability scores may be--it is definitely 30.
From the link Emmber posted:
Each ability also has a modifier, derived from the score and ranging from -5 (for an ability score of 1) to +10 (for a score of 30). The Ability Scores and Modifiers table notes the ability modifiers for the range of possible ability scores, from 1 to 30.
So I guess we split the difference on this one. If you live long enough to read the book over-and-over, you could get up to 30. Meanwhile, your party members are all long-dead. :p
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Near that table there’s a suggestion for how to calculate scores beyond its range, so the table need not be the end of the story. But there’s also language somewhere completely different that suggests 30 is a hard cap for characters, can’t recall where but I believe it’s a different chapter...
That's an incredibly dumb and arbitrary limitation. I do not believe that a god would be no stronger than an old dragon.
In 5e, Gods don't really have statblocks, only their avatars do, so these limitations don't actually apply to their raw form. Even if they did, attributes can be rendered irrelevant by high level magic and traits. For example, would you rather have a STR score of 32, or would you want a STR score of 30 with a divine multiplier of x2 for all strength based rolls?
The limitation on only a limitation if you lack imagination.
Edit: For further clarification, 9th level magic is an artificial cap for mortals, so you could say that the deities also imposed the Attribute limit of 30 for mortal creatures, and choose to abide by those restrictions when in a corporeal form.
Why do you think an arbitrarily long lived creature should have any stats they want?
Have you seen how much work it takes professional body builders to maintain their peak form? They don't just get strong and sit on their laurels, it's a constant process. Those that are at competition levels are also taking supplements. Many of them then struggle to bend their arms enough to drink out of a normal glass.
Strength requires bulk, which interferes with dexterity.
Constitution can't really be trained.
Intelligence has natural limitations. We can train our memory and expand our knowledge, but generally at a loss somewhere else. (There was a guy who deliberately tried to become a savant, and basically lost his social skills in the process.)
Wisdom, Charisma, same story.
Basically, it costs resources to maintain high performance systems and just because you have time doesn't mean you are capable of improving through sheer force of will. If you ever stop, you start to lose your gains rather quickly. It's a juggling act that can't be beat.
The original poster was asking about a magic item that raised your charisma over 20 then shut off for one hundred years. It did not go away just shut off. If he lived long enough every one hundred years he could use it again. There were no hard limits on the magic item.
Appealing to "magic" is literally a non-response. You may as well have said, "It's called nonsense".
In every fictional world, magic has limitations. In fact, those limitations are the only thing that keep the fictional universe from imploding. If everyone were capable of infinite power growth, it would be like a world of walking, irrational nukes. Eventually one of them would sneeze and the whole thing would return to the void.
Edit: If you're just talking about obtaining stats within the 30point cap, then sure. Not every long lived NPC should be capable, but at least a few powerful ones could max out every stat, but that's still limited by rarity of the books. A lot can happen in 1000 years and many powerful entities could be competing for the same resources.
Whats to stop an Elf who might live for 1000 years from looking and finding immortality? Or at least something that lengthens his life two, three or even more times?
He has all that time to work out the magic, to strive for and possibly reaching demi god status.
Of does he just wait for death for a thousand years?
That already exists. Githyanki live in the Astral Sea and do not age.
Pursuing Godhood is, like..., half of every D&D campaign. Vecna, The Raven Queen, etc... Many gods were mortals who gathered worshippers or stole a deities power. This is one of the reasons that Mystra prevented mortals from accessing 10th level magic. It's literally canonically banned by divine mandate. [777: Magic Not Found]
One or two exceptional heroes will achieve the impossible, but it's not accessible for just any long lived individual. It's like the lottery. Anyone can win, but it's never going to be you. (Except that it might, because you are the protagonist of a story.)
Going back to the formal rule, the following is present:
Adventurers can have scores as high as 20, and monsters and divine beings can have scores as high as 30.
PCs are adventurers, and this doesn’t call it a maximum, merely that that is as high as they can get.
So, DM call. I would argue, based on the other Tomes and Manuals, that while it is possible to do this to reach 30, it can go no higher.
I would also reference the effects of girdles of giant strength, which also cap out at 30 — but note that they have no effect if your score is equal to or higher.
so, 30 max.
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Only a DM since 1980 (2000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA
The various manuals that raise different stats specify not just that they increase the stat but also it's cap, now the wording states that Adventurers can have scores as high as 20, and monsters and divine beings can have scores as high as 30. If the max is raised then that means there is an argument to be made that if a being used one these manuals at least 6 times they could achieve 31-32 in any stat and theoretically infinitely higher than that with enough time. Just because it says that monsters and divine beings can have scores as high as 30 it doesn't mean that that is the absolute cap for all beings as the manuals that raise stats specify they raise the cap. So it's really an argument of whether when it says it raises the cap if it can or can't arbitrarily raise it above 30 as that is the cap for monster's and divine beings. Nowhere does it state that the cap can't be raised or does it say that beings can't have stats higher than 30 only that they can have scores as high as 30. Which means it's an argument of semantics and up to the DM.
While the section on ability scores says they are always between 1 and 30.
If a intellect devourer's successfully devours a creatures intellect: "[the targets intelligence] score is reduced to 0. The target is stunned until it regains at least one point of Intelligence."
So the section on the intellect devour contradicts this and (as specific beats general) means that a creature can have an ability score of 0. I am not aware ofanywhere that specifically states that a creatures ability score can go above 30 however.
The various manuals that raise different stats specify not just that they increase the stat but also it's cap, now the wording states that Adventurers can have scores as high as 20, and monsters and divine beings can have scores as high as 30. If the max is raised then that means there is an argument to be made that if a being used one these manuals at least 6 times they could achieve 31-32 in any stat and theoretically infinitely higher than that with enough time. Just because it says that monsters and divine beings can have scores as high as 30 it doesn't mean that that is the absolute cap for all beings as the manuals that raise stats specify they raise the cap. So it's really an argument of whether when it says it raises the cap if it can or can't arbitrarily raise it above 30 as that is the cap for monster's and divine beings. Nowhere does it state that the cap can't be raised or does it say that beings can't have stats higher than 30 only that they can have scores as high as 30. Which means it's an argument of semantics and up to the DM.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
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Out of curiosity, with the boon of immortality and something like the Tome Of Leadership And Influence, if you spent enough time hiding in a hole, could you potentially increase your charisma to say- 40? What's your guy's thoughts on the matter?
For those who don't remember or can't find the page in the dmg, it's text says;
This book contains guidelines for influencing and charming others, and its words are charged with magic. If you spend 48 hours over a period of 6 days or fewer studying the book's contents and practising its guidelines, your Charisma score increases by 2, as does your maximum for that score. The manual then loses its magic, but regains it in a century.
The Ability Scores and Modifiers section of the basic rules suggests that 30 is the hard cap RAW.
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Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
20 is the normal cap for PCs. That can be raised via things that explicitly raise the cap (such as these books, boons, Barbarian's level 20 feature, etc), so I wouldn't place a ton of stock in 30 being a hard-cap for the entire system.
That said...
... no, you definitely can't do this. You can only benefit from reading the Tome of Leadership and Influence once. Even if you're alive long enough to encounter the book more than once, it's still the exact same book you've already read and benefited from.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
This is definitely not RAW. It's a magical book not How to Win Friends and Influence People.
You're right, I was mistaking it for being like the Book of Exalted Deeds, which absolutely does not allow you to benefit from it more than once. My bad.
[edit] I was also wrong in being generous with regard to what the absolute hard cap on ability scores may be--it is definitely 30.
From the link Emmber posted:
So I guess we split the difference on this one. If you live long enough to read the book over-and-over, you could get up to 30. Meanwhile, your party members are all long-dead. :p
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Near that table there’s a suggestion for how to calculate scores beyond its range, so the table need not be the end of the story. But there’s also language somewhere completely different that suggests 30 is a hard cap for characters, can’t recall where but I believe it’s a different chapter...
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
As far as I can tell, 30 is a hard cap for everyone, not just players, this includes gods, or at least their avatars.
That's an incredibly dumb and arbitrary limitation. I do not believe that a god would be no stronger than an old dragon.
In 5e, Gods don't really have statblocks, only their avatars do, so these limitations don't actually apply to their raw form. Even if they did, attributes can be rendered irrelevant by high level magic and traits. For example, would you rather have a STR score of 32, or would you want a STR score of 30 with a divine multiplier of x2 for all strength based rolls?
The limitation on only a limitation if you lack imagination.
Edit: For further clarification, 9th level magic is an artificial cap for mortals, so you could say that the deities also imposed the Attribute limit of 30 for mortal creatures, and choose to abide by those restrictions when in a corporeal form.
And this is why I hate extremely long lived humanoid creatures or characters.
Anyone that could live for 500 years or more could, if they worked hard at it, have any stats they wanted.
And this would and should make all other short lived humanoids extremely jealous. To the point of hatred in most cases.
I also hate level limits on characters. Classes yes but not on the whole character. Why can you not reach 20th level in multiple classes?
Why do you think an arbitrarily long lived creature should have any stats they want?
Have you seen how much work it takes professional body builders to maintain their peak form? They don't just get strong and sit on their laurels, it's a constant process. Those that are at competition levels are also taking supplements. Many of them then struggle to bend their arms enough to drink out of a normal glass.
Strength requires bulk, which interferes with dexterity.
Constitution can't really be trained.
Intelligence has natural limitations. We can train our memory and expand our knowledge, but generally at a loss somewhere else. (There was a guy who deliberately tried to become a savant, and basically lost his social skills in the process.)
Wisdom, Charisma, same story.
Basically, it costs resources to maintain high performance systems and just because you have time doesn't mean you are capable of improving through sheer force of will. If you ever stop, you start to lose your gains rather quickly. It's a juggling act that can't be beat.
Its called magic.
The original poster was asking about a magic item that raised your charisma over 20 then shut off for one hundred years. It did not go away just shut off. If he lived long enough every one hundred years he could use it again.
There were no hard limits on the magic item.
Appealing to "magic" is literally a non-response. You may as well have said, "It's called nonsense".
In every fictional world, magic has limitations. In fact, those limitations are the only thing that keep the fictional universe from imploding. If everyone were capable of infinite power growth, it would be like a world of walking, irrational nukes. Eventually one of them would sneeze and the whole thing would return to the void.
Edit: If you're just talking about obtaining stats within the 30point cap, then sure. Not every long lived NPC should be capable, but at least a few powerful ones could max out every stat, but that's still limited by rarity of the books. A lot can happen in 1000 years and many powerful entities could be competing for the same resources.
Whats to stop an Elf who might live for 1000 years from looking and finding immortality? Or at least something that lengthens his life two, three or even more times?
He has all that time to work out the magic, to strive for and possibly reaching demi god status.
Of does he just wait for death for a thousand years?
That already exists. Githyanki live in the Astral Sea and do not age.
Pursuing Godhood is, like..., half of every D&D campaign. Vecna, The Raven Queen, etc... Many gods were mortals who gathered worshippers or stole a deities power. This is one of the reasons that Mystra prevented mortals from accessing 10th level magic. It's literally canonically banned by divine mandate. [777: Magic Not Found]
One or two exceptional heroes will achieve the impossible, but it's not accessible for just any long lived individual. It's like the lottery. Anyone can win, but it's never going to be you. (Except that it might, because you are the protagonist of a story.)
Edit: Also, See "Liches" and "Nothics".
Going back to the formal rule, the following is present:
Adventurers can have scores as high as 20, and monsters and divine beings can have scores as high as 30.
PCs are adventurers, and this doesn’t call it a maximum, merely that that is as high as they can get.
So, DM call. I would argue, based on the other Tomes and Manuals, that while it is possible to do this to reach 30, it can go no higher.
I would also reference the effects of girdles of giant strength, which also cap out at 30 — but note that they have no effect if your score is equal to or higher.
so, 30 max.
Only a DM since 1980 (2000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA
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The various manuals that raise different stats specify not just that they increase the stat but also it's cap, now the wording states that Adventurers can have scores as high as 20, and monsters and divine beings can have scores as high as 30. If the max is raised then that means there is an argument to be made that if a being used one these manuals at least 6 times they could achieve 31-32 in any stat and theoretically infinitely higher than that with enough time. Just because it says that monsters and divine beings can have scores as high as 30 it doesn't mean that that is the absolute cap for all beings as the manuals that raise stats specify they raise the cap. So it's really an argument of whether when it says it raises the cap if it can or can't arbitrarily raise it above 30 as that is the cap for monster's and divine beings. Nowhere does it state that the cap can't be raised or does it say that beings can't have stats higher than 30 only that they can have scores as high as 30. Which means it's an argument of semantics and up to the DM.
Stats range from 1 to 30. Period.
I got quotes!
Sort of.
While the section on ability scores says they are always between 1 and 30.
If a intellect devourer's successfully devours a creatures intellect: "[the targets intelligence] score is reduced to 0. The target is stunned until it regains at least one point of Intelligence."
So the section on the intellect devour contradicts this and (as specific beats general) means that a creature can have an ability score of 0. I am not aware ofanywhere that specifically states that a creatures ability score can go above 30 however.
The maximum is 30, full stop.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.