To-be-GM of below-average group.

[Nikolaz72]

So for the first time ever, players have had quite a hard time with the dice this time around. Going to write each character up for reference before we continue, these are stats after applied bonuses.

Druid, Elf. [9HP 17AC]
Str: 12
Dex: 14
Con:12
Int:14
Wis:14
Cha:13

Rogue, Half-Elf. [10HP 17AC]
Str: 16
Dex: 15
Con: 14
Int: 13
Wis: 11
Cha: 12

Rogue, Half-Orc. [8HP 16AC]
Str: 16.
Dex: 16.
Con: 10.
Int: 12.
Wis: 9.
Cha: 8.

Wizard, Human (Old). [6HP 10AC]
Str: 4.
Dex: 11.
Con: 11.
Int: 20.
Wis: 16.
Cha: 13.

So I'm wondering. Do I change the encounters I've already prepared for next session? I balanced it for a party of four but I'm worried looking at the stats that they're very squishy. I'm used to players getting better rolls than this and creating challenges befitting it. Half-Elf rogue is the planned sturdy one of the party, going for a ranger/rogue/fighter multiclass with medium armor.

I mean it doesn't look that bad at a first glance, but I'm loathe to use too many ambushes with a wizard like that.

[Andreaz]

Don't use rolled stats. Point Buy solves that neatly.

[Nikolaz72]

Don't use rolled stats. Point Buy solves that neatly.

Trains passed on that one. Players find rolling more interesting. (I do too, tbh) I was wondering if anyone here has any experienced with a low-roll group and whether they can take on the regular HD challenges.

[MyrPsychologist]

What kind of builds are the party using?

[Nikolaz72]

What kind of builds are the party using?
The Druid is your average druid.
The rogue plans on going assassin.
The half elf rogue plans on going into ranger at level 2 3, back to rogue at 4 and then ranger until ranger 6 and then fighter for the rest. Its the groups 'tank'
The wizard is a pure wizard, or plans to be. I think he might die early with these stats, one shot and he's down and the group is very light on healing.

[Kurald Galain]

A simple solution is to add a wand of Cure Light Wounds and a wand of Mage Armor to the loot somewhere early. Also, suggest that everybody who can do so picks up a heavy shield.

[Crake]

Rolled stats are back from the old days where characters were designed to be expendable, as the ones with bad stats just died due to their poor stats, and ones with good stats stayed alive. Eventually everyone would have a character with good stats, and thus the question arises, why roll in the first place, why not just have a clear, equal method for assigning ability scores. Hence point buy was invented, and now people don't go through the revolving door of character creation to finally get the scores they want.

If you run rolled stats, may as well play old school, and run status quo, where the weak are culled and re-rolled. If you coddle them, then why bother even rolling stats? If you're gonna tone down the whole world to match their weakness, why not instead just bump them up, seems like way less work for the same result? You want them to be on par with the encounters they face, despite being weaker, so you're going to have to work on EVERY encounter to tone it down, to get the same challenging result, vs just changing them once, and not having to re-design every encounter :smallconfused: I don't see what the difference is in terms of outcome, but one is just way more work.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Has the rogue/ranger/fighter considered going slayer?

[GameSpawn]

My advice for when a party seems too weak to you is to start a little easier, then ramp up the difficulty as they and you figure out what they're capable of. There's nothing really wrong with toning done the difficulty if it will make for a better game. That said, some players would rather face status quo challenges, and thus increased chances of dying. It depends on the players.

That said, it's generally better to go too easy than too hard. The consequences of an encounter that's too easy are significantly less long lasting, so if you're not sure, I'd default to toning things down, at least for the encounters that aren't intended to be significant. Major encounters might be best left untouched.

[Nifft]

If they say they have fun with rolled stats, roll with it.

Play the encounters out normally -- without doing anything special to compensate for their poor stats.

That seems like what they're asking you to do.

If normal encounters kill any characters, then those players will get to re-roll. If they don't, then those players get to win the encounter. It's a win-win situation.

[ahenobarbi]

I wouldn't call those rolls bad (but then my group uses elite array(with 8 replaced by 11 because DM made a mistake when sending prep materiał for first game)).

[Bucky]

I would make one adjustment for that party: avoid giving humanoid enemies access to strong crit weapons at level 1.

[Nifft]

I would make one adjustment for that party: avoid giving humanoid enemies access to strong crit weapons at level 1.

IMHO that's a good idea for any level 1 party, if you're trying to avoid fatalities.

Seriously, a Battleaxe is 1d12 20/x3 which means up to 36 HP of damage before Strength bonus. There are very few level 1 characters who have more than 25 hit points, which means one-hit full-to-dead.

But you should decide if you're trying to avoid fatalities or not. If your players want Hard Mode, that can also be fun.

[Nikolaz72]

Alright, so just to answer some q's.

Yea, the players want rolled characters. I've come to the conclusion we're going old school, if a character dies they'll just get to reroll. Atm the Wizard looks like the most vurnerable fella' I wont be targeting him specifically but a stray arrow is all it takes for a no ac 6hp guy to go down, unless he is really smart about his spells.

As for the rogue/ranger/fighter. We're just running with core rules, this is the first time we're going pathfinder from 4th DnD Might decide to go outside of this later but, she seems happy with her build so I wont involve myself beyond need.

I'm fine with one person dying in a session but just to keep the adventure rolling I'd prefer not to deal with a full wipe xD. Last time around, we had two near fatals who only clung onto life due to a health potion on the cleric who then stabilized Mr Wizard at -9HP.

[Boci]

Rolled stats are back from the old days where characters were designed to be expendable, as the ones with bad stats just died due to their poor stats, and ones with good stats stayed alive. Eventually everyone would have a character with good stats, and thus the question arises, why roll in the first place, why not just have a clear, equal method for assigning ability scores. Hence point buy was invented, and now people don't go through the revolving door of character creation to finally get the scores they want.

Rolled stats also produce more organic ability scores, rather than someone who developed the perfect stat spread for the class they ended up choosing. Rolling also places more importance on racial modifiers. I tend to prefer this method when I'm making darker, grittier settings.


If you run rolled stats, may as well play old school, and run status quo, where the weak are culled and re-rolled. If you coddle them, then why bother even rolling stats?

How is that any different from me "coddling" a tier 3 party by not sending them the same sort of challenges I would against an optimized all caster druid/cleric/double wizard party?

I don't know if there's any specific advice to offer here. Be careful not to throw something too powerful at them.

[Crake]

Rolled stats also produce more organic ability scores, rather than someone who developed the perfect stat spread for the class they ended up choosing.

Except it would make sense that a character, during their learning/training, would focus their development in certain areas. A fighter might focus all his training into building strength (18), and not put anything into book learning (8), or the same fighter might have a strong focus on strength (16), but still have a reasonable level of book learning (10-14), making point buy actually "more organic" because your character would have trained themselves how you, as a player designing a character, would have envisioned them. Randomness does not necessitate "organic". What is less organic is a fighter with 13, 12, 13, 12, 10, 12. What kind of a fighter would have such a poor focus on the things that are actually important to such a profession? Why would this person, who is a trained martial expert, not have built up more muscle during his training? There's nothing inherently "organic" about rolling, please stop propagating that fallacy.

[Nifft]

Except it would make sense that a character, during their learning/training, would focus their development in certain areas.

Except in D&D, that process is called "gaining levels", and you can indeed focus your development in certain areas by putting your level-up bonus points in those areas.

Please don't perpetuate the fallacy that a level 1 character is a fully trained Special Ops badass who has undergone hundreds of hours of intensive training.

Bilbo sure didn't.

[martixy]

Rolled stats are back from the old days where characters were designed to be expendable, as the ones with bad stats just died due to their poor stats, and ones with good stats stayed alive. Eventually everyone would have a character with good stats, and thus the question arises, why roll in the first place, why not just have a clear, equal method for assigning ability scores. Hence point buy was invented, and now people don't go through the revolving door of character creation to finally get the scores they want.

If you run rolled stats, may as well play old school, and run status quo, where the weak are culled and re-rolled. If you coddle them, then why bother even rolling stats? If you're gonna tone down the whole world to match their weakness, why not instead just bump them up, seems like way less work for the same result? You want them to be on par with the encounters they face, despite being weaker, so you're going to have to work on EVERY encounter to tone it down, to get the same challenging result, vs just changing them once, and not having to re-design every encounter :smallconfused: I don't see what the difference is in terms of outcome, but one is just way more work.

But I like rolling stats.... :)

Though you're generally right, which is why I don't usually play or do games where it's straight up 4d6d1.
But things like roll 3-4 sets and choose whichever you like conveniently skip the whole "Let's kill this one first and have you roll up another" deal.
Or roll 5d6d2. Or roll 8 stats and drop 2 lowest. Or roll 4d8.
Really, between 4 people with 6 stats and however many rolls for each, you've got a plenty large enough sample size to approximate a normal distribution. You just have to pick the right mean!

P.S. I've found it most fun for everyone when it's a challenge for both sides. You holding back just so they don't die will not be fun for anyone, I guarantee it. Don't insult your player's intelligence.

[Boci]

Except it would make sense that a character, during their learning/training, would focus their development in certain areas. A fighter might focus all his training into building strength (18), and not put anything into book learning (8), or the same fighter might have a strong focus on strength (16), but still have a reasonable level of book learning (10-14), making point buy actually "more organic" because your character would have trained themselves how you, as a player designing a character, would have envisioned them. Randomness does not necessitate "organic". What is less organic is a fighter with 13, 12, 13, 12, 10, 12. What kind of a fighter would have such a poor focus on the things that are actually important to such a profession? Why would this person, who is a trained martial expert, not have built up more muscle during his training? There's nothing inherently "organic" about rolling, please stop propagating that fallacy.

Yes there is. Just look at the characters above. We have a wizard with 4 strength, representing some crippling blight or genetic defect they suffer from. This is good, its should sometimes happen, but cannot under point buy. Boom, randomly equals more organic characters.

Furthermore, whilst people CAN use point buy to make less than ideal characters, a lot know they won't when it actually comes to it. For one game, when I made a magus, I ended up with 12 charisma, which I likely wouldn't have given myself had I been using PB.

In real life I'm a teacher, but I have a decent strength. If I had point built myself for this career, I would have dumped strength to get a higher Intelligence or Charisma.

Obviously character should choose a career path their states make them good at. That is handled by rolling first, freely assigning, and then choosing you class. Yes, sometimes you'll roll terrible and the GM grants you a reroll. Now fixed rolling states, yes I agree, those are problomatic for characters meant to last, but as long as you can assign them and the Gm grants some leeway for a slew of 10-12s, it is a legitimate choice for a game.

[Selion]

I think these characters can face average CR encounters without too much troubles. The 4 to str to the wizard is just funny, it's not a real handicap; the druid has poor stats, but if he specializes in summons or shapeshifting he doesn't need high DCs on his spells. The main issue in this party is the double rogue, 1 rogue is almost unnecessary in a party, 2 rogues are just redundant imho.

[darksolitaire]

Maybe start at level 2 or higher. Level 1 is basically rocket tag, with thrown rocks being rockets.

[Crake]

Except in D&D, that process is called "gaining levels", and you can indeed focus your development in certain areas by putting your level-up bonus points in those areas.

Please don't perpetuate the fallacy that a level 1 character is a fully trained Special Ops badass who has undergone hundreds of hours of intensive training.

Bilbo sure didn't.

I never said anything of the sort, so could you please not strawman me, thanks.

Physical attributes and class levels aren't even related, with the exception that every 4 levels you gain a stat bump (and the few PrC that grant ability bonuses, but those are generally for other reasons, not physical training). A fighter will have likely undergone a few years of training, otherwise he wouldn't be a fighter, he would be a warrior, or worse. That first level represents your culmination of life experience (which is admittedly low compared to hardened adventurers, but still significant enough to warrant mentioning). Levels represent expertise, not physical ability, which is why a level 10 fighter with 10 strength, while significantly better at attacking than a level 1 fighter with 16 strength, still can't carry more than 33lb without being encumbered, which is just pathetic for a man wielding a sword (unless he's a finesse fighter/archer of course :smalltongue:)

So yeah, while what you describe "a fully trained Special Ops badass who has undergone hundreds of hours of intensive training." is certainly a high level character, what I described, essentially a budding fighter in training who put in time at the gym, is still a low level character, just one who had direction in his early training.
Youth is supposedly the time in which a person is most physically and mentally malleable, which is presumably why, once you start your adventuring career, your abilities don't change (much), but your expertise (bab, saves etc etc) which is derived from actual experiences can still grow.

The bilbo comment is so unrelated I'm not even gonna bother.

[Psyren]

Except it would make sense that a character, during their learning/training, would focus their development in certain areas. A fighter might focus all his training into building strength (18), and not put anything into book learning (8), or the same fighter might have a strong focus on strength (16), but still have a reasonable level of book learning (10-14), making point buy actually "more organic" because your character would have trained themselves how you, as a player designing a character, would have envisioned them. Randomness does not necessitate "organic". What is less organic is a fighter with 13, 12, 13, 12, 10, 12. What kind of a fighter would have such a poor focus on the things that are actually important to such a profession? Why would this person, who is a trained martial expert, not have built up more muscle during his training? There's nothing inherently "organic" about rolling, please stop propagating that fallacy.

^ This. More importantly, the fighters who graduated Sword Academy with 12 Str and Con and 14 Dex are generally the ones who died shortly afterward. Your choice is whether to play that character while that death happens or simply say it happened offscreen and reroll, thus not wasting anyone's time including your own.

Also, Bilbo certainly had above-average Dex and Cha given the situations he was able to hide from or talk his way out of.

[Boci]

^ This. More importantly, the fighters who graduated Sword Academy with 12 Str and Con and 14 Dex are generally the ones who died shortly afterward. Your choice is whether to play that character while that death happens or simply say it happened offscreen and reroll, thus not wasting anyone's time including your own.

Not if the DM gives them appropriate encounters. A fighter with 18 strength and 14 con will also die if the GM uses the same encounters he designed for his previous all powergame group.

Also the rogue character in the example above (i.e. a real one and not one you made up), has 16 strength and 14 con.


Youth is supposedly the time in which a person is most physically and mentally malleable, which is presumably why, once you start your adventuring career, your abilities don't change (much), but your expertise (bab, saves etc etc) which is derived from actual experiences can still grow.

So why don't all children who want to be strong get strong in real life?

[Greenish]

Yes there is. Just look at the characters above. We have a wizard with 4 strength, representing some crippling blight or genetic defect they suffer from. This is good, its should sometimes happen, but cannot under point buy. Boom, randomly equals more organic characters.Whereas with point buy, said wizard would have 5 strength, which is obviously far less organic.


Furthermore, whilst people CAN use point buy to make less than ideal characters, a lot know they won't when it actually comes to it. For one game, when I made a magus, I ended up with 12 charisma, which I likely wouldn't have given myself had I been using PB.Whether there's a flaw and whether said flaw is in the point buy system or in the user are both debatable. :smallamused:

[Boci]

Whereas with point buy, said wizard would have 5 strength, which is obviously far less organic.

Plenty of point buys don't allow you to go below 8 (human wizard, no racial penalty). So....


Whether there's a flaw and whether said flaw is in the point buy system or in the user are both debatable. :smallamused:

Oh come on. If the GMs inflexible that's not the systems fault. I'm tired of hearing that argument.

I get it. PB is smoother. Never debated that point. But to say it is the ONLY choice? Umm, no.

[Crake]

Yes there is. Just look at the characters above. We have a wizard with 4 strength, representing some crippling blight or genetic defect they suffer from. This is good, its should sometimes happen, but cannot under point buy. Boom, randomly equals more organic characters.

Furthermore, whilst people CAN use point buy to make less than ideal characters, a lot know they won't when it actually comes to it. For one game, when I made a magus, I ended up with 12 charisma, which I likely wouldn't have given myself had I been using PB.

In real life I'm a teacher, but I have a decent strength. If I had point built myself for this career, I would have dumped strength to get a higher Intelligence or Charisma.

Obviously character should choose a career path their states make them good at. That is handled by rolling first, freely assigning, and then choosing you class. Yes, sometimes you'll roll terrible and the GM grants you a reroll. Now fixed rolling states, yes I agree, those are problomatic for characters meant to last, but as long as you can assign them and the Gm grants some leeway for a slew of 10-12s, it is a legitimate choice for a game.

While a 4 may not be possible under point buy, again, that doesn't make it more organic in any way. As a DM part of the reason I use point buy is actually to prevent scores below 8, because such a crippling score really just reduces verisimilitude, why would a character with such a deficiency be out adventuring, and what kind of people would take said person along? Horribly negligent people, that's who.

As for people using point buy to make less than ideal characters, that's just your experience. While I think we can both agree that characters with min-maxed stats are generally unorganic, and casters are especially notorious for automatically putting an 18 in their casting stat to the detriment of all other ability scores under point buy, that just means that point buy allows unorganic characters, not that rolling produces more organic characters.

I don't know much about your circumstances, but I'd assume there's a reason you have decent strength (what, 12 or so?), whether or not it's career related, you didn't just decide to bulk up for no reason. Even if it was just to impress the ladies (though from what I hear from my teacher friend, if you teach secondary, that strength is more needed to keep the rowdy kids under control, he's quite bulk as well), there was a reason behind it, and you chose to "put those points in strength" so to speak. Any organically built character will have an accompanying backstory to go with his life so far, which would then lead to appropriate scores (concept then build, as opposed to build then concept).

By rolling first, then assigning, then picking class, you lose out on 2 points, firstly, people can't play what they want to play, which is probably one of the primary reasons why they come to the gaming table, to play something that they're interested in playing, and secondly, it means you have to use the scores as they are, which brings it back to the "build then concept" idea. Conceptualising a character around pre-existing stats and limitations means you will have to shoehorn in things to make the concept and story work, or again, have to play something you don't necessarily want to play, which is most definitely not organic.


I get it. PB is smoother. Never debated that point. But to say it is the ONLY choice? Umm, no.

Nobody said rolling wasn't an option at all. Just that claiming it's more organic is a fallacy.


So why don't all children who want to be strong get strong in real life?

Because they don't REALLY want it. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3zzSh3DMIE)

[Greenish]

Plenty of point buys don't allow you to go below 8 (human wizard, no racial penalty). So....Here I recommend you take your own advice:

Just look at the characters above.

Wizard, Human (Old).



Oh come on. If the GMs inflexible that's not the systems fault. I'm tired of hearing that argument.What argument? I didn't say anything about GMs, I suggested that if a person wanted to, say, have a magus with 12 Cha, they could do it with point buy, or if they felt they couldn't, well, the fault wouldn't be in the point buy system.


I get it. PB is smoother. Never debated that point. But to say it is the ONLY choice? Umm, no.PB is fairer. Obviously it isn't the only choice or we wouldn't be having this debate. It's just the best one. :smalltongue:

[Jay R]

A. For bland, average players, low stats are a death waiting to happen, for creative, above-average players, they are a challenge.

B. The only change I recommend that you make is this: The first couple of groups they face are trying to capture them, not kill them. That way, the game goes on even if they lose an encounter or two.

Besides, escape from slavers is a scenario that turns on clever ideas, not straightforward melee.

[Boci]

PB is fairer. Obviously it isn't the only choice or we wouldn't be having this debate. It's just the best one. :smalltongue:

Best does not automatically equal fair to everyone. Plenty of people like unfair aspects in gaming (and real life isn't fair either). So...what are we debating exactly?


While a 4 may not be possible under point buy, again, that doesn't make it more organic in any way. As a DM part of the reason I use point buy is actually to prevent scores below 8, because such a crippling score really just reduces verisimilitude, why would a character with such a deficiency be out adventuring, and what kind of people would take said person along? Horribly negligent people, that's who.

Yeah sure, you need to prevent wizards from putting 4 in their strength because its a sub-optimal choice. Sure.


As for people using point buy to make less than ideal characters, that's just your experience. While I think we can both agree that characters with min-maxed stats are generally unorganic, and casters are especially notorious for automatically putting an 18 in their casting stat to the detriment of all other ability scores under point buy, that just means that point buy allows unorganic characters, not that rolling produces more organic characters.

It will by comparison to PB.


Nobody said rolling wasn't an option at all. Just that claiming it's more organic is a fallacy.

In your very first post, you said there was no point in rolling. The whole post was dedicated to it being a bad idea. I only brought up the organic aspect later. Also, you admitted it is more organic, because it removes the option to be inorganic.

[Greenish]

Best does not automatically equal fair to everyone. Plenty of people like unfair aspects in gaming (and real life isn't fair either). So...what are we debating exactly?The presumed merits of randomly generated attributes (and more specifically, whether they can be said to be more "organic", and if so, in what way). Try to keep up.


Yeah sure, you need to prevent wizards from putting 4 in their strength because its a sub-optimal choice. Sure.That's... not what he said.

[Boci]

The presumed merits of randomly generated attributes (and more specifically, whether they can be said to be more "organic", and if so, in what way). Try to keep up.

And Crake agrees with me on that, because rolling reducing the options to be inorganic via min-maxing, which means its more organic. Anything to add?


That's... not what he said.

Can you explain waht he means by this then?


While a 4 may not be possible under point buy, again, that doesn't make it more organic in any way. As a DM part of the reason I use point buy is actually to prevent scores below 8, because such a crippling score really just reduces verisimilitude, why would a character with such a deficiency be out adventuring, and what kind of people would take said person along? Horribly negligent people, that's who.

Its so low they shouldn't be going adventuring, but its not sub-optimal?

[Crake]

Yeah sure, you need to prevent wizards from putting 4 in their strength because its a sub-optimal choice. Sure.

Greenish graciously covered this point for me, that's not at all what I said. Perhaps a wizard with 4 strength is not the ideal choice of example, how about a barbarian with 4 int? I would likewise not allow that for the same reason I stated.




It will by comparison to PB.



In your very first post, you said there was no point in rolling. The whole post was dedicated to it being a bad idea. I only brought up the organic aspect later. Also, you admitted it is more organic, because it removes the option to be inorganic.

I said there was no point rolling if you were going to coddle the players. By doing that, it defeats the whole point to rolling, because you're adjusting the world to the players, and that adjusting the players to the world was significantly less effort. Removing the conditional clause makes that statement quite a bit different.

Also, just because one method allows players to produce inorganic ability arrays, that doesn't suddenly make all other methods suddenly more organic. The merits of point buy do not affect the merits of rolling.

What hasn't really been mentioned, which is actually quite important to this whole thing is that a character's level of "organicness" is not based on the ability generation. It's based on how the player builds the character. Point buy better supports a player's ability to build the character they have conceptulalized. Whether the character is organic or not at that point was irrelevant of the player using point buy. On the other hand, rolling does very little to support a player building the character he or she has conceptualized, due to it's inherent randomness, instead forcing them to shoehorn things in, pushing away from their concept, and quite potentially making things make less sense in context, reducing the level of "organicness".


And Crake agrees with me on that, because rolling reducing the options to be inorganic via min-maxing, which means its more organic. Anything to add?

I didn't say rolling reduced the option to be inorganic, i said that point buy offered that option, it's not the same thing.




Can you explain waht he means by this then?



Its so low they shouldn't be going adventuring, but its not sub-optimal?

A 4 for a wizard is not actually sub-optimal, the wizard doesn't care about 4 strength. An example of a wizard having 16 int instead of 18, and using those extra points to instead have some charisma and strength, THAT would be sub-optimal. The 4 int barbarian similarly doesn't care about 4 int, but these kinds of characters, i feel, are at too much of a detriment to adventure, because no sane people would bring them along to anything.

Greenish explained it better

[Greenish]

And Crake agrees with me on that, because rolling reducing the options to be inorganic via min-maxing, which means its more organic. Anything to add?I doubt he does, and even if so, I disagree. For any specific build, different stats take different importance. Whether your stats are generated by rolling or by point buy, you generally* assign them with highest stat to the most important score, second highest for second most important, and so on.

Unless you roll them in order, I guess, but then you're having "organic" stand for pure randomness, and you've already admitted that's not a good thing.


*You don't have to, of course, but you can deviate from the optimum either way.



Can you explain what he means by this then?The point isn't that people are to be prevented from playing suboptimal choices, but that people are prevented from doing nonsensical characters, from the point of in-game verisimilitude. It makes perfect sense that some people are born with "some crippling blight or genetic defect they suffer from", but it makes little sense for such people to become adventurers.

[Boci]

Greenish graciously covered this point for me, that's not at all what I said. Perhaps a wizard with 4 strength is not the ideal choice of example, how about a barbarian with 4 int? I would likewise not allow that for the same reason I stated.

It could work. They'd just need to be closely tied to another party member who has a more reasonable score via your background story and work out a George and Larry(?) type situation. Alternatively don't put the 4 you rolled in intelligence. There are plenty of ways to handle this.


I said there was no point rolling if you were going to coddle the players. By doing that, it defeats the whole point to rolling, because you're adjusting the world to the players, and that adjusting the players to the world was significantly less effort. Removing the conditional clause makes that statement quite a bit different.

But what does coddle mean? I am coddling standard optimized gamers by not throwing encounters at them designed for high end power gamers? Doesn't coddling just mean don't throw an encounter at your players they cannot handle, which is usually good DM regardless of stat generation method and power level.


Also, just because one method allows players to produce inorganic ability arrays, that doesn't suddenly make all other methods suddenly more organic.

Yes it does. If A is not as slow as B, then its faster. If A is not as inorganic as B, then its more organic.


I doubt he does, and even if so, I disagree. For any specific build, different stats take different importance. Whether your stats are generated by rolling or by point buy, you generally* assign them with highest stat to the most important score, second highest for second most important, and so on.

So rolling isn't less inorganic than minmaxing via PB?



The point isn't that people are to be prevented from playing suboptimal choices, but that people are prevented from doing nonsensical characters, from the point of in-game verisimilitude. It makes perfect sense that some people are born with "some crippling blight or genetic defect they suffer from", but it makes little sense for such people to become adventurers.

Amputees climb Mt. Everest. I can't tell you why as I don't speak for them, you'd have to ask them, but they do.

Edit: Plus there's the archetype of the unwilling adventurer, who never planned to do this but found themselves unable to avoid such a fate.

[Psyren]

Not if the DM gives them appropriate encounters. A fighter with 18 strength and 14 con will also die if the GM uses the same encounters he designed for his previous all powergame group.

The game doesn't assume a (non-dex based) fighter with 12 Str when considering "appropriateness" of encounters.


Also the rogue character in the example above (i.e. a real one and not one you made up), has 16 strength and 14 con.

Eh, I didn't bother reading which crappy stat array in the OP went with which class.

[Boci]

The game doesn't assume a (non-dex based) fighter with 12 Str when considering "appropriateness" of encounters.

The game doesn't assume powergaming either, but a GM can handle it. More work for the GM in both cases sure, but both can be done.

[Bucky]

I prefer the following 'balanced' rolling scheme:
Step 1: Decide on a 'minimum' attribute value (e.g. 6), a 'maximum' attribute value (e.g. 18) and an 'average' attribute value (e.g. 13)
Step 2: #DICE = (average) - (minimum) * 6 (e.g. 30)
Step 3: Roll #DICE d6
Step 4: Strength = minimum + # of 1s rolled, Dex = minimum + # of 2s rolled, etc.
Step 5: Rolls leading to an attribute higher than the maximum value are rerolled until they don't.

[Psyren]

The game doesn't assume powergaming either, but a GM can handle it. More work for the GM in both cases sure, but both can be done.

This is a false equivalency though, because making an encounter more difficult/challenging is easy - just add more monsters. You can also use monsters or terrain that counter the party's strengths. Or add feats like Spell Focus to a monster.

If a monster of X CR is too hard for the PCs, by contrast - which is easily the case if they have lame ability scores - you can't pare that monster down as easily. You have to dig into its statblock, tweak the math, or decide which lower-CR monster or combination of lower-CR monsters get the job done instead. You have to replace feats with weaker ones rather than adding more. Diluting is more work.

[Crake]

It could work. They'd just need to be closely tied to another party member who has a more reasonable score via your background story and work out a George and Larry(?) type situation. Alternatively don't put the 4 you rolled in intelligence. There are plenty of ways to handle this.

Where would you put the 4? Anywhere you put it would make for an equally unreasonable adventurer. I don't know the example you gave, but tying them to another character doesn't explain why the rest of the party took them along. Tying them all together just comes back to shoehorning, and doesn't explain why the party is being so negligent to let someone with a borderline mental disorder come adventuring with them (unless they're exploiting the character, which makes for bad PC dynamics).


But what does coddle mean? I am coddling standard optimized gamers by not throwing encounters at them designed for high end power gamers? Doesn't coddling just mean don't throw an encounter at your players they cannot handle, which is usually good DM regardless of stat generation method and power level.

Coddling in this case means reducing the power of every encounter to account for the low ability scores of the players, as the DM was planning. For example, if you are a DM running an adventure module, the encounters are status quo. They are set, they don't change. If the players cannot overcome the encounter, that's the end of their journey, it's over. Coddling the players woud be to go through every encoutner and lower things or change things so the players will be able to make it through the encounter.

Since the DM was talking about editing seemingly existing encounters, I would assume he is running an adventure path, or at the very least, already has encounters designed for set PC levels. Changing them just because the players are suddenly weaker due to their own accord (wanting to roll instead of point buy) constitutes coddling.

What you're describing is similar to tailoring your campaign, but the difference is that tailoring is all about focusing on player's strengths and abilities. A CR 5 encounter in a tailored game is still a CR 5 encounter, but from the sounds of it, it seems like the OP was considering throwing a CR 4 encounter at the players and calling it a CR5 encounter because of their lowered abilities. That's coddling.

As for optimization, that's a whole other ballpark. Matching your player's optimzation level is pretty much a requirement. The difference here is that the players aren't lacking optimsation, they're lacking character creation resources. They can still quite easily optimize with those scores, as any good optimizer would know, so that's irrelevant.


Yes it does. If A is not as slow as B, then its faster. If A is not as inorganic as B, then its more organic.

Except that you went and made an assumption about B that I had not stated. I said that A had the option of being inorganic, but made no statement about B. If I were to make a statement about B, it would be that B is still less organic than A, because it relies on sheer chance to achieve the goals of the player, which as I said, and you seem to have left out of the argument, the player's goal determined the organicness of the character, not the ability generation method. So it goes like this:

Player has 2 options:

1) Conceptulaize an unorganic character, result character is unorganic regardless
2) Conceptulaize an organic character. Move on to step 2

Player has 2 ability generation methods

1) Point buy, result is an ability array that matches their, already organic, character. Final character is organic.
2) Roll. Result will randomly vary between organic and workable, or unorganic due to ability array being too far from what they want.

As you can see, if you take away the first step, and assume that a player will come up with a concept that is organic (because someone conceptulaizing an unorganic character will be unorganic regardless of ability generation), point buy will always produce an organic character, wheras rolling will only by chance do so. As such, point buy is 100% organic, wheras rolling is not.


So rolling isn't less inorganic than minmaxing via PB?

The double negatives are confusing me this late at night, but a player minmaxing vis PB isn't likely building an organic PC to begin with, so rolling doesn't improve that, it just makes his character not what he wants.



Amputees climb Mt. Everest. I can't tell you why as I don't speak for them, you'd have to ask them, but they do.

Edit: Plus there's the archetype of the unwilling adventurer, who never planned to do this but found themselves unable to avoid such a fate.

Again, even with this point. If the player is building such a character, and they are building it organically, point buy lets them build a character that is organic, because even an unwilling adventurer doesn't have random stats. I have a player who is currently playing something along those lines, a druid mother. The player has 18 strength and 14 wis and 8 int, because the player envisioned a strong protective mother acting on instinct and without much/any formal education. The character is organic, but not because he used point buy. It's because he came up with an organic concept, and used point buy to achieve that. The chances of having a rolled array that would have worked with what he wanted were infinitesimal.

[Greenish]

But what does coddle mean? I am coddling standard optimized gamers by not throwing encounters at them designed for high end power gamers? Doesn't coddling just mean don't throw an encounter at your players they cannot handle, which is usually good DM regardless of stat generation method and power level.Context is important. Here we have a DM who has already created a bunch of encounters, but due poor rolls finds the group he has is weaker than he assumed when writing said encounters. Crake's suggestion is that he either a) buff the group so they're more in line with the presumed power level or b) leave everything as it is and accept that the campaign will be more lethal, as opposed to b) that he nerf all the encounters to be in line with the group's power. His reasoning for this is that both a) and b) are much less effort than c), and furthermore that a) actually accomplishes the same goal as c) for said less effort.

Now, both a) and c) could be seen as "coddling", but since the players implicitly rejected option a) (in wanting to roll for their scores), there's no reason for the DM to go with option c), which, as discussed, amounts to the same result, but for more work.



So rolling isn't less inorganic than minmaxing via PB?Minmaxing via rolling is as inorganic as minmaxing via PB. (Or, as Crake explained, probably more so.)

[Boci]

This is a false equivalency though, because making an encounter more difficult/challenging is easy - just add more monsters. You can also use monsters or terrain that counter the party's strengths. Or add feats like Spell Focus to a monster.

If a monster of X CR is too hard for the PCs, by contrast - which is easily the case if they have lame ability scores - you can't pare that monster down as easily. You have to dig into its statblock, tweak the math, or decide which lower-CR monster or combination of lower-CR monsters get the job done instead. You have to replace feats with weaker ones rather than adding more. Diluting is more work.

So don't use that monster until they are a couple of levels higher.

1. Just add more monsters = just take away more monster
But what is there's only 1 monster? Use a lower CR monster.

2. You can also use monsters or terrain that counter the party's strengths = Use terrain the counters the monsters strength, or plays to the parties strength

3. Or add feats like Spell Focus to a monster = Swap out a useful feat on the monster for a useless skill feat that would be useful for the monsters daily routine but is unlikely to influence the court of battle

Maybe its a little more effort to depower encounters, but the difference doesn't seem to be much.

@Crake and Greenish = I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I really don't see why, when its acceptable to throw CR 6 monsters at a party of level 4 players because their optimized, it suddenly becomes bad to throw a CR 4 monster at a group of level 5 players, and I disagree that putting your highest rolled stat into your casting (which could be anything from 14-18) is the same as putting exactly 16 or 18 into your casting stat, depending on how generous the point by was. To me, the former is more organic, because there is more unknown.

[Crake]

Haha, greenish, I don't know if it's because I'm tired and can't get my thoughts straight, but you are so much more succinct than me right now :smalltongue:


@Crake and Greenish = I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I really don't see why, when its acceptable to throw CR 6 monsters at a party of level 4 players because their optimized, it suddenly becomes bad to throw a CR 4 monster at a group of level 5 players, and I disagree that putting your highest rolled stat into your casting (which could be anything from 14-18) is the same as putting exactly 16 or 18 into your casting stat, depending on how generous the point by was. To me, the former is more organic, because there is more unknown.

No, see, you don't throw a CR6 monster against a party of optimized level 4 players. You throw an optimized CR4 monster at them. That's the point I tried to get across. Psyren obviously has a different approach to dealing with optimized players, but that's the method I would take. Then again, I actually build my encounters personally, rather than using an adventure module, and having to up the optimization level of every encounter in a module is probably harder than just doing what psyren said, but then, if you're playing with sufficiently optimized players, adventure modules just aren't going to cut it after a certain point.

Your final sentence is the crux of the issue, you are equating "unknown" or "random" to organic, which is not what the word means in this context. I'm not sure why you keep avoiding my point about character organicness not being derived from ability score generation though. It's like arguing whether a house is well designed or not based on which hammer was used to build it. The hammer doesn't determine how well the house is designed, though it may determine how well it was built.

Edit: Man I'm so proud of that analogy. I feel like it hit the nail on the head :smallbiggrin:

[Boci]

Leaving the organic issue aside, because agree to disagree:


No, see, you don't throw a CR6 monster against a party of optimized level 4 players. You throw an optimized CR4 monster at them.

This won't always work, because PCs can be optimized better than monsters. You can choose the more powerful monsters in CR4 bracket, maybe jiggle their feats and skills, finger threw splat books for optional bonuses, but as PCs get more and more optimized this aproach will increasingly fall short and you will have to actually give them boosts, at which point you are advancing their CR.

[Nifft]

Dice can be made using substances which contain carbon.

Point buy points are abstract non-physical entities, and therefore do not involve any carbon.

Therefore, dice are more organic than point buy.

[Crake]

This won't always work, because PCs can be optimized better than monsters. You can choose the more powerful monsters in CR4 bracket, maybe jiggle their feats and skills, finger threw splat books for optional bonuses, but as PCs get more and more optimized this aproach will increasingly fall short and you will have to actually give them boosts, at which point you are advancing their CR.

Matching a PC's optimization level is an art form. If need be, match them by throwing them against NPCs with class levels rather than monsters. Or altnernatively, monsters who are practically as good as having class levels, such as using an Aranea instead of a sorcerer, then prestige classing, instead of building a straight sorcerer. You lose out on a level of spellcasting, but you gain several benefits ontop.

Alternatively, take the other route, where you use non-associated class levels to gain more bang for your buck. I once designed designed something like a CR 14 succubus that was something like level 20ish (after racial HD that is, that's 14 non-associated class levels, multiclassing a fair bit, since it was a martial enemy). While this monster of a creature would have been an almost unbeatable challenge for a typical level 14 party, for a highly optimized party, it would have been challenging, but managable.

The trick is giving them boosts that synergize together really well, producing a higher effect within the same amount of CR, the exact same thing players do with their characters and class levels.

But again, worst case scenario is just throwing actual NPCs at them with equal levels of optimization.

[Greenish]

What if you use a pencil (containing graphite and cellulose) on paper (containing cellulose) to calculate your point buy scores and keep tally of the points you've used?

[Nifft]

What if you use a pencil (containing graphite and cellulose) on paper (containing cellulose) to calculate your point buy scores and keep tally of the points you've used?

That's equal carbon usage to using graphite and paper to record dice rolls.

The difference is that dice rolls tend to also involve dice.

Thus, dice are the carbon difference.

Note that nobody said either was inorganic -- merely more organic.

[Boci]

Matching a PC's optimization level is an art form. If need be, match them by throwing them against NPCs with class levels rather than monsters. Or altnernatively, monsters who are practically as good as having class levels, such as using an Aranea instead of a sorcerer, then prestige classing, instead of building a straight sorcerer. You lose out on a level of spellcasting, but you gain several benefits ontop.

Alternatively, take the other route, where you use non-associated class levels to gain more bang for your buck. I once designed designed something like a CR 14 succubus that was something like level 20ish (after racial HD that is, that's 14 non-associated class levels, multiclassing a fair bit, since it was a martial enemy). While this monster of a creature would have been an almost unbeatable challenge for a typical level 14 party, for a highly optimized party, it would have been challenging, but managable.

The trick is giving them boosts that synergize together really well, producing a higher effect within the same amount of CR, the exact same thing players do with their characters and class levels.

But again, worst case scenario is just throwing actual NPCs at them with equal levels of optimization.

Which is a serious limitation (you have to use NPCs, caster monsters or NAC) with no inherent benefit over just using regular monsters at a CR+1 - 4. The latter method is much easier and doesn't require you to exploit rules like NAC. Thrower in an on paper CR 14 monster that is actually closer to 17 is fun too, but you shouldn't feel its your only methods. Given that the DMG says use monsters with a higher CR than the average party level, I really don't get why you are so averse to it.

[Nifft]

Which is a serious limitation (you have to use NPCs, caster monsters or NAC) with no inherent benefit over just using regular monsters at a CR+1 - 4. The latter method is much easier and doesn't require you to exploit rules like NAC.

Indeed, and for me using monsters means much less work in terms of prep time.

Maybe some people find that building NPCs is as easy as building monsters? But that's not true for me.

Also, monsters are easier to justify in many contexts.

[Crake]

Which is a serious limitation (you have to use NPCs, caster monsters or NAC) with no inherent benefit over just using regular monsters at a CR+1 - 4. The latter method is much easier and doesn't require you to exploit rules like NAC. Thrower in an on paper CR 14 monster that is actually closer to 17 is fun too, but you shouldn't feel its your only methods. Given that the DMG says use monsters with a higher CR than the average party level, I really don't get why you are so averse to it.

I did say earlier though, that players with sufficient levels of optimization practically require that the DM runs a tailored campaign, just to challenge the players. Thowing higher CR encounters at the players doesn't solve the problem, because you run the risk of accidentally going too far and just squashing the players, and at the same time just accelerating the character's growth, meaning you need to throw even higher encounters at them, speeding up their growth, ad infinitum, the very essence of rocket tag, which can quickly ruin a game.

Another thing to note is that the monster manual says to use the elite array when giving monsters class levels, or when making NPCs with class levels. However, that assumes that the players are using 4d6d1, or the standard 25 point buy.

If you are using a different generation method, you will want to change this to match the players. For example, I use 35 point buy for my players, so I build NPCs and monsters with class levels based on a 35 point buy array instead of a 25 point buy array like the elite array.

Also, I'm not averse to using monsters of higher CR where it's appropriate, for example a boss encounter is supposed to be CR+3-4, but if you're just tacking on +2 CR to all your encounters just because the party is optimized, then you're gonna run into rocket tag as the players dash through all the levels and just keep getting stronger, faster and faster.


Indeed, and for me using monsters means much less work in terms of prep time.

Maybe some people find that building NPCs is as easy as building monsters? But that's not true for me.

Also, monsters are easier to justify in many contexts.

All I'm saying is that, as a DM, you should be able to match your player's level of optimization. Throwing higher CR monsters at the players doesn't solve your issue, it compounds it. If your players are putting a lot of effort into optimizing their characters, then, as the DM, it's your job to put in just as much effort. If you aren't up for it, your options are to not DM, or ask your players to tone down their optimization. Or, you know, just play rocket tag.

[Boci]

Also, I'm not averse to using monsters of higher CR where it's appropriate, for example a boss encounter is supposed to be CR+3-4, but if you're just tacking on +2 CR to all your encounters just because the party is optimized, then you're gonna run into rocket tag as the players dash through all the levels and just keep getting stronger, faster and faster.

That's not what I've seen, taking on extra CR for standard monsters works well for me for accounting for optimization. Shrug, different tables, different gaming experiences. Do you mean leveling? I level by milestone, I don't use XP.

[Crake]

That's not what I've seen, taking on extra CR for standard monsters works well for me for accounting for optimization. Shrug, different tables, different gaming experiences. Do you mean leveling? I level by milestone, I don't use XP.

Right, well, if you level by milestone, then I suppose the levelling issue becomes less of a problem. That said though, in the case of throwing more monsters at the players, if the party wizard can solve the encounter in 1 spell, throwing more monsters doesn't change that, and in the case of throwing bigger monsters at the party, you run the risk of players getting killed by the "one hit one kill" syndrome that over CRed monsters tend to run into.

[Boci]

Right, well, if you level by milestone, then I suppose the levelling issue becomes less of a problem. That said though, in the case of throwing more monsters at the players, if the party wizard can solve the encounter in 1 spell, throwing more monsters doesn't change that, and in the case of throwing bigger monsters at the party, you run the risk of players getting killed by the "one hit one kill" syndrome that over CRed monsters tend to run into.

"wizard can solve the encounter in 1 spell" is something you hear on the forum a lot, but once DMs start tweaking encounters it stops becoming an issue. No spell is perfect, all have their weaknesses. It may allow a save which the monsters pass, it could fizzle on SR, the wizard can miss with a touch attack, it could have a sub-type or a clause which can result in the monster being immune (which make knowledge checks very useful), or the monster may have an ability that negates, say teleport/gaseous form to get out of trapping spell. By contrast debuffing and battle field control spells don't end an encounter in a single spell, but are more reliable.

The most comprehensive optimization guide was Treantent's god wizards, which largely moved away from SoD/L, because of the above and because its more party friendly.

[Andreaz]

Yes there is. Just look at the characters above. We have a wizard with 4 strength, representing some crippling blight or genetic defect they suffer from. This is good, its should sometimes happen, but cannot under point buy. Boom, randomly equals more organic characters.You know that's just anedoctal, right?
But let's look a bit more into it.

Rolled characters usually choose their classes and builds after rolling the stats. One way of rolling also lets you choose the order it goes through.

This means that you'll still have characters whose attributes favor their profession, always, unless there's just nothing to work with.

Rolled stats tend to mean everything revolves around having 10 to 14 in every attribute. That's "organic", in the sense that every character will generally be above average in almost everything they do. But they won't excel in any particular area. It's also no more organic than a character with a heavy focus on one attribute but not the others, since creatures with exceptional traits exist. Alpha gorillas are the strongest, biggest. Lame wolves die off.

"It feels organic" is just a fancy name for personal preference.
And this is fine, but there's absolutely no reason "stronger" than "i like it this way" to qualify rolled stats as better than point buy. It's not about organic, it's not about balance, it's not even about interesting narratives because that can be done even without a character sheet.

They want rolled, they get rolled. They want point-buy, they get point buy. Any excuse other than personal preference and experiencing new things is illusional, maybe even delusional.

[Crake]

"wizard can solve the encounter in 1 spell" is something you hear on the forum a lot, but once DMs start tweaking encounters it stops becoming an issue. No spell is perfect, all have their weaknesses. It may allow a save which the monsters pass, it could fizzle on SR, the wizard can miss with a touch attack, it could have a sub-type or a clause which can result in the monster being immune (which make knowledge checks very useful), or the monster may have an ability that negates, say teleport/gaseous form to get out of trapping spell. By contrast debuffing and battle field control spells don't end an encounter in a single spell, but are more reliable.

The most comprehensive optimization guide was Treantent's god wizards, which largely moved away from SoD/L, because of the above and because its more party friendly.

I don't really know what character level, and what level of optimization your players play at, so I can't really comment on your specific case, but at level 1, through to level 17+, I have had experiences where 1 spell solved it all. At level 1, I was the player, a beguiler, and the spell was color spray. It may have had a save, but the DC was sufficiently high that that the enemies (ice templated wolves) had enough chance to fail that 2 applications of the spell were enough to knock them all out. Combine the spell with clever positioning and bottlenecking enemies, it didn't matter how many monsters the DM threw at me. Later down the track, power word pain (I didn't actually pick that OP as !@#$ spell, because I was specifically toning down my optimization level for the poor DM who couldn't keep up) would have eliminated any single sufficiently powerful enemy. Sure enemies can be made to be immune to those spells, but in those cases the 1 spell was enough.

Oh, and don't forget the time I hit a desert wurm with 5 int with a ray of stupidity and rolled a 4+1 at around level 6 :smalltongue:

Going up to level 17 as a DM, well.. let's just say, the way me and my players play dnd at that leve, it doesn't at all resemble anything at the tamer levels, but just throwing stock standard, high CR monsters at the players at that point, I may as well have just thrown fluffy bunnies at them for it that would have done. They killed a Xixecal at level 16.

[Nikolaz72]

Two players are first timers, the other are pretty new. We wont be making new characters or changing stuff around, so the old school method of 'the weak will perish and the strong endure' will probably ensure a balanced game in the long term.

Poor grandpa wizardman. Should have started studyin' magic before he hit 60 xD.

[Boci]

I don't really know what character level, and what level of optimization your players play at, so I can't really comment on your specific case, but at level 1, through to level 17+, I have had experiences where 1 spell solved it all. At level 1, I was the player, a beguiler, and the spell was color spray. It may have had a save, but the DC was sufficiently high that that the enemies (ice templated wolves) had enough chance to fail that 2 applications of the spell were enough to knock them all out. Combine the spell with clever positioning and bottlenecking enemies, it didn't matter how many monsters the DM threw at me. Later down the track, power word pain (I didn't actually pick that OP as !@#$ spell, because I was specifically toning down my optimization level for the poor DM who couldn't keep up) would have eliminated any single sufficiently powerful enemy. Sure enemies can be made to be immune to those spells, but in those cases the 1 spell was enough.

Oh, and don't forget the time I hit a desert wurm with 5 int with a ray of stupidity and rolled a 4+1 at around level 6 :smalltongue:

Going up to level 17 as a DM, well.. let's just say, the way me and my players play dnd at that leve, it doesn't at all resemble anything at the tamer levels, but just throwing stock standard, high CR monsters at the players at that point, I may as well have just thrown fluffy bunnies at them for it that would have done. They killed a Xixecal at level 16.

Okay, so colourspray:

Very good spell, no doubt about that, but it does have its limitations. Its useless against sightless enemies (not that common), far less useful against creature with HD of 5+ (also not too common at such a low level) and its mind effecting, one of the most common immunizes. You mention a high DC. How high? Even 20 int and spell focus still only nets 17. Even a -1 will save monster beasts it 15% of the time. +2 makes it 30% of the time. Pretty good odds in favour of the beguiler, but hardly unbeatable.

You also mention clever positioning and bottle necking, which is vital for this spell to work well, due to its short range, and not something you should be able to count on in every encounter. Sometime you should be the ones being outflanked and bottled necked.

Ray of stupidity, another good spells, but requires a ranged touch attack, once again mind effecting, and if they have 6+ intelligence its not that useful, except against a spell caster, maybe swashbuckler. Even then, there was only a 25% chance that the int would be enough.

So yeah, not denying these are powerful spells and that magic in general is powerful, but the idea of a mage consistently beating a single encounter with 1 spell? Highly questionable. Sometimes they will have, you won't get all in the AoE, a monster will catch you offguard with a sophisticated tactic, you may realize too late you don't have the right spell for this monster, or worse the monster was immune and you didn't realize, now you've wasted your turn and a spell slot.

@Andreaz - I see your post, but I've stopped debating the organic/inorganic issue. I don't see much coming from it.

[upho]

So I'm wondering. Do I change the encounters I've already prepared for next session? I balanced it for a party of four but I'm worried looking at the stats that they're very squishy. I'm used to players getting better rolls than this and creating challenges befitting it. Half-Elf rogue is the planned sturdy one of the party, going for a ranger/rogue/fighter multiclass with medium armor.

I mean it doesn't look that bad at a first glance, but I'm loathe to use too many ambushes with a wizard like that.Are you running a published adventure or something you wrote yourself? If you're running a published adventure the players will probably do fine unless maybe if they're completely new to the game (which I think you said they weren't?), at least after they've gained a level. If you're running your own thing, I'd recommend doing what was suggested earlier and simply add in some extra "preserving" treasure (and don't be strict on following WBL). Also, unless your campaign is highly dependent on it, I recommend not starting at 1st level, at least not with actually challenging encounters, as that can often become pure rocket tag even for sturdy party members.

[Crake]

Okay, so colourspray:

Very good spell, no doubt about that, but it does have its limitations. Its useless against sightless enemies (not that common), far less useful against creature with HD of 5+ (also not too common at such a low level) and its mind effecting, one of the most common immunizes.

You also mention clever positioning and bottle necking, which is vital for this spell to work well, due to its short range, and not something you should be able to count on in every encounter. Sometime you should be the ones being outflanked and bottled necked.

Ray of stupidity, another good spells, but requires a ranged touch attack, once again mind effecting, and if they have 6+ intelligence its not that useful, except against a spell caster, maybe swashbuckler. Even then, there was only a 25% chance that the int would be enough.

So yeah, not denying these are powerful spells and that magic in general is powerful, but the idea of a mage consistently beating a single encounter with 1 spell? Highly questionable. Sometimes they will have, you won't get all in the AoE, a monster will catch you offguard with a sophisticated tactic, you may realize too late you don't have the right spell for this monster, or worse the monster was immune and you didn't realize, now you've wasted your turn and a spell slot.

@Andreaz - I see your post, but I've stopped debating the organic/inorganic issue. I don't see much coming from it.

Since I'm now in bed on my phone, I'll try to keep my answers more concise. What separates the good optimizers from the great is their ability to consistently have the right spell for the job, either by using methods to find out what they're coming across, or having ways to gain access to what they need, when they need (see uncanny forethought).

Many of the points you brought up only work against those spells in particular. My point was that, in those situations, 1 spell WAS enough. Maybe next time that same spell will be useless, but then some other spell will take its place. Enemies have their strengths, but its their weaknesses that make one spell able to win the day. Again, this is based on the assumption that you're either increasing the CR of the monster, or throwing more of the same monster. If you vary the kinds of monsters it becomes a little different, but then you aren't really using the simple method you described anymore, and are, to a degree, tailoring the enemies to your players. At that point, since you're putting the effort to tailor to your players, why not just optimize what is already there rather than just cluttering the battlefield with exceedingly more enemies.

So much for concise :/

[Boci]

Since I'm now in bed on my phone, I'll try to keep my answers more concise. What separates the good optimizers from the great is their ability to consistently have the right spell for the job, either by using methods to find out what they're coming across, or having ways to gain access to what they need, when they need (see uncanny forethought).

Many of the points you brought up only work against those spells in particular. My point was that, in those situations, 1 spell WAS enough. Maybe next time that same spell will be useless, but then some other spell will take its place. Enemies have their strengths, but its their weaknesses that make one spell able to win the day. Again, this is based on the assumption that you're either increasing the CR of the monster, or throwing more of the same monster. If you vary the kinds of monsters it becomes a little different, but then you aren't really using the simple method you described anymore, and are, to a degree, tailoring the enemies to your players. At that point, since you're putting the effort to tailor to your players, why not just optimize what is already there rather than just cluttering the battlefield with exceedingly more enemies.

So much for concise :/

The idea that you could in any way do that though is pretty much a forum myth.

Very few abilities do this. You mentioned uncanny forethought (wizards only and costs 2 feats, the beguiler couldn't have used it), there's a couple more. But they will have limited uses. Outside of complex divination play, which is a little reliant on the GM, you cannot expect to have the right spell for every situation.

There's a spell printed somewhere for every situation yes, but you won't have it. Maybe its not on your list of spells know, or you didn't scribe it into your spell book. Furthermore, even if you have the right spell, you may not know which one to use, which won't always be apparent. Its safer to cast haste, which you know will work, than risk wasting spell slots trying to find the one save or die spell that will end the encounter.

You also aren't taking in account the ability for enemies to neutralize the spell caster, but silence and lockdown, grappling, readied action to disrupts casting.

Show me a caster build at 10th level, chances are I'll be able to find monsters to challenge them.

Spell casters are strong, yes. Generally stronger than other classes. But the idea that they can consistently end encounters with 1 spells, only really works when the players knows the game a lot better then the GM. Which is a problem, but a different kind.

[Crake]

The idea that you could in any way do that though is pretty much a forum myth.

Very few abilities do this. You mentioned uncanny forethought (wizards only and costs 2 feats, the beguiler couldn't have used it), there's a couple more. But they will have limited uses. Outside of complex divination play, which is a little reliant on the GM, you cannot expect to have the right spell for every situation.

There's a spell printed somewhere for every situation yes, but you won't have it. Maybe its not on your list of spells know, or you didn't scribe it into your spell book. Furthermore, even if you have the right spell, you may not know which one to use, which won't always be apparent. Its safer to cast haste, which you know will work, than risk wasting spell slots trying to find the one save or die spell that will end the encounter.

You also aren't taking in account the ability for enemies to neutralize the spell caster, but silence and lockdown, grappling, readied action to disrupts casting.

Spell casters are strong, yes. Generally stronger than other classes. But the idea that they can consistently end encounters with 1 spells, only really works when the players knows the game a lot better then the GM. Which is a problem, but a different kind.

If you think it's a forum myth, then you don't play on the same level of optimisation as I DM for my players. There are many ways to expand your spell knowledge, and also many means go access what you need when you need. Plenty of DMs ban these options, or discourage them, because they cannot handle them in action, which is just lowering the optimisation ceiling, like I suggested, but to imply that they don't see use is just projecting, as you're assuming everyone plays like you do. As for disrupting the wizard, if he's in a place to be disrupted, he either isnt playing well, or has abrupt jaunt and can just ignore it.

[Boci]

If you think it's a forum myth, then you don't play on the same level of optimisation as I DM for my players.

I'm pretty sure I do. Show me a build, I'll show you monsters that can challenge it.


As for disrupting the wizard, if he's in a place to be disrupted, he either isnt playing well, or has abrupt jaunt and can just ignore it.

Another forum myth. There are far too many unknowns for a wizard to never be caught offguard. They can take precautions, but nothing is certain. And abrupt jaunt is a. abjurer only (once again, no for the beguiler) and b. not as impenetrable as you seem to think it is. Its only 10ft, so you could be still be within the area you were trying to escape, it also doesn't work against attacks you are unaware of.


but to imply that they don't see use is just projecting

I'm not implying they don't see use, just that with the correct encounter design, their impact on game balance is diminished greatly. And yes, this is a problem. To claim otherwise would be to invoke the oberoni fallacy, but it can be addressed.

[Crake]

Abrupt jaunt is conjurer, so youll have to forgive me when I don't believe you about having the same level of optimisation. As for showing you a build, well, let's just say its 6:47 am, I've been up all night, am in bed on my phone, and don't feel like typing out a whole 10 page essay for you.

Also why you're talking about the oberoni fallacy which is about homebrewing away issues with the system, I don't know

[Boci]

Abrupt jaunt is conjurer, so youll have to forgive me when I don't believe you about having the same level of optimisation.

Given that I knew its range, that it was an immediate action and that it was only available to a wizard specializing in one school of magic off the top of my head, I find your dismissal awfully convenient and not at all genuine. I called it abjurer because of how similar the word abrupt is to abjure. That's how my memory works.


As for showing you a build, well, let's just say its 6:47 am, I've been up all night, am in bed on my phone, and don't feel like typing out a whole 10 page essay for you.

I asked for a build, not a 10pg essay. It can be level 5 to make it easier. I don't need it tonight, I can wait. If you don't want to, that fine as well, that's usually what happens when someone claims they can make a character intended for a game that can end any encounter with 1 spell.


Also why you're talking about the oberoni fallacy which is about homebrewing away issues with the system, I don't know

I was under the impression oberoni covered any GM activity, not just homebrewwing. I was acknowledging that the GMs ability to custom design encounters didn't negate the imbalance of spell casters compared to non-casters.

[Crake]

Given that I knew its range, that it was an immediate action and that it was only available to a wizard specializing in one school of magic off the top of my head, I find your dismissal awfully convenient and not at all genuine. I called it abjurer because of how similar the word abrupt is to abjure. That's how my memory works.



I asked for a build, not a 10pg essay. It can be level 5 to make it easier, and I can wait. If you don't want to, that fine as well, that's usually what happens when someone claims they can make a character intended for a game that can end any encounter with 1 spell.

Or, you know, I've been up for 20 hours and am in bed on my phone. You can tell, because my phone is capitalising my I for me :p

Also, an optimize party isnt made up of just 1 character, and being able to come up with something specifically able to counter a build isnt hard. Building counters is in fact easy. What is difficult is building a status quo encounter that is able to match whatever your players come up with. The concept you just introduced is the idea of tailoring toward the players (or rather against), as opposed to just building optimized encounters irrelevant of the players and letting the players deal with them. Adding more or bigger monsters, as I said, doesn't address the challenge the same way adding more orcs doesn't address the challenge for higher level players

[Boci]

Also, an optimize party isnt made up of just 1 character, and being able to come up with something specifically able to counter a build isnt hard. Building counters is in fact easy. What is difficult is building a status quo encounter that is able to match whatever your players come up with.

Well firstly, yhr quote that started this whole exchange was: "if the party wizard can solve the encounter in 1 spell". I was largely focused on disproving that claim. So I'm glad to see that was a mispeak.

I would expand my challange to build a whole 5th level party (or 10th if you want to be adventurers). I'll still find monsters that can challenge them.

As for building status quo encounters, you cannot for high end optimizers. You need to custom build if you want to retrain a semplance of balance, but it can be done.

[Crake]

Well firstly, yhr quote that started this whole exchange was: "if the party wizard can solve the encounter in 1 spell". I was largely focused on disproving that claim. So I'm glad to see that was a mispeak.

I would expand my challange to build a whole 5th level party (or 10th if you want to be adventurers). I'll still find monsters that can challenge them.

As for building status quo encounters, you cannot for high end optimizers. You need to custom build if you want to retrain a semplance of balance, but it can be done.

I was talking about the situations where the wizard CAN solve it in one spell. You self inserted the idea of every situation. I then went to give examples of this being the case, purposefully using niche spells to illustrate the point that niche spells cover niche situations, and that I'm those cases, adding more enemies, as you suggest for balancing to counter optimisation, served absolutely no purpose in making the encounter harder.

And you certainly CAN build status quo encounters for optimized PCs, as long as they are equally as optimised. Most DMs dont have the time, patience, expertise or combination thereof to match 4 players at once in such a challenge, but that doesnt make it impossible.

If you want to play the build game. Level 9 chameleon with access to 9th level spells. I DMed that once. What stock standard monster would you throw at such a character. No optimizing on your end now, or you're just proving yourself wrong.

Edit: That's character level 9, not class level 9
Did I mention abrupt jaunt from a level of wizard, floating bonus feat to get extra spell over and over in a time sped demiplane to know every arcane spell ever at its loest available level, with a level of cleric to have spontaneous casting, giving access to versatile spellcaster to be able to spend 2 slots to cast any arcane spell ever at will.

[Boci]

I was talking about the situations where the wizard CAN solve it in one spell. You self inserted the idea of every situation. I then went to give examples of this being the case, purposefully using niche spells to illustrate the point that niche spells cover niche situations, and that I'm those cases, adding more enemies, as you suggest for balancing to counter optimisation, served absolutely no purpose in making the encounter harder.

But in both cases, more monsters would have helped. The beguiler wouldn't have been able to cover all the wolves if there were more of them (plus sometimes the PCs are caught offguard) and if there had been a second purple worm there may not have been enough rays of stupidity to handle the encounter.


If you want to play the build game. Level 9 chameleon with access to 9th level spells. I DMed that once. What stock standard monster would you throw at such a character. No optimizing on your end now, or you're just proving yourself wrong.

I need a bit more than that. How does the combo work? Chameleons are a prestige class and you need about 4th level at least to qualify (5 is the standard), so that's only five levels of the prestige class, which is 4th level spells, how are they making up the difference? What abilities do they have other than casting 9th level spells, race (I'm assuming human, not doppelganger), items? Basically a build. Going off just there, there are a slew magic resistant monsters are an obvious choice. Balhanoth is the obvious choice, CR 10, has a nice anti magic field, there's also arcane oooze, which has some fairly exploitable weaknesses, but that probably won't be a single spell. Then again, given their low caster level, SR may be enough on it own. What about a monster they don't know is one, like lilitu pretending to be a friendly priest? I can give a better answer when I know more about the character.


Did I mention abrupt jaunt from a level of wizard, floating bonus feat to get extra spell over and over in a time sped demiplane to know every arcane spell ever at its loest available level, with a level of cleric to have spontaneous casting, giving access to versatile spellcaster to be able to spend 2 slots to cast any arcane spell ever at will.

Again, exact build, but same principle as before. Lot's of magic resistant and immunizes, so they have to guess which one would work, or monsters that don't appear to be monsters.

[Crake]

But in both cases, more monsters would have helped. The beguiler wouldn't have been able to cover all the wolves if there were more of them (plus sometimes the PCs are caught offguard) and if there had been a second purple worm there may not have been enough rays of stupidity to handle the encounter.



I need a bit more than that. How does the combo work? Chameleons are a prestige class and you need about 4th level at least to qualify (5 is the standard), so that's only five levels of the prestige class, which is 4th level spells, how are they making up the difference? What abilities do they have other than casting 9th level spells, race (I'm assuming human, not doppelganger), items? Basically a build. Going off just there, there are a slew magic resistant monsters are an obvious choice. Balhanoth is the obvious choice, CR 10, has a nice anti magic field, there's also arcane oooze, which has some fairly exploitable weaknesses, but that probably won't be a single spell. Then again, given their low caster level, SR may be enough on it own. What about a monster they don't know is one, like lilitu pretending to be a friendly priest? I can give a better answer when I know more about the character.



Again, exact build, but same principle as before. Lot's of magic resistant and immunizes, so they have to guess which one would work, or monsters that don't appear to be monsters.

Oh no, you killed the chameleon. Oh well, it was just an astral projection, they now scry and fry the monster/enemy. Alternatively they send one of their ice assassins.

Anyway, not gonna turn this thread into a @#£% waving contest about who can out play who. There is no stock standard monster that can deal with that build within a reasonable CR range, but then, its so high op, bordering on TO, that expecting so would just be silly.

[Boci]

Oh no, you killed the chameleon. Oh well, it was just an astral projection, they now scry and fry the monster/enemy. Alternatively they send one of their ice assassins.

Doesn't work, because of a monster. It has teeth. Tell me the exact build and I'll give some more details on this mysterious monster. I also now need to know the campaign as well, since I'm guessing there's a little more plot than than "he sits in his astral fortress all day long, occasionally sending his astral projections out to be killed so he can kill the monster in revenge.

[Crake]

Doesn't work, because of a monster. It has teeth. Tell me the exact build and I'll give some more details on this mysterious monster.

Not sure what part of in bed on phone you didn't quite get, but I'm not gonna get into this with you in this thread. If it really bugs you, pm me, and when I get back after some sleep, then I might engage. Maybe even send you that 10 page essay


Who says I have to use a stock monster within a reasonable CR range against a borderline TO build?

If you want to just prove my point about playing rocket tag, then go ahead. Please note that I DMed this without going into rocket tag mode.

[Boci]

Not sure what part of in bed on phone you didn't quite get, but I'm not gonna get into this with you in this thread. If it really bugs you, pm me, and when I get back after some sleep, then I might engage. Maybe even send you that 10 page essay

Sure I will, also I will add (since you likely missed my edit):



Anyway, not gonna turn this thread into a @#£% waving contest about who can out play who. There is no stock standard monster that can deal with that build within a reasonable CR range, but then, its so high op, bordering on TO, that expecting so would just be silly.

Who says I have to use a stock monster within a reasonable CR range against a borderline TO build? You're just adding unreasonable requirements that were never previously specified.


If you want to just prove my point about playing rocket tag, then go ahead. Please note that I DMed this without going into rocket tag mode.

Doesn't have to be rocket tag, I can choose a monster that's more defensive than offensive ability-wise.

Also:


not gonna turn this thread into a @#£% waving contest

Says the guy who breaks out a borderline TO in a discussion on how to GM for powerful players. (Because you never previously mentioned borderline TO)

[Crake]

Sure I will, also I will add (since you likely missed my edit):




Who says I have to use a stock monster within a reasonable CR range against a borderline TO build? You're just adding unreasonable requirements that were never previously specified.

Also:



Says the guy who breaks out a borderline TO in a discussion on how to GM for powerful players.

Edited my last post, anyway, I slep now

[Greenish]

How about you two agree to agree that there are spells (plural used advisedly) that, when correctly applied, against the right kind of enemy, can de facto end an encounter all on their own?

[Boci]

How about you two agree to agree that there are spells (plural used advisedly) that, when correctly applied, against the right kind of enemy, can de facto end an encounter all on their own?

We both already acknowledged that. He made a similar claim and I never contested that certain spells cannot end certain encounters, but I just debate the extent to which this happens in games, and what you can do about it.

[Greenish]

I just debate the extent to which this happens in gamesWouldn't that by definition be something where your mileage can vary wildly, with no one right answer?

[Crake]

How about you two agree to agree that there are spells (plural used advisedly) that, when correctly applied, against the right kind of enemy, can de facto end an encounter all on their own?

I love you greenish, you're so amazing <3 I may be suffering from sleep deprivation, so don't take that the wrong way :P

I can't actually sleep, and it's 8am, which is wakeup time anyway, so I guess no sleep for the wicked. Baci, if you really super duper wanna continue this, PM me and lets leave this thread in peace.

[Boci]

Wouldn't that by definition be something where your mileage can vary wildly, with no one right answer?

I dunno. "A good GM can design encounter using stock monsters to challenge players of a varying level of optimization, providing they ignore the CR system" seems a general enough statement that it could apply to most games.

[Psyren]

What started this frankly ridiculous and meandering tangent was the following assertion:


Rolled stats also produce more organic ability scores, rather than someone who developed the perfect stat spread for the class they ended up choosing. Rolling also places more importance on racial modifiers. I tend to prefer this method when I'm making darker, grittier settings.

Putting aside the fallacy that point buy means you absolutely must choose a "perfect stat spread" (if that can even be definitively quantified in a campaignless vacuum), the problem is that organic things tend to die - and while characters dying is not inherently bad, it does make getting attached to such a character only to have it get its head bashed in by a random bugbear rather anticlimactic. It can result in players who are less connected to their characters, because writing up an extensive backstory for Sir Florence the Frail only to have him snuff it two sessions in is time I could have spent learning to juggle or cleaning my lint trap or some other more productive endeavor.

And yes, the GM can respond to poor stat rolls by pitching softball encounters instead - which is at odds with the "darker, grittier" objective above, but hey - even if the GM does that, it's likely to be unsatisfying the third time you come across two kobold barbarians with gout and their narcoleptic pet crocodile or whatever.

TL;DR roll stats if you want, but don't be surprised if, when the player gets something they didn't want, that they decide to strip naked and pants the town guard or slather themselves in barbecue sauce and go visit an owlbear nest. In short, not everyone plays this game to be a hero, but speaking personally, if I didn't want to be one (or at least have a decent shot at being one) I'd probably be playing something else.

[upho]

But in both cases, more monsters would have helped. The beguiler wouldn't have been able to cover all the wolves if there were more of them (plus sometimes the PCs are caught offguard) and if there had been a second purple worm there may not have been enough rays of stupidity to handle the encounter.Sorry, but it seems to me you misunderstand Crake's original point, which I believe is basically that spells can often make encounter difficulties almost binary - either damn difficult and TPK-threatening without the right spell(s), or easy cakewalks with it. And he's right that this is often the case regardless of the numbers of opponents you throw at a party - the party having the right spell will still be vastly more likely to survive than the party without it.

And he's very much right about the whole "wizard can solve the encounter in 1 spell", which is the very reason for the class being so hilariously OP if not played by either someone with little system mastery or someone with great system mastery (who'll consciously self-nerf his PC in order to preserve party balance). The problem isn't challenging the caster, it's that making balanced encounters for a party with such an OP caster becomes virtually impossible in mid/high levels. Meaning that if the caster player happened to be less focused or unable to join a certain session, your carefully prepared challenges run a very high risk of completely annihilating the party.

[Boci]

Putting aside the fallacy that point buy means you absolutely must choose a "perfect stat spread"

I acknowledged that you could make a wonky state distribution with PB, its just that I've found people (myself included) tend not to. Plus there's a flaw with someone trying to make something deliberately random, though obviously it has its own advantages.


(if that can even be definitively quantified in a campaignless vacuum), the problem is that organic things tend to die

What are you basing that assertion on? It didn't happen in my gritty, Gothic monster hunting game. Sure, anecdotal evidence, single game, but it actually happened, as oppose to the imagined campaign of the gouty kobolds and sleepy crocs.


And he's right that this is often the case regardless of the numbers of opponents you throw at a party - the party having the right spell will still be vastly more likely to survive than the party without it.

Obviously, but if you throw more monsters at them, they're less likely to win with one spell, like the wolves vs. the colour spray. More wolves, spread out, more effort to beat them. Colour spray helpds, but doesn't win the encounter on its own.


The problem isn't challenging the caster, it's that making balanced encounters for a party with such an OP caster becomes virtually impossible in mid/high levels. Meaning that if the caster player happened to be less focused or unable to join a certain session, your carefully prepared challenges run a very high risk of completely annihilating the party.

That is entirely correct, and why when I mentioned a high end party, I assumed all casters (2 wizards, a cleric and a druid).

[Greenish]

I acknowledged that you could make a wonky state distribution with PB, its just that I've found people (myself included) tend not to. Plus there's a flaw with someone trying to make something deliberately random, though obviously it has its own advantages.So by "organic", you do actually, literally mean random?

[Boci]

So by "organic", you do actually, literally mean random?

In that you have some abilities that do not synergies that with your chosen class? Yes. As I said before, I'm a teacher with decent strength, which contributes nothing to my career, or everyday life, except maybe when I have to shift the count because my mobil fell behind it.

[Psyren]

I acknowledged that you could make a wonky state distribution with PB, its just that I've found people (myself included) tend not to. Plus there's a flaw with someone trying to make something deliberately random, though obviously it has its own advantages.

It doesn't even have to be "wonky." You can end up with a 16 after racials in your main stat, 14 in Dex and Con and nothing below 10 if you want, easily. Just fine to represent someone who is talented and hale without being socially or physically stunted in any way.


What are you basing that assertion on? It didn't happen in my gritty, Gothic monster hunting game. Sure, anecdotal evidence, single game, but it actually happened, as oppose to the imagined campaign of the gouty kobolds and sleepy crocs.

I've seen people suicide their character to get rid of bad rolls happen in actual games all the time. I've seen it proposed as advice on these forums too, for those unfortunate souls whose DMs are slavishly dedicated to stat rolls (especially 3d6.) And I've also seen DMs try to tone down encounters after a near-wipe from enforcing bad rolls and have even more difficulty hitting that sweet spot of challenging yet beatable, because toning down to that level is harder than toning up (as I previously stated.) Adding to an encounter is again much easier than taking away from it - it's just how the game is designed.

The simple fact is that you can't force someone to play a character they don't like. No DM can, no matter how powerful. Point Buy or Assigned Arrays are much more likely to get them something they like.

[Honest Tiefling]

In that you have some abilities that do not synergies that with your chosen class? Yes. As I said before, I'm a teacher with decent strength, which contributes nothing to my career, or everyday life, except maybe when I have to shift the count because my mobil fell behind it.

Depending on where and who you teach, it could help you against the students. However, I am curious why point buy doesn't encourage this. I mean, I know my primary stat will be where I need it to not be a burden, and I can do whatever the crap else I want with my stats.

[Greenish]

In that you have some abilities that do not synergies that with your chosen class? Yes. As I said before, I'm a teacher with decent strength, which contributes nothing to my career, or everyday life, except maybe when I have to shift the count because my mobil fell behind it.Ah, well, then, yes, rolling is obviously more random than point buy (which isn't random at all). But by same token, rolling the stats in order is also "more organic" than rolling them and then assigning them (because there you are literally imposing order on randomness), and using a 1d20 is "more organic" than using 3d6, because the probability distribution is flat instead of a bell curve.

By that definition, I fail to see why "more organic" would be considered desirable, or even a useful description in any sense. But on the upside I do agree that by that definition rolling for stats is more "organic" than using point buy.

[Hawkstar]

How is that party "Below average"? The only thing that's lacking there is a lack of a frontline fighter, but that's a problem of party composition, not the rolled stats.

Just send them through normal encounters. Yeah, most of them will drop in 2 hits (If they take them), but they still have 10 Negative HP to keep them alive while the rest of the party mops up.

[Boci]

The simple fact is that you can't force someone to play a character they don't like. No DM can, no matter how powerful. Point Buy or Assigned Arrays are much more likely to get them something they like.

Right, but no one is arguing for that. Yes, you shouldn't make players use something they dislike, that includes not making them use point buy when they want to roll. And given the variety of games that sell themselves in part (or entirely) on being unfair, it seems there is very much a demand for such.


Depending on where and who you teach, it could help you against the students. However, I am curious why point buy doesn't encourage this. I mean, I know my primary stat will be where I need it to not be a burden, and I can do whatever the crap else I want with my stats.

Where I work, if I ever had to use strength in reation to a student I would be out of a job. And because I would have likely put those point into int or cha rather than strength if I had been using PB.


By that definition, I fail to see why "more organic" would be considered desirable, or even a useful description in any sense. But on the upside I do agree that by that definition rolling for stats is more "organic" than using point buy.

As I said, when I ran a gritty, Gothic monster hunting game I preferred this method, because it added to the feeling. For most other games I stick to point buy because its smoother and as you said, fairer. The only other time I use rolls is sometimes if a module tells me to and I'm playing it the first time, because I trust that the designers knew what they were doing.

[Psyren]

Right, but no one is arguing for that. Yes, you shouldn't make players use something they dislike, that includes not making them use point buy when they want to roll. And given the variety of games that sell themselves in part (or entirely) on being unfair, it seems there is very much a demand for such.

Great, we're getting somewhere - I'm not advocating for "force players to use PB if they want to roll" either. If they want to roll then by all means let them. But absent a specific and stated preference for one or the other, I'll recommend Point Buy every time.

[Boci]

Great, we're getting somewhere - I'm not advocating for "force players to use PB if they want to roll" either. If they want to roll then by all means let them. But absent a specific and stated preference for one or the other, I'll recommend Point Buy every time.

That's a perfectly reasonable stance. Did anyone ever dispute that?

[Psyren]

No, I was disputing "more organic" (Greenish cleared this one up) and "perfect stat spread" (which you later acknowledged was hyperbole.)