It doesn't make sense how low stats are at high levels

[GabesHorn]

Even in fiction that DND tries to mimic, the character stats get jacked up way high


What level character would Spiderman be? Given that he lifts 10 tons canonically? And based on accomplishments like supporting the Daily Bugle, can seemingly shoulder thousands of tons? Is it fair for this superhumanly fast and strong guy to be weaker than McGuffin the regular human guy with decent dexterity and a rapier?


Also, some feats seem intrinsically tied to stats. Like Dex, most of all. Reflexes, coordination? Except those are already expressed in feats like Epic Reflexes. Or all the 'Toughness' feats that are literally Constitution. Or Fast Learner for mental stats, etcetera.

And all the feats that jack up damage way high. The more skilled you get, the harder you can hit.. up to a point. Being enthusiastic when you charge, 'spirited', you might say, shouldn't make you hit so much harder than if you were the most skilled fighter beyond human comprehension that you'd be hitting that hard naturally anyway. And I thought hitting as hard as you can was already embodied by Power Attack and/or rolling the max die on damage rolls.

Surely at some point you should just be getting stronger and faster. No matter how skilled Jaime Lannister was at sword fighting, he'd not be able to bring down a dragon in a sword fight with full attacks in the same fashion Jaime Lannister who can lift a mountain and cleave them in half.

[ExLibrisMortis]

What... exactly is your problem here? D&D is doing it wrong? Some feats are terrible/boring? Why are you bringing up Spider-Man?

[KillianHawkeye]

Super heroes are generally a bad metric for D&D and similar systems. Most of them operate on a totally different scale than your average fantasy hero. If you want to play super heroes, there are games that are designed to do that, but D&D is not one of them.

[awa]

I agree, in some ways the characters are superhuman grappling powerful monsters, suffering tremendous damage, but their actually stats barely increase at all over the course of the game. Now i wouldn't go as far as say spider man but high level martial should be like Beowulf, Odysseus, or Conan with high stats across the board. I don't mind wizards being puny at high level. Now fixing that get complicated but at least in theory i definitely agree. My own homebrew system gives players a lot more pnts to work with both at the start and through level up (although stat increasing items are basically nonexistent.)

[flappeercraft]

It really does depend on the optimization level like with everything. In D&D especially on 3.5 stats can be anywhere being on the 10’s or as far as the 1000000’s if you put the effort even if you don’t use infinite loops.

[awa]

while technically true you should be able to take a basic phb fighter/ barbarian. ranger and use that to emulate characters like Conan, Beowulf, or Odysseus without needing to look for loopholes to break the game.

[Gullintanni]

In AD&D ability scores barely increased at all. An ability score of 30+ was unheard of. In my experience, one of the biggest problems with 3.5 is how bland leveling is for melee characters, and to a lesser extent, in general across the board.

As an example, if Bob the fighter has 18 strength and deals 10-20 damage per round as a level one character, and his opponent has 20 hit points on average, it should take 1-2 hits for him to play his foe.

At level 20, if Bob the Fighter has 32 strength and deals 100-200 damage per round, and his average opponent has 200 hit points, then once again, it'll take 1-2 rounds for him to kill his opponent.

This is not progress. This is the illusion of progress represented by inflating numbers without purpose. While combat in 3.5 is certainly more complex an algorithm than what I'm alluding to with Bob the Fighter, the point I'm making is that bigger numbers do not represent progress, nor do they make for a more interesting game.

To me, it doesn't make sense how high stats are at high levels. Keep hit points in the 70-100 range for high level bruisers, tone down the ability score bloat introduced by later editions of D&D, and add versatility via class features as characters level. That would make for a much more interesting game.

[Elkad]

In AD&D ability scores barely increased at all. An ability score of 30+ was unheard of. In my experience, one of the biggest problems with 3.5 is how bland leveling is for melee characters, and to a lesser extent, in general across the board.

As an example, if Bob the fighter has 18 strength and deals 10-20 damage per round as a level one character, and his opponent has 20 hit points on average, it should take 1-2 hits for him to play his foe.

At level 20, if Bob the Fighter has 32 strength and deals 100-200 damage per round, and his average opponent has 200 hit points, then once again, it'll take 1-2 rounds for him to kill his opponent.

This is not progress. This is the illusion of progress represented by inflating numbers without purpose. While combat in 3.5 is certainly more complex an algorithm than what I'm alluding to with Bob the Fighter, the point I'm making is that bigger numbers do not represent progress, nor do they make for a more interesting game.

To me, it doesn't make sense how high stats are at high levels. Keep hit points in the 70-100 range for high level bruisers, tone down the ability score bloat introduced by later editions of D&D, and add versatility via class features as characters level. That would make for a much more interesting game.


There is a difference. It's just not in equal combat.

A 20th level 1e fighter with 80-120hp can die to a horde of goblins much easier than a 3.5 fighter with 300hp, DR, Miss Chance and various other things can. (note, assumes nat20 hits, instead of just being +5, if he has an AC of -6 or better)

That same 20th level fighter in 1e still takes several hits to kill a creature half his level, while the 3.5 fighter splashes it on the walls in a single hit.

[awa]

In AD&D ability scores barely increased at all. An ability score of 30+ was unheard of. In my experience, one of the biggest problems with 3.5 is how bland leveling is for melee characters, and to a lesser extent, in general across the board.

As an example, if Bob the fighter has 18 strength and deals 10-20 damage per round as a level one character, and his opponent has 20 hit points on average, it should take 1-2 hits for him to play his foe.

At level 20, if Bob the Fighter has 32 strength and deals 100-200 damage per round, and his average opponent has 200 hit points, then once again, it'll take 1-2 rounds for him to kill his opponent.

This is not progress. This is the illusion of progress represented by inflating numbers without purpose. While combat in 3.5 is certainly more complex an algorithm than what I'm alluding to with Bob the Fighter, the point I'm making is that bigger numbers do not represent progress, nor do they make for a more interesting game.

To me, it doesn't make sense how high stats are at high levels. Keep hit points in the 70-100 range for high level bruisers, tone down the ability score bloat introduced by later editions of D&D, and add versatility via class features as characters level. That would make for a much more interesting game.

this isn't actually about any of that its how in fiction really powerful warriors have very high stats and in d&d they don't they have magic items (but even then only in their primary stat).

If you look at most greek heroes they have good stats all across the board they might have one that is particularly exceptional but they almost never have anything average. The characters perform feats that imply high stats like smashing through stone walls with a single blow (power attack), wrestling a rhino or surviving poison but their stats just arnt that high so it it feels off. Conan is strong, and agile, and tough, and smart, and charismatic, with incredible senses and will power d&d simply does not allow for that type of character.

Almost any time you try and stat a really tough fictional heroes you wide up not having enough stat points or being forced to make wildly efficient builds that cant function as level appropriate charecters.

[Darth Ultron]

What level character would Spiderman be? .

A 10th level Fighter.

[JNAProductions]

A 10th level Fighter.

If you can build an even vaguely accurate Spiderman from a 10th level Fighter, I will be gobsmacked.

[ezekielraiden]

There's a reason 4e has a half-level bonus on everything and 5e has an (effective) quarter-level bonus on certain things. That neatly takes care of all of this. Throw in growing stats in your areas of focus (4e: +1 to two every 4 levels and +1 to all at each new tier; 5e: +2 to one or +1 to two every ~4 levels for most classes), plus feats and other little bonuses/Advantage, and you get a clear progression. Of course, 5e took a step away from this by having Proficiency be elective rather than automatic, but there's a good reason why one of the most common house rules is "everyone is proficient in saves, getting proficiency doubles your bonus."

Unfortunately, you're trying to serve contradictory goals with a single system. On the one hand, you have people who want genre emulation, and thus expect growing general competence--Big Damn Heroes don't have issues like "can't carry the weight of my gear anymore!" On the other hand, you have people who want (for lack of a better term) "organic growth," where things only improve because a specific, well-defined, fictionally-instantiated reason made them do so--scrawny Wizards don't just passively learn how to climb a rock wall just because they killed a lot of things!

It's not possible to please both groups effectively with the same ruleset. You must choose. 4e chose to please the former well, at the expense of rarely/poorly pleasing the latter. 3e chose to please the latter, in part because the former hadn't really found a voice yet (within the D&D fandom, anyway). 5e has gone for a low-stakes favoring of the "organic growth" crowd without totally shutting out the BDH crowd. As with most of 5e's stuff, it's a partial measure of several things that works well enough if you don't push too hard on it, and even if you can't get firm conclusions about how changing it will work, it's loose enough that you probably won't ruin it with a change even if it's a mixed bag/not actually an improvement.

[Eldonauran]

If you can build an even vaguely accurate Spiderman from a 10th level Fighter, I will be gobsmacked.How vague are you talking about? 10th Level wealth, spider climb, high lifting capacity (strength), agility, some vague spider sense, and web slinging?

[ericgrau]

You can get 40 strength without getting too crazy and that lets you lift 3 tons. So it's not too far off.

The weirder part is that skills don't scale similarly. You'd expect your normal jump distance to likewise be 50 times a normal person. But nope. If you don't have magic items to fly you're SOOL. Likewise you should be able to do handstand pushups on your pinkies and yet you struggle to climb most surfaces. And your speed likewise remains at 30' without items. It would be nice if the skill bonuses and so forth were as exponential as the carrying capacity tables. Without winged boots and so on a high level melee character is totally screwed as he is nearly as slow and unacrobatic as a normal person. Or at best a record breaking athlete, but still relatively normal.

[inuyasha]

How vague are you talking about? 10th Level wealth, spider climb, high lifting capacity (strength), agility, some vague spider sense, and web slinging?

Don't forget the ability to completely knock off someone's jaw with an unarmed strike, zero effort required. (little bit of blood here) (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/46/68/9c/46689c52746718fa8055b9280435f8d0.jpg)

[Eldonauran]

Don't forget the ability to completely knock off someone's jaw with an unarmed strike, zero effort required. (little bit of blood here) (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/46/68/9c/46689c52746718fa8055b9280435f8d0.jpg)
Meh... That did not seem to take "no effort", just him not holding back or getting a lucky (crit) hit. Regardless, the challenge was something that vaguely resembled Spider-Man, not perfect mimicry. I wanted to see how these "vague" resembles stretched, getting bare minimums to meet.

[Arbane]

Peter Parker is also a genius scientist and one of Marvel's top three trash-talkers, don't forget.


while technically true you should be able to take a basic phb fighter/ barbarian. ranger and use that to emulate characters like Conan, Beowulf, or Odysseus without needing to look for loopholes to break the game.

You SHOULD, but you can't.

[OgresAreCute]

You SHOULD, but you can't.

Martials in a nutshell.

[GabesHorn]

I imagine it's just necessary to make customisation possible. Which leads to weird things like feats allowing you to perform feats of strength rather than the other way around.

For example, the ability to smash walls down as a feat. Feats that make sense are ones that take time to learn how to do, and this isn't one of them. If you're strong enough to smash a wall down you shouold unlock it as you get to a certain level of Strength, but to keep customisation and character differentiation strong it's instead buyable.

[Fizban]

Spiderman's lifting is not a level based ability (did he ever have to learn it? no). The appropriate translation to 3.5 dnd mechanics would be a template that includes a hefty str bonus and a complete violation of the normal carrying capacity rules. After that his levels can be whatever you want.

As partially mentioned, dnd already accounts for everything getting better as you level up, through the non-stat level based benefits.

I have to admit, this is the first time I've seen someone complain that there should be an upper limit to learning. Upper limit on natural bodily statistics, sure, but there's always someone more skilled than you.

Spirited Charge is a feat of skill, wherein those who have trained in mounted combat learn how to better apply the force of the mounted charge. Power Attack is one of the worst fluff to effect failures, but what it does is trade chance to hit for more damage. The usual assumption is "rawr hit harder!", but what it actually does is let a skilled person (with this particular feat of skill) take a gamble. It's a called shot mechanic, except instead of "lol I hit his head and he dies," it has a simple accuracy to damage conversion.

[GabesHorn]

Spiderman's lifting is not a level based ability (did he ever have to learn it? no). The appropriate translation to 3.5 dnd mechanics would be a template that includes a hefty str bonus and a complete violation of the normal carrying capacity rules. After that his levels can be whatever you want.

As partially mentioned, dnd already accounts for everything getting better as you level up, through the non-stat level based benefits.

I have to admit, this is the first time I've seen someone complain that there should be an upper limit to learning. Upper limit on natural bodily statistics, sure, but there's always someone more skilled than you.

Spirited Charge is a feat of skill, wherein those who have trained in mounted combat learn how to better apply the force of the mounted charge. Power Attack is one of the worst fluff to effect failures, but what it does is trade chance to hit for more damage. The usual assumption is "rawr hit harder!", but what it actually does is let a skilled person (with this particular feat of skill) take a gamble. It's a called shot mechanic, except instead of "lol I hit his head and he dies," it has a simple accuracy to damage conversion.

Nor does Spiderman really level up either, besides a couple during his first few months as Spiderman and possibly one more throughout his more prolonged course as a hero. That's clearly not the issue here. The argument is that to be at a certain martial level, even in the game as it is now, there is implied level of physical strength separate from the stats.

In fiction, the reality of raw power being the most important component of translating to direct combat ability is pretty clear. From 1 to 20, if you convert these levelled fighters from fiction to DND, you'd find a pretty strong correlation between physical strength and level; there's not exactly an abundance of these heroes that you could argue to be high level that still would clock in the same numbers as Regular Joe at Planet Fitness on the bench. Spiderman is weaker than Hulk. Daredevil is weaker than Spiderman, and so forth.

Especially when level 15 is described as world/dimension defending/ confronting heroism - your local dentist, regardless of the tremendous diversity of fencing feats and skillful repertoire, would do woefully against even a Tarrasque in a sword fight, yet if you stack up enough feats for a character like mr dentist, with a high intelligence, and rather questionable physical ability score credentials, he'd be on his way to grinding down the damn Tarrasque's healh pool within a couple of full attacks.

[noce]

Peter Parker is a human that gets bitten by a spider.

He does not have class levels. He does not grow stronger from first appearence to last appearence. He does not gain new or improved powers.

So we have a human that gets a sudden power bump after being bitten by a spider, this sounds pretty much a spiderbitten template to me, with a very high +LA.

Given this, you can create your own homebrew spiderman template and be done with it.
Even it you don't want to, just stack tons of existing templates and you get something that is similar to spiderman.
And remember that his spiderwebs are sprayed by a device (at least in the cartoon).

[Fizban]

The argument is that to be at a certain martial level, even in the game as it is now, there is implied level of physical strength separate from the stats.
This makes it sound like the game is implying it, when you're implying it based on other media.

In fiction, the reality of raw power being the most important component of translating to direct combat ability is pretty clear. From 1 to 20, if you convert these levelled fighters from fiction to DND, you'd find a pretty strong correlation between physical strength and level; there's not exactly an abundance of these heroes that you could argue to be high level that still would clock in the same numbers as Regular Joe at Planet Fitness on the bench. Spiderman is weaker than Hulk. Daredevil is weaker than Spiderman, and so forth.
I see a bunch of comicbook references, which love to rank people based on how much they lift. As above, so dnd isn't comicbooks, and? I admit I'm not up on all the classic Conans and Darkswords or whatever, but if there aren't any books about people with non-supernatural strength killing big supernatural threats, then books need to get their act together. Videogames and anime have been doing it for ages.


Especially when level 15 is described as world/dimension defending/ confronting heroism - your local dentist, regardless of the tremendous diversity of fencing feats and skillful repertoire, would do woefully against even a Tarrasque in a sword fight, yet if you stack up enough feats for a character like mr dentist, with a high intelligence, and rather questionable physical ability score credentials, he'd be on his way to grinding down the damn Tarrasque's healh pool within a couple of full attacks.
What even is this argument? Yeah, a str 10 fighter of sufficient level and gear could swordfight the tarrasque some big monster (because you don't melee the tarrasque at 15th) without super strength (except a bunch of that magic would actually be gaining superstrength anyway), this is bad how? If you want to fluff your BAB and hp and saves as raw strength then go ahead, but the strength used to lift cars is completely different from the strength used to fight. Competitive weightlifting is not mixed martial arts.

I think your biggest problem might be an overestimation of dnd monster strength. Take a look at a non-tarrasque monster. Standard str fighter starts with 15, will have base 18 at 12th, and a +6 enhancement soon after if not already. That's 24 strength, just a couple points less than a rhinoceros, and that's a completely normal human without significant char-op. Compare to the str 24 of a Nalhafshnee, 29 of a Marilith, 27 of a Mature Adult Black Dragon, etc. Sure, he doesn't have the same bonuses as an Elephant or Adult Red Dragon, but he's not a twig. By 17th or 18th he can add a +5 tome and another base point to hit 30, now as strong as an elephant or fire giant. And none of that includes the enhancement bonus of his weapon, which at +5 enhancement is equivalent to another 10 strength, letting him easily match or exceed monstrous foes in terms of "attack strength."

Unless it's the size thing you don't like. Because in dnd, you have a combat strength score, and that crosses with your size and number of limbs to determine your lifting, carrying, and ability to grab and push people around. Yeah, a medium creature with the same combat strength as a huge or gargantuan creature can't lift as much or just push them around, because that would be ridiculous- their strength relative to their mass is great, but they simply don't have the mass. Spider man lifting 10 tons is ridiculous, his limbs would snap. At least the Hulk hulks out to large or even huge size, with appropriately thick limbs that are basically powered by magic.The only thing the high level dnd fighter lacks in the strength department is size- increase their size and they can lift comparable weights to most of what they're fighting, as you'd expect. They won't match monsters based on the swallow whole ability, whose whole point is having an excess of str and size so they can just swallow anyone in the party, again as one would expect. Gotta dodge roll those.

Also, 3.5 has a class for people who want level based strength, multiple in fact. Barbarian and Frenzied Berserker for temporary boosts, or War Hulk for permanent.

[GabesHorn]

This makes it sound like the game is implying it, when you're implying it based on other media.

I see a bunch of comicbook references, which love to rank people based on how much they lift. As above, so dnd isn't comicbooks, and? I admit I'm not up on all the classic Conans and Darkswords or whatever, but if there aren't any books about people with non-supernatural strength killing big supernatural threats, then books need to get their act together. Videogames and anime have been doing it for ages.


What even is this argument? Yeah, a str 10 fighter of sufficient level and gear could swordfight the tarrasque some big monster (because you don't melee the tarrasque at 15th) without super strength (except a bunch of that magic would actually be gaining superstrength anyway), this is bad how? If you want to fluff your BAB and hp and saves as raw strength then go ahead, but the strength used to lift cars is completely different from the strength used to fight. Competitive weightlifting is not mixed martial arts.

I think your biggest problem might be an overestimation of dnd monster strength. Take a look at a non-tarrasque monster. Standard str fighter starts with 15, will have base 18 at 12th, and a +6 enhancement soon after if not already. That's 24 strength, just a couple points less than a rhinoceros, and that's a completely normal human without significant char-op. Compare to the str 24 of a Nalhafshnee, 29 of a Marilith, 27 of a Mature Adult Black Dragon, etc. Sure, he doesn't have the same bonuses as an Elephant or Adult Red Dragon, but he's not a twig. By 17th or 18th he can add a +5 tome and another base point to hit 30, now as strong as an elephant or fire giant. And none of that includes the enhancement bonus of his weapon, which at +5 enhancement is equivalent to another 10 strength, letting him easily match or exceed monstrous foes in terms of "attack strength."

Unless it's the size thing you don't like. Because in dnd, you have a combat strength score, and that crosses with your size and number of limbs to determine your lifting, carrying, and ability to grab and push people around. Yeah, a medium creature with the same combat strength as a huge or gargantuan creature can't lift as much or just push them around, because that would be ridiculous- their strength relative to their mass is great, but they simply don't have the mass. Spider man lifting 10 tons is ridiculous, his limbs would snap. At least the Hulk hulks out to large or even huge size, with appropriately thick limbs that are basically powered by magic.The only thing the high level dnd fighter lacks in the strength department is size- increase their size and they can lift comparable weights to most of what they're fighting, as you'd expect. They won't match monsters based on the swallow whole ability, whose whole point is having an excess of str and size so they can just swallow anyone in the party, again as one would expect. Gotta dodge roll those.

Also, 3.5 has a class for people who want level based strength, multiple in fact. Barbarian and Frenzied Berserker for temporary boosts, or War Hulk for permanent.

The game does imply it to the extent that feats can straight up multiply your damage score, many times over. Yes, skill will let you hit harder. But plenty of other mechanics embody the same thing. I.e. dice rolls or the fact that various other feats (for the fighter, 18 of them) imply the same thing, and at some point, to rack up the numbers you're oging to need to

I don't know many anime where characters that can benchpress an ordinary amount are facing off godlike foes. At least, it wouldn't be very logical - for example, a creature of incredible speed would slaughter any ordinarily durable and not so speedy person, regardless of how skillful you are. It doesn't matter how acute one's swordsmanship is, it's not like you could cut someone from 10 feet away moving at supersonic speeds unless you yourself were ridiculously quick. And in terms of anime characters with spindly character designs and decidedly poor musculature, who somehow manage to collide with titanic beings - this is what I talk about when I mention implied strength. Skill with the blade WON'T allow you to parry creatures that can toss mountains. A classic comic book example (forgive this comic nerd) is Black Panther putting Silver Surfer in a chokehold by 'exploiting his humanoid physique'. There's no exploiting a humanoid physique that can lift PLANETS by just using an obscure and ancient mundane grappling hold.


Yes, martial artists don't lift as much as weight lifters. They still need to have significant muscle mass, but they're better at chaining their muscles together in unison to maximise mass being put in and at which velocity. To accelerate those muscles more such that they hit faster and hence (do more damage) you're gonna need stronger muscles. And that WILL translate to higher STR, and possibly DEX.

[JustIgnoreMe]

Your dentist is not level 15.

Your dentist is probably not level 2.

Skill focus: Dentistry, masterwork tools, high Int (or maybe Dex), maximum skill ranks, some bonus from related skills and Aid Another from his dental assistant if needed, and taking 10. That’s easily DC 20.

There’s a famous article on the Alexandrian about how people tend to overestimate the level of real world, fictional and legendary characters. You can argue with the specifics of it, but the fact remains: your dentist is probably best modelled in D&D 3.5 by a level 1 Human Expert.

[Bronk]

So, Peter Parker gets bitten by a radioactive (or genetically engineered) spider, and gets spider powers.

Maybe in DnD universe, he gets bitten by a magical wish spider, and transforms into a human looking paragon monster of legend ettercap and gains a few luck feats. That would account for his smarts, dexterity, toughness, web slinging, and spider sense. The monster of legend template would also account of his weird mystical relationship with magical spider gods and how he keeps avoiding death.

I've always liked the BESM super strength scale though. IIRC, level one is 'lift and toss motorcycles', level two is cars, three is mack trucks, four is tanks, and five is aircraft carriers, or something like that. Spiderman would be somewhere in the mack truck tossing range.

[Gullintanni]

this isn't actually about any of that its how in fiction really powerful warriors have very high stats and in d&d they don't they have magic items (but even then only in their primary stat).

If you look at most greek heroes they have good stats all across the board they might have one that is particularly exceptional but they almost never have anything average. The characters perform feats that imply high stats like smashing through stone walls with a single blow (power attack), wrestling a rhino or surviving poison but their stats just arnt that high so it it feels off. Conan is strong, and agile, and tough, and smart, and charismatic, with incredible senses and will power d&d simply does not allow for that type of character.

Almost any time you try and stat a really tough fictional heroes you wide up not having enough stat points or being forced to make wildly efficient builds that cant function as level appropriate charecters.

In most relevant fiction, warriors have very low stats. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas might have 18s in their primary stats.

Rand Al'Thor of the Wheel of Time, in the early books, would have fairly low stats (by which I mean, less than all 18's), and late in the series, would have very powerful class features, but his ability scores wouldn't necessarily be higher than at the beginning of the series.

George RR Martin's characters aren't splitting entire mountains with swords or bench pressing buildings.

As fictional analogues, all of these settings are fairly representative of what you might expect from mid level D&D characters, and the sort of worlds where D&D's designers assume the game is taking place.

Comparing mythological heroes like Hercules to D&D characters is fairly disingenuous as these characters are more akin to (and sometimes are) demigods.

That's not what D&D tries to model. Nor is it trying to model comic book fiction.

[Telonius]

George RR Martin's characters aren't splitting entire mountains with swords or bench pressing buildings.

I think Hafthor Bjornsson is working up to that (https://www.businessinsider.com/hafthor-bjornsson-breaks-viking-strength-record-2015-2).

[Gullintanni]

I think Hafthor Bjornsson is working up to that (https://www.businessinsider.com/hafthor-bjornsson-breaks-viking-strength-record-2015-2).

Guy clearly rolled an 18 :smalltongue:

[awa]

In most relevant fiction, warriors have very low stats. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas might have 18s in their primary stats.

Rand Al'Thor of the Wheel of Time, in the early books, would have fairly low stats (by which I mean, less than all 18's), and late in the series, would have very powerful class features, but his ability scores wouldn't necessarily be higher than at the beginning of the series.

George RR Martin's characters aren't splitting entire mountains with swords or bench pressing buildings.

As fictional analogues, all of these settings are fairly representative of what you might expect from mid level D&D characters, and the sort of worlds where D&D's designers assume the game is taking place.

Comparing mythological heroes like Hercules to D&D characters is fairly disingenuous as these characters are more akin to (and sometimes are) demigods.

That's not what D&D tries to model. Nor is it trying to model comic book fiction.

saying that anything less than an 18 is a low stat is moving the goal posts so far it becomes a straw man argument. I refuse to take it seriously and will simply ignore the statement.

did you see me mention Hercules? I mentioned Odysseus/ Beowulf/ and Conan who d&d should be able to model with high level characters.
But lets look at these characters is rob stark/ legolass/rand weak? slow? unhealthy? stupid? weak willed? uncharismatic? no they are above average across the board on top of being low level characters (except for rand whose got most of his levels in a casting class).

Rob stark will never solo a d&d dragon but a high level fighter might

[Gullintanni]

saying that anything less than an 18 is a low stat is moving the goal posts so far it becomes a straw man argument. I refuse to take it seriously and will simply ignore the statement.

did you see me mention Hercules? I mentioned Odysseus/ Beowulf/ and Conan who d&d should be able to model with high level characters.
But lets look at these characters is rob stark/ legolass/rand weak? slow? unhealthy? stupid? weak willed? uncharismatic? no they are above average across the board on top of being low level characters (except for rand whose got most of his levels in a casting class).

Rob stark will never solo a d&d dragon but a high level fighter might

I'm not arguing that 18 is a low stat in general. The argument I'm making is that in the context of the claim that D&D uses low stat totals, when high level characters see stats in the 26-34 range, 18 IS a low stat relatively speaking and that 18's actually represent well the peak capabilities of the characters upon whose fiction D&D is based.

Sorry if that wasnt clear based on my posts.

Edit: Also worth noting is that none of the characters you mentioned are regularly described as smashing through stone walls with ease, or wrestling down Titans and Cloud Giants, or being geniuses on par with a 30 intelligence wizard. Demigods notwithstanding, my point stands -- 3.5 D&D ability scores are ALREADY high relative to the fiction the game tries to represent.

[martixy]

One thing I like to bring to these threads is that peak human (i.e. IRL human) is about 22-24.
This is rigorously verifiable for strength, and some anecdotal evidence for the mental stats.

If we consider that scale(e.g. great natural talent = 18, most extreme outliers in entire pool of humanity = 24), I'd say a D&D superhuman hero should regularly be ending up with 40s by the end of his career in at least a couple of stats.

I actually went for something like this in my own game.

I had the PCs roll 4d8b3, instead of 4d6. We have high stats in the 30-35s and at least 3 >20s on each hero. Currently at L6 and we gain a bonus ability point every 3 levels instead of every 4.

The math isn't even as broke as I thought it would be. But you HAVE to get rid of pointless +1s.
a) They do nothing right now.
b) They were boring in the first place.

Have qualitative or scaling improvements instead. E.g. most of the use Weapon Focus sees with me is from qualifying for things and the special ability it gives for its weapon category.

[DarkSoul]

Guy clearly rolled an 18 :smalltongue:I might even go so far as to give him Jotunbrud and the Prodigy modifier (DMG 2) for Strength.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

One of the main reasons it seems like D&D fails at modeling epic heroes is level appropriate encounters. You can kill guards in one punch(without being an unarmed combat build), wrestle bears (without being a grappling build), and tear down walls ( without being a warhulk), but you can't do these things as level appropriate encounters.

Similarly being pretty good at things is almost never valuable. An elven wizard may get to take advantage of his nephew bow at level 2-3 to plink away. Ironically he has to wait until the party has looted some weapons because he can't afford the weapon at level one. After that his archery skills are forgotten even though at level 10 he has an 18 Dex (base 14+2 racial+2 enhancement from hand me down gear) and BAB +5 making him better than the captain leader a unit of archers. The same can be repeated in numerous cases especially max cc skill ranks.

[ExLibrisMortis]

One of the main reasons it seems like D&D fails at modeling epic heroes is level appropriate encounters. You can kill guards in one punch(without being an unarmed combat build), wrestle bears (without being a grappling build), and tear down walls ( without being a warhulk), but you can't do these things as level appropriate encounters.
I agree. I will say, though, that one man's failure is another man's realism; I think that doing things by brute strength is less efficient than doing it with a little bit of skill and subtlety (technique and technology; finesse and... oh screw it), and the fact that you can solve a problem by brute strength is indicative of outranking the threat several tiers. It's not a problem that a character focused on raw strength alone can't solve level-appropriate encounters any more than it's a problem that a character focused on, I don't know, having the highest move speed or the flashiest bowtie or something. Strength and a flashy bowtie should always be paired with some ability (skill, technique, art, trick, maneuver) that benefits from those things specifically.

Slight tangent: Superheroes are "I'm a hammer and therefore you are nails"-type problem solvers, even to the point of stupidly ignoring everything that's not officially their power (often: guns). In my opinion, that's stupid. If D&D doesn't model them, fine--I'm not interested in using that type of character as reference for what D&D should model.

[BassoonHero]

An ability score by itself is just a number. What matters is what a character can accomplish.

That is, from a fiction perspective, it doesn't matter that your barbarian has a strength of 25. It matters that they can lift boulders, charge through stone walls, and wrestle a dragon. (And it matters because most characters cannot hope to do these things!)

My opinion on these things is well known:


Look at wuxia. Look at mythology. Look at what "peak human" means in the DC universe. I've heard it said that high-level 3.5 characters are practically superheroes; if so, then let them be superheroes. Let the fighter parry a stunning ray with his sword. Let the monk jump fifty feet straight up. Let the barbarian charge straight through solid fog or a stone wall without slowing down. Let the ranger spot enemies hiding a mile away. Let the rogue slip through a wall of force.

Plenty of superheroes have superhuman strength. But this strength is often inconsistent -- a superhero lifts a car with one hand, but the power of their punches doesn't reflect that level of strength. This is frustrating for fans arguing over which superhero would win in a fight, but from a narrative perspective it works just fine.

What I'm getting at is that there are other ways for a barbarian to lift boulders, charge through stone walls, and wrestle dragons than by having an extremely high ability score. For example, suppose that Climb, Jump, and Swim are consolidated into an Athletics skill. A skill trick could allow you to roll an Athletics skill check in place of a Strength ability check to break objects. Now the barbarian can charge through a solid stone wall without having a strength score that would warp combat. Or, a feat could partly negate the penalties for wrestling larger opponents. (Clever Wrestling doesn't go nearly far enough here; perhaps reduce the penalty by 1/2 BAB?)

Ability scores are abstract, but lowercase-f feats are concrete. I believe that skill tricks in particular are a great way to allow high-level characters to perform awesome, cinematic feats without cranking up the underlying numbers to absurd or unwieldy levels. For instance:

- An Athletics skill trick to roll an Athletics check instead of a Strength check to lift, push, or break an object.
- An Athletics skill trick to double your jumping distance.
- An Acrobatics skill trick to run on surfaces that can't support your weight (like water).
- A Perception skill trick to use hearing as a substitute for vision.
- A Spellcraft skill trick to identify magic items.

(If anyone has suggestions for similar skill tricks, I'd love to hear them.)

[Arbane]

Is it time to argue about 'realism' and 'genre emulation' in D&D again? Oh, goodie!

I'll be over here in my private pocket universe summoning a legion of angels.

To be slightly less sarcastic, I'll worry about Fighters being able to do 'too much' the day Wizards stop being significantly more powerful than pretty much any mythological spellcaster.