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So, why exactly is 15 the maximum for your ability scores at character creation? Was wondering if that is a 5e thing or a Larian thing.

Normally i could live with it if it's a decision they made but if you examine the NPCs you often see scores of at least 18 at their main ability.

That feels a little discriminating for my PC. I haven't counted score point totals of the NPCs but that should be the same amount that the PCs get.

Same goes for character progression, at least for comparable things. Maybe i take a few screens on my next playthrough.

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As I said previously, the last time you asked....

No, it's not specifically a 5e thing.

5e offers several alternate, optional ways of generating ability scores, the first and 'core' way of doing so is with rolling. (in 5e, rolling is described as rolling 4 d6 and selecting the three highest to add together, giving a value between 3 an 18, and doing this six times, to drive scores, which you then allocate to abilities of your choice)

However, two alternate options are also suggested in the Phb, which include point buy and the standard array (which is just a specific permutation of point buy). Point buy has been around for several generations of the game at this stage, though it's been tweaked slightly between versions, I believe.

Point buy works as Larian have implemented - with a pool of points, increasing cost for higher values, and a value cap of 15. It's a fairly dull way of generating ability scores, that produces fairly samey, uninspired stat spreads.

Larian have opted to go with point buy rather than let us rolls tats, for now, but it's been said that alternate methods, including actually rolling, will be coming.

Last edited by Niara; 09/11/21 08:51 AM.
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But, is there a reason mentioned in the phb for the capped min-max values? I couldn't find the section dealing with this in the phb online

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Not a reason, per se... that's just how point buy works: you start with values of 8, have your point pool to spend, and can't buy an initial value of any higher than 15. It's a boring method of generating that prevents you from ever having any extremes in either direction.

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Ok. Not only boring, but stupid as well in my opinion. Point buy should be for those that don't want offer up the stats to the gods of chance, but still giving the opportunity to get into extremes.

We would still have the same amount of points to work with, not like they did in BG2 where you can roll and than change point distribution, resulting in some players spending hours trying to get as a high total number of points as possible smile

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Originally Posted by Niara
Not a reason, per se... that's just how point buy works: you start with values of 8, have your point pool to spend, and can't buy an initial value of any higher than 15. It's a boring method of generating that prevents you from ever having any extremes in either direction.

At least Pathfinder let me buy up to 18. Took a ton of points but was doable. With a race bonus, I'd start with 20 in my primary stat >.>

My DM decided that's how we were doing it after I actually rolled 3 18s in character creation....The dice were with me that day.

We did 25 point buy. Not a fan of the system, to be fair. Rolling a 36 point roll though was apparently too much for him. -_-

I remember rolling for hours on BG2 to get optimal stats. Was kinda annoying.

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If Point Buy let you buy up as high as 18, and down as low as 4 (you'd never get more than 1 point back (or possibly even none) from going below 8, but the cost of going up would continue to increase by the same step beyond 15, so it couldn't be 'abused'), I would be less critical of it, personally.

Last edited by Niara; 09/11/21 10:03 AM.
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Only if having an int score of 4 made you too dumb to talk like in outer worlds.

Seriously you need 3 to be able to a senient beast, I'd imagine 4 to be on level of a 2 year old.

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Originally Posted by Niara
Not a reason, per se... that's just how point buy works: you start with values of 8, have your point pool to spend, and can't buy an initial value of any higher than 15. It's a boring method of generating that prevents you from ever having any extremes in either direction.

I know i asked in another thread but could not find any answer, seems i overread that, sorry laugh

but it still irks me. It is boring indeed and normally heros excel in some point. That's at least how i like it better and would love a choice. But it seems that is only goes for our PC, not for NPCs and that feels not ok for me.

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I imagine that Larian thought that point buy would give them the most useful data for use in balancing the game--and for that purpose it's likely the best option. They've already said that there will likely be other methods for determining stats later on.

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I don't like the "all created equal" crap to be honest as it isn't RPG. A roll in intelligence of 3 would mean you have the intellect of a dog but it has its own gameplay elements that go with it like only able to recieve basic commands and inability to speak. Many DM would make a minimum intelligence of 5-6 so you could at least communicate although making a fire would be beyond them.

Swen has already said that they will be introducing stat roll methods. Maybe limit the rolls on multiplayer characters? That being said the highest I have ever rolled irl was 18 18 17 16 14 14 , to roll all 18's is near a impossible probability in a human lifetime.

The main reason I want the roll method is to not lock races to prefered classes. Currently the "spend" method is a limiting factor in character creation. You don't really want a Gith druid with 15 wisdom on character creation for example.

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The main reason I want to roll stats is not to increase my primary stats, but to avoid lowering secondary stats in a way that feels non-rp to me. I can accept that my hero has average intelligence--below average, not so much. I also seem to be unable to enjoy playing a character with below 10 strength--not because I want them to hit things harder, but because of carry weight and jumping distance. Feeling that I have more racial choice would also be great.

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Yeah, I typically play CHA classes(I prefer spontaneous spellcasters for example) and feel locked in to half elves and Drow. And I can't make av Drow look how i want because there's not enough skin colors in the true black/Grey range. It's all weird shades of lichen blue/Grey or purple.

You NEED 16 in primary stat. I hate uneven stats, too. Not enough for the next modifier feels bad.

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Originally Posted by Imora DalSyn
Yeah, I typically play CHA classes(I prefer spontaneous spellcasters for example) and feel locked in to half elves and Drow. And I can't make av Drow look how i want because there's not enough skin colors in the true black/Grey range. It's all weird shades of lichen blue/Grey or purple.

You NEED 16 in primary stat. I hate uneven stats, too. Not enough for the next modifier feels bad.
Uh oh. Be careful saying such things lest you attract the "you're min-maxing/power-gaming if you match racial ASIs with important class ability scores. Just play a mechanically worse character" folks.

But yeah, rolling for stats (again which Swen said is planned) will help in creating such characters. As would:
Originally Posted by Niara
If Point Buy let you buy up as high as 18, and down as low as 4 (you'd never get more than 1 point back (or possibly even none) from going below 8, but the cost of going up would continue to increase by the same step beyond 15, so it couldn't be 'abused'), I would be less critical of it, personally.
+1 to this because why not? I've highlighted a part I think is incredibly important. Otherwise you too strongly incentivize heavy stat dumping.

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Originally Posted by Imora DalSyn
Yeah, I typically play CHA classes(I prefer spontaneous spellcasters for example) and feel locked in to half elves and Drow. And I can't make av Drow look how i want because there's not enough skin colors in the true black/Grey range. It's all weird shades of lichen blue/Grey or purple.

You NEED 16 in primary stat. I hate uneven stats, too. Not enough for the next modifier feels bad.

Funny enough it bugs me too to no end. It is a wasted stat point unless it is in dex/str and only if you take a perk that gives a +1 in those stats. If you go +2 at level 4 you will always be -1 from one of your saving throws. Some races are worse than others. I always try and fiddle so they are all even even if it means having wonky stats for the class.

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First time I ever played AD&D we did the roll 4d6 then drop the lowest die method. In that one you could swap the roll into whatever Attribute, but couldn't change the individual values. It was also roll first then select Class. Usually that meant that you could play as any of the core classes well enough, though perhaps not as one of the more specialized classes that had multiple prerequisites like high CHA or whatever.

The upside there was that it turned the character creation process itself into part of the gameplay. You weren't necessarily expected to come to the table with a character concept totally locked down, but more to create one based on what you rolled in the moment. The downside was that it often meant characters were just sort of doomed to be "not all that great" mechanically and probably short lived, but so was recess lol. It also didn't really matter, because that wasn't the whole game - just the start of it. Everyone also sort of understood that if a character had a super trash roll, that the onus was then on the DM to sort of make that work in a memorable and entertaining way. To offset an early fail somehow with a boon along the way, and some reward there for sticking it out with a more middling character. Maybe you'd find a cool ring or cursed item to spice things up. The reason it worked and remained pretty engaging was because there were witnesses there to those initial rolls. Like if you rolled an 18 you were pretty stoked and everyone was stoked for you. That sort of thing doesn't really happen anymore under a point buy, or where it's left up to the player in a SP CRPG. In BG1 you could reroll as many times as you wanted, and the game anticipated what that would entail by being a campaign for characters with god-like stats.

I think what it's missing these days is that idea that one leads with some gameplay right from the outset and then builds from that into the creative characterization part. It's basically the difference between adlib and studying your lines. A lot less pressure with the former, and it tended to be more fun for the novice. Sessions that began like that had a different sort of spirit, and one that made it pretty clear that D&D was definitely still a dice game at bedrock, but also a strange sort of dice game that one couldn't really lose so long as they fully owned it hehe. This is lost in the translation to CRPG, and its one of the things that makes that experience rather different than the TT one. There's almost nothing they can do in a CRPG to persuade the player that it's worth playing out a crippling Attribute roll. There's no boon reward and nobody really watching as an offset.

Rolling a sub 8 in intelligence doesn't unlock any cool voice set that makes us sound goofy. Having a sub 8 in Charisma doesn't unlock a bunch of hilarious NPC dialogue to make it feel totally worth it. There's no benefit to having a sub 8 in Strength when the game expects us to clear that first jump on the Nautiloid. But what if it wasn't like that?

I mean how funny might it be if we tried to clear the jump and failed, like with dragging finger nails and then a drop "Nooooo!" but somehow we slid down to the lower level and bypassed all those Imps to meet Gale or Astarion first, instead of Lae'zel and Shadowheart. That might work hehe.

You have to teach the player immediately that rolling a 3 can be just as fun as rolling an 18, or they'll never really believe you. Our DM here can pay it some lip service sure, but they can't make a miss feel like a hit, or a dud feel like a bang, and they still don't have a great way to make Odd numbered stats feel like anything other than a stopgap on the road towards a later boost into Even. It would actually be entertaining if they ever made a D&D CRPG like "Failures of Faerun" or "Legendary Losers of the Sword Coast" or something similar, where the campaign was designed to celebrate the worst of the worst in Stats for all they're worth too.

Another perennial issue in terms of the overall systems design, is how they never really found a way to integrate the Physical Attributes and the Mental Attributes such that Class didn't just equate to a certain Attribute spread. Like needing the highest possible max score in one of the primes or a dump in the secondaries to work. Just as an example, perhaps there's some way to make Intelligence interesting as a Fighter Attribute. Perhaps an arms master with a higher Int grants a the Fighter a greater pool of knowledge and thus additional proficiencies, free access to exotic weapons or some kind of tactics or strategic bonus to advantage or something along those lines that a low Int fighter wouldn't have access to. Basically what they did for the DEX vs STR conundrum, but extended across all Attributes, so there'd be a greater interplay. Instead what they did was to create Multi-Classes or Dual-Classes or combo Kit classes with different primary attribute requirements, as opposed to just thinking about how a Fighter could still be a Fighter, but with a focus on CHA or INT or WIS, instead of just STR DEX CON. In some ways they decoupled, but not really at the foundation such that it would in a crpg sans active DM.

I don't expect much progress there. It took like 30 years for them just to rework THAC0 into positive integers, so the idea they could reconstitute Martial classes, Utility classes, and Caster classes independent of prime Attributes is definitely a stretch. People would probably riot. Now it's down to everyone can get their 20, just takes a few levels. Whereas way back when expecting a 20 in anything was pretty ridiculous. I mean unless it was a Baldur's Gate game and you were the Spawn of Bhaal to justify it lol.

Last edited by Black_Elk; 10/11/21 04:09 AM.
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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
Originally Posted by Imora DalSyn
Yeah, I typically play CHA classes(I prefer spontaneous spellcasters for example) and feel locked in to half elves and Drow. And I can't make av Drow look how i want because there's not enough skin colors in the true black/Grey range. It's all weird shades of lichen blue/Grey or purple.

You NEED 16 in primary stat. I hate uneven stats, too. Not enough for the next modifier feels bad.
Uh oh. Be careful saying such things lest you attract the "you're min-maxing/power-gaming if you match racial ASIs with important class ability scores. Just play a mechanically worse character" folks.

You should put the cap back on the shaker, you're spilling salt all over the table


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The idea that failures can and should still lead to progress in other interesting and ultimately positive ways is a concept that Larian have paid some lip-service to, but not actually shown any signs of delivering on so far - just the opposite in fact, unfortunately.

Quote
I mean how funny might it be if we tried to clear the jump and failed, like with dragging finger nails and then a drop "Nooooo!" but somehow we slid down to the lower level and bypassed all those Imps to meet Gale or Astarion first, instead of Lae'zel and Shadowheart. That might work hehe.

This is an excellent example of the sorts of ways that important checks and saves failing can be made interesting.

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I don’t remember the game, but there was this one scene that if you failed the initial barter/haggle check it opened up additional options for that NPC later in the game. However, if you succeeded, you got the deal but the NPC didn’t have much to do with you later. Failure shouldn’t always lead to bad outcomes. Bad stats and rolls should open new ways of playing. Good writing would take this into account. Once word got around that this was the case, there would be a lot less save scumming.

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I mean right!

I keep thinking about that failed jump idea, and how they could do that elsewhere in the Nautiloid prologue for stuff that makes sense. So let's say that happened for a PC with a sub 8 in strength. Instead of Lae'zel teaching them how to do fighter stuff they meet Gale and he's like...

"Most excellent! Your timing couldn't be better! There's no problem we can't handle if we put our heads together. Now let's solve this puzzle and find our way out!"

Perhaps at the end of this interlude we discover "The Leap of Faith" a magical ring that raises our base STR to 10, so we can then handled our future jumps.

Suddenly the PC is all stoked and feels like they really had an experience! With some reward for the effort too -finding a boon companion and a special item that they wouldn't otherwise have discovered, since it could only have been accessed as a result of that intitial failed jump.

These are the sorts of methods they could deploy if they want the player to get really into it and buy the whole idea that anything can be overcome, and that it's all part of the fun.

Last edited by Black_Elk; 10/11/21 07:00 PM.
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