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Min-maxing and racial ability score adjustments

Started by jhkim, September 26, 2022, 04:43:19 PM

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Effete

Quote from: hedgehobbit on September 27, 2022, 04:57:55 PM
Strength is the outlier here because it is obvious to anyone that a larger person will be stronger than a smaller person all other things being equal. For this reason, I decided to make Strength proportional to size with the addition of a Size Die for each race.

For example, Hobbits are d6, Humans are d8, and Ogres are d10. This die is the damage that the race does with a single handed weapon (which ends up close to how it is in AD&D anyway). So, if all three characters have a +3 Strength modifier, the Hobbit will do d6+3 damage, the human d8+3, and the Ogre d10+3. This Size Die is also used in place of the d6 for strength checks such as open doors.

That's only a 1 point difference (on average) each step. The halfling in this example would deal an average of 6.5 damage, the human a 7.5, and the ogre an 8.5.

The other issue when using this "relative Strength" method is now you need to make separate charts on carrying capacities (and possibly other rules too, like grappling advantages) because a 16 Strength for one character does not equal a 16 Strength for another. Meanwhile, a 16 Intelligence is uniform across all races/sizes, so you've now got different rules governing each attribute.

I find that to be a very sloppy approach. You can achieve the same relative damage output simply by placing caps on racial Strength. A human at peak might have 18 Strength (+3 modifier) while a halfling at peak has 15 Strength (+2 modifier). Conversely, an ogre's peak Strength might be 22 (for potentially a +4 modifier). The numerical value of the attribute itself would maintain a standard (i.e., 16 is the same for everone) so they can all use the same encumbrance rules, etc.

Dropbear

#46
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on September 26, 2022, 05:03:19 PM
Nobody liked this when it limited the classes they could choose, and nobody would like having their PC race choices limited this way either.

I'm not really disputing anything in your post. I'm just noticing this particular line. And I do not recall anyone that I used to play with in the days of AD&D 1E & 2E complaining about this at all. It wasn't until I got in with the newer players joining in during 3.x that I ever heard any sort derision for the design of AD&D at all, and how 3.x or any edition after was so much better.

Slipshot762

i'd like to point out that the race adjustments for krynn minotaurs in d20 do not match a monster manual minotaur converted by the normal d20 method for such and thus are not the same creature, MM minotaur also takes up two 5 foot squares and has a 10 foot reach.

Stephen Tannhauser

Quote from: Dropbear on September 28, 2022, 07:43:04 AM
Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on September 26, 2022, 05:03:19 PM
Nobody liked this when it limited the classes they could choose, and nobody would like having their PC race choices limited this way either.

I'm not really disputing anything in your post. I'm just noticing this particular line. And I do not recall anyone that I used to play with in the days of AD&D 1E & 2E complaining about this at all. It wasn't until I got in with the newer players joining in during 3.x that I ever heard any sort derision for the design of AD&D at all, and how much better 3.x or any edition after was so much better.

I may have extrapolated my own experiences too far, but it was definitely understood that in my groups, if you wanted to play a particular class you rolled until you got the stat minimums you needed. Put another way, I don't recall anyone ever putting the stat rolls ahead of their own desires when creating a character unless they were browbeaten into it by the group, and unsurprisingly, that tended to produce players who resented their own PCs and had much less fun in play.  That was seldom expressed as an explicit complaint about overall system design, but it was a pervasive attitude, at least in my experience.

My general philosophy is that player preference should be given as much primacy as possible in character design, and that any mechanic which makes exercising that unnecessarily difficult should be avoided. Having to bite the bullet and settle for whatever option the dice allow you is exactly the type of thing we play RPGs not to have to put up with, I think; if you want to do it for the novelty or the challenge, I applaud that, but I don't think the game should impose it.
Better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. -- Mark Twain

STR 8 DEX 10 CON 10 INT 11 WIS 6 CHA 3

Steven Mitchell

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on September 28, 2022, 08:36:30 AM
I may have extrapolated my own experiences too far, but it was definitely understood that in my groups, if you wanted to play a particular class you rolled until you got the stat minimums you needed. Put another way, I don't recall anyone ever putting the stat rolls ahead of their own desires when creating a character unless they were browbeaten into it by the group, and unsurprisingly, that tended to produce players who resented their own PCs and had much less fun in play.  That was seldom expressed as an explicit complaint about overall system design, but it was a pervasive attitude, at least in my experience.

My general philosophy is that player preference should be given as much primacy as possible in character design, and that any mechanic which makes exercising that unnecessarily difficult should be avoided. Having to bite the bullet and settle for whatever option the dice allow you is exactly the type of thing we play RPGs not to have to put up with, I think; if you want to do it for the novelty or the challenge, I applaud that, but I don't think the game should impose it.

My experience is almost directly opposite yours.  I've seen roughly half the players exposed to some randomness at the start take to it like ducks to water, and most of the rest come to appreciate it given time in a fun game.  There are a few that admit it has it's good points while it is not their first preference.  Of the ones that categorically reject it, I've yet to meet one that shared enough in common with my approach to games (and not just on this question, either), where we were compatible for anything other than a one-shot.  Not saying the exceptions aren't out there on that last point, but I'm less likely to meet them now than when I started.  So kind of a moot point from my perspective.

Now, for that second half of players, it is very much an acquired taste.  So like all acquired tastes, there has to be some reason to expect that it will be acquired if the person puts in the effort.  Not all games are suitable for that, either in system, setting, tone, or any other parameter you care to name.  So in some respects it becomes a self-selection question.  If the planned game is going to have parameters X, Y, and Z on purpose, and those don't generally work for randomness in character generation, then trying to use it will suck--even for people that otherwise like it.

Thus, whether a game should impose randomness or not depends on the purpose of the game and its intended audience.  Ideally, any game should have some options to move a little towards more or less randomness, though I think there are limits to how far you can reasonably take that approach.  Likewise, the game should be clear about what is under the player's control and what is not.  I have known a couple of people, for example, that will happily take a random class and/or race but will be quite put out if they can't get certain equipment.  I knew one that would tell you that what he wanted to play in AD&D was a halfling thief with a ring of invisibility--but the ring was key to his enjoyment and the rest was negotiable, and even fun as a change of pace.  Given some pre-generated characters, he'd grab the elven cleric with the ring before any halfling or thief combination, no matter how otherwise put together. 

People are strange. :D

hedgehobbit

#50
Quote from: Dropbear on September 28, 2022, 07:43:04 AMI'm not really disputing anything in your post. I'm just noticing this particular line. And I do not recall anyone that I used to play with in the days of AD&D 1E & 2E complaining about this at all. It wasn't until I got in with the newer players joining in during 3.x that I ever heard any sort derision for the design of AD&D at all, and how 3.x or any edition after was so much better.

That's been my experience as well. However, I don't really blame D&D 3e. When a game like Champions came along in 1980, it makes sense for a super hero character to be based on a concept and not be randomly rolled (I tried random superheroes with V&V and it didn't really work). But that idea about starting with a character concept moved from Champions to the fantasy genres (with games such as GURPS) and soon the concept-first idea of character creation dominated most RPGs which, in turn, influenced D&D writers.

There is a huge benefit to newbie friendliness with a Roll Then Play style of character generation which is lost when even D&D expects players to have a concept before they even start the process. Personally, my ideal version of D&D would have random-only generation in the PHB and a more detailed character construction system in the DMG for use when players have sufficient knowledge of the game and game world.

hedgehobbit

Quote from: Effete on September 28, 2022, 04:37:49 AMI find that to be a very sloppy approach. You can achieve the same relative damage output simply by placing caps on racial Strength. A human at peak might have 18 Strength (+3 modifier) while a halfling at peak has 15 Strength (+2 modifier). Conversely, an ogre's peak Strength might be 22 (for potentially a +4 modifier). The numerical value of the attribute itself would maintain a standard (i.e., 16 is the same for everone) so they can all use the same encumbrance rules, etc.

The issue with racial minimum/maximums is how to deal with super human abilities. What is the point of giving Ogres a max Strength of 22 if the highest they can roll is an 18?

As far as encumbrance is concerned, you'll have to deal with that one way or another. Armor that fits a hobbit will weigh less than armor for a human. A hobbit-sized backpack will hold less, and the rations for a two foot tall pixie will be much smaller than a ration for an Ogre. So saying that small characters carry half what the Strength chart says is a trivial problem.

Wisithir

Quote from: hedgehobbit on September 28, 2022, 11:09:31 AM
The issue with racial minimum/maximums is how to deal with super human abilities. What is the point of giving Ogres a max Strength of 22 if the highest they can roll is an 18?

I think the bigger problem is Strength effecting hit probability. A minotaur does not necessarily land hits any better than a pixie, but the ones that land hurt much more. Arguably this could be handled by a scale factor such that an average strength human would have a bonus against a pixies and a penalty against a minotaur in an opposed strength check, which combat might be a case of. Alternatively, modifiers should be non linear and species specific so an 18 on 3d6 for STR is a +1 for pixies, +3 for human, and +7 for minotaur.

Eric Diaz

"Maximum" scores (or flat penalties) at least have one advantage: they are considerably less fiddly than the alternatives.

Of course, you're either a fighter, and you won't pick a race which limited max Strength*, or you're a mage etc. and max Strength is not really an issue, not even a downside, we wonder why that exists at all.

* So you'd have an entire race without fighters... and we're back to the problem expressed in the OP.
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Wisithir

Quote from: Eric Diaz on September 28, 2022, 09:05:12 PM
* So you'd have an entire race without fighters... and we're back to the problem expressed in the OP.
So long as the race can meet the requirements of a class, there would still be members of that class among the race. However, they would not be elite enough to joint a specialist adventuring party. The problem is the desire for equal class distribution among all races and its representation in the adventuring party. Even within one race, some societies will be more militant than others and have a different soldier to civilian ratio. One would not use a retriever to herd livestock if a shepherd breed is available, but not using a halfling as a barbarian given the option of human or orc is apparently some kind of wrongthink-ism.

jhkim

#55
Quote from: Wisithir on September 28, 2022, 09:19:23 PM
Quote from: Eric Diaz on September 28, 2022, 09:05:12 PM
* So you'd have an entire race without fighters... and we're back to the problem expressed in the OP.
So long as the race can meet the requirements of a class, there would still be members of that class among the race. However, they would not be elite enough to joint a specialist adventuring party. The problem is the desire for equal class distribution among all races and its representation in the adventuring party. Even within one race, some societies will be more militant than others and have a different soldier to civilian ratio. One would not use a retriever to herd livestock if a shepherd breed is available, but not using a halfling as a barbarian given the option of human or orc is apparently some kind of wrongthink-ism.

The analogy doesn't hold. Dog breeds are deliberately bred and put to jobs by humans deliberately, but halfling societies have to function as independent communities.

If a GM wants to reflect the game-world distribution of characters - then they can use random-roll race and roll-in-order attributes. If they do that, though, the class bias will be very small. For example, even with adjustments, 35% of half-orc PCs will still have higher Intelligence than Strength, and more suitable to be wizards than fighters.

In actual play with arranged stats and chosen race, though, players will pick half-orc to boost an already high strength score for the min-max incentive. That's not reflecting the game world. It's just introducing a meta-game artifact into play.

Stephen Tannhauser

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 28, 2022, 09:00:42 AMI've seen roughly half the players exposed to some randomness at the start take to it like ducks to water, and most of the rest come to appreciate it given time in a fun game.

No doubt, but there's a difference between the level of randomness that says "your thief doesn't have the DEX 18 you hoped he did" and a level of randomness that says "an exceptionally cool PC option is completely off the table unless you're lucky enough to roll a frustratingly low-probability set of scores". To me that always made about as much sense as Traveller's classic chance of a character dying during generation before he even enters play -- it feels, to me anyway, like a waste of time and an unnecessary obstacle to player enjoyment.

That said, I agree absolutely that there's a lot of play and entertainment value to being open to random generation and that a game should always offer the option for that where possible -- I don't mean to come down against random generation, just to any extent where it closes off interesting options rather than opening them up.
Better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. -- Mark Twain

STR 8 DEX 10 CON 10 INT 11 WIS 6 CHA 3

KindaMeh

Quote from: jhkim on September 28, 2022, 09:38:21 PM
Quote from: Wisithir on September 28, 2022, 09:19:23 PM
Quote from: Eric Diaz on September 28, 2022, 09:05:12 PM
* So you'd have an entire race without fighters... and we're back to the problem expressed in the OP.
So long as the race can meet the requirements of a class, there would still be members of that class among the race. However, they would not be elite enough to joint a specialist adventuring party. The problem is the desire for equal class distribution among all races and its representation in the adventuring party. Even within one race, some societies will be more militant than others and have a different soldier to civilian ratio. One would not use a retriever to herd livestock if a shepherd breed is available, but not using a halfling as a barbarian given the option of human or orc is apparently some kind of wrongthink-ism.

The analogy doesn't hold. Dog breeds are deliberately bred and put to jobs by humans deliberately, but halfling societies have to function as independent communities.

If a GM wants to reflect the game-world distribution of characters - then they can use random-roll race and roll-in-order attributes. If they do that, though, the class bias will be very small. For example, even with adjustments, 35% of half-orc PCs will still have higher Intelligence than Strength, and more suitable to be wizards than fighters.

In actual play with arranged stats and chosen race, though, players will pick half-orc to boost an already high strength score for the min-max incentive. That's not reflecting the game world. It's just introducing a meta-game artifact into play.

This seems to assume both that halflings shouldn't have a solidly disadvantaged strength in the lore and game world with mechanics reflective of reasonable fluff for child sized folk... and that PC stat distributions are and should be reflective of NPC stat distributions. Also, even in-world assuming standard lukewarm early 5e garbage that doesn't give them a stat penalty, for top tier adventuring parties you would still potentially want specialized folk, which means some degree of minmax and that between equally trained and specialized halflings and half-orcs the latter still have an edge in both racial traits and ability scores when it comes to being a barbarian, say. And again, some people like minmax and particular race+class archetypes. It's not badwrongfun, and again there are reasons why a system that allows for the possibility of minmax can be preferable, on the basis of allowing meaningful specialization and choices. I'm not a fan of bad balance or having a brainlessly obvious one true build, but to be fair, neither are most minmax theorycrafters in my experience.

Effete

Quote from: hedgehobbit on September 28, 2022, 11:09:31 AM
Quote from: Effete on September 28, 2022, 04:37:49 AMI find that to be a very sloppy approach. You can achieve the same relative damage output simply by placing caps on racial Strength. A human at peak might have 18 Strength (+3 modifier) while a halfling at peak has 15 Strength (+2 modifier). Conversely, an ogre's peak Strength might be 22 (for potentially a +4 modifier). The numerical value of the attribute itself would maintain a standard (i.e., 16 is the same for everone) so they can all use the same encumbrance rules, etc.

The issue with racial minimum/maximums is how to deal with super human abilities. What is the point of giving Ogres a max Strength of 22 if the highest they can roll is an 18?

I have to admit, I don't really have a easy answer to this, and it may be one of the instances where racial attribute adjustments would be preferable. A point-buy method could work too, where each race automatically starts at a preset "average." So ogres would start at, say, 13 and can only go up from there.

QuoteAs far as encumbrance is concerned, you'll have to deal with that one way or another. Armor that fits a hobbit will weigh less than armor for a human. A hobbit-sized backpack will hold less, and the rations for a two foot tall pixie will be much smaller than a ration for an Ogre. So saying that small characters carry half what the Strength chart says is a trivial problem.

Right, but that was kinda my point. If you're using "relative Strength," then you need to create additional rules, like "Small characters carry half" and "Large characters carry double." With an "absolute" Strength, there's just one set of weight limits and smaller creatures are just lower on the scale.

For me, the less fiddly the rules are, the less I need to worry about during game.

Quote from: Wisithir on September 28, 2022, 08:49:10 PM
I think the bigger problem is Strength effecting hit probability. A minotaur does not necessarily land hits any better than a pixie, but the ones that land hurt much more. Arguably this could be handled by a scale factor such that an average strength human would have a bonus against a pixies and a penalty against a minotaur in an opposed strength check, which combat might be a case of. Alternatively, modifiers should be non linear and species specific so an 18 on 3d6 for STR is a +1 for pixies, +3 for human, and +7 for minotaur.

Or eliminate attack modifiers from abilities entirely. Turn "melee" and "ranged" into skills, where certain classes get to add their class-level as a bonus, but other classes don't. Strength modifier only applies to damage. So a minotaur with 22 STR isn't that good at fighting unless they take a class that supports it. However, if they DO land a lucky blow, it hurts.

Eric Diaz

A maximum HP per level could work too.

Think about it: a Halfling or kobold with a dagger can be infinitely dangerous - and attacking two or three times like a high-level fighter is believable. However, he is smaller and should be frailer.

Notice that in B/X strength doesn't even affect encumbrance.
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