Apparently no one in 5e plays humans, dwarves, elves or halflings anymore.

danskmacabre · December 09, 2018, 11:10:49 PM

Quote from: rawma;1068081Playing one of those too. No human's kneecaps are safe from the two feet of death! (Height and weaponry, both.)

Haha! yeah, Halfling monks are great fun, particularly when they get to run faster due to the Monk ability.
Makes me think of "Sonic the hedgehog" when I see how fast they can run as so small on a battlemat ..

Kyle Aaron · December 09, 2018, 11:56:22 PM

Quote from: Exploderwizard;1068072Perhaps, but I run AD&D for the same group of people and I am much more of a hardass there.

I am sceptical.

Point-buy is the path to the dark side. Point-buy leads to snowflakes. Snowflakes lead to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Once you start down the 5e path, forever will it dominate your destiny.

Next you'll be going diceless.

Exploderwizard · December 10, 2018, 07:37:23 AM

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1068085I am sceptical.

Point-buy is the path to the dark side. Point-buy leads to snowflakes. Snowflakes lead to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Once you start down the 5e path, forever will it dominate your destiny.

Next you'll be going diceless.

Who said anything about point buy? Roll your damn stats and play them, regardless of edition!

Abraxus · December 10, 2018, 09:16:59 AM

Roll of stats or Point Buy neither methods stops players who become too attached to their characters behaving poorly at a table. I have played and run for both. Nothing will stop a player from thinking his character is special than everyone else at the table. Or the campaign in general.

Opaopajr · December 10, 2018, 09:54:40 AM

Quote from: Aglondir;10680764x4 4ever!

Damn right, bro, 4x4 to the imaginary face, yo! :mad: That's how we keep it real, son!

(But you can have as many Backgrounds in your setting as you want players to choose from, dear.

We're nice that way. Oh, and Inspiration is of the devil. It leads down to the primrose path to Hell, FATE, & Storygames, don'tcha know?

Hors d'oeuvres?)

Opaopajr · December 10, 2018, 10:04:42 AM

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1068085I am sceptical.

Point-buy is the path to the dark side. Point-buy leads to snowflakes. Snowflakes lead to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Once you start down the 5e path, forever will it dominate your destiny.

Next you'll be going diceless.

But I thought we're supposed to "forget the past; kill it if you have to?" :confused: Oh wait, that was just a feverish nightmare I had awhile ago.

Y'know, you could always randomize the 5e pointbuy as a gateway drug to the youngins. Just roll d8-1 and increase your stats down the line by so much, until you spend all your 27 points.

i.e. Roll an 8 for STR, increase stat by 7, dock 9 points from 27 pool.

Opaopajr · December 10, 2018, 10:06:18 AM

Quote from: sureshot;1068105Roll of stats or Point Buy neither methods stops players who become too attached to their characters behaving poorly at a table. I have played and run for both. Nothing will stop a player from thinking his character is special than everyone else at the table. Or the campaign in general.

That's what the horns on the GM viking hat is for!

Psikerlord · December 10, 2018, 08:38:49 PM

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1068049I think it would be neat if someone made a game where the races / species differences were really enforced, so that rather than being better humans (immortal, low-light vision, magical), they were literally different creatures with radically different psychologies that were enforced manually. For example

Elves - must roll or 50% won't bother to help or assist anyone who is not immortal (why do their lives matter?), must roll or 50% of the time won't stop what they're doing to do something else.
Dwarves - must try to kill or scheme against someone who has betrayed them each game.

Bison and Sharks are very different creatures, but for some reason in kitchen-sink D&D type games the non-humans are just better humans.

Low Fantasy Gaming does this. The GM may require a Will check for an elf to resist showing their alofness or hautiness, dwarves might check to see if they can resist gold or retailiating against a slight to their family name, halflings check to see if they can resist their innate curiousity, etc... So certain stereotype racial traits are hardcoded into them at the table. Humans are the only unfettered race.

Psikerlord · December 10, 2018, 08:40:45 PM

My preference is a low magic game with relatively mundane races. But in a high magic world, hell yeah, bring on the dragonmen, half demons and catfolk. As long as the world explains how they're there. It kinda becomes a fantasy star wars.

PencilBoy99 · December 11, 2018, 01:08:11 PM

Quote from: Psikerlord;1068153Low Fantasy Gaming does this. The GM may require a Will check for an elf to resist showing their alofness or hautiness, dwarves might check to see if they can resist gold or retailiating against a slight to their family name, halflings check to see if they can resist their innate curiousity, etc... So certain stereotype racial traits are hardcoded into them at the table. Humans are the only unfettered race.

Sweet

Omega · December 13, 2018, 03:40:10 PM

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1068085I am sceptical.

Point-buy is the path to the dark side. Point-buy leads to snowflakes. Snowflakes lead to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Once you start down the 5e path, forever will it dominate your destiny.

Weak your reasoning is.
I am mean and make my 5e players do either array or point buy so they CANT end up with snowflakes. If someone bitched afterwards because another player put points into STR and they did not then hey there is the door. So long.

Kyle Aaron · December 13, 2018, 03:55:57 PM

The points are sufficient to ensure everyone is above average, right? You may as well point-buy your combats, just make sure they have enough points to win them all. Point-buy your treasure and XP, too.

Einstein, that famed point-buyer, was wrong: God does play dice with the universe. Turn your horse aside from the road to Lake Wobegon, and roll the dice.

Franky · December 13, 2018, 04:25:05 PM

Einstein was terrible at arithmetic -- the whole adding and subtracting thing. He would totally be a "roll the dice and just play the damned PC already" sort of player. Couldn't balance his checkbook, that Einstein guy.

HappyDaze · December 13, 2018, 05:42:57 PM

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1068424The points are sufficient to ensure everyone is above average, right? You may as well point-buy your combats, just make sure they have enough points to win them all. Point-buy your treasure and XP, too.

I don't like dice to dictate something that itself becomes an ongoing modifier (and a static modifier is really all ability scores are in D&D) for the whole life of the character. If those values randomly changed, then fine, but rolling to see how strong you are in the moment before rolling to see how well your melee attack goes is an unnecessary step IMO. For the same reason, I go with static hit points per level as opposed to rolling them anew each day.

Cave Bear · December 13, 2018, 11:41:25 PM

Quote from: Franky;1068427Einstein was terrible at arithmetic -- the whole adding and subtracting thing. He would totally be a "roll the dice and just play the damned PC already" sort of player. Couldn't balance his checkbook, that Einstein guy.

Urban legend.
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1936731_1936743_1936758,00.html

The confusion stems from Switzerland's grading scales. Prior to 1896, Einstein's schools used a 1 to 6 scale where 1 was the highest and 6 was a failing grade. Then they switched it around so that 1's became failing grades. Einstein was scoring 1's under the older system, and 6's under the newer system. If you look at his report cards without that context, it seemed as though he was failing math.