Quote from: BronzeDragon on December 31, 2020, 08:50:15 AM
What I do object to is a system built around the idea that if you don't have a superb stat in your primary characteristic, you're not just subpar, you're shit.

I never said the character was shit just not going to be as effective as someone who has 16-187 in their primary stat. The problem is too much of D&D is built around a character stats

Compare a 12 Int +1 Mod VS 16 Int +3 Mod  Wizard. In PF The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a wizard's spell is 10 + the spell level + the wizard's Intelligence modifier.

         
Cantrip   11  13
Level 1   12  14
Level 2   13  15
Level 3   14  16
Level 4   15  17
Level 5   16  18
Level 6   17  19
Level 7   18  20
Level 8   19  21
Level 9   20  22

It may not seem much of a difference yet at higher levels beating Spell Resistance and saves does become an issue. So one can still be decent yet still not be as effective at higher level. With the caster needing the Int score to be able to cast the level of spells. Meaning to cast 8th level spells one needs to have an 18 int minimum.

Same thing with low str Fighter vs High Str both can hit yet one does damage and hits more often while also being able to carry more. While D&D is a team game I ain't no one pack mule after a certain point neither I nor the other players are going to be lugging your equipment because player ZYX decides to put an 8-10 in Str. Unlike 3E and after low ability scores gave not just penalties it also hampered say being brought back from the dead. Your Con is 8 in 1E and 2E I really hope you roll well on coming back to life or surviving being turned from Stone to Flesh.,

Again personally not  fan of sub-optimal design. As long as the player accepts full personal responsibility for poor choices with their character. too many refuse to do so and anyone and everyone halfway competent is a "filthy" Optimizer. One wants to put 6-8 in Str go for it. Don't whine and bitch after that the character can't wear heavy armor due to encumbrance or be unable to carry as much for the same reason. Or that the high level npcs and creatures shrug off magic tossed at them because the character again took a 6-8 in their primary caster stat.

Too much optimization can be annoying yet it's also tossed out way too easily by gamers against anyone and everyone character that is more competent than theirs with the character only being minimally optimized .

Why does anyone care what some fuckwit with a youtube channel thinks?

Of course he's full of shit.

Quote from: sureshot on January 01, 2021, 02:10:53 AM

Quote from: BronzeDragon on December 31, 2020, 08:50:15 AM
What I do object to is a system built around the idea that if you don't have a superb stat in your primary characteristic, you're not just subpar, you're shit.

I never said the character was shit just not going to be as effective as someone who has 16-187 in their primary stat. The problem is too much of D&D is built around a character stats

Compare a 12 Int +1 Mod VS 16 Int +3 Mod  Wizard. In PF The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a wizard's spell is 10 + the spell level + the wizard's Intelligence modifier.

Cantrip   11  13
Level 1   12  14
Level 2   13  15
Level 3   14  16
Level 4   15  17
Level 5   16  18
Level 6   17  19
Level 7   18  20
Level 8   19  21
Level 9   20  22

Its actually worse than that...

Cantrip   11  13
Level 1   12  14
Level 2   13  15
Level 3   ---  16
Level 4   ---  17
Level 5   ---  18
Level 6   ---  19
Level 7   ---  ---
Level 8   ---  ---
Level 9   ---  ---

Because in 3.5/PF1 you could only cast spells of your casting stat score - 10. Unless you use level up stat bumps or items to boost your casting stat that 12 Int wizard is capped at 2nd level spells (they'd still get higher level slots, but could only prep 2nd level spells in them) and even the 16 INT wizard needs +3 to INT from level bumps or items to be able to cast 9th level spells.

The 12 Int Wizard will never be able to cast better than 7th level spells (and only at level 20) without a headband of intellect. If he uses every level bump on Int he'll still not get 5th level spells on his own until level 12 (vs. normally getting them at level 9) and won't get 6th level spells until level 16 (vs. level 11 normally).

Those systems are quite literally built around at least a 15 in your primary casting stat (and then using every stat bump for it) to not have a level of spell access delayed by low scores).

That the didn't just build the required stat bumps into the classes, but let you potentially gimp yourself with a bad pick shows that 3e/PF were built with optimization outright expected... anything suboptimal was ruthlessly punished by an often exponential set of penalties (i.e. not just lower save DCs, but fewer spells known, fewer spells prepped per day and only able to use lower level spells).

You've gotten to the crux of the matter:  modern iterations of D&D are designed to incentivize mechanical optimization.  This isn't even arguable.  You can babble on about role playing all you want, but the actual mechanics of the game punishes players who choose sub-optimal builds and rewards (with greater skill success, an easier challenge, and more capabilities) players that maximize bonuses.

One positive about 5e is that it has backed off this a little with its bounded accuracy.  But the mechanics still reward numerical maximization.  You can play D&D without regard for the numbers, but you will fail more often, defeat lesser threats, and have fewer capabilities.  If that's what you are going for, then so be it.  But when other people in you group do not share that opinion, you're just being a dick by playing that way.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 01, 2021, 12:14:44 PM
You've gotten to the crux of the matter:  modern iterations of D&D are designed to incentivize mechanical optimization.

Any game with any amount of player choice will do this. Grognards talk as if this was some horrific calamity that befell the purity of older games, when just rolling stats till you got the ones you wanted was a thing that happened all the time.

In a adventure game, the probable experience of playing a mute wheelchair-bound cripple was having him die in one hit to an orc.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 01, 2021, 11:50:20 AM
The 12 Int Wizard will never be able to cast better than 7th level spells (and only at level 20) without a headband of intellect. If he uses every level bump on Int he'll still not get 5th level spells on his own until level 12 (vs. normally getting them at level 9) and won't get 6th level spells until level 16 (vs. level 11 normally).

B/X D&D does it right: Int affects languages known, not spellcasting.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 01, 2021, 11:50:20 AM
Its actually worse than that...

Cantrip   11  13
Level 1   12  14
Level 2   13  15
Level 3   ---  16
Level 4   ---  17
Level 5   ---  18
Level 6   ---  19
Level 7   ---  ---
Level 8   ---  ---
Level 9   ---  ---

Because in 3.5/PF1 you could only cast spells of your casting stat score - 10. Unless you use level up stat bumps or items to boost your casting stat that 12 Int wizard is capped at 2nd level spells (they'd still get higher level slots, but could only prep 2nd level spells in them) and even the 16 INT wizard needs +3 to INT from level bumps or items to be able to cast 9th level spells.

The 12 Int Wizard will never be able to cast better than 7th level spells (and only at level 20) without a headband of intellect. If he uses every level bump on Int he'll still not get 5th level spells on his own until level 12 (vs. normally getting them at level 9) and won't get 6th level spells until level 16 (vs. level 11 normally).

Those systems are quite literally built around at least a 15 in your primary casting stat (and then using every stat bump for it) to not have a level of spell access delayed by low scores).

That the didn't just build the required stat bumps into the classes, but let you potentially gimp yourself with a bad pick shows that 3e/PF were built with optimization outright expected... anything suboptimal was ruthlessly punished by an often exponential set of penalties (i.e. not just lower save DCs, but fewer spells known, fewer spells prepped per day and only able to use lower level spells).

Thanks for the correction Chris.

Not sure if it's DMs allowing players to gimp themselves then not changing anything else about the rpg. At higher levels Demons and Devils and other crestures/npcs with Spell Resistance are simply going to shrug off many of the spells thrown at them. Non-Optimized characters can work except it the puts more of a burden on the DM to even out the playing field. Not like the DM has his hands full running the game or anything. Even in earlier editions low attributes penalized players. I remember playing Baldurs gate and picked up the Bard (sounds alot like Brains from ThunderBirds) and noticed he was not able to learn many spells because he was pre-made npc who could become a PC with a cast stat of Int or 13.

Note one can still play characters with low stats one has to also acknowledge and more important the character will suffer somewhat compared to characters with average to higher stats. The whole "don't worry low stats mean nothing" they tried to push in earlier editions even to having a paragraph or two 2E PHB is simply BS imo. Sure one can get by with low attributes yet they tried to make it out that it would never affect the character negatively in anyway. Low Con Fighter can survive hopefully he does not take too many hits pr need to come back from the dead or shrug off any magical effects that are tied to Con. I always laugh and still laugh at the whole Joe Average goes on adventuring vibe I received from 1E and 2E. Joe adverahe stays at home farming the land 8-9 times of ten. It's the more exceptional people who go risk their lives adventuring.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 01, 2021, 12:24:31 PM
Any game with any amount of player choice will do this. Grognards talk as if this was some horrific calamity that befell the purity of older games, when just rolling stats till you got the ones you wanted was a thing that happened all the time.

In a adventure game, the probable experience of playing a mute wheelchair-bound cripple was having him die in one hit to an orc.

Seconded it's like pre-3E they inflict themselves a lobotomy like somehow it NEVER EVER happened in 1E and 2E. Those editions also had what a character could do also tied to their stats.Using my example of the Wizard with low Int would hurt the character. Hell in 1E and 2E their were actual penalties for low Attributes. Want to dump stat Char good luck recruiting any hirelings or npcs not without a lot of gold to back you up. It's as bad as the same DMs who complain about Leadership as a feat in 3.5/Pathfinder yet either never played earlier editions or once again self inflicted lobotomy where a Fighter could get a keep with hirelings and a Ranger could get a Satyr or Unicorn and the DM really had no say about it.

Grognards really need to stop embarrassing themselves or at least not look at their earlier favored editions of D&D with rose colored glasses they also spray painted completely black. It's only 3E and later where D&D was "ruined""

Quote from: sureshot on January 01, 2021, 12:46:47 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 01, 2021, 12:24:31 PM
Any game with any amount of player choice will do this. Grognards talk as if this was some horrific calamity that befell the purity of older games, when just rolling stats till you got the ones you wanted was a thing that happened all the time.

In a adventure game, the probable experience of playing a mute wheelchair-bound cripple was having him die in one hit to an orc.

Seconded it's like pre-3E they inflict themselves a lobotomy like somehow it NEVER EVER happened in 1E and 2E. Those editions also had what a character could do also tied to their stats.Using my example of the Wizard with low Int would hurt the character. Hell in 1E and 2E their were actual penalties for low Attributes. Want to dump stat Char good luck recruiting any hirelings or npcs not without a lot of gold to back you up. It's as bad as the same DMs who complain about Leadership as a feat in 3.5/Pathfinder yet either never played earlier editions or once again self inflicted lobotomy where a Fighter could get a keep with hirelings and a Ranger could get a Satyr or Unicorn and the DM really had no say about it.

Grognards really need to stop embarrassing themselves or at least not look at their earlier favored editions of D&D with rose colored glasses they also spray painted completely black. It's only 3E and later where D&D was "ruined""

Pretty much. The OSR is basically an RPG cult obsessed with OD&D. They see in OD&D whatever they want to see--like people who see the visage of Jesus in burned toast. And OD&D rules are always uniquely suited to handle every eventuality better than other RPGs, even if it didn't include any rules for it, because even the absence of a rule is seen as a feature that promotes creative problem solving, as opposed to the books simply not covering those things.

A&D incentivized fighters rolling ridiculous STR, cuz all the real bonuses were gated behind the silly % nonsense. So you need to roll a 18, then roll REALLY high on the d100 to get a decent damage bonus. Not to mention the pointlessness of ability scores when a 17 in STR only gave you a measly +1 to hit and damage. At that point you might as well do away with ability scores if they're only gonna give you crap, since the scores themselves are largely superficial. Spellcasters themselves basically REQUIRED 18 WIS or INT out of the gate or they would NEVER be able to cast level 7 (divine) or 9 spells (arcane), unless the DM was generous enough to include items that permanently increased their scores. There have always been a lot of silly restrictions or conceits you have to put up with in D&D.

Quote from: sureshot on January 01, 2021, 12:46:47 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 01, 2021, 12:24:31 PM
Any game with any amount of player choice will do this. Grognards talk as if this was some horrific calamity that befell the purity of older games, when just rolling stats till you got the ones you wanted was a thing that happened all the time.

In a adventure game, the probable experience of playing a mute wheelchair-bound cripple was having him die in one hit to an orc.

Seconded it's like pre-3E they inflict themselves a lobotomy like somehow it NEVER EVER happened in 1E and 2E. Those editions also had what a character could do also tied to their stats.Using my example of the Wizard with low Int would hurt the character. Hell in 1E and 2E their were actual penalties for low Attributes. Want to dump stat Char good luck recruiting any hirelings or npcs not without a lot of gold to back you up. It's as bad as the same DMs who complain about Leadership as a feat in 3.5/Pathfinder yet either never played earlier editions or once again self inflicted lobotomy where a Fighter could get a keep with hirelings and a Ranger could get a Satyr or Unicorn and the DM really had no say about it.

Grognards really need to stop embarrassing themselves or at least not look at their earlier favored editions of D&D with rose colored glasses they also spray painted completely black. It's only 3E and later where D&D was "ruined""

Nah, you're the one embarrassing yourself. Because I'm pretty sure nobody has made that claim. People who play games are the ones who are familiar with the rules, after all.

The points they actually make are far more nuanced, but it's a lot easier to just create strawmen to knock down than to address arguments made by real people.

And 3e was a major shift in terms of optimization. The roots go back further, but it became a lot more important in 3e, and that was also accompanied by a culture shift, including the rise of the char op board on WotC website, the increase in the sense of player entitlement and the corresponding decrease in the authority of the Viking hat to curb abuses, builds, a greater degree of dependence on stats, a greater differential between optimized and non-optimized characters, and a lot more.

It's a very complex topic. And I say this as someone who frequented the 3.X char op board, and played in epic games where we bent the rules to the breaking point.

I say this as someone who, on balance prefers 3rd edition to other editions, although I did ditch it to play Castles and Crusades for a long time and only really came back to it after playing 5E and thinking "this is nice but I prefer the real thing rather than the light version".

The big change that happened from 2e to 3E is that some people started planning their characters ahead of time and you had 'builds'.  This was a mistake.  A lot of it arose from bullshit prerequisites for prestige classes and feats and the way prestige classes were mishandled.

It can lead to players focusing so much on what they want their character to do in 5 levels that they are unable to react to the game they are playing now.
"You've running into invisible creatures a few times now - maybe you should consider picking up blindfigting".
"No it's not part of the plan".

By basically de-emphasising prestige classes Pathfinder improved this situation somewhat.  You know longer need to worry about prestige classes - feats are not such a scarce resource, and if you just keep going straight fighter at least you will not fall into a hole quite so quickly.

In a way this is what makes optimisation possible.  Sure you could optimise in 2e but it was pretty fucking obvious what you had to do.  The optimisation guides and the like arose in 3E because it was less obvious what was effective and the rewards were more effective.  Likewise optimisation guides for 5E are sad and pathetic things.

Basically optimisation is just appealing to people's enjoyment of gaining mastery - this is not really all that bad a thing in itself - it's "builds" that are the problem.

Prestige classes in 3E were meant to be more a way of adding depth to settings and making players do things like joining knighthoods feel like more then just fluff - problem is that the examples given in the DMG quickly became models and they became used as basic splats and power ups - and because the fluff wasn't linked to entry most of the time, it became ignored.  Prerequisites should always have been  focused more on things you could do in the game* - eg "must have killed a demon in single combat" - not have x feat and x skills. 

The above also somewhat highlights the fluff vs crunch distinction which arose and which was ultimately disastrous for 3rd edition and led to the design of 4th.

*This is the crux of the issue - it's the movement of so many key character decisions and elements out of the game itself.  This is why 5E still has the same problem despite the fact there's fuck all optimisation to actually be done.  At least, magic items are now once again something you have to actually play the game to get.

One of the best things you can do to address this when running 3.X or Pathfinder is to use Pathfinder's slow advancement.  Basically, if there's a longer gap between levels and you actually have to play the character for a significant time at each level, there becomes a lot less point in constantly looking ahead.  This also keeps the game in the levels that are actually fun to play.

Quote from: Pat on January 01, 2021, 02:21:01 PM

Quote from: sureshot on January 01, 2021, 12:46:47 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 01, 2021, 12:24:31 PM
Any game with any amount of player choice will do this. Grognards talk as if this was some horrific calamity that befell the purity of older games, when just rolling stats till you got the ones you wanted was a thing that happened all the time.

In a adventure game, the probable experience of playing a mute wheelchair-bound cripple was having him die in one hit to an orc.

Seconded it's like pre-3E they inflict themselves a lobotomy like somehow it NEVER EVER happened in 1E and 2E. Those editions also had what a character could do also tied to their stats.Using my example of the Wizard with low Int would hurt the character. Hell in 1E and 2E their were actual penalties for low Attributes. Want to dump stat Char good luck recruiting any hirelings or npcs not without a lot of gold to back you up. It's as bad as the same DMs who complain about Leadership as a feat in 3.5/Pathfinder yet either never played earlier editions or once again self inflicted lobotomy where a Fighter could get a keep with hirelings and a Ranger could get a Satyr or Unicorn and the DM really had no say about it.

Grognards really need to stop embarrassing themselves or at least not look at their earlier favored editions of D&D with rose colored glasses they also spray painted completely black. It's only 3E and later where D&D was "ruined""

Nah, you're the one embarrassing yourself. Because I'm pretty sure nobody has made that claim. People who play games are the ones who are familiar with the rules, after all.

The points they actually make are far more nuanced, but it's a lot easier to just create strawmen to knock down than to address arguments made by real people.

And 3e was a major shift in terms of optimization. The roots go back further, but it became a lot more important in 3e, and that was also accompanied by a culture shift, including the rise of the char op board on WotC website, the increase in the sense of player entitlement and the corresponding decrease in the authority of the Viking hat to curb abuses, builds, a greater degree of dependence on stats, a greater differential between optimized and non-optimized characters, and a lot more.

It's a very complex topic. And I say this as someone who frequented the 3.X char op board, and played in epic games where we bent the rules to the breaking point.

Nah, let them babble.  The fact that I play 5e far more than OSR wouldn't even phase them.  They are what they accuse others of being: cultists, but they don't even have the slight redeeming quality of being cultists for something, just cultists against something.

As to your point (which is an excellent one), the changing face of the game comes from a couple of things, tying into several ongoing threads on the board right now.  The first was the idea of character transience.  Sure, I had a couple of 15+ level characters in AD&D, but they were few and far between.  Most lasted a few levels and then got killed or got retired.  There wasn't the idea that we were creating an epic hero, nor a representation of ourselves.  Five minutes and a few rolls were all the characters got.  Sure, we'd occasionally do stat roll variants to spice things up and maybe get that elusive 18 strength, but I still have a bunch of characters from back then, and they weren't particularly high stat-wise (several with a 15 and a 14 as my highest).  That's because of the second part.

Secondly, the mechanics of the older editions meant that the characters of the same class were fundamentally the same in construction.  They differed based on play.  All of my fighters looked pretty much the same on paper at the beginning.  What separated them was either the personality I role-played or the magic items I gathered that changed their approach to problems and combat.  And the story that was built up by their experiences.  In some ways, counter to the claims of the haters, there wasn't any optimizing because there was very little to optimize before play.  The play created the strengths, weaknesses, and stories.  We weren't worried about backstories.  We were creating stories in the present.

I think this is where 3e made a mistake.  It created a conflict between the character's path via mechanics (the "build") and the character's path via adventure (the magic items, the roleplaying events, boons, and consequences), I think without recognizing that there was any conflict at all (probably because it developed organically beginning at the tail end of AD&D through 2e).  I think there is room for either approach alone, or even in conjunction, as long as the mechanics are developed for both.  In the case of D&D, I don't think that anyone was really considering how the game was changing and why...

P.S., as an example of this conflict.  In 1e, could you imagine a fighter who found a magic hammer turning it down (unless they already had a far superior magic weapon)?  But from 3e to PF to 5e, I've had players that eschewed a magic weapon for a non-magical on, because the magic weapon conflicted with their build.  "I'm not going to use a +1 longsword... my whole build is based around using Polearm Master and Sentinel!"  Yeah, not what I ever experienced in older editions...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 01, 2021, 04:15:17 PMAs to your point (which is an excellent one), the changing face of the game comes from a couple of things, tying into several ongoing threads on the board right now.  The first was the idea of character transience.  Sure, I had a couple of 15+ level characters in AD&D, but they were few and far between.  Most lasted a few levels and then got killed or got retired.  There wasn't the idea that we were creating an epic hero, nor a representation of ourselves.  Five minutes and a few rolls were all the characters got.  Sure, we'd occasionally do stat roll variants to spice things up and maybe get that elusive 18 strength, but I still have a bunch of characters from back then, and they weren't particularly high stat-wise (several with a 15 and a 14 as my highest).  That's because of the second part.

Dude, the idea of people thinking of their characters as some sort of epic hero existed since Basic D&D. They had rules for characters going all the way to level 36, for crying out loud! People trying to created idealized representations of themselves were also a thing, and people with long as character backgrounds focused on the drama existed as well. Whether it's a good idea to create a 10 page tragic story of woe for a newly minted level 1 character its a different matter (it isn't), but those kinds of people didn't start existing the moment that 3e rolled out. It's a personal failing, not a rules-dependent topic.

Level 15+ characters are also probably rare in every edition of the game, and if anything, more options means that some people will want to create a bunch of characters rather than stick to just one for prolong periods, just to try out different concepts. You're conflating your own playstyle preferences and anecdotes with the rule systems themselves.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 01, 2021, 04:15:17 PMSecondly, the mechanics of the older editions meant that the characters of the same class were fundamentally the same in construction.  They differed based on play.  All of my fighters looked pretty much the same on paper at the beginning.  What separated them was either the personality I role-played or the magic items I gathered that changed their approach to problems and combat.  And the story that was built up by their experiences.  In some ways, counter to the claims of the haters, there wasn't any optimizing because there was very little to optimize before play.  The play created the strengths, weaknesses, and stories.  We weren't worried about backstories.  We were creating stories in the present.

I think this is where 3e made a mistake.  It created a conflict between the character's path via mechanics (the "build") and the character's path via adventure (the magic items, the roleplaying events, boons, and consequences), I think without recognizing that there was any conflict at all (probably because it developed organically beginning at the tail end of AD&D through 2e).  I think there is room for either approach alone, or even in conjunction, as long as the mechanics are developed for both.  In the case of D&D, I don't think that anyone was really considering how the game was changing and why...

P.S., as an example of this conflict.  In 1e, could you imagine a fighter who found a magic hammer turning it down (unless they already had a far superior magic weapon)?  But from 3e to PF to 5e, I've had players that eschewed a magic weapon for a non-magical on, because the magic weapon conflicted with their build.  "I'm not going to use a +1 longsword... my whole build is based around using Polearm Master and Sentinel!"  Yeah, not what I ever experienced in older editions...

I don't know about 1e, but in my 2e campaigns every fighter always picked weapon specialization and would only use other weapons if those weapons were the only thing available. And no one ever made a spellcaster unless they got 18 in their key score, out of fear that they wouldn't be able to cast the highest level spells, despite characters rarely going that high in level. I've also seen 3e characters pick whatever magic weapon was available because not everyone has spare feats to focus on a single weapon, and unless you're a fighter with access to weapon specialization there isn't always a point.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 01, 2021, 04:15:17 PM
P.S., as an example of this conflict.  In 1e, could you imagine a fighter who found a magic hammer turning it down (unless they already had a far superior magic weapon)?  But from 3e to PF to 5e, I've had players that eschewed a magic weapon for a non-magical on, because the magic weapon conflicted with their build.  "I'm not going to use a +1 longsword... my whole build is based around using Polearm Master and Sentinel!"  Yeah, not what I ever experienced in older editions...

Weapon Specialisation is a thing going back to Unearthed Arcana.

Sure I will take less attacks per round just to use your +1 magic hammer - said no one.

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 01, 2021, 04:52:19 PM
I don't know about 1e, but in my 2e campaigns every fighter always picked weapon specialization and would only use other weapons if those weapons were the only thing available. And no one ever made a spellcaster unless they got 18 in their key score, out of fear that they wouldn't be able to cast the highest level spells, despite characters rarely going that high in level. I've also seen 3e characters pick whatever magic weapon was available because not everyone has spare feats to focus on a single weapon, and unless you're a fighter with access to weapon specialization there isn't always a point.

And also in 3e you actually benefit from having different types of magical weapons.