So, I've been looking through Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle (not the best name - maybe they should have used +Matt Finch 's Tome of Adventure Design for some other naming ideas). I've just been flipping through thus far, enjoying some of the art (I suspect it's all recycled from different editions, which is cool but a bit jarring at the same time).
Then I came to the supplied pre-gens. Humans have a total stat bonus of + 7, demihumans have a total stat bonus of + 6.
Which means you could simply change all of the DCs and other rolls by one and return the average stat bonus to zero - but then they wouldn't look so heroic I guess.
I dunno, it just kinda stood out and hit me. If the totals were around + 3 or 4, I doubt I would have noticed.
In any case, I am able to read the stat blocks and have a pretty good idea what is going on, so this is still much closer to the D&D I know than 4e ever was.
You've hit the nail on the head as to why I got tired of 3rd edition and on's ability scores. Why have a scale that goes from 3 to 18, when no one has a score less than 8 and most don't even have that. And the score gets converted to a +1, +2 etc anyways.
ReplyDeleteI think the stat scores tend to needlessly complicate the math involved in the game.
You make a good point on this. I think people would freak out because the dice were gone, although nobody uses them for stats anymore anyways. I know in PF I've always used the point buy system. So start out your character with 0, the stat up or down with a point buy. Seems to work the same anyways.
DeleteBollocks! We always rolled for stats back when I played 3.x! Granted, usually on 4d6 choose 3... but I did still roll a 3 every now and then.
DeleteAn old artifact from the days of actually rolling against a particular stat instead of against some skill modified by that stat.
DeleteRemember also that that book uses an old version of the playtest ruSo that may have changed already.
ReplyDeleteAccording to this post, humans get +1 to all their ability scores.
ReplyDeleteYep.
DeleteHumans used to get +2 to one and +1 to rest, but they changed it.
Package or two ago also classes gave +1 to a stat related to that class. Haven't read the latests package(s?), so I don't know what's changed.
Awesome! Is the offical setting for Next Lake Wobegone?
ReplyDelete5E keeps putting nails in the coffin for me...
ReplyDelete