What would your D&D stats be?

[Zelig]

Problem is the overwhelming number of spell-like abilities for every single character class and the monsters. Say hypothetically you were designing a (very-)low magic campaign. The Pathfinder ruleset is basically incompatible with your setting.

With a few adjustments to 3.5e, I could make my campaign work. I've looked into updating it for Pathfinder and thrown up my hands in frustration.

3.5e isn't much better than Pathfinder for low fantasy, I'd rather just use Iron Heroes.

I'm currently playing a limited-magic 1930's setting in 5e that works pretty well.

Does 5e allow you to level your statistics?

+2 every 4th with hard cap of 20, variant rule allows for choice between feat or ability increase.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The first 10, republished. It starts with the Warlock of Firetop Mountain and includes The Creature of Havoc. I did not see anything from the Sorcery! series.

I have been busy with other things on evenings and weekends, so have only mapped out the first book, but not played it out. I do not recall ever playing the first book when I was younger.

I still haven't made it through Creature of Havoc. I forget how the code works, so I'd have to start over. There are 60+ books, though, plus reference material, Warlock magazine, Fighting Fantazine, and other online adventures.

A couple of my NaNoWriMo projects have been to novelize various FF adventures. I'm partway through Scorpion Swamp and also the Sorcery! series (left off partway through The Shamutanti Hills). Some of the people who write geography and mapping articles are working on material for Khare, so I'm looking forward to that.

My wisdom is only 4, so I have no idea how any of this works.

The traditional way of rolling stats is to use 3d6 (or 4d6 and discard the lowest number). Therefore your stats will fall between 3 and 18.

 

[Evie]

Personally my biggest beef with 5e is something that isnt really 5e's fault : it's stuck with most of DnD's original sins. Other than that (and deadlifts) it's probably my least hated iteration of DnD.

Classes were always a gross oversimplification that resulted in straitjacketing characters. Alignments are fundamentally unbalanced because their fluidity is almost exclusively downward as punishment, not upward, while actual evil is defined entirely too broadly. This result in a scenario wher "wipe out evil-alligned types" is sometime seen as the Good thing to do. Which gave us the whole notion of a lawful stupid alignment.

Plus vancian magic (stupid).

 

[Harv]

I still haven't made it through Creature of Havoc. I forget how the code works, so I'd have to start over. There are 60+ books, though, plus reference material, Warlock magazine, Fighting Fantazine, and other online adventures.

It has been about 25 years, but I will remember it as soon as I crack the book open and read it. Since I have absolutely no idea whether you like to solve the puzzle, I will use nested spoilers.

Spoiler :

The vowels and consonants are separated and shifted in opposite directions.

Spoiler :

I think the consonants are shifted back two letters, and the vowels are shifted forward one letter. If I am correct, one of the very first encounters is with a dwarf or hobbit who says:

Spoiler :

Jfbtf kf bjplf!

Spoiler :

Leave me alone!

When I get home, I will verify.

Spoiler :

Nope. Here is how the Common tongue works:

Spaces are inserted at random. Vowels are inserted at random to represent spaces. Consonants are the same. Vowels are shifted forward one letter.

-Reference 283

 

[Antilogic]

Does anybody have a guide on how to calculate the other scores?

Strength: 3 + Deadlift / 40 [Less that 40 = 3. More than 600 = 18.]
Constitution: LBM / 10 - 4 [LBM is lean body mass, calculated from body-fat test.]
Dexterity: Start with 10. Add or subtract points according to a stupid questionnaire.
Intelligence: Similar. Add points for academic achievements.
Wisdom: Similar. Add or subtract points for a pattern of well guided versus bone-headed decisions. Add or subtract points according to spirituality. (Prime Requisite for Clerics)
Charisma: Start with 10. Subtract 1 if you: Post here. Play video games. Ever played a CRPG. Ever played World of Warcraft. Play board games. Played PnP D&D. Can't get a real date.

So this would yield...

STR 8
CON 9
DEX 10...?
INT 13?
WIS 9 or less because atheist?
CHA 6 although I object to board games being listed

3.5e isn't much better than Pathfinder for low fantasy, I'd rather just use Iron Heroes.

I'm currently playing a limited-magic 1930's setting in 5e that works pretty well.

I'm not familiar with Iron Heroes. I modded a few rules from 3.5e to make my campaign setting, and I think it would have worked fairly well. The only other one I was considering was the reduced HP-damage resistance model, but my gaming group fell apart before we started so that was never implemented.

Personally my biggest beef with 5e is something that isnt really 5e's fault : it's stuck with most of DnD's original sins. Other than that (and deadlifts) it's probably my least hated iteration of DnD.

Classes were always a gross oversimplification that resulted in straitjacketing characters. Alignments are fundamentally unbalanced because their fluidity is almost exclusively downward as punishment, not upward, while actual evil is defined entirely too broadly. This result in a scenario wher "wipe out evil-alligned types" is sometime seen as the Good thing to do. Which gave us the whole notion of a lawful stupid alignment.

Plus vancian magic (stupid).

I made a bunch of custom human heritages so you get the feeling of playing different races but still had the favored class flexibility, feats, and skill points. It handled at least one of those problems.

 

[Zelig]

Personally my biggest beef with 5e is something that isnt really 5e's fault : it's stuck with most of DnD's original sins. Other than that (and deadlifts) it's probably my least hated iteration of DnD.

Classes were always a gross oversimplification that resulted in straitjacketing characters. Alignments are fundamentally unbalanced because their fluidity is almost exclusively downward as punishment, not upward, while actual evil is defined entirely too broadly. This result in a scenario wher "wipe out evil-alligned types" is sometime seen as the Good thing to do. Which gave us the whole notion of a lawful stupid alignment.

Plus vancian magic (stupid).

Alignment isn't really something D&D is stuck with, neither of my 5e campaigns make any mention of it.

My biggest annoyance with 5e is that they kept stat-rolling as an option instead of only having assignment and point buying. But I just don't allow rolling in any campaign I run anyway.

 

[Evie]

Stuck with to the extent that it's used. You can play DnD without alignments, but if you use alignment you'Re stuck with the skewed carryover systtem and its idiotic lines.

I don't think your custom system really covered my issue with classes: I hate the notion of classes in and of themselves. It's just a stupid system that in my opinion is better handled by a point-buy skill system where you pick the skills that fit the kind of character you want to play and give you muc h more flexibility without hte need to print fifty dozen supplements with that many new classes, subclasses, advanced classes, etc.

(as opposed to point-buy skill system where it's used at best to further customize within the character class)

 

[bhsup]

STR 11 - I am woefully out of shape
CON 14 - Docs say I have a great ticker, considering being out of shape and smoking (vaping now!)
DEX 7 - I can trip over a shadow
INT 15 - I may not have book learnin', but I gots the street smarts
WIS 15 - With age comes wisdom. OH, and not atheist!
CHA 18 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39YUXIKrOFk

 

[Harv]

CHA 6 although I object to board games being listed

This forum needs a :troll: smiley. I was trying to come up with a questionnaire that would give half the people here a 3.

How about - Charisma:

Spoiler :

3d6, representing an aggregate of Personality, Radiance, and Magnetism. For each list, the maximum is 6 and the minimum is 1.

Personality: Start with 5 if you are an Extrovert, 2 if you are an Introvert.
±1 Social Grace: +1 if you are tactful and gracious, -1 if you are blunt, 0 if neither really apply.
±1 Humor: +1 if you are funny, -1 if you can't take a joke, 0 if neither really apply.

Radiance: Start with 5 if you are seen as Honest, 2 if you are seen as Untrustworthy.
+1 if you are seen as knowledgeable, -1 if people always think they know better than you, 0 if neither really apply.

Magnetism: Start with 5 if you are seen as a Leader, 2 if not.
+1 if people tend to like you on the first impression, -1 if not, 0 if neutral.
+1 if the ladies want to date you, -1 if they run away from you, 0 if neutral.

Other +1 or -1 characteristics as imagination sees fit.

Just messing around with too much time on my hands and I probably missed a whole list of stuff. Does a questionnaire like this yield a reasonable range of scores that would approximate some kind of bell curve?

 

[The_J]

Last char had (before race boni, etc.):
STR 15
DEX 11
CON 12
IN 14
WIS 13
CHAR 8

To compare that to RL:
IN + STR should be swapped. Doing the PhD is probably enough to make IN the highest stat.
STR is definitely above average, although I don't do deadlifts. Push-ups, pull-ups etc. are no problem though (okay, depends on how many , but more than the average).
DEX is probably okay, although I'm sometimes clumsy.
CON should be lower, because I'm not very resistant, health-wise.
WIS/CHAR...never really know what to do there. I'm prone of saying stupid/inappropriate things, not sure where that should go. Sometimes that's intentional, sometimes not....I can talk though and be entertaining, but that needs a pretty girl .
WIS should be the higher one, because perception is in some areas really, really good, but in other areas really poor. So undecided about that.

 

[Commodore]

http://www.kevinhaw.com/add_quiz.php

According to the quiz linked above my D&D stats are as follows:

STR: 11
INT: 13
WIS: 17
DEX: 9
CON: 10
CHR: 6

I don't know how accurate that is though, but I did answer all the questions as honestly as I could.

 

[Antilogic]

I got an awful lot of 13s out of that quiz.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Here’s what the quiz gave me:

STR 11
INT 17
WIS 14
DEX 10
CON 9
CHR 7

Probably overestimated my INT and underestimated CON and CHR. I assume I only got any DEX at all for being able to juggle.

 

[Steph]

My result from the tests

STR 13
INT 17
WIS 16
DEX 12
CON 10
CHR 9

Compared to my own estimation

STR 10 : A little workout, heavy built, so slithtly above average, but just slightly
INT 14 : I'm rather good at problem solving and have a good memory. But not a genius
WIS 9 : I guess I'm average here.
DEX 13 : Martial art training, good coordination and balance
CON 12 : never broken anything, quite resilient, don't mind cold... but out of breath quickly.
CHA 7 : I'm not too good at social interaction.

 

[bhsup]

Man, y'all have low opinions of yourselves.

 

[Tahuti]

According to the test Commodore posted...

STR:13
INT:17
WIS:16
DEX:9
CON:13
CHR:15

 

[Evie]

STR:11 (a random guess of what I could probably lift/pres. MAy well be lower.)
INT:17 (I think it tend to overplays school achievements/IQ here, ie two guys, one who narrowly got his PhD and the other who came up with a revolutionary theory in his, would both be INT 17. Bad design. Plus, has no official room for professional doctorates so I considered mine equal to a PhD )
WIS:16
DEX:14
CON:12 (Too narrow a set of physical endurance test IMO)
CHR:10 (No consideration whatsoever for humor, which is a pretty big part of charisma).

 

[Antilogic]

Man, y'all have low opinions of yourselves.

I remember lurking on another forum where they asked people to rate themselves as generals in wargames. There emerged a consensus that you provide two sets of scores: the humble version, and the ego trip version.

 

[bhsup]

I suppose I could redo the scores to reflect an "ego version" but that wouldn't be very fair.

 

[tetley]

I would have to give myself a 16 Charisma just because I'm really, really good looking.