Post/Author/DateTime	Post
vegeta7835 01-05-06, 06:29 PM	I am going to be running my group soon through a new set of modules. They are level 10 characters and have already spread their extra attribute point from 4th and 8th levels. Without looking at equipment, just by seeing their stats, would you consider them overpowered for play? (They rolled for their stats and I think they seem high, but are they really)? Sylvan (Elf from Player Handbook) (Fighter/Champion of Correlon from races of the wild) Str 16 Dex 20 Con 16 Int 14 Wis 12 Cha 15 Kaelyra (Silvanesti Elf: Dragonlance Campaign Setting) (Swashbuckler from complete warrior) Str 16 Dex 20 Con 14 Int 20 Wis 10 Cha 10 Reenie (Halfling: Player Handbook) (Cleric/Radiant Servent of Palor from complete divine) Str 14 Dex 16 Con 16 Int 12 Wis 20 Cha 14 Parn (Human: Player Handbook) (Paladin) Str 16 Dex 12 Con 18 Int 14 Wis 14 Cha 18 Thank you for all your help, and thanks for your time!
ressurrector 01-05-06, 06:39 PM	They don't seem very overpowered to me, and if they do seem to whomp on every monster you send, just give less exp (less of a challenge) and beef up the monsters.
Gnomish Zombie 01-05-06, 06:41 PM	Yes, these are very high, even by my standards. (we allow rerolls, and sometimes reroll all 1s) The real question is what kind of rolls did you allow (I'm expecting it's not 4d6 drop the lowest, or even 4d6, reroll 1s, drop the lowest...) It might be a problem, or it might not be. It depends on if you can adapt your campaign for this. Also, what kind of stats do you usualy play with?
Fargren 01-05-06, 06:53 PM	They seems like rolls goten with 5d6 drop 2 lowest metod. If so, they are not overpewred as long as you improve the mosters they are fighting(I recomend adding 6 point buy points, and generally improving DEX and CON)
Bruunwald 01-05-06, 07:54 PM	They rolled for the stats, but how? They aren't high if you're powergaming, or if you really like crunch. But as far as odds go, it's ODD (get it?) that they all have so many stats that are... well... You know what? I was wrong. Yes, these are really high stats. I wonder how they all legally got them so high on the average? Probably some muchkinning went on here, like the time I told one of my players to roll 4d6 and discard the lowest and try only three times and keep the best character, only to discover that he'd rolled about thirty-seven times and kept the best character. Of course, if you didn't give them a set means of creation, you were asking for this. And if you let them get away with this, they will continue trying to get away with these sorts of things from now on (as my munchkin proceeded to do, as well). I mean, look at this. You have an elf from the PHB: Str 16 Dex 20 Con 16 Int 14 Wis 12 Cha 15 Elves get +2 to Dex and -2 to Con at creation. That means, barring the two points from level, this person rolled more than one 18, as well as a 15, a 16, a 14, and at least a 10 or a 12. WHAT ARE THE ODDS? It's not impossible. I've done it myself, on EXTREMELY rare occasions. But what are the odds that everyone in the group did it coincidentally, using "legal" methods? Anyway, rant over. It's a powerful group. You'll want to do a little powergaming against them.
Gnome_Dragon_Disciple 01-05-06, 08:21 PM	I'm reminded of this one time I was watching a player roll up a character for someone else's campaign. He rolled six stats once, and the total of all six stats was in theow 50's, with two of his stats as 3's. That was... bad. So the DM let him roll again. This time he rolled with everything but one stat lower than 10, with the stand-out at 12. Again, he was allowed a reroll. And a strange thing happened. He rolled an 18. And another one. And another one. And one more. And a fifth 18. And a 16. Naturally, the DM made him reroll ;)
Korumbos 01-05-06, 09:14 PM	Looking at these stats, they're really not that high. Especially if you're using the 4d6 drop the lowest method. I personally like to have my players with higher than average stats. I mean heroes are heroes for a reason right? It especially makes sense if take a look at many of the NPC's found in the scource books. Their stats aren't really much different. On a second note though, I would question how your one character got more than one 18. Its not impossible, I would just make a note of it.
Fox Lee 01-05-06, 09:32 PM	To the OP: No. Any way you look at it, Solid stats don't make a broken character by themselves. These are good stat blocks, but are within normal limits for starting characters (assuming the 20s are racial mods), so I don't know how anybody could think that they, by themselves, could really be overpowered.
vegeta7835 01-06-06, 12:30 AM	Thanks for the input guys, I really appreciated it. I think I got the basic jist of what I needed. Oh, and to answer your questions, I went with the "roll 5d6, drop lowest 2" method of character creation. :) Thanks again!
Nom 01-06-06, 12:54 AM	Those ability arrays will give the PCs an advantage very roughly equivalent to a +2 LA. You should take that into account when considering CRs and XP progression (especially encounters / level). They will also make combats a little more "swingy".
StormCrow42 01-06-06, 12:57 AM	To the OP: No. Any way you look at it, Solid stats don't make a broken character by themselves. These are good stat blocks, but are within normal limits for starting characters (assuming the 20s are racial mods), so I don't know how anybody could think that they, by themselves, could really be overpowered. Perhaps because each character has 14-16 worth of stat bonuses. Normal for a 25 point buy is 4-6, normal for a 32 point buy (described as "high powered" in the DMG) is 7-10. I'm not going to spend the time figuring out point buy values for all of the characters, but the first one is over 50 points. Now plenty of people enjoy playing with characters with such high stats, but they aren't really necessary and are certainly going to make the characters more powerful than normal.
Raven Dark 01-06-06, 01:19 AM	If those are their stats BEFORE ability enhancing items than the stats are VERY HIGH. If it is their stats AFTER taking into acocunt for ability enhancing items, than it's quite balanced looking at 10th level.
FreeTheSlaves 01-06-06, 04:38 AM	Not at all. Stats are of lesser importance than levels or wealth & your's all look legit anyway. Ime "overpowered" only really occurs when players synergize their characters in more than a few ways, sort of like in computer games where you (the player) optimize your party. However the big difference is that this synergy requires intimate rules/character knowledge & coordination 'during combat' rather than just at the creation point. Even after this point of overpowered is reached (which is very satisfying to the players) the compensation is merely to assume they can handle +1 EL above their norm. In short, your characters are strong but far from overpowered as is.
Sir Knight 01-06-06, 07:34 AM	They do seem high to me. They do not seem "over powered" in my opinion. That is why I prefer point-buy methods. We usually use a 32 PBM with an Ability Score increase at every even level. This works REALLY well for us. For our next campaign, which will be challenging and magic item light, we are using a 36 PBM. When rolling 4d6, drop the lowest, method... I find that most characters are 40-50 point characters so Point-Buy Methods really keep it balanced.
Nom 01-06-06, 08:13 AM	Somewhat off topic, but it's worthwhile doing the exercise of comparing 25 vs 33 point buy (+8 points) with what would be gained from levelling. 25 points is what the game is calibrated around and give or take is roughly the same as the mean result from PH standard rolling. Let's assume the character uses a slightly skewed 25 point buy. While there are many options, this one will do for our comparison. 16 (10), 14 (6), 13 (5), 10 (2), 10 (2), 8 (0) This is a total bonus of +5 (+3,+2,+1,+0,+0,-1). If we instead use 33 points, we may improve our array by 8 points. Let's look at both balanced and skewed options. (a) 16 (10), 14 (6), 14 (6), 14 (6), 11 (3), 10 (2) Total bonus +9 (b) 18 (16), 14 (6), 14 (6), 11 (3), 10 (2), 8 (0) Total bonus +7 Now, let's apply these values to an actual character. Compare Ftr1 with Ftr2. The fighter assigns scores as follows: Str 16 (+3) Dex 14 (+2) Con 13 (+1) Int 10 (+0) Wis 10 (+0) Cha 8 (-1) Ftr1: BAB +1, F/R/W +2/+0/+0, skills 2x4, hp 10, 2 feats hp: 11 AC: 12 + armour Attack bonus (melee): +4 Attack bonus (ranged): +3 Damage bonus (melee): +3/+4 Save: +3/+2/+0 Jump: +7 Ride: +6 2 feats Ftr2: BAB +2, F/R/W +3/+0/+0, skills 2x5, hp 16, 3 feats hp: 18 AC: 12 + armour Attack bonus (melee): +5 Attack bonus (ranged): +4 Damage bonus (melee): +3/+4 Save: +4/+2/+0 Jump: +8 Ride: +7 3 feats Now compare Ftr1 with each of the arrays. The extra values are the difference between the entry and Ftr2. Ftr1: BAB +1, F/R/W +2/+0/+0, skills 2x4, hp 10, 2 feats - array (a) Str 16 (+3) Dex 14 (+2) Con 14 (+2) Int 14 (+2) Wis 11 (+0) Cha 10 (+0) hp: 12 (-6) AC: 12 + armour (0) Attack bonus (melee): +4 (-1) Attack bonus (ranged): +3 (-1) Damage bonus (melee): +3/+5 (0) Save: +4/+2/+0 (0/0/0) Jump: +7 (-1) Ride: +6 (-1) Climb: +8 (*) Handle Animal: 4 (*) 2 feats (-1 feat) Ftr1: BAB +1, F/R/W +2/+0/+0, skills 2x4, hp 10, 2 feats - array (a) Str 18 (+4) Dex 14 (+2) Con 14 (+2) Int 11 (+0) Wis 10 (+0) Cha 8 (-1) hp: 12 (-6) AC: 12 + armour (0) Attack bonus (melee): +5 (0) Attack bonus (ranged): +3 (-1) Damage bonus (melee): +4/+6 (+1/+2) Save: +4/+2/+0 (0/0/0) Jump: +8 (0) Ride: +6 (-1) 2 feats (-1 feat) It's not an exact match, but it's close. In each case, you lose out a little in some areas from having a higher ability array but gain in others. The biggest loss is lower Con. The biggest gains are in things not easily duplicable by level, such as damage bonuses, default skills, and extra skills. It's also easier to make feat pre-reqs. If you re-do the analysis at 50+ points, you'll see that except for hp a Ftr1 will way outshine a 25 point Ftr 2. A similar analysis can be done for most classes. The biggest benefits are gained by classes that can make use a lot of different abilities, such as monk, paladin, druid and cleric. As for "but as you gain levels you can use magic and items", this is quite true. But those things stack with your ability scores. And for some scores - notably Str (melee), Dex (most characters) and your casting score (casters) - every point of bonus counts. If you start 2 ahead before magic, you'll still be 2 ahead after magic. Note that I'm not saying it's wrong to play with characters like this, merely observing that they will throw the CR system out of whack, and that the higher power level (and fewer hp) in "challenging" battles tends to make them more "swingy" (more likely to be suddenly skewed due to good or bad luck).
green_yawgmoth 01-06-06, 08:28 AM	I'm reminded of this one time I was watching a player roll up a character for someone else's campaign. He rolled six stats once, and the total of all six stats was in theow 50's, with two of his stats as 3's. That was... bad. So the DM let him roll again. This time he rolled with everything but one stat lower than 10, with the stand-out at 12. Again, he was allowed a reroll. And a strange thing happened. He rolled an 18. And another one. And another one. And one more. And a fifth 18. And a 16. Naturally, the DM made him reroll ;) And that's when I would have just told the DM to pick some numbers for me. I mean, what's the point of rolling if I can't have the (astronomically high) chance of getting uber stats? If the PCs were supposed to have 10 10 10 11 11 11, the PHB wouldn't tell you to reroll if you have nothing better than 13 or a total mod of +0 or less. He had terrible rolls, so he got the RAW reroll. And his reroll was stellar. Why should he be punished for that? Edit: And I'd just like to remind people that point buy is the variant, and that 4d6 drop is the standard. If he's really that worried about his players being OMFG b0rked, just use the elite array for his enemies. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v91/yawgmoth/kittyjig.gif
Nightshade 01-06-06, 08:53 AM	They're overpowered. If you have stats higher than a 32 or 35 point buy, then you're overpowered.
ressurrector 01-06-06, 09:03 AM	They're overpowered. If you have stats higher than a 32 or 35 point buy, then you're overpowered. Look, it's a game, it's all for fun, and when you let your PCs be high power and face them vs high power monsters everyone's generally happy. So long as everyone is at the same power level, and you adjust the encounters to reflect the actual power level of the party everything should work fine. Besides, high stats help keep the PCs from whining.
babysamurai 01-06-06, 09:07 AM	I'm interested in knowing how an Elf from Krynn (Sylvanesti) and a Halfling from Oerth (Servant of Pelor) are adventuring together. Are you running a Planescape/Spelljamming campaign? Where's the Human from? I'm running a Planescape campaign myself right now, with a Drow Psion-native to Sigil, a Half-Orc Ranger from Oerth, and a Human Spirit Shaman from an obscure Fey-heavy world. I also let them roll 5d6 drop the lowest two...well, next time let's say I'm going with 36 point buy. Just use EL's 2 to 3 higher...or 4...or 5.
Spike_Fightwicky 01-06-06, 09:10 AM	Sylvan (Elf from Player Handbook) (Fighter/Champion of Correlon from races of the wild) Str 16 Dex 20 Con 16 Int 14 Wis 12 Cha 15 Ok, before racial mods, and after 2 stat points from levels 4 and 8, we likely have stats like these: Str 16 Dex 16 (-4 before racial mod and 2 free stat points) Con 18 (+2 before racial mod) Int 14 Wis 12 Cha 15 Translated into point buy (assuming my values are correct): Str 16=>10 points Dex 16=>10 points Con 18=>16 points Int 14=>6 points Wis 12=>4 points Cha 15=>8 points Total points(if point buy) = 54 54 points of point buy is WAY out of the range of a "High powered campaign" in the DMG. NORMALLY, this would be overpowered. HOWEVER, it's all dependant on how you DM the game. With stats like that, your monsters should be pumped up as well. More HP per HD, use the Elite Array of stat points without increasing the CR, etc.... It's only overpowered if the characters are meeting the same chalenges as a regular 25-28 point buy party.
Inigo Carmine 01-06-06, 09:56 AM	So long as everyone is at the same power level, and you adjust the encounters to reflect the actual power level of the party everything should work fine. It's not quitethat simple. The balance point is at 25 PB. Going over that benefits some classes much more than others. In particular, clerics, druids (the 2 classes people site as being obviously more powerful than the rest...and most people play at about 32PB level..higher than what the game is balanced for. hmm...). Monks and Pallys get a huge benefit as well. And since no one else has broke this down yet: Sylvan (Elf from Player Handbook) (Fighter/Champion of Correlon from races of the wild) Str 16 Dex 20 Con 16 Int 14 Wis 12 Cha 15 54 PB Kaelyra (Silvanesti Elf: Dragonlance Campaign Setting) (Swashbuckler from complete warrior) Str 16 Dex 20 Con 14 Int 20 Wis 10 Cha 10 56 PB (assuming DL elves are the same as PHB) Reenie (Halfling: Player Handbook) (Cleric/Radiant Servent of Palor from complete divine) Str 14 Dex 16 Con 16 Int 12 Wis 20 Cha 14 52 PB Even though this character has the lowest equivalent ability scores, if this player is capable of counting to 10 on his fingers he is going to be a huge problem. This particular prestige class is all sorts of brokenness. Parn (Human: Player Handbook) (Paladin) Str 16 Dex 12 Con 18 Int 14 Wis 14 Cha 18 64PB That's a whole lot more powerful than characters are meant to be in D&D. As other people have said, if that's how you want to play, more power to you. Just keep in mind that the game isn't intended for characters of that power level. It will be kind of like playing football with 180 people on the field at once..and the field is 20 yards from inzone to inzone...and you're all on ice. Basically, things aren't going to work how they normally do.
Fargren 01-06-06, 10:07 AM	Oh, and to answer your questions, I went with the "roll 5d6, drop lowest 2" method of character creation. :) HA! I kenw it. Just read my previous post. Add 6 point buy to all enemy NPC and it should be balanced. Spend dthem in defensive stats if possible. Trust me, I've been DMing with 5d6 drop lowest 2 for about half a year.
Archtyrant Terevoth 01-06-06, 10:42 AM	I'm reminded of this one time I was watching a player roll up a character for someone else's campaign. He rolled six stats once, and the total of all six stats was in theow 50's, with two of his stats as 3's. That was... bad. So the DM let him roll again. This time he rolled with everything but one stat lower than 10, with the stand-out at 12. Again, he was allowed a reroll. And a strange thing happened. He rolled an 18. And another one. And another one. And one more. And a fifth 18. And a 16. Naturally, the DM made him reroll ;) This is one thing I hated about the roll method. That's why I've switched to point buy and am likely never going back.
dalantjen 01-06-06, 11:42 AM	"Overpowered" is a subjective term. They have high ability scores. That's all. It is class and racial ability combos that make overpowered characters. My group uses a 40 pt buy (which will get you 16 16 14 14 12 12). Many people here would call that way overpowered. I am the DM, and I don't think it is overpowered. Are they more powerful than the rules assume? Yes. Is this a problem? No. Just adjust the encounters. I am not even talking about re-working stat blocks entirely. The creatures in the MM are all given average HP. To challenge the characters, I give all the creatures 3/4 HP or max HP. I may up one or two relevant stats, especially for casters (for save DCs), but that's about it. I also treat the party as +1 or 2 ECL for determining what I can throw at them without obliterating them. The challenges are roughly the same, and this is based on actual experience, not theory. Your characters have high abilities, but what it really does for them is open up a lot more options for them, which is one of the more fun aspects of 3.5. A fighter that can have some skills without suffering at his normal role, a wizard that can actually take a hit, a monk that is viable, a rogue suddenly has all kinds of customizing options, etc. They may have slightly higher saves, slightly higher damage, and a few more skill points. Why is that considered overpowered? I think it means that more of the characters can participate in more scenarios, instead of having only the skill monkey be really useful at negotiating with guards/politicians/ransoms, or requiring a bag of holding to adequately haul off the dragon's hoard, etc.
ArchmageGromph 01-06-06, 11:43 AM	i think you need to ask yourself the question truly. the power of the players should be relative to the power of the campaign. they seem like the high end of moderately powerful to me.
Bruunwald 01-06-06, 11:54 AM	Look, it's a game, it's all for fun, and when you let your PCs be high power and face them vs high power monsters everyone's generally happy. So long as everyone is at the same power level, and you adjust the encounters to reflect the actual power level of the party everything should work fine. Besides, high stats help keep the PCs from whining. Long story told short: I used to think the same thing, and answered the whining with a nice powergame... ...that went on for three years and became an out-of-control headache of min/maxing, stat-stacking, and reworking and rewriting that eventually led to constant fighting and the players complaining that everything was too high-powered. You can't please everybody all of the time, so you may as well stick with a straight-forward game. At least the complaining will be consistant. Anything else is asking for massive pain. We play a normal game, even bordering on low-powered now, to no complaints. Why? Because the players learned their lesson. Listen, I'm someone's dad. I've used this analogy before, but it's just true, so I'll use it again: You do not serve dessert for dinner. You do not subsist entirely on cupcakes. A party that insists on incredibly high stats to make it happy is creating a stomach ache for itself.
dalantjen 01-06-06, 01:35 PM	I think the difference here is that they did not "insist" on having high abilities, they just "have" them. If your players insist that they need high stats to have fun, then either the DM runs an extremely hard campaign, or you have issues with your players. Simply possessing high stats is not a problem in and of itself. If some of those characters show up with three base classes and 2 prestige classes, then you "might" have an issue. High abilities are nothing in and of themselves.
Grand Theft Otto 01-06-06, 02:16 PM	*bangs head* Why do people let their players roll their stats (a system DESIGNED to create inequality) and then ask if the results are balanced? If you dont want someone getting all 18's, why let them roll? So they can have all 10's? Point Buy or an alternate controlled method. You wont have this question again. (regarding stats)
Bruunwald 01-06-06, 02:57 PM	I think the difference here is that they did not "insist" on having high abilities, they just "have" them. If your players insist that they need high stats to have fun, then either the DM runs an extremely hard campaign, or you have issues with your players. Simply possessing high stats is not a problem in and of itself. If some of those characters show up with three base classes and 2 prestige classes, then you "might" have an issue. High abilities are nothing in and of themselves. Not necessarily. As I stated, my high-powered campaign came into existence to facilitate the demands of the players who wanted high stats. They thought these would make them happy, as most of us eyeing something flashy or sweet do. They found out the opposite was true. So, you never know why people want what they want. I have a player in our group who is greedy for make-believe gold. Because he wants it to get his character better stuff? No, because his priorities are out-of-whack and he's so greedy, he cheats at Monopoly to get a thrill. There's at least one person like that in any group/campaign/casino. But even if you allow that high stats don't necessarily break a game (and I never said they always do, but they can), the reall issue (as I mentioned previously) is how they obtained them. The OP says he let them use the 5d6 drop the two lowest method. That still statistically ought not to have resulted in a party so across-the-board powerful. I can't help but feel that some of these guys maybe kept four of the results per roll, rather than three. Maybe the DM let them roll up several characters to keep the best. If that's what he wants, fine. But if this was as big a surprise to him as his first post seems to indicate, I'd hate to be in his shoes.
Crash169 01-06-06, 05:25 PM	I have never played a campign where any one of our characters rolled as well as any one of those. IMO, those are some rediculously high ability scores. I mean come on, they are heroes, but heroes have to have weaknesses too. The modifiers of those rolls are like +15 to +17, thats insane! We play using the 4d6 drop lowest rule, we usually get rolls like: 16 17 13 10 8 11 A Good roll would be more like 17 17 14 16 10 11 That a +11 modifier.. more than what you need to make any character you want!
Good Agnostic 01-06-06, 05:38 PM	Q: Are these characters overpowered? A: Yes. In point buy terms, they are twice as powerful as what the game is balanced for (see math above).
FreeTheSlaves 01-06-06, 07:04 PM	The real issue at hand is not whether these characters are overpowered, but rather why are these character's scores being generated so early in the campaign process? The _critical_ early players/dm dialogue seems to be non-existant. Vegeta7835, upon reflection it strikes me as a bit rash to place faith in the (albeit 5d6) dice to keep the characters at the desired power level. Forgetting the sea of point buy advocates for a moment, rolling methods can be tailored too so as to yield the desired ranges. Perhaps it would be better to decide with your players what power level you want & then customize a generation method? As the dm, a lot of this is up to you. You get to decide if you will power up the MM foes & DMG npc's. If you don't want to do this, tell the players so because some players like myself don't like steamrolling the opposition with 50 point buy equivalent characters. This is a case of you potentially putting in more effort & time, so this decision is yours alone to make. As a quick example, we currently want powerful characters with nothing less than 8 & an average of around 15. We also don't want complete control over which stats go where (i.e. we want some organic arrays), to avoid cookie cutter syndrome. So we roll a combination of 1d6+12 & 2d6+6 in a 3 by 3 matrix that limits where scores can be placed. I rolled a generally considered uber paladin with good str, int & con but with a lower (but acceptable) cha. The point of all this is to make these decisions before character generation & I urge you to discuss this before players work out their magic items & therefore resist any necessary alterations.
ressurrector 01-06-06, 07:42 PM	In my upcoming Eberron campaign, I'm going to use 4d6 reroll the second 1 My only requirement for the groups stats are these: no stat set lower than a +4 overall No stat set more than +3-4 mod away from any other. After the stats have been set, players may 2 for 1 buy stat points. take a 12 to a 10 and boost a 17 to 18. I'm of the opinion that if you have a mature group with no powergamers then the stats should be fairly irrelevant as long as they are consistant.
q'afuu 01-06-06, 08:08 PM	When rolling 4d6, drop the lowest, method... I find that most characters are 40-50 point characters so Point-Buy Methods really keep it balanced. The average point-buy value of stats created using this method is 29. You're misremembering, there's something wrong with the dice used or your players have a special rolling technique, if you ask me. ;)