Any way to do this? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Any way to do this? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Slapstick87
11-24-07, 07:24 PM I'm not a big fan of ability stats going over their race's ordinary threshold.
Humans is said to have an ability score ranging from 3-18. Elves has a dexterity score from 5-20. Etc...

But with ability points every 4th level the players will go above this. I simply cannot see how that's supposed to be. It doesn't fit in my head.

An intelligence of 2 would indicate a sub-human intelligence. It's not possible for a human to have lower intelligence than 3. For the same reason, it shouldn't be possible for him to have more than 18 in strength (or intelligence or whatever).

Is it possible to find a way to allow a character to increase his ability score only to the race's maximum score, without breaking any game balance? Increasing weapon hit chance and damage is fairly easy, but I'm not sure how to do spells-per-day and DC that should come from 20+ intelligence. Monks also has quite a few abilities that derive from wisdom, which isn't as easily "buffed".

I don't want to add a multitude of rules to substitute ability increases. I want it to be fairly simple, and straightforward. A few ideas I already have:

Every 9th rank in spellcraft increase spell DC by 1.
Every 8th level you get a bonus skill focus feat.
Every second time you get another attack per round, you get +1 to hit and damage.

I'm sure I've overlooked something, please tell me what. Any further ideas to this is also appreciated. I hope I'm not the only one having a problem with the fact that a human can by level 12 be as strong as an ogre. Those things are HUGE! A human ain't.

P.S. Magic items would of course increase the ability score above normal.
Rustmonster
11-24-07, 08:03 PM This would throw game balance off very much, in my opinion. What if, let's say, I rolled a 18 for STR, and am a Fighter. By what you suggest, I will never get stronger. Let's also say I have 18 DEX and CON as well. I will never get better at Fighter main stats. So, you would be suggesting that even though by profession I hit things hard, avoiding getting hit, and surviving when I am hit, I will never get better at it, yet I can get smarter, wiser, or better in social situations? Let's say we got an outrageous roll, and so I have 18 in everything. While my buddies improve, I can't. Why not? I'm a hardened adventurer.

By level 4, you are better than your base race. If I am a level 12 human with the strength of an ogre, it is because I am already semi-superhuman. In a fantasy game, I find it perfecly reasonable that their would be a tiny, tiny fraction of the population who are heroicly strong, smart, quick, etc. Racial averages are just that, averages. If I am a hardened hero, I should be above the norm.
Tequila_Sunrise
11-24-07, 09:24 PM To be honest the +1 every 4 levels doesn't make a big impact on anything. I do think you would annoy your players by making what they will see as an arbitrary restriction. It might help to think of the +1/4 level stat boosts this way: they're more of a skill/experience enhancement to your aptitude than a boost to your raw power/potential. Say at 4th level I put my bonus point in Strength. My character doesn't actually have any more muscles than before, his experience has taught him how to use the muscles he has better than before.
Salla
11-25-07, 12:26 AM Think of the +1s/4 level as part of the threshold. You don't get to start at the apex of your racial capabilities, you have to work at it through experience. So, the human STR threshold isn't 18, it's 23.
Slapstick87
11-25-07, 08:15 AM This would throw game balance off very much, in my opinion. What if, let's say, I rolled a 18 for STR, and am a Fighter. By what you suggest, I will never get stronger. Let's also say I have 18 DEX and CON as well. I will never get better at Fighter main stats. So, you would be suggesting that even though by profession I hit things hard, avoiding getting hit, and surviving when I am hit, I will never get better at it, yet I can get smarter, wiser, or better in social situations? Let's say we got an outrageous roll, and so I have 18 in everything. While my buddies improve, I can't. Why not? I'm a hardened adventurer.

You would get better, by improved hit points, saving throws, BAB progression etc. These things represents increased skill. Ability points do not.

And if you go into epic, the increased ability scores becomes slightly ridiculous. 29 base strength at lvl 44? Thats the same as a Frost Giant. No way in hell any human is that strong.

I realize D&D isn't about realism. But I would like the game to at least have a foundation in it. But... if there's no way to go about it in a way that doesn't hurt gameplay, I'll drop it for the sake of rule 0.5

Just hoped there was...
Rustmonster
11-25-07, 12:16 PM IMHO, if you've made it to epic, you are no longer human. You are like Superman or something.

At level 44, you can easily have 334 hp or more, even before concidering magic items. That means I can swim for about 7 minutes in LAVA before I die. So, you find it reasonable that I can take a quick bath in lava and live, but it's unreasonable that I would have the strength of a giant, too? If we say we never reach terminal velocity and falling damage increases forever, I can fall safly from anything less then 954 feet and likely come out alive. But it's unreasonable that I might be a super-genius? Level 44 is more than double what the "reasonable" limit for a character is. By that point, I am a super epic mega hero who likely owns most of the planet. That's why it is called epic.

And as others have pointed out, maybe you arn't a roiling mass of muscle. Maybe you are just better at using it. Experience levels = experience. Experience = Getting better at stuff.
Master_Vega
11-25-07, 01:47 PM Slapstick,

Have you ever read Beowulf? Beowulf is epic. He tore an arm of a monster who devoured normal humans with ease... he also swam across a sea, fighting sea monsters the entire way.

That's the kind of stuff you do when you're epic. If you want to have something remotely resembling realism, don't have your games run beyond level ten... and you might take a rule from D20Modern: Massive Damage Threshold = constitution score*. Nothing humbles a character more than needing to make a fortitude save vs. dropping to -1HP every round of combat. :P

*I would not use this rule unless I was running a low-magic game... in which case I'd probably just run a D20Modern/D&D hybrid.

I agree with the guy who said the human threshold for strength was not 18, but 23. The most gifted humans just happen to start with 18. I also agree with the opinion that Epic characters are superhuman; they started out as one creature, and grown into being another.
rainy
11-29-07, 02:18 PM Is it possible to find a way to allow a character to increase his ability score only to the race's maximum score, without breaking any game balance?

Sure, just make it the maximum. Previous editions of D&D had racial stat maximums. An 18 on 3d6 is already in a very narrow range of probability (see the bell curve). If you rolled an 18 STR, kudos, you are as strong as a human can be by the gift of genetics, use those points somewhere else. As far as game balance, I'm sure you'll get a feel for it if the characters tend to drift away from being able to handle the "book" CR stuff and adjust accordingly -- that's what DMs do.

I've never been a fan of the trend in 3rd edition to presume the player characters were as far above the norm as some on this board always like to suggest. Nothing wrong with it, goes to the flavor of your game. I like my fantasy gritty, and would never allow stats above the racial maximums. There is nothing about going around exploring caves, robbing graves, and beating up knaves that is going to transform you into some kind of super-human.

-rainy
Rustmonster
11-29-07, 05:03 PM One question I have is why some refer to 18 (or whatever the adjusted stats are for other races) is the "racial maximum". No where does it say this is any sort of "racial maximum". That just happens to be what they concidered balanced for level 1. Yes, it is "level 1 maximum", but why wouldn't (or couldn't) I get stronger as I level up? If they did not have that "level one maximum", then for point buy, if the chart continued up, you could buy 20 in one stat with 25 point buy. That's a +5, which they probably thought was too high for level one. Then, If you factor in racial adjustments, you can easily get a 22 (+6) or even 24 (+7, orc, strength) at level one. It's a balancing factor, not a "racial threshold".

And OP, you still haven't answered my question. You said:

You would get better, by improved hit points *snip*

You also said:

29 base strength at lvl 44? Thats the same as a Frost Giant. No way in hell any human is that strong.

I responded:

At level 44, you can easily have 334 hp or more, even before concidering magic items. That means I can swim for about 7 minutes in LAVA before I die. So, you find it reasonable that I can take a quick bath in lava and live, but it's unreasonable that I would have the strength of a giant, too? If we say we never reach terminal velocity and falling damage increases forever, I can fall safly from anything less then 954 feet and likely come out alive.

This is what I don't understand. You think that it is "unreasonable" to have the strength of a Large Frost Giant (at more then two times what is concidered the usual "maximum" level), yet you think it is reasonable at the same level to survive swimming in lava for minutes and falling more then 900 feet?

At level 44, you can porbably kill anything, including some gods. And that would probably be even without those bonuses at every fourth level. Yet you find it strange that at this outrageous point, I may be as strong as a Frost Giant? I don't understand the logic you are using behind implementing these "maximums". Do you often play into epic?

Now, looking at your proposals. It seems, to me, you are trying to compensate for the lose of the players ability to improve his character as he wants by giving rather random bonuses. The damage and to hit bonus is basiclly like saying "anyone with a BAB above poor will get a virtual +2 to strength at some point". This makes little sense, as it means a Fighter will get virtual +2 STR before the Rogue, but they will still end up with the same bonus in the end. Does that mean that they trained their fighting skills the exact same amount? The skill focus bonus is virtually useless for classes not needing skill points (Fighter, etc), and allows some classes that rely heavily on skill points (Bard) to have much higher skills then they should (he can have a Perform of 33, even if he never took a normal feat to take skill focus). I can also fortell the giving out of these bonuses to benifit some classes more then others.

The way it is now is the way it was balanced. I beleive it makes sense, and likely makes sense to most people. As the saying goes, "If it isn't broken, don't fix it".
ppirilla
11-29-07, 06:52 PM You would get better, by improved hit points, saving throws, BAB progression etc. These things represents increased skill. Ability points do not.

Think about your claim here. I'll use Strength as an example.

At ~18 years old (approx the starting age for Human PC's), a human has a Strength between 3 and 18. A score of 3 represents somone who has never done physical labor; everything is always done for him (or he's diseased, crippled, etc...). He can barely lift his food to eat it. A score of 18 represents someone who perhaps does push-ups every day, and is often lifting heavy things.

Now, over the next 4 years, this person continues to lift heavy weights and otherwise exercise his muscles (say by swinging a heavy sword around). His muscle mass increases as he gets used to the strain. Now he has an easier time of lifting things and swinging his sword around. How do we represent this in D&D terms? Oh, Strength increase.

As you mentioned earlier, BAB also increases with level. That shows an improvement in the PC's ability to swing a sword, but more than that, it represents him better learning the technique of swinging a sword - adjusting for a moving target, striking in vulnerable parts of his armor, etc.
Slapstick87
11-29-07, 08:17 PM I agree that argumenting my case by epic examples might not be the best idea. Epic is over the top in all accounts, and not my real issue. And no, we haven't made it into epic and probably won't in a long while yet.

When it comes to the "Swimming in lava issue" I use Wound Points/Vitality Points, and being dipped in lava would surely do wound points damage. So does falling damage and the likes. Probably should have mentioned that.

My suggestions might have been crappy, but I posted here in the hopes that someone perhaps could do better, or improve on my idea. If not, so be it. I'm not satisfied with my initial thoughts either.

And the "18-is-max" thought comes from, at least in my case, OD&D. Which is what I grew up playing. Stats never increased, and 18 wisdom was like Ghandi. Maximum possible. I do however agree that you should be able to increase your attributes, but not above a certain threshold. I've always regarded 18 as the threshold. But as several has posted, it could just as easily be 23. (I just don't like it)

As Rainy said, I too like my game to be a bit gritty and dangerous. There's a reason why not everyones an adventurer, and I make those reasons clear. Often. And I do not like my players to think they're super-human, neither IC, OOC or look like it on paper.
Fortebraccio
12-02-07, 02:11 PM The best way to discourage an undesired practice is often to encourage a different one.

Hand out 1 ability point at each level-up (instead of the static +1 every four levels), and let your players spend them using an expandend point-buy chart like this one:

8-14: 1 pt
15-16: 2 pts
17-18: 3 pts
19-20 : 4 pts
21-22: 5 pts
etc.

While it is still possible for a character to have a single 22 score, non s.a.d (single ability dependant) characters will be better off with remarkable scores in several abilities than with a superhuman score in a single ability. So unless you are running a wizards/sorcerers/druids-only party you should get the result you want without upsetting your players.
A_Ninja_Errant
12-02-07, 04:50 PM Maxing at 18 isn't too unreasonable for a non-magic user character, but you know that clerics, wizards and druids all have to have a 19 to get their highest levels spells right? That would indicate that 18 was not intended to be the human maximum in 3.5 just the maximum starting point. Actually I kinda agree with you on the original D&D max is 18 and thats it point, but 3.5 really is very different on a lot of levels. Also keep in mind when looking to compare a monster and a human, generally the monster is average. An ogre with 18 strength is an average ogre. an ogre with a 26 strength is equivalent to a human with 18 strength. And that ogre if he takes class levels, can increase his strength by another 4 to 5 for a 30 strength. With that in mind the human with a 22 doesn't seem so bad.
Slapstick87
12-02-07, 06:38 PM Regarding "standard ogres vs standard humans"... I get that. And sometimes I make "non-standard" ogres to mess with my players a bit. :) I suspect we all do that from time to time. But I get your point.

Actually I think Fortebraccio's suggestion hit the spot. It would be easier to improve weak areas, but a focused person could probably push his limits, so to speak. Thanks! I'll run it by my players and see how they like it. Cheers!
Fortebraccio
12-02-07, 07:23 PM You're welcome. :) Good luck with your game!

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Slapstick87 11-24-07, 07:24 PM	I'm not a big fan of ability stats going over their race's ordinary threshold. Humans is said to have an ability score ranging from 3-18. Elves has a dexterity score from 5-20. Etc... But with ability points every 4th level the players will go above this. I simply cannot see how that's supposed to be. It doesn't fit in my head. An intelligence of 2 would indicate a sub-human intelligence. It's not possible for a human to have lower intelligence than 3. For the same reason, it shouldn't be possible for him to have more than 18 in strength (or intelligence or whatever). Is it possible to find a way to allow a character to increase his ability score only to the race's maximum score, without breaking any game balance? Increasing weapon hit chance and damage is fairly easy, but I'm not sure how to do spells-per-day and DC that should come from 20+ intelligence. Monks also has quite a few abilities that derive from wisdom, which isn't as easily "buffed". I don't want to add a multitude of rules to substitute ability increases. I want it to be fairly simple, and straightforward. A few ideas I already have: Every 9th rank in spellcraft increase spell DC by 1. Every 8th level you get a bonus skill focus feat. Every second time you get another attack per round, you get +1 to hit and damage. I'm sure I've overlooked something, please tell me what. Any further ideas to this is also appreciated. I hope I'm not the only one having a problem with the fact that a human can by level 12 be as strong as an ogre. Those things are HUGE! A human ain't. P.S. Magic items would of course increase the ability score above normal.
Rustmonster 11-24-07, 08:03 PM	This would throw game balance off very much, in my opinion. What if, let's say, I rolled a 18 for STR, and am a Fighter. By what you suggest, I will never get stronger. Let's also say I have 18 DEX and CON as well. I will never get better at Fighter main stats. So, you would be suggesting that even though by profession I hit things hard, avoiding getting hit, and surviving when I am hit, I will never get better at it, yet I can get smarter, wiser, or better in social situations? Let's say we got an outrageous roll, and so I have 18 in everything. While my buddies improve, I can't. Why not? I'm a hardened adventurer. By level 4, you are better than your base race. If I am a level 12 human with the strength of an ogre, it is because I am already semi-superhuman. In a fantasy game, I find it perfecly reasonable that their would be a tiny, tiny fraction of the population who are heroicly strong, smart, quick, etc. Racial averages are just that, averages. If I am a hardened hero, I should be above the norm.
Tequila_Sunrise 11-24-07, 09:24 PM	To be honest the +1 every 4 levels doesn't make a big impact on anything. I do think you would annoy your players by making what they will see as an arbitrary restriction. It might help to think of the +1/4 level stat boosts this way: they're more of a skill/experience enhancement to your aptitude than a boost to your raw power/potential. Say at 4th level I put my bonus point in Strength. My character doesn't actually have any more muscles than before, his experience has taught him how to use the muscles he has better than before.
Salla 11-25-07, 12:26 AM	Think of the +1s/4 level as part of the threshold. You don't get to start at the apex of your racial capabilities, you have to work at it through experience. So, the human STR threshold isn't 18, it's 23.
Slapstick87 11-25-07, 08:15 AM	This would throw game balance off very much, in my opinion. What if, let's say, I rolled a 18 for STR, and am a Fighter. By what you suggest, I will never get stronger. Let's also say I have 18 DEX and CON as well. I will never get better at Fighter main stats. So, you would be suggesting that even though by profession I hit things hard, avoiding getting hit, and surviving when I am hit, I will never get better at it, yet I can get smarter, wiser, or better in social situations? Let's say we got an outrageous roll, and so I have 18 in everything. While my buddies improve, I can't. Why not? I'm a hardened adventurer. You would get better, by improved hit points, saving throws, BAB progression etc. These things represents increased skill. Ability points do not. And if you go into epic, the increased ability scores becomes slightly ridiculous. 29 base strength at lvl 44? Thats the same as a Frost Giant. No way in hell any human is that strong. I realize D&D isn't about realism. But I would like the game to at least have a foundation in it. But... if there's no way to go about it in a way that doesn't hurt gameplay, I'll drop it for the sake of rule 0.5 Just hoped there was...
Rustmonster 11-25-07, 12:16 PM	IMHO, if you've made it to epic, you are no longer human. You are like Superman or something. At level 44, you can easily have 334 hp or more, even before concidering magic items. That means I can swim for about 7 minutes in LAVA before I die. So, you find it reasonable that I can take a quick bath in lava and live, but it's unreasonable that I would have the strength of a giant, too? If we say we never reach terminal velocity and falling damage increases forever, I can fall safly from anything less then 954 feet and likely come out alive. But it's unreasonable that I might be a super-genius? Level 44 is more than double what the "reasonable" limit for a character is. By that point, I am a super epic mega hero who likely owns most of the planet. That's why it is called epic. And as others have pointed out, maybe you arn't a roiling mass of muscle. Maybe you are just better at using it. Experience levels = experience. Experience = Getting better at stuff.
Master_Vega 11-25-07, 01:47 PM	Slapstick, Have you ever read Beowulf? Beowulf is epic. He tore an arm of a monster who devoured normal humans with ease... he also swam across a sea, fighting sea monsters the entire way. That's the kind of stuff you do when you're epic. If you want to have something remotely resembling realism, don't have your games run beyond level ten... and you might take a rule from D20Modern: Massive Damage Threshold = constitution score. Nothing humbles a character more than needing to make a fortitude save vs. dropping to -1HP every round of combat. :P I would not use this rule unless I was running a low-magic game... in which case I'd probably just run a D20Modern/D&D hybrid. I agree with the guy who said the human threshold for strength was not 18, but 23. The most gifted humans just happen to start with 18. I also agree with the opinion that Epic characters are superhuman; they started out as one creature, and grown into being another.
rainy 11-29-07, 02:18 PM	Is it possible to find a way to allow a character to increase his ability score only to the race's maximum score, without breaking any game balance? Sure, just make it the maximum. Previous editions of D&D had racial stat maximums. An 18 on 3d6 is already in a very narrow range of probability (see the bell curve). If you rolled an 18 STR, kudos, you are as strong as a human can be by the gift of genetics, use those points somewhere else. As far as game balance, I'm sure you'll get a feel for it if the characters tend to drift away from being able to handle the "book" CR stuff and adjust accordingly -- that's what DMs do. I've never been a fan of the trend in 3rd edition to presume the player characters were as far above the norm as some on this board always like to suggest. Nothing wrong with it, goes to the flavor of your game. I like my fantasy gritty, and would never allow stats above the racial maximums. There is nothing about going around exploring caves, robbing graves, and beating up knaves that is going to transform you into some kind of super-human. -rainy
Rustmonster 11-29-07, 05:03 PM	One question I have is why some refer to 18 (or whatever the adjusted stats are for other races) is the "racial maximum". No where does it say this is any sort of "racial maximum". That just happens to be what they concidered balanced for level 1. Yes, it is "level 1 maximum", but why wouldn't (or couldn't) I get stronger as I level up? If they did not have that "level one maximum", then for point buy, if the chart continued up, you could buy 20 in one stat with 25 point buy. That's a +5, which they probably thought was too high for level one. Then, If you factor in racial adjustments, you can easily get a 22 (+6) or even 24 (+7, orc, strength) at level one. It's a balancing factor, not a "racial threshold". And OP, you still haven't answered my question. You said: You would get better, by improved hit points snip You also said: 29 base strength at lvl 44? Thats the same as a Frost Giant. No way in hell any human is that strong. I responded: At level 44, you can easily have 334 hp or more, even before concidering magic items. That means I can swim for about 7 minutes in LAVA before I die. So, you find it reasonable that I can take a quick bath in lava and live, but it's unreasonable that I would have the strength of a giant, too? If we say we never reach terminal velocity and falling damage increases forever, I can fall safly from anything less then 954 feet and likely come out alive. This is what I don't understand. You think that it is "unreasonable" to have the strength of a Large Frost Giant (at more then two times what is concidered the usual "maximum" level), yet you think it is reasonable at the same level to survive swimming in lava for minutes and falling more then 900 feet? At level 44, you can porbably kill anything, including some gods. And that would probably be even without those bonuses at every fourth level. Yet you find it strange that at this outrageous point, I may be as strong as a Frost Giant? I don't understand the logic you are using behind implementing these "maximums". Do you often play into epic? Now, looking at your proposals. It seems, to me, you are trying to compensate for the lose of the players ability to improve his character as he wants by giving rather random bonuses. The damage and to hit bonus is basiclly like saying "anyone with a BAB above poor will get a virtual +2 to strength at some point". This makes little sense, as it means a Fighter will get virtual +2 STR before the Rogue, but they will still end up with the same bonus in the end. Does that mean that they trained their fighting skills the exact same amount? The skill focus bonus is virtually useless for classes not needing skill points (Fighter, etc), and allows some classes that rely heavily on skill points (Bard) to have much higher skills then they should (he can have a Perform of 33, even if he never took a normal feat to take skill focus). I can also fortell the giving out of these bonuses to benifit some classes more then others. The way it is now is the way it was balanced. I beleive it makes sense, and likely makes sense to most people. As the saying goes, "If it isn't broken, don't fix it".
ppirilla 11-29-07, 06:52 PM	You would get better, by improved hit points, saving throws, BAB progression etc. These things represents increased skill. Ability points do not. Think about your claim here. I'll use Strength as an example. At ~18 years old (approx the starting age for Human PC's), a human has a Strength between 3 and 18. A score of 3 represents somone who has never done physical labor; everything is always done for him (or he's diseased, crippled, etc...). He can barely lift his food to eat it. A score of 18 represents someone who perhaps does push-ups every day, and is often lifting heavy things. Now, over the next 4 years, this person continues to lift heavy weights and otherwise exercise his muscles (say by swinging a heavy sword around). His muscle mass increases as he gets used to the strain. Now he has an easier time of lifting things and swinging his sword around. How do we represent this in D&D terms? Oh, Strength increase. As you mentioned earlier, BAB also increases with level. That shows an improvement in the PC's ability to swing a sword, but more than that, it represents him better learning the technique of swinging a sword - adjusting for a moving target, striking in vulnerable parts of his armor, etc.
Slapstick87 11-29-07, 08:17 PM	I agree that argumenting my case by epic examples might not be the best idea. Epic is over the top in all accounts, and not my real issue. And no, we haven't made it into epic and probably won't in a long while yet. When it comes to the "Swimming in lava issue" I use Wound Points/Vitality Points, and being dipped in lava would surely do wound points damage. So does falling damage and the likes. Probably should have mentioned that. My suggestions might have been crappy, but I posted here in the hopes that someone perhaps could do better, or improve on my idea. If not, so be it. I'm not satisfied with my initial thoughts either. And the "18-is-max" thought comes from, at least in my case, OD&D. Which is what I grew up playing. Stats never increased, and 18 wisdom was like Ghandi. Maximum possible. I do however agree that you should be able to increase your attributes, but not above a certain threshold. I've always regarded 18 as the threshold. But as several has posted, it could just as easily be 23. (I just don't like it) As Rainy said, I too like my game to be a bit gritty and dangerous. There's a reason why not everyones an adventurer, and I make those reasons clear. Often. And I do not like my players to think they're super-human, neither IC, OOC or look like it on paper.
Fortebraccio 12-02-07, 02:11 PM	The best way to discourage an undesired practice is often to encourage a different one. Hand out 1 ability point at each level-up (instead of the static +1 every four levels), and let your players spend them using an expandend point-buy chart like this one: 8-14: 1 pt 15-16: 2 pts 17-18: 3 pts 19-20 : 4 pts 21-22: 5 pts etc. While it is still possible for a character to have a single 22 score, non s.a.d (single ability dependant) characters will be better off with remarkable scores in several abilities than with a superhuman score in a single ability. So unless you are running a wizards/sorcerers/druids-only party you should get the result you want without upsetting your players.
A_Ninja_Errant 12-02-07, 04:50 PM	Maxing at 18 isn't too unreasonable for a non-magic user character, but you know that clerics, wizards and druids all have to have a 19 to get their highest levels spells right? That would indicate that 18 was not intended to be the human maximum in 3.5 just the maximum starting point. Actually I kinda agree with you on the original D&D max is 18 and thats it point, but 3.5 really is very different on a lot of levels. Also keep in mind when looking to compare a monster and a human, generally the monster is average. An ogre with 18 strength is an average ogre. an ogre with a 26 strength is equivalent to a human with 18 strength. And that ogre if he takes class levels, can increase his strength by another 4 to 5 for a 30 strength. With that in mind the human with a 22 doesn't seem so bad.
Slapstick87 12-02-07, 06:38 PM	Regarding "standard ogres vs standard humans"... I get that. And sometimes I make "non-standard" ogres to mess with my players a bit. :) I suspect we all do that from time to time. But I get your point. Actually I think Fortebraccio's suggestion hit the spot. It would be easier to improve weak areas, but a focused person could probably push his limits, so to speak. Thanks! I'll run it by my players and see how they like it. Cheers!
Fortebraccio 12-02-07, 07:23 PM	You're welcome. :) Good luck with your game!