Max-ed Out or Puny PCs

[Null Null]

My theory would be they were pretty far into 2nd edition at that point (the demons/t'a'n'a'r'r'i and some of the giants have 2nd ed stats in Pools and the monsters in FRUA have a mix of 1st and 2nd ed XP awards) and forgot they didn't have a Remove Paralysis spell.

I always max'ed as a kid, sometimes leaving mental stats alone. It's a game, why not win? Pool gives you an option not to do that by scaling the encounters, and it does give the characters a little more character, but, you know, powergamer.

Now I tend to use the pregens figuring that reflects the designer's vision for the game. If not available I'll max STR/CON/DEX and INT/WIS where necessary and leave the rest as rolled. I'm short on time, what can I say?

[Olivier Leroux]

Another related question that I think wasn't mentioned here yet would be: What do you do when you level up a player character? I didn't think about that at first when I read this thread, but now that I've recently played quite a few UA designs again, I noticed that I always savescum in Training Halls without even thinking about it much. For each class, I take the maximum HP/level as a reference point and then try to get close to it. I don't take bonus points from high CON into account though, so for a fighter I'd accept a roll of 9 or 10, sometimes maybe settle for 8 or at least 7, if it takes too long to get a better result, even if in theory they could get a 13 or something. But I never accept a shitty dice roll of 1 or 2, because I want my party fit to play the heroes and their success not depending on luck alone. 

[SilentThief]

(the demons/t'a'n'a'r'r'i...)

I saw that and I LOL-ed. I always wondered where they came up with the (supposedly to be non-"offensive") names for the demons/devils. I also was going to ask -- how exactly do you pronounce this --> t'a'n'a'r'r'i

ST
ps -- all the hype about demons/devils, and nobody bats an eye at a guy named F-Tucis...

[PetrusOctavianus]

Another related question that I think wasn't mentioned here yet would be: What do you do when you level up a player character? I didn't think about that at first when I read this thread, but now that I've recently played quite a few UA designs again, I noticed that I always savescum in Training Halls without even thinking about it much. For each class, I take the maximum HP/level as a reference point and then try to get close to it. I don't take bonus points from high CON into account though, so for a fighter I'd accept a roll of 9 or 10, sometimes maybe settle for 8 or at least 7, if it takes too long to get a better result, even if in theory they could get a 13 or something. But I never accept a shitty dice roll of 1 or 2, because I want my party fit to play the heroes and their success not depending on luck alone. 

I never savescum for Hit Points, since the RNG seems to favour high rolls. The only GB game that seems to have a "true" RNG for Hit Points was Pool of Radiance, while the rest give higher than average. At least that's my experience.

The only time I savescum is when casting healing spells, since the RNG favours low rolls.

[Olivier Leroux]

I never savescum for Hit Points, since the RNG seems to favour high rolls. The only GB game that seems to have a "true" RNG for Hit Points was Pool of Radiance, while the rest give higher than average. At least that's my experience.

The only time I savescum is when casting healing spells, since the RNG favours low rolls.

No idea if the dice are 'rigged' in any way, but you can definitely get unlucky and roll a +1 HP gain even on low levels in UA (and I'm only talking about UA here, I haven't seen enough of the other GB games, but plenty of UA).

Curiously enough, I never even thought about savescumming with healing spells. In those cases I just accept any roll, whether good or bad ... Maybe because that's a one time occurrence, something you can try to live with until the next rest, but the low HP roll on leveling up will stick with your character forever.

[ProphetSword]

Wow, I would likely never cheat at hit points or healing rolls. Random rolls are part of what makes D&D fun in the first place.

EDIT:
Let me clarify that my "Wow" did not mean: "Wow, I can't believe you guys do this."  It actually meant: "Wow, I never would have thought of that if you guys hadn't mentioned it."

Still won't do it, though. 

[steve_mcdee]

Agreed ... if you want to always receive the max benefit from spells and levelling up, there would be standard lines you could add to a diff.tbl to ensure that, completely avoiding the need to save and reload all the time.

[hans]

Wow, I would likely never cheat at hit points or healing rolls. Random rolls are part of what makes D&D fun in the first place.

 

ProphetSword also said, earlier in this thread:

Most of the time, I maxed out stats. I figured everyone did. Recently, though, I have gone to rolling until I get a decent set of scores. I like that better. Not sure why I waited so long to do that.

 

If one mod starts out characters at level 6, say, and you hold out for decent creation scores, it does seem essentially the same as holding out for decent rolls during training in a mod that runs characters from level 1 to 6...   

I figure keeping unlucky rolls of, like, 1hp a level up for a Mage would probably be a death sentence for that character. 
 

[Olivier Leroux]

I think Ben is looking at it from the perspective of a long time pen-and-paper RPG player/DM, and Steve from the perspective of a 'hacker' / modder. I'm just an average not too tech-savvy videogame player who doesn't like bad luck permanently getting in the way of his enjoyment, which is mostly fueled by story and exploration and only mild challenges. I'd rather save and reload a few times in training halls than having to reload and repeat the same combat events all the time.

And there's still an element of chance to it, just with the insurance of certain minimum standards, actually quite similar to "keep rolling until I get something I can live with", like hans said. 

[ProphetSword]

Wow, I would likely never cheat at hit points or healing rolls. Random rolls are part of what makes D&D fun in the first place.

 

ProphetSword also said, earlier in this thread:

Most of the time, I maxed out stats. I figured everyone did. Recently, though, I have gone to rolling until I get a decent set of scores. I like that better. Not sure why I waited so long to do that.

 

If one mod starts out characters at level 6, say, and you hold out for decent creation scores, it does seem essentially the same as holding out for decent rolls during training in a mod that runs characters from level 1 to 6...   

I figure keeping unlucky rolls of, like, 1hp a level up for a Mage would probably be a death sentence for that character. 
 

There's a difference, though.  One of them (re-rolling attributes) is allowed within the Gold-Box games.  There's a button for it. This was also a common thing that happened at AD&D tables sometimes if the DM allowed it (and still happens at some D&D tables today).  The other is cheating the system and was not intended, and goes against the spirit of the rules.


That being said, I don't tell other people how to enjoy the video games they play.  If they want to enjoy a single-player game in a different way than I do, it doesn't affect me at all.  So, have fun.

[hans]

...That being said, I don't tell other people how to enjoy the video games they play.  If they want to enjoy a single-player game in a different way than I do, it doesn't affect me at all.  So, have fun.

 

I feel the same way.    

It was your ("Wow") response that prompted me to draw the comparison (in the interest of mutual understanding).  I don't believe that Olivier's (or my own) habit of rejecting abysmal Level Ups is that unusual.  So, I've added a new Poll to find out if that's true:
  http://ua.reonis.com/index.php?topic=3554.0

[ProphetSword]

Did you read where I clarified what the "Wow" meant? You may have responded before that.

[hans]

Did you read where I clarified what the "Wow" meant? You may have responded before that.

 

No, I hadn't gone back and seen the edit.    

[Dinonykos]

I chose other. Normaly I roll as long as the character values are close to what I have in mind for the character, but in addition I sometimes change the values slightly. My idea is to have characters in the end which are not perfect, but are also not completely random.

[ProphetSword]

No, I hadn't gone back and seen the edit.   

I can see, based on my edit date and the date of your posting a response that we did it essentially at the same time.  Sorry for the misunderstanding.