The argument is of course based on a faulty premise to begin with: that mechanical player-character effectiveness is what makes playing an RPG enjoyable. That way lies the utter, and now discredited, madness of 4th edition (which is linked to the equally mad and equally discredited character optimalisation mayhem that can be found on 3rd edition fora online); and even if you believe in that premise, you must recognise that it is simply an axiom and the argument is circular.
But be that as it may, I sometimes wonder if, even in purely mechanical terms, what we used to call "min-maxing" is genuinely advantageous. If your magic-user has an INT of 9 but a STR of 18, he can still cast spells, but he will also be very useful in combat. If your fighter has a STR of 9 but a WIS of 18, he will still be very useful in a fight but can also resist magic. And so on.
This applies more to some stats than others: Charisma is always useful irrespective of your class, whereas Intelligence is not particularly useful unless you are a magic-user. But by and large high stats are useful whatever you are, and provided you have at least a 9 in your prime requisite, you will be largely effective in doing the thing which your class is best at.
Is the notion of 'sub-optimal' choice just received wisdom that too few people question? Or do I simply misunderstand the argument?
When I played the D&D CRPGs (and so was concerned with min-maxing) I always created Magic Users with high Dex and Con. Intelligence doesn't matter if they don't survive to the higher levels, and one magic missile a day isn't as effective as being a skilled dart slinger or dagger thrower.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is in a game where no character should ever die, where there could be no permanent negative consequences (except those determined by the dead hand of a railroading programmer-DM) - so it goes double for a genuine RPG in which a dead M-U is a dead M-U.
But, also - with regard to the general question of 'optimisation' - it only matters when the game is about a series of linear adventure paths, in which having characters of the right level of encounter effectiveness at the right point in the path is important. If your INT 7 M-U, together with the rest of his or her companions, can choose what sort of adventure they will seek, and where, this becomes irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteYes, quite. That's often a point that's missed.
DeleteWhich team of scientists would you want put in charge of saving the world from the giant meteor? The ones who are tops in their respective fields? Or the mediocre ones who also reasonably good in their hobbies?
ReplyDeleteI think there is a mechanical advantage to min-maxing since tasks can be passed-on to the most fitting specialist.
That said, I think that play-styles that put too much emphasis on mechanical advantage are missing the point of RPG's.
But so many of the tasks are independent of stats. Magic Users can cast spells automatically. That's how they're the most fitting specialist for magic. So it doesn't matter what their INT is (as long as it's reasonable).
DeleteOne way we've dealt with the issue in general is starting with a quick choice from a batch of random pregens. By the time a given player is ready to roll up a new or replacement character, there's a better feeling for the interest and value in working with whatever there is, in an OD&D-type system at least.
ReplyDelete"... The argument, at least as I understand it, is that if you are going to play a fighter, you should have high STR, because otherwise you will not be as good at fighting as you ought to be, and this will make you less effective (and presumably, by extension, this will make things less enjoyable).
"The argument is of course based on a faulty premise to begin with: that mechanical player-character effectiveness is what makes playing an RPG enjoyable. ... and even if you believe in that premise, you must recognise that it is simply an axiom and the argument is circular."
Does that last passage, from "and even if", say what you want it to say? Also, by that logic, wouldn't taking, say, the opposite of the view be circular too? I agree with the general thrust of that section, but those seem strong and shaky terms.
There's some interesting related thinking at Nine and Thirty:
http://9and30kingdoms.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-means-do-not-justify-ends.html
Yes, it says just what I want it to. The opposite view is circular also, but I'm pointing out here that not only is the min-maxing argument circular, it also fails on its own terms.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIt drives me batty when My players choose their class based on their highest die roll.
ReplyDeletePlayer: "15WIS, I guess I'll be a cleric."
Me: "But you hate playing clerics"
Player: "But 15WIS!"
Makes me want to scream.
I'm a big fan of choosing a class not based on the highest attribute. For example, last character I rolled ended up with a 18DEX (3d6 in order baby!), 9STR and pair of 7's in WIS and INT. Looks like a thief right? Naw, I went with a dim but dandy and nimble fighter. Much more fun.
Yes, it's more fun, but also more useful - having a fighter with good AC from DEX is a benefit in its own right.
DeleteAgreed. But then I find that I'm more willing to be sanguine about stats and avoid optimization if I'm playing a D&D that allows for all six attributes to be relevant to all the classes. I.e., no dump stats for anyone.
DeleteThis can be as simple as an ability check system modified by attribute bonus, but I find I need it to be there. Otherwise, I'll be damned if I'm going to play an 16 INT / 9 STR / 10 DEX fighter.
Rob, but then the problem becomes one I saw often when playing 3E, and still when playing Pathfinder. If every stat is useful to everyone, no one wants to accept a low score in ANY stat. And we end up with stat inflation rolling systems, or point buy systems that crank out cookie cutter characters.
DeleteI don't necessarily need a system that makes my fighter's high INT as relevant to his career as a warrior as my wizard's high INT is to his. I just want it to mean something beyond mere RP color that my fighter is smarter than he is strong.
DeletePlayer: "15WIS, I guess I'll be a cleric."
DeleteMe: "But you hate playing clerics"
Player: "But 15WIS!"
Exactly. It's something no player I've ever met really gets. Maybe us DM types are just crazy or something.
We address player preferences like this by trading ability score sets almost as currency; "Hey, I'll swap you this crappy thief set for that good cleric set, and then I owe you another decent set later." As far as we're concerned, rolling stats creates a being in the gameworld with those stats, but doesn't bind it to a particular player.
DeleteSorry, about the deleted post. I borked it while publishing and couldn't edit in the fix. >_<
ReplyDeleteI usually hear two reasons for what people min-max, depending on whether the player does it for Niche Protection or from Not Wanting to Die.
The first reason is involves the game spotlight and group size. In a large group, the niche your character carves out amongst the party is generally smaller, and other people can cover for more of your weaknesses. It pays off in terms of spotlight time to deeply specialize in one narrow category of action. In small groups, there are fewer PCs to split the action between, so deeply specialized min-maxing becomes less effective at glomming spotlight time compared to a broad array of secondary talents.
The other argument for min-maxing is just wanting your PC to last a little longer. In this case, you'll see a lot more min-maxing of proactive stats than reactive ones. When you can dictate the terms of engagement like you do when you make an attack or an ability check, you only need one strong skill. If you have to play reactively, you've usually got to cover too many different bases to deeply specialize in one thing over all the others.
Yes, so as you said in your deleted comment (I think) the problems go away if players play a bit cautiously and sensibly, and don't hog the limelight. As usual in these things so much of it comes down to being a decent human being.
DeleteIf a standard series of challenges constitute the things characters can do in the world then there is an optimium character or set of characters for whatever adventure anyone embarks upon because every adventure is made of this list of challenges. This seems a bit silly.
ReplyDeleteAs well as this, I think the thing that makes this game interesting is that which occurs outside the mechanics, especially in terms of the early levels which immediately follow character creation, in these cases it doesn't matter what you roll in character creation.
For 1st thru 3rd editions of DnD;
ReplyDeleteThe most useful ability score for ALL character classes is constitution.
More constitution = more hit points = greater survivability.
A magic user with 16 con and 9 int scores is far more likely to survive than a magic user with 9 con and 16 int scores.
You're not wrong, but having a useful off-stat character depends on the system giving rewards for each stat, which do not depend on having a particular class affiliation.
ReplyDeleteThere's also a contradiction between arguing that players should play out their concept regardless of mechanical usefulness, and that there may be kinds of usefulness that don't require min-maxing the stats-class combination. Personally, I don't think players should be forced to play useless characters, but am OK with giving them the option if it occurs.
I'm probably reading too much into it, but something about "you have a high Dexterity so you should be a thief" feels a bit creepy to me. It's almost like tabletop eugenics or something. D&D4 took this approach in the core rules and that's one of the reasons I didn't get on with the game.
ReplyDelete"Tabletop eugenics" is a great turn of phrase!
DeleteOne other thing - avoiding a terrible choice is not the same thing as seeking the optimal choice. My ideal is to have a system where if a player follows any reasonable ideal of what character to play they haven't made a terrible choice, even if it may not be THE BEST.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to disagree a little bit with "The argument is of course based on a faulty premise to begin with: that mechanical player-character effectiveness is what makes playing an RPG enjoyable." Playing a mechanically-effective character is fun, because winning is fun and being mechanically effective tends to make you win more often. Sometimes you will get into fights that you may not be able to think yourself out of, and it is in those fights that mechanical effectiveness comes into its own. 4e's mistake, to my mind, was that it completely abolished non-mechanical play, which is also fun. I think you set up something of a false dichotomy here, and that both elements contribute significantly to the fun of RPGs. We probably completely agree that non-mechanical play centered around the cleverness of players is generally more fun than mechanical play, but sometimes being able to say "Screw it, we're going to do this by brute force" is very nice, and mechanical optimization supports this.
ReplyDeleteAs for prime reqs, I'm told that in OD&D, the three prime req stats (Str, Int, and Wis) only provided XP bonuses to their respective classes, and no other mechanical benefits, while Dex, Con, and Cha provided equally useful bonuses to all classes. The point of the prime reqs was to simulate that some people have naturally more aptitude for certain professions than others, and to reward people for playing characters who play to their strengths. Whether we agree with Gygax's intent or not, I think this sort of optimization has been with us from the earliest days of the game and is not problematic, as it does not lead to degenerate play (like a lot of the 3.x optimization work did).
And then the thief had to come along and muck everything up... my group still tends to make mediocre-strength high-dex characters into fighters, because they find a high-AC low-damage fighter more useful than a thief. But that's optimization too! It's just slightly more intelligent optimization than always choosing based on highest prime requisite.
I am going to side with John here. I think your statements about what is fun and the discrediting of 4E are more a matter of opinion.
DeleteI played a year long 4E campaign, and there are certain types of people who thrive on sifting through the rules to find mechanical effectiveness. It is not my preferred manner of play, but it appeals to some people.
I noticed in my small group that the ones who loved looking over their stats, also loved to play Magic the Gathering and spent time optimizing their cards to play that game as well. (just anecdotal reference point).
I have often wondered if a system that did not quantify stats as high = good, and low = bad would be a viable alternative.
Perhaps, for example; if you had a low charisma you gained a bonus in being "fearsome looking", if you had a low mental score you became immune to psionics and became bull headed, allowing you to stick at a task with determination.
Well, we're all talking about opinion here, but I don't agree that being mechanically effective and winning is fun - at least not for very long. I agree that winning is fun, but being able to win just because you have high scores is no challenge and gets dull very quickly. Winning because you have played well is something else.
DeleteBut on the level we're talking about here, at choosing a class to match your stats, how often does it come down to "We won because of our good stats" ? Even if the ability score bonuses are significant, they tend to be outweighed by player skill over the long haul in old-school systems; your +2 to hit and damage from high strength might win you this fight, but if you're stupid and wind up on the receiving end of a poisoned needle or going up against a nonmagic-weapon immune creature without the proper preparation, your stats won't save you. I don't mind stats winning tactical victories, just like I don't mind sleep winning tactical victories, because over the long haul, you have to play smart to survive.
DeleteAnd Random Wizard, I've done that! In Traveller, we applied negative Social Status as a bonus to Streetwise checks. It was a neat perk for low-Soc characters.
I agree with the spirit of the argument, but not what you use to argue it. It's in our nature to play to our strengths, but at the same time it's important we understand that we are ultimately flawed. We, and our characters, should explore our flaws. Character flaws make things interesting and challenge us as people and players. I think a good DM knows when to take advantage of a fighter's poor wisdom and magic-users weak strength for the sake of drama and tension. Players should also set their characters up to fail from time to time, because the challenge can be as fun and stimulating as winning.
ReplyDeleteWe don't call it min-maxing anymore?
Generally speaking I don't run games that way. As a DM I view my role as being to set up the world in a neutral manner. The drama and tension comes from the PCs and their interactions with the world, not from me.
DeleteEveryone seems to have missed a certain point though... In 3.X, you need an Ability Score of 10 + Spell Level to be able to cast it at all. So if you want to play a Wizard, for example, you DO need a high Intelligence. That said, the argument about the Fighter with average STR but high WIS is a good point, as is the general message of this post.
ReplyDeleteI think therein lay the problem with 3.X, really.
DeleteIntelligence is not only the prime requisite for magical types but it also delineates how many spells they can and may know and learn
DeleteSupplement I: Greyhawk
In my experience, it's a combination of lowest common denominator player coupled with the group tackling challenges as one big organism. That is, if one player minmaxes, and gets to show off because of it but never suffer for what they skimped on, it may make other players wonder why they didn't minmax too. And in situations where the party can usually just apply the strongest member of the party to a problem, it pays to be specialized rather than well-rounded.
ReplyDeleteIt's usually more of a problem in skill-based games/situations where there are a lot of skills like piloting, tracking, hacking, lockpicking, etc. where it only makes sense for one player to roll. In those games, it doesn't matter that you have three skills at +7 if there are three specialist party members that each have one of those skills at +10 so you never get to shine. Combat minmaxing can make one guy slightly better, but doesn't completely keep another character from participating.
In general, the trick is to throw players curveballs so it's more likely that the minmaxer gets hit in his min, and so you can't always apply the biggest hammer to a nail, and are glad to have a guy that has a whole, if less impressive, toolbox.
That's one way of doing it, but I don't like to GM that way, personally. I try to run games in which good play gets rewarded, so if players can strategise and play to their strengths, I don't want to discourage that behaviour by rigging things so they get hit in their weak points.
DeleteBut your point about skill-based games is well taken.
I am going to have to disagree with some of the conclusions. In real life, how many firemen with STR 9 have you met? How many molecular biologists with INT 9? How many surgeons with DEX 9 (hint: the ones that spend all day in court being sued)?
ReplyDeleteI know that DnD is not real life, but the process of going through a character career has to have some similar reasonable guidelines.
The character you make a 1st level is not a child recently born in the world and his stats reflect that. Even if your fighter started with low STR, he would have developed a higher score by the start of 1st level due to all the drilling and training. And your wizard would never have been accepted by a master as a trainee without a high enough INT. Or perhaps he was dim initially, but all the training unlocked some inner potential.
In the end, what we see at 1st level is a combination of the influence of natural talent and choice of career on the character's final stats. That is why using the optimum results, or close to the optimum, makes far more sense even from a roleplaying point of view.
That's an interesting point, but a very 21st-Century view of things. In medieval societies, most jobs were inherited - you did what your father did. And meritocracy did not exist in anything like the sense we understand it today. I think it's entirely believable, and probably more realistic, to have magic-users of low intelligence who just happen to have been born into the right family, warriors who are not very strong but are from the traditional knightly caste, etc.
DeleteBut if we start to get into matters of family, both genetics and acculturation begin to come into play. Coming from a traditionally military family, I can definitely say that there was a huge focus on fitness in my upbringing; even if I was not expected to join up, I was expected to be able to serve if called. I can only imagine that a real martial family, one where every son is expected from birth to fight for his land, family, and life, would put even more emphasis on attributes crucial to their station and survival. When you start wearing plate and swinging a sword at age 10, you're sure to develop a bit of musculature by the time you're 18 (the issue of starting ages in D&D being another matter entirely...). And sure, every family has its embarrassments... but those are outliers rather than the norm. Too many embarrassments and you end up short a castle and a bloodline.
DeleteSo for me, the family argument holds little water. It's really a question of how dangerous your world is, on some level - can a weak warrior house retain its status while breeding Str 9 heirs, or will such a house be regarded as easy prey and be forced to make territorial concessions to its neighbors, who will then use their increased tax revenue to breed and feed more of their strong and vital children?
Well, we're getting into a more complex area now, but don't forget that 9 STR is still that of an average human. And in a world in which everybody is physically fit and used to performing manual labour from cradle to grave, that average of 9 STR is likely to be higher than an average 9 STR in the 21st Century in relative terms.
DeleteYou're also assuming that STR is the most important stat for fighters, which sort of begs the question. I don't think it's the most important stat for fighters - I don't think warfare has ever been decided by which side had the most physically strong fighters (except insofar as you need to be reasonably strong to wield a melee weapon or wear armour).
Not quite correct to say that 9 is average; 10.5 is average on 3d6, with 62.5% of individuals having a strength of greater than 9, 11.5% having Str 9, and 26% having a strength of less than 9. In a four-man party, you'd expect to see (on average) one guy with Str of less than 9, one with 9 or 10, one with 11 or 12, and one with greater than 12. This is a measure relative to the setting, and therefore avoids the comparison across eras problem (which encumbrance values nicely illustrate).
DeleteI'm not clear on how this begs the question. If we interpret Strength as OD&D does, as shorthand for "suitability for a fighting career", then everything makes perfect sense. It becomes an abstraction for general fighting spirit, reach, good muscle memory, and any number of other relatively intangible factors which contribute significantly to victory in hand-to-hand combat, rather than its more modern usage as "raw physical power". In this sense there is a problem in the naming and in the understanding of the meaning of the score (likewise, I prefer to interpret Intelligence as "natural aptitude for magic and memorization" rather than "raw brainpower across all areas", and Wisdom as "piety / belovedness by the gods" rather than "weird mix of piety, strength of will, enlightenment, and sensory powers" that it is in 3.x).
It really all depends on what you (and your system of choice) take the scores to mean. As I said before, the thief ruined everything by taking a non-prime-req stat and using it as a prime req, which then forced later editions to start assigning universal bonuses (like +damage and +saves) to prime-req stats, which eventually stripped them of their implicit, fuzzy meanings of "Fighting / Priest / Mage Aptitude Score" and replaced them with more concrete interpretations.
It's in the average band - you knew what I meant.
DeleteIt begs the question because the very point at issue is whether having a high STR is optimal for a fighter. I'm arguing it doesn't hurt, but other stats - particularly DEX, CHR and CON - might be more useful.
I don't buy the argument that Strength is a shorthand for "suitability for a fighting career", for the simple reason that being quick and agile (having high Dexterity) and being tough and fit (having high Constitution) are also very important for a fighting career. Again, it's begging the question. Sometimes I think people place too much importance on what OD&D says. It may simply be the case that Gygax and Arneson didn't really think things through very much and the stats don't make much sense if you think about them too hard.
All that leads me back to is looking at the actual mechanics and the real world. Setting OD&D aside, other stats have mechanical benefits to fighters than Strength which may be even more useful. And in the real world, Strength is not the only reason for fighting success and is certainly not the main reason for a given martial family being more successful than others.
Ugh, had a long reply and it got deleted. The gist of it was that the OD&D reference was brought up in part as an answer to your question in the original post on the origins of class assignment based on prime reqs, since you'd get comparable benefits from Dex/Con/Cha regardless of class, but bonus XP only from prime req. Perhaps Strength as "mental suitability for a fighting class", since its only effect in OD&D is mental (+XP)? It's a pragmatic definition, based on the idea that 'the whole of a thing is in its sensible effects', with the point being that we needn't take the word Strength to mean anything physical or even measurable in the game-world.
DeleteThat way lies the utter, and now discredited, madness of 4th edition (which is linked to the equally mad and equally discredited character optimalisation mayhem that can be found on 3rd edition fora online)
ReplyDeleteThat is significantly overreaching.
Let's not forget that Pathfinder is the most popular RPG on the planet. Also, I'm not sure how much we can infer about player preferences from WotC's business decision to wind down 4E. Anecdotally, I think optimization based on character builds is still pretty popular.
That said, I agree with you, as a matter of preference, that optimization-based play is not very interesting.
Overreaching to the extent of being trollish I would say.
DeleteI'm inferring it based on the fact WotC are clearly scaling back on the optimisation for D&D 5th edition. I also think Pathfinder is a red herring - it may be the most popular rpg by sales, but that's in a very fractured marketplace, and it's catering to the people who loved 3.X, who I have little doubt are a large demographic but say nothing much about the way the hobby is developing. Saying something is discredited is not the same as saying "nobody plays it".
DeleteAlso, to be frank, I don't know anybody who plays Pathfinder and I'm not aware of anybody of any significance in the industry who really even talks about it. It's totally off my radar. All game design that means anything nowadays is moving in the opposite direction. Be it story games, OSR, whatever.
Also, Ivan, the use of the world "trollish" pisses me off. I might have said something you disagree with but do yourself a favour and don't use that expression. It cheapens debate and reflects the sad state of public discourse which exists on the internet, and is used far, far too often.
Very well -- "Overreaching to the extent that I was skeptical that the statement was made in good faith, and my suspicion was that it was instead made for the purposes of generating angry replies."
DeleteThough I see from your reply to Brendan that perhaps you honestly do not see any dissonance between dismissing Pathfinder as "discredited" at least partially on the basis that you don't know anyone who plays it personally, and the objective fact that thousands upon thousands of people (likely more than every other system combined) play Pathfinder and 4E.
Even if the hobby is moving in a different direction, it is bizarre to describe a style of playing a game that is enjoyed by so many people as "discredited" or "utter madness."
If you meant that you perceive that the hobby is developing away from power gaming(and thus away from PF and 4E), that might be something worth saying, and something that could be objectively defended. But that's not what you said.
It reminds me of a conservative politician railing against the "utter madness" of "now discredited" social safety-net programs. When someone points out that, in fact, such programs remain in effect and are extremely popular, he responds that "I don't know anyone who is in favor of welfare, and all the economic thinkers who 'mean anything nowadays' are against it, and look at the recent austerity measures put into place [that limit welfare availability to some extent]." It's total nonsense. Even if a country *is* developing in a conservative direction, that does not mean that liberal policies are discredited.
Okay, Ivan, for your benefit in future I will endeavour not to engage in any sort of rhetorical flourish - be it exaggeration, hyperbole for effect, emphasis, metaphor, simile or, indeed, stylised use of English - whatsoever, and write only in dull, flavourless technical terms, so that there is no possible misconception at all about what I mean. I wouldn't want to approach with a barge pole a statement which could not be objectively defended.
DeleteWhoops. I didn't literally mean a barge pole. I meant, I wouldn't want to come close to making that sort of statement.
DeleteAs one trained in the law to another, I expect and demand the blandest, most exact prose possible. Any deviation, any "exaggeration for effect" will be met with unfeigned outrage and scorn.
DeleteI also note that this post is as trollish as the OP. A "barge pole"? Is the reader honestly expected to believe that noisms carries such a device around with him? Or that he uses it to determine his proximity to indefensible statements of fact? Absurd! At barge-pole distance, how can one possibly determine whether a statement is objectively defensible in order to decide whether to get closer to it or not? It beggars belief even for documents with generously-sized typefaces. Your readership is entitled to answers, sir! And that's without even addressing how offensive your statement is to thousands of punting enthusiasts worldwide.
(More seriously, maybe chalk this one up to the inability of language to convey true meaning, or Poe's law or something. Sometimes it's hard to tell when people are being a little flourishy for effect, and when they're just being dicks. Having read this blog for many years, I find that you are a good, creative, persuasive writer. For my part, however, there is a tendency to over-the-top harsh dismissiveness of "the other side" that is off-putting. Then again, you're the one creating reams of content while I snipe from the sidelines, so I'm not really in a position to criticize)
The error, here, I think, is conflating fun with winning. The assumption is, if I'm winning (fights, conflicts, the level-up race, the my-character-can-beat-up-your-character contests, etc.) then I'm having fun, and if I'm not, then I'm not having fun.
ReplyDelete(You can see this on a group level as well. If your character is not "pulling their weight" then the group might lose, and then the group as a whole won't be having fun.)
To me, this is a rather bizarre way to play a game. It says that you can't know if a game is fun until you reach the end. Is fighting the Lernean Ogre fun? We won't be able to tell you until the fight is over.
Which is patently silly. Obviously, you can lose a fight and have a great time at it. And, perhaps more obviously, a long, dragged-out combat in which victory is a forgone conclusion can be dull as dishwater.
It reminds me a bit of a discussion Levi K. had a while back on the idea that spotlight time = fun. Under that assumption, handicaps like blindness should cost you character build points, since they make even simple actions like walking across a room fraught with peril and drama (and, thus, spotlight time).
Which is true, so long as spotlight time = fun. But I'm sure we could poke holes in that assumption prettily easily (social anxiety anyone?) as well.
What's fun for you? How can your choices in character creation lead to more fun? Build accordingly.
- Brian
I think there's definitely false optimisation at least in pre-4e D&D, because as you say the 'prime' stat is often not really all that important.
ReplyDeleteI've just started playing a Pathfinder Beginner Box Cleric with STR 18 and WIS 13, using a feat to wield a greatsword - she's basically a Paladin in a game that does not have a Paladin class. The high STR means I can fill the Fighter role just fine, better than many actual Fighters, and the lowish WIS has almost no negative effect - I'll be short one 2nd level spell at 3rd level, is the only significant one I can find. I won't be casting many attack spells so the save DC will rarely come up.
Likewise there are editions where INT has very little effect on Magic-User effectiveness, they benefit far more from CON and DEX.
One of my favorite characters was a 2nd Edition Thief who had an 17 STR and a 13 DEX. I figured that he was "muscle", the thief who's brought along on capers in case you needed to overpower a guard or the like. So he carried a battle axe and a iron-bound cudgel rather than a dagger. His name may have even been "Muscles", due to my rather unimaginative naming schemes at the time.
ReplyDeleteYou're also assuming that STR is the most important stat for fighters, which sort of begs the question. I don't think it's the most important stat for fighters - I don't think warfare has ever been decided by which side had the most physically strong fighters (except insofar as you need to be reasonably strong to wield a melee weapon or wear armour).
ReplyDeleteI dunno, isn't that looking at the forest instead of the trees? Warfare is usually decided by overall manpower, logistics, communications, and supply moreso than (or at least as much as) any qualities in their fighters. But personal, man-to-man combat IS decided on strength, athleticism, training, courage, and various other factors...and physical strength is a pretty big one.
Instead of looking at how armies fared against each other, look at how men fared against each other, and the strength scores of those men. Guys like Heracles, Achilles, Bohemond, Conan of Cimmeria, and many others were kind of noted for their muscle. Even Odysseus, who was most famous for his wits, was such a strong dude that no one else could bend his bow.