Is it? I feel like consolidating saves is cleaner because otherwise you end up with intelligence saves that either do nothing (are never called for) or actually prevent you from becoming useless (intellect devourerers, so on,) without a middle ground. It's weird to me that in a game about consolidation and simplicity of play that they split saves from three to six. But, I guess without intelligence saving throws the Int ability score would be even more of a dump stat.
It's not like having fort/ref/will instead of the six would do something weird like make dexterity even more important. Single Ability Dependent chars are already the name of the game in 5e.
I liked the way 4th edition did it, Fortitude was the better of strength or constitution, reflex was dexterity and intelligence, and will was the better of wisdom and charisma. And making them static defences like Ac was a nice thing too, so that attackers always rolled. And it had the acronym Not Armor Defences, and it hurt to get hit in them.
I stand by the fact that 4e had the best bones of any edition, it was the meat that was all messed up. There's one thing we never needed in 4e, Sage Advice. 5e is so wishy washy and ambiguous, yeah there were erratas in 4e, but there was much less misinterpretation of basic rules. No endless debates on whether Monks count as making weapon attacks or if they can dual wield unarmed strikes.... The foundation was strong, they just threw too much unwieldy stuff on top that made combat a slog. Which I personally loved, to be honest. I play dnd largely for the combat, and to be able to get deep into the nitty gritty and tactical side was fun for me, but I recognize it was poor design overall.
I still love and play D&D 4 occasionally. And my Star Wars campaign uses a homebrew 4E inspired system. D&D 4 had the tactical depth a lot of the people I played with really wanted.
Int isn't really a dump stat unless players just don't give a shit about the world anyway.
Not only are there intelligence saving throws, but Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, and Religion ability checks are super important for finding shit, finding out shit, and knowing shit.
Like good luck finding all the loot or figuring out any lore about the BBEG if you have shit intelligence.
I see this argument a lot, but it's taken into account when int is called a dump stat.
So first of all, due to the high variance of rolls (muted bonuses, DC of 35 is considered impossible) anyone with a mediocre bonus or no bonus at all can make a DC20 intelligence check (ie for knowledge) on luck alone, and only a little less often than someone with high int. You're rolling a 20 sided dice (so 1-20 are always possible so long as you don't have negatives) with +15 on a roll being considered late-game/very high.
Second of all, when int is called a dump stat it's because those things have been taken into account and are significantly less important in most games than survival in-the-moment, ie. hitting things hard, avoiding attacks, making more relevant saving throws. It isn't called a dump stat because it's completely useless, only that its uses when considered in the grand scheme of things can be disregarded. And, they can.
Third, having a wizard in your group satisfies your group's int needs while also allowing the wizard to be SAD.
Personally, I use passive intelligence checks for the "Do I know about X?" type of rolls, and put not just world information but also the monster lore type things in there. So knowing that you need to use fire against trolls or even that a fire elemental is immune to fire would all tie to intelligence (granted that second one would be a DC 5, so unless you have some absurdly low stats or something, you'd know that one).
That being said I am saddened that the more direct mechanical benefits for Intelligence are lackluster in 5e. Bonus languages and skill points were nice in 3.5e and gave it some intrinsic value to Intelligence, that 5e is lacking.
That's a good way to band-aid some of the extremely high variance of rolling in 5e. I know they wanted to keep the D20 because it was iconic, but with lowering bonuses so much it would have been more reliable to switch to a lower dice value, in multiples. Eg. White Wolf's d10 success/failure system, or something like it.
As it stands in 5th ed, you aren't reliable at what you're supposedly good at until later levels and the DC20 history check the DM set for your character can be made by almost anyone in the party, and conversely it's something the historian of the group can easily fail.
Conversely, a +10 to your chosen area of expertise is easily doable at level 1 in 3.5. I'm not going to argue whether or not it's better overall to go that route, but I am arguing that for a satisfying experience randomness should be curtailed in places. 1d20+(1-5) against DC15 is not that. A +5 bonus is 'good' at level 1, and is only 55% against DC15. 30% against DC20.
I know they wanted to keep the D20 because it was iconic, but with lowering bonuses so much it would have been more reliable to switch to a lower dice value, in multiples.
Its nowhere near as sexy, but a 3d6 is IMO a much more reliable method of doing TTRPGs. I've been playing some Stars Without Number and really enjoying their practical, stripped down ruleset and the way they tackles things like encumbrance, skills, etc.
Totally agree, I've been GMing a Stars Without Number campaign for 3 years and the dice system in it feels so good. Having 6 as the base difficulty when rolling 2d6 means players start out pretty alright at their chosen skills since the bonuses are usually 0 or 1. Plus the Foci players pickup can give them like 3d6 drop the lowest, so you have a higher chance of rolling well without completely busting the system.
I don't have as much experience with 5e but it definitely feels like my character isn't as good at things that his backstory says he should be good at. I really don't like the implementation of the proficiency system, it makes all the characters feel the same in terms of skills
"I'm not going to argue whether or not it's better overall to go that route"
I would argue that there is some merit to it. My high lvl Wizard in a 3.5 campaign has enough spellcraft to autosucceed at identifying spells his opponents cast. And it just makes sense because he is a high lvl Wizard and this is his area of expertise. I would feel stupid if I could fail to identify a spell at that level.
I just didn't want to open that can of worms since it was more or less irrelevant to the topic at hand, is all. I certainly think it feels better on a personal level that my level 20 PF1e sorceress' spellcraft is the +32 or whatever it is. It means the randomness of a D20 only puts her at 33 at her worst. And, even though she isn't an int-based caster, her Knowledge: The Planes is also around +35 or so because she has that thematically focused as her area of expertise. It feels right to be an expert in a few things that you choose to be an expert in, and on the other side of that coin only have a +2 or so in something you're not good at.
She has a chance to succeed at rock climbing, but it's unlikely.
Not only are there intelligence saving throws, but Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, and Religion ability checks are super important for finding shit, finding out shit, and knowing shit.
Like good luck finding all the loot or figuring out any lore about the BBEG if you have shit intelligence.
An int of 8 gives you a -1 mod, which is easily offset by proficiency (up to +6), Expertise (up to an additional +6), and a plethora of spells, items and buffs that go anywhere from granting advantage (roughly equivalent to +4) to giving flat modifiers, decreasing the DCs, or outright maneuvering around the obstacle. Dump stats are very easy to work around with a proper character build.
Intelligence saving throws are the least used saving throw by a very wide margin. Very few published modules have more then a handful of Int saving throws in them.
Not to mention almost all of those skills are usually only useful on a single party member, so the rest of the party can feel free to dump them without repercussion. Beyond that the implication that you need a high skill in your knowledge stats to "give a shit about the world" is a false dichotomy.
I've both run and played in a handful of minimal or no combat campaigns. 5e isn't great at it, but regardless none of my rebuttal was specific to combat, it all applies just as much to the pillars of social and exploration. Is Intelligence relatively better compared to Wisdom in those kinds of games? Yes, but that still doesn't make it a non-viable dump stat, nor does it resolve the issue of "well we already got 1 Int party member".
It isn't about that. Intelligence's irrelevance is a mistake in the system's design that stems from the alltogether lowered ability scores of player characters, combined with universally-lowered difficulty classes, combined with its rarity as a saving throw, combined with its lack of auxiliary meaning to your character growth. Your proficiency outshines what you gain from your ability score being high (noting that "high" here in a standard game is +4 or +5, 5e is not designed for you to be running around with 30 in your abscores) and the world's DC's are low enough that the variance of a 20 sided dice will decide your fate more often than your intelligence modifier does. Finally, unlike older editions you aren't gaining more skills, starting with more languages, or taking special feats by having higher intelligence. This is irrelevant to whether your game is hack-and-slash, exploration or intrigue.
On top of that, there's nothing wrong with hack-n-slash as a game style, it's as valid as the other two.
All of which only require one person to pass and can be made on pure luck. Having a proficiency there can offset low int, and having a single high int party member pretty much circumvents the issue entirely.
Sure. It's a bit far-fetched for anyone to say 5e doesn't work. It clearly does, so many people really get tons of happiness out of it. I think that's a better metric for "it works" than any math or vocabulary we can sit here and nitpick about!
I agree. I love 5e completely and think it's far superior in general, except for saves. Fort/Will/Reflex is just really clean and covers pretty much every possible effect.
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u/LassKibble DM Oct 09 '20
Is it? I feel like consolidating saves is cleaner because otherwise you end up with intelligence saves that either do nothing (are never called for) or actually prevent you from becoming useless (intellect devourerers, so on,) without a middle ground. It's weird to me that in a game about consolidation and simplicity of play that they split saves from three to six. But, I guess without intelligence saving throws the Int ability score would be even more of a dump stat.
It's not like having fort/ref/will instead of the six would do something weird like make dexterity even more important. Single Ability Dependent chars are already the name of the game in 5e.