How can you explain stats in Dungeons and Dragons?

>>49649335

The power of destiny.

Sometimes a hero has to break something so he can fix it again. Hercules is a great example of this.

>>49649335
>How can you possibly keep a straight face at the human barbarian with 19 or more Strength at level one
Maybe his very bodytype was pretty built and then along with a lot of rock lifting and non-stop fighting, he backed his T-shape, 7 feet body with the necassery muscle to become a walking monsrtosity.

>How can you explain how a bard or a sorcerer with 20 Charisma could possibly fuck up a social check against some run of the mill commoner NPC without rolling a 1?
Let me pull something out of thin air: the NPC had a hard day's work go to waste after crows ate every seed he planted in his farm, came back to the village, noticed he forgot his tools, became even grumpier and then while he's going to his home ready to wash off the filth and sweat, barely conscious from tiredness, some asshole with a gigantic smile/beard comes and asks him something about goblins.

>>49649335
http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/587/roleplaying-games/dd-calibrating-your-expectations-2

If you keep to expectations before the D&D fandom started to reflect ideas back into the fantasy, you should be fine. D&D 4e divorces very heavily from these expectations, though it is more of an extension of the divergence in 3.5. 5th is just an evolution of a diverging line of thought.

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>>49649416
I get what you are saying about the NPC possibly having a bad day, but at 20 Charisma, I imagine the person to be essentially the type of messiah figure people flock too naturally, fully casting their worries away. The sheer magnetism of a personality of 20 Cha would easily move nations.

>>49649335
> How can you possibly keep a straight face at the human barbarian with 19 or more Strength at level one?
Simple. He is a hero. A strong hero. Plenty of them exist in stories. In a lot of stories they are the idiots who die so the smart heroes can actually achieve the objective and bring the story to it's conclusion.

>How can you explain how a bard or a sorcerer with 20 Charisma could possibly fuck up a social check against some run of the mill commoner NPC without rolling a 1?
Simple again. Ever seen someone that you just don't like? He may remind you of someone who used to pick on you. He may be of the same social class that allows him to get away with things that you think are unfair. He may hang around with people that you find disgusting; homos, vagrants, criminals and thugs. He may be hitting on the girl at the tavern that you like, and actually getting attention. Plenty of reasons for a person to be dislike by commoners.

>What do these numbers actually represent in the real world? What can you compare them to?
For Strength, that is easy. Look at encumbrance rules to see what that strength can lift. Easy. For others, far more esoteric and difficult. You have to go with your brain on that. Which considering how much you haven't used it in the questions before these, doesn't surprise me that you still can't use it now. But I'll try to make it easy. As you can't figure this shit out on your own, I would say you are close to a 8 Intelligence and perhaps as low as a 6 Wisdom. And your presentation leaves much to be desired and are posting on a anonymous board because of your difficulties dealing with real people. All that being true, I would place your Charisma around a 6-8 range.

Now you have something to compare. Enjoy.

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>>49649472
OP here. First and foremost, your snarky remarks and half-baked suggestions leave me to believe you also require a stat check. I might be pretty hammered, but judging from your sentence structure I'd assume your literacy in common is pretty low. My observations on your assumption people on this board have difficulties dealing with people makes me think your snappy attitude stems from a deeply rooted lack of a coping mechanism over your shortcomings. Stop being in denial and don't yap without the means for a proper bark as it is embarrassing, you filthy commoner.

As for your Charisma argument, I actually agree to a point. The question here is just how much your innate belligerency towards someone on sight can stand up to the presence of a 20 Cha character, even if he stole his pie in the tavern. Subjective squabbles are incapable of competing with borderline objective and universal standards of beauty, social aptitude, intense magnetism or all three combined.

>>49649335
> How can you possibly keep a straight face at the human barbarian with 19 or more Strength at level one. How can you explain how a bard or a sorcerer with 20 Charisma could possibly fuck up a social check against some run of the mill commoner NPC without rolling a 1?
Simple, Gandalf WASN'T a 5th level Wizard. Gandalf was from his own piece of media that didn't have a concept of levels and has no direct D&D analogue.

Having 19-20 strength is above average, very above average but still far from being super human.

>>49649558
As low end attempts, like you own, to baffle with bullshit often cannot overcome first impressions, merely make them worse; I would say they could stand up quite well. Thorughout history we have many example of charismatic individuals being denied by many of those around them and even closest to them. Caesar; Nobunaga; Cromwell; Fredrick II; Kennedy; Alexander ho Megas; the list goes on and on. If you are too ignorant to see that and use those examples in your games and in storytelling, well it just shows how uneducated you actually are. Try again.

Oh and I like the attempt to use inebriation as an excuse for your inadequacies. Keep it up.

>>49649335
Well, first you have to break down the stats individually.

> Strength
Lets you till the land to plant tomato seeds.

> Dexterity
Lets you harvest the tomato and cut it up properly.

> Constitution
Lets you eat a spoiled tomato and not get sick.

> Intelligence
Lets you know that a tomato is a fruit.

> Wisdom
Tells you to not use a tomato as part of a fruit salad.

> Charisma
Lets you try and do so anyway and convince people it belongs in a fruit salad.

In D&D, the average stat for most commoners is a 10 to everything, and maybe an 11 if they work in a particularly physically-intensive job (farmers, blacksmiths). That means your average townsfolk is in decent health, can lift up a fair bit of weight (approx. 50-100 lbs. before being encumbered), doesn't trip over their own two feet, can talk fine, knows to avoid social foapas, and has some education (again, probably related to their profession and local town history).

Every couple points you get higher: 12 Strength means you can chop a tree down faster, 14 Dexterity lets you contort your body in ways most people can't think of; 16 Constitution lets you drink any normal man under the table and not be hung over the next day; 18 Intelligence is basically Hawking levels of brain power, and 20 Wisdom would be Dalai Lama or some other highly spiritual person.

Beyond a 20 in a stat is when you get to demigod and godly powers; Hercules probably had something like a 24 for Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. But he probably only had slightly above average mental stats due to how most of his tales and trials involve him causing a problem and then using his brawn to get out of them (with the occasional tricksey move, like getting Atlas to re-take holding up the Earth after he got tricked into it in the first place).

Having a high Charisma usually means two things: you look very attractive/confident (depending upon the situation), and your words are very convincing, due to posture, tone of voice, etc.

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>>49649335
Man, it's almost like the level system in DnD isn't very good.

>>49649655
>Beyond a 20 in a stat is when you get to demigod and godly powers
When will people stop this meme.

20 strength in D&D is fucking strong but not that super human.

Gandalf wasn't just some wizard, he fought a balrog one on one and did not die horribly in one round.

Further more, he is something like 2 generations removed from the all powerful God of the universe and not part of any natural race.

Sauron and Gandalf are more similar than Gandalf and a random human in nature.

>>49649447
No it wouldn't. 20 Charisma is a paltry +4 modifier towards social ranks. If that person hasn't trained their speech, by taking ranks in Diplomacy, then they are just a charismatic but inarticulate individual. To move nations you need to be able to rouse a crowd through your words and rhetoric and to a much lesser degree, your charisma.

You've never actually run a D&D game have you? Your relying on info gleamed from 4chan that places far too much importance on the attributes instead of the skill ranks, the true arbiter of ability.

>>49649335
Str 19 is a max heavy load of 350 lbs, which he can lift over his head. He is as strong as a World Strongman competitor. This being a fantasy realm, he can get even stronger than that, surpassing the limits of human ability here on earth.

How can that 20 charisma sorc fuck up the roll? As I listed above, quite simply, they are relying solely on their Charisma for social rolls, a terrible idea. Besides, there are DCs to change people's attitudes, and its very easy to fuck that up if you haven't properly invested in the skills to do it. Even a simple run of the mill commoner still requires a 15+ cha modifier DC check to change his attitude from indifferent to friendly.

So what do these numbers mean in the real world? Not much for the mental ones as there is literally no way to properly gauge them. The physical are easier. Str is the easiest by referencing the encumbrance rules. Dex is harder but here are some numbers and the attached descriptions:
10+Capable of usually catching a small tossed object, average human agility
14+Can catch or dodge a medium-speed surprise projectile
20+Graceful, able to flow from one action into another easily
22+Very graceful, capable of dodging multiple thrown objects
24+Moves like water, reacting to all situations with almost no effort
32+ Moves like the wind, capable of reactions unseen by mortals, reaction-time is virtually instantaneous

>>49649670
>Gandalf wasn't just some wizard, he fought a balrog one on one and did not die horribly in one round.
Yeah, it's pretty shitty to try to compare any piece of media not rooted in D&D to D&D using levels. But Gandalf would be a Solar or something who is intentionally holding back.

I don't get why people try to make D&D worlds seem more low level than they ever were. Shit even in the original editions, level 10 fighters and such were pretty fucking common.

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>>49649335
A reaction roll of 3d6+10 means that more than 60% of the time you are getting the result: "The NPC worships the PCs or their cause and puts the PCs interests ahead of their own at all times, and would even die for them".

Unless your negotiating with Elder Things that want to eat your soul, in which case you merely have ~50% of having them listen to your bargain whereas any other character would be ocopus-food already.

You should try some different systems OP.

>>49649679
>D&D
>3d6

>>49649662
How is that a meme?

To me it makes a fair bit of sense; I would say that a lot of the modern day world weightlifters who do stuff like that for competitions would be people that have 18-20 Strength. And these are a lot of really large people pushing the physical limits of the human body.

Once you crest into the 22-24 range you're talking about someone who can carry something like 500 lbs. and be able to walk about with little trouble, which means they can continue to carry that load for hours and hours. How many people do you know that can carry two normal-sized adult males on their back for at least 10 hours and only be slightly winded at the end of such a trek?

Sure, some guys in real life could carry 500ish lbs. of stuff, like if they were lifting something really heavy and moving it a few dozen feet. Not for 10 hours straight.

>>49649447
You are wrong in your assumption that a stat at 20 is the pinnacle of human achievement. It's simply the pinnacle of talent. If the character is just level 1, it is raw and underutilized talent.

A Cha 20 Level 1 Cleric is not a messianic figure. It's a regular priest that has a talent for speech. It is Eli at the start of There Will Be Blood. A Cha 20 level 20 character who has trained in the social skills? Now that could be comparable to such a figure, able to flock people to him and inspire social movements.

Similarly, a Str 20 Level 1 Fighter is not Hercules. A Str 20 Level 20 fighter? Now that's comparable to Hercules.

>>49649678
How common people at various level are in various settings varies wildly, though if you go based on old school Greyhawk and the enduring Forgotten Realms, then yeah, no idea why people think high level characters are super rare.

Just like you don't go an start crazy wars on purpose and use Grey Goo weapons in Star Trek RPGs, people don't go do crazy with their magic or physical powers in DnD settings.

Yes, the world would become completely unrecognizable if there were loads of level 20 casters all making awesome magic items that end the need for farming and thus make for some kind of super-post agrarian society that rapidly innovates new technologies thanks to the capacity to have fuck loads of craftsmen with loads of spare time to stumble upon such things as movable type and steam power.

But no one does that. It just doesn't happen just like grey goo von neumann probes don't happen in Star Trek without something stopping them.

Why doesn't the level 20 wizard in the magic fortress over that hill deal with your problems? Fucker is busy with something! All important people are busy!

There are high powered characters in lots of settings, they are busy and often opposed by similarly high powered enemies. If no mortal can stand before them then the Gods will probably come to fuck with them.

>>49649640
Keep your "many example".How much Charisma would you apportion to Caesar? All of the people you mentioned have completely different approaches towards leadership. Are you the type of person to argue Genghis Khan was a charismatic leader of men? Great does not equal charismatic in this case. But I will humor you. None of these people are what comes close to my view of Cha 20. A person with 20 strength is not equal to two people with 10. Giant monsters have 20 strength. A person with 20 Cha is very much bullshit tier by human standards and in no way can equate to any great orator or general. They are essentially supernaturally charming. A butthurt person like you may not be able to understand this, but 20 Cha is essentially someone, who would enthrall you on sight if you were to be a commoner. They would be in awe. Above 20 Cha you can influence gods. At 20 Cha, mortals should be pretty much putty for your desires.

>>49649685
>You should try some different systems OP.
>different
>systems
>OP

>>49649734
No they wouldn't

You would like them for a bit after a speech then go back to doing what your doing. Diplomacy is very much situational and someone with a natural +5 to charisma and no ranks in diplomacy has very similar numbers than someone with a natural +1 charisma and skill focus(Diplomacy).

>>49649672
I'll continue with Paizo's SRD descriptions since they make some sense towards what the numbers of each ability mean. Though I slightly disagree with certain descriptions and their associated scores.

Constitution
10 | Occasionally contracts mild sicknesses, average human healthiness
14 | Able to labor for twelve hours most days
20 | Very difficult to wear down, almost never feels fatigue
35 | Nearly immune to any level of fatigue, illness, disease, or infection- such a creature's stamina is practically god-level

Intelligence
10 | Knows what they need to know to get by
14 | Can solve most problems without even trying very hard, able to do math or solve logic puzzles mentally with reasonable accuracy
20 | Highly knowledgeable, probably the smartest person many people know
24 | World-famous level intelligence, sought out for advice constantly
32 | Gold Dragon Wyrm | Unfathomable intellect

Wisdom
10 | Capable of planning and makes reasoned decisions most of the time
14 | Can get hunches about a situation that doesn’t feel right
20 | Reads people and situations very well, almost without effort
24 | Nearly prescient, able to see potential results far beyond that which pure logic would reveal
32 | Gold Dragon Wyrm

Charisma
10 | Understands most conventions of social interactions and acts relatively acceptably in social circumstances
14 | Interesting, almost always knows what to say
20 | Life of the party, able to keep people entertained for hours
24 | Renowned for wit, personality, and/or looks
32 | Gold Dragon Wyrm

>>49649335
How do you explain any stats in any game, you moronic dipshit?

You think D&D is bad? Try Rolemaster or LtR, where you have stat that scale form 1-100, and higher. How about GURPS, where a 10 stat is average, but a 15 stat is rediculously strong - especially if you take an advantage that nearly DOUBLEs how much you can lift? Oh, how about fucking WoD, where the stats are superhuman past 2 dots, and at 5 dots you're next to supernatural and EVERYTHING has a least 3 stats at 4 or more dots?

D&D is actualy one of the more reasonable games where stats are concerned.

>>49649771
What?

This has to be a troll for anyone who plays GURPS and WoD at the very least.

GURPS does not expect you to get crazy high stats since it would eat up your characters points really fast, leaving nothing for skills.

WoD, 5 is the cap for normal people, anything at the cap for normal people has to be just next to the abnormal by definition.

>>49649822
To be fair, 5 is the cap for humans, but it also puts you in the world's top tier. Supers with more than 5 in a stat get even more rare.

>>49649637
>Having 19-20 strength is above average, very above average but still far from being super human.
In editions before 4e, the highest stat a human can have without magic or bonuses from higher levels is 18.

An Olympic athlete is around lv5-7, so they get a +1 to one ability score; if they got lucky they could use this to hit Strength 19. If they think they can get away with it, they might be using steroids that provide a +2 alchemical bonus to Strength or Strength checks.