Null Stats [Rebalancing 3.5]

[Mister_Sinister]

Ok, that makes us even, I guess.

[Elennsar]

I don't remember if I've noted this elsewhere, just mentioned it via IM to Sinister.

What's wrong with undead (or constructs, for that matter) having Constitution scores?

A vampire is healthier than I am. And a zombie is probably tougher in all ways that Constitution as an ability score reflects, even ignoring the fact that as an undead it can't really be diseased (well, it can, but you get the point).

That's not to say that one can't come up with ways that "Ah but Charisma/Strength/whatever" fits, but why not just use Constitution like for everything else?

[Sunic_Flames]

...Why can't you just give all undead Unholy Toughness and a half decent BAB so they don't need massive HD for melee purposes?

[AfterCrescent]

Unholy toughness is the Cha to HP instead of Con, right? The problem is not all undead have decent Cha. Fixing the null stat issue as a whole will be one step closer to working out a sane CR system where HD=Level=CR.

[Sunic_Flames]

Unholy toughness is the Cha to HP instead of Con, right? The problem is not all undead have decent Cha. Fixing the null stat issue as a whole will be one step closer to working out a sane CR system where HD=Level=CR.

Well, most of the intelligent ones do. Put a clause in that it cannot become a penalty even if Cha is below 10, and it at least won't make enemies any worse off.

[JaronK]

How many Dex-less creatures are there? And I know you'll tag me back for Con-less creatures... Deal

I think some plants are dex-less.

Anyway, the whole reason 3.5 is so unbalanced (at least a big one) is people making rules while ignoring other rules simply because they're not in the core rules.  It's a bad plan.  If you're making any sweeping changes, you're going to have to consider Necropolitan War Hulks and Shadows using Ghost Touch weapons (well okay, that one was core, but still) and all those other wacky things.  If you break all those, you've messed up... back to the drawing board.

JaronK

[Elennsar]

Well, one thing that would be a really good idea is to make core balanced, and then see what things from outside core are worth the trouble (meaning that we, the people working on this, would use them) to rebuild.

No point making those wooden archer golems from I-forget-what-FR-book balanced if no one uses them. It'd be a waste of time.

[AfterCrescent]

I agree with you El.

JK: Core needs balancing first and foremost. Everything from other supplements should be able to refer to core and be balanced. So pardon my french, but fuck the Necropolitan and War Hulk. Neither is relevant right now. The Shadow and Ghost Touch are, yes. Core needs to be rebalanced and made functional, then things from outside core can be made to work.

[JaronK]

Then everything you're doing is worthless.  You'll balance core, throw apart everything else, and when other people decide whether to use your rules, they'll see that they're incompatible/break everything else they want to use and thus decide not to use them.  There's really no point. 

Yes, balancing with everything is hard.  Yes, you need to successfully do it, or who cares?  The first time someone sees "oh, we balanced 3.5, but as a result the following mechanics in 3.5 are now broken..." and they stop reading.  I'll tell you right now, turning into an undead critter and getting strength to hitpoints is easy to abuse.

EDIT:  By the way, what exactly does removing null scores fix anyhow?  Is there really something so broken about null scores that is unfixable?  It looks to me like you're fiddling with something that's not broken and fixing it until it is.

JaronK

[AfterCrescent]

A) No one is saying balance ONLY core. We're saying balance core FIRST. Then move on. It's not a matter of saying Okay, we balanced core, now X, Y, and Z don't work/are broken. It's a matter of saying "Okay, core is balanced, what doesn't work with it? Let's balance that now too."

B) Str to HP for an undead is possible to abuse, yes. That's not the discussion at this point. You can contribute to the discussion by doing 1) data harvesting or 2) suggesting alternatives. Merely stating that an initial suggestion is breakable doesn't help anything. Try contributing.

[Elennsar]

Crescent: This, at least, is a suggestion.

Give undead Constitution scores/let them keep them. Same with constructst.

[AfterCrescent]

Well here's my question Elennsar - What exactly is the point of a null stat? Obviously to alleviate something, but would the game be unbalanced if everything had all the scores? I suppose the biggest issue would be mindless creatures, but what else would be wrong with that?

[Elennsar]

Nothing that I can think of. If something has no (small i) intelligence, having an Intelligence of 1 will do as well as N/A.

Personally, I think null stats are a poor method of representing whatever it they can be justified as representing.

The creatures that are unbalanced most badly are the ones with sky high stats, not N/A ones.

[Sunic_Flames]

Ray of Stupidity loves Int 1.

[AfterCrescent]

One of my thoughts was instead of having Null stats, have a stat and make it immune to damage. So Mindless becomes Int X with immunity to Int damage/drain.

[JaronK]

I guess I'm just not seeing why anything has to change here.  The rules are clear enough, there's nothing really wrong, and the proposed fix breaks a number of things.  So why fix it until it's broken?

JaronK

[Mister_Sinister]

I guess I'm just not seeing why anything has to change here.  The rules are clear enough, there's nothing really wrong, and the proposed fix breaks a number of things.  So why fix it until it's broken?

JaronK

This is utterly, totally, and completely untrue. Undead suffer from massive HD inflation due to lack of Con for hp purposes, creatures with null stats require a whole bunch of exception-based design to be made functional, and in general, lead to complexity beyond what is needed with the substitution system I proposed, or, in fact, AC's idea either.

You have a propensity to mix TOpt with POpt. This is fine, and understandable, but having them bleed into each other causes problems.

[veekie]

Crescent: This, at least, is a suggestion.

Give undead Constitution scores/let them keep them. Same with constructst.

I think this should work best, actually, but only for Con, the other nonabilities are nowhere as devastating as losing a primary hp determinant(and as shown, replacing it results in all kinds of odd scenarios, even when using what are often dump stats to substitute with). Some things can be mindless, immobile or cannot exert a force, but everything has to some extent, how well it holds together as a creature.

Mechanically, Con is attached to no skill and very few class abilities(more importantly, almost never to any spellcasting), plugging it into another stat(cha is a popular one for undead) can result in things like an epic ghost sorc with more hp than most front line combatants.

[JaronK]

This is utterly, totally, and completely untrue. Undead suffer from massive HD inflation due to lack of Con for hp purposes, creatures with null stats require a whole bunch of exception-based design to be made functional, and in general, lead to complexity beyond what is needed with the substitution system I proposed, or, in fact, AC's idea either.

So undead have high HD per CR.  So what?   Animals do too.  That doesn't mean it's a problem.  In fact, the issue is that if you change it, you have to rework all the undead in the books as they're suddenly all too powerful for their listed CR.  Besides, what exception based design is going in?  Undead simply ignore most fort save based stuff and use Charisma for Concentration.  Done.  It's really not that hard.  Your solution, however, leads to the potencial for all sorts of broken stuff, and is therefor untennable.  The goal of this project is to "rebalance 3.5" not "change everything I don't like about 3.5."  If your change makes things make more sense for you, but unbalances 3.5, it's really not appropriate.

You have a propensity to mix TOpt with POpt. This is fine, and understandable, but having them bleed into each other causes problems.

What I have a propensity to do is point out the logical conclusions of edits made with regards to balance.  All you're really saying here is "okay, my fix breaks a bunch of stuff, but players won't use the brokenness anyway because it's Theoretical Ops kinds of broken, so it's fine."  That's not how a game designer should think.  You should take any edit you want to make and say "how could this potencially be broken?"  And if it can, you fix it... you don't just say "well, that's so broken it's theoretical ops, so I'm not going to worry about it."

JaronK

[Midnight_v]

Jaronk is right.

The issue with null stats is ironically a "null" problem. Tinkering with it actually, causes more problems than it creates.

 Besides somethings in D&D are "Nail" like in that poem and things like this are "the nail" playing with null stat critters specifically undead... lets look at that.
The amont of work you put in will fall short of the amount of damage being caused by the problem.

Tinkering with undead to wit they get more hitpoints. Since, they have con suddenly makes see what stat it defaults to (which will mass vary for undead)
Which leads us to giving them less hitdice.
Which makes us redo Turn/Rebuke undead.
.... and every spell prc etc.. related.

Yes balancing the core is of the utmost importance but not at the extent that we say pardon my expletive "Fuck" Non-core.
....
See at that point we probbably need to title the threads {Rebalancing the Core} so as not to be decieving at least.

I also think that the entire statment:

You have a propensity to mix TOpt with POpt. This is fine, and understandable, but having them bleed into each other causes problems.

Is pretty uncool because you attempting to discredit the man, to discredit his argument.
Which is not to say that its not an argument strategy but is a bit unfair. There's no difference when discussing mechanics someones preference for one type of optimization or the other.

In fact we NEED someone versed in TO, because they are pushing the specs of the game harder. Generally keeping us from the oberroni fallacy area of things.

Oh well we balance the core but we rule 0'd everything non core out cause fuck non-core.
  Bad Buisness...