Is Attribute Bloat real?

[larsdangly]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Ok, I'm imagining someone staying at ST 16, with fine plate but adjDX 11 (or in some other ways failing to learn how to play to avoid getting attacked by everyone they fight), no shield, no warrior/veteran, no Stone Flesh, no enchanted armor... as they fight hundreds of opponents who all get to attack them... but survive and start creeping up above 40 points...

Sounds to me relatively hard to remain that incompetent for that long. I'd think the player would tend to learn some tactics, get some friiends, or accidentally increase their adjDX or armor or something somewhere along the line.

The players I had started out smart and got smarter. The chance of someone like a Myrmidon with DX 12 and a broadsword against 36+-point PCs not getting taken out of combat before getting a chance to attack was uncommon.

It strikes me as implausible that you could go through a life of violent adventure without having attacks aimed at you. Of course you can imagine tactical approaches to avoiding attacks, or add magical items or powers that make your character more resilient than indicated by his or her point total. But there is someone else on the other side of the table who also gets to weigh in, and one can't just arbitrarily assume you get every magical item or power you might want. How that plays out is a question of the way your campaign is run and whether your GM throws fast balls or slow pitch.

My 'bottom line' point was simply that even quite powerful characters have high chances of mortality when you integrate over some moderate period of play. This is a game where you generally only get to die once. Anything that happens often and kills you one time out of every 300 will likely catch up with you.