Flatter Ability Score Bonuses

satori01 · May 4, 2012

People let us fess up, point buy characters always look the same in distribution. Every set of point buy rules, will always have a point where you can calculate where you have reached marginal utility in terms of advancement.

14 Con

Those people that have used point buy, know what I mean

I frankly do not care that much about it. I do care about the super bountiful modifiers that compell people to achieve a certain ability score.

1E and 2E Fighter Str is a prime factor. No one whom was going to play a single class Fighter had less than 18/xx. If you came to a game table with a 16 Str
There had better be a Slash after Fighter...ie Fighter/ x

Where x = any other class......" seriously, dude did you seriously bring a 16 Str single class fighter to the table?"

3e you could "behind the curve" in terms of prime attribute because it was easy to stack other bonuses and to make up a +2

Basic was very flat ability wise.

Thalionalfirin · May 4, 2012

satori01 said:
People let us fess up, point buy characters always look the same in distribution. Every set of point buy rules, will always have a point where you can calculate where you have reached marginal utility in terms of advancement.

14 Con

Those people that have used point buy, know what I mean

I frankly do not care that much about it. I do care about the super bountiful modifiers that compell people to achieve a certain ability score.

1E and 2E Fighter Str is a prime factor. No one whom was going to play a single class Fighter had less than 18/xx. If you came to a game table with a 16 Str
There had better be a Slash after Fighter...ie Fighter/ x

Where x = any other class......" seriously, dude did you seriously bring a 16 Str single class fighter to the table?"

3e you could "behind the curve" in terms of prime attribute because it was easy to stack other bonuses and to make up a +2

Basic was very flat ability wise.

I played a lot of 1e. I had no problem playing a fighter with 15 strength. We didn't have anyone with an 18 strength, now that I think about it.

For us, that stuff didn't matter. Heck, we almost never looked at our character sheets back then. Just tick marks on scratch paper to track hit points.

We still had a lot of fun.

satori01 · May 4, 2012

Thalionalfirin said:
I played a lot of 1e. I had no problem playing a fighter with 15 strength. We didn't have anyone with an 18 strength, now that I think about it.
.

Ever? You guys just used 3D6 in order all the times you played, and never an accidental 18 in Str

None of that hoity toity 4d6, drop the lowest and arrange however you like?

No human characters made using the Unearthed Arcana table?
No Cavaliers getting level boost up to Strength that was class ability for them and only them pushing someone into 18?

Obviously I am pointing out that Stat inflation has been inevitable in every edition.

DracoDruid · May 4, 2012

Greetings from germany everyone.
interesting discussion you got going here.
And something I thought about a lot too, while dabbling on my d20 homebrew.

I actually went the other way and increased the "human range" from -8 (barely existing stat) to +8 (human pinacle)
Of course the high end stats would/should be extremly rare.

While reading this, I got the feeling that the main issue for high stats was combat.

I my system, I didn't use STR alone to alter "To-Hit" but a "Combat Stat" that was an average of STR+DEX+CON (+AGI in my system).
This way, a fighter needed to be good in 3 (4) stats and not just one to get a high combat bonus.
Similar for Defense (AGI/DEX+CON), ranged combat (STR+DEX+AWR/WIS)

Maybe this would be the way to go?

Stalker0 · May 4, 2012

I have grown to like the change starting in 3e of a linear ability score progression. That said, I do agree that if WOTC is serious about flattening out their numbers, than ability bonuses are the easiest place to start.

They have already mentioned wanting to keep attack bonuses relatively consistent and focus on damage/hp, but when the strength score disparity can literally cause a +/- 6 to attack rolls right out of the gate, then your in for an uphill battle.

Now personally, I'm a fan of tweaking the point buy system to make the highest stats more expensive. If for the cost of one 18 I can buy almost all 14's....then I'm going to seriously consider that even if an 18 strength would be awesome as a fighter.

DracoDruid · May 4, 2012

I must disagree.

The net-gain from +1 to +2 is the same as from +3 to +4.

Increasing the costs exponentially while the benefit is linear, never made much sense.

I see that this is done to work against the one-trick ponies, but those groups who want to have this high stats simply take more build points, so where is the benefit?
It simply makes ability generation unnecessary complicated (especially when you add racial modifiers).

In addition, spell casters actually NEED those high stats in order to get access to their higher spell slots (a thing I REALLY would like to be seen lost in the next edition!)

I always voted (and used) a simple 1-on-1 point buy rule, giving my players 72-75 ability points to distribute freely (from 8-18 before racial mods).

It's quick, it's simple, it's honest.

Minigiant · May 4, 2012

Here is how it works in Minigiant d20

5: -3
6: -2
7: -2
8:: -1
9:: -1
10: +0(+0)
11: +0(+0)
12: +0(+1)
13: +1(+1)
14: +1(+0)
15: +1(+2)
16: +2(+0)
17: +2(+3)
18: +2(+4)
19: +3(+4)
20: +3(+5)
21: +3(+5)

Two tiers of bonuses.

Everyone uses the first tier except for those boosted by race or class.

Barbarian: Str
Bard: Cha
Cleric: Wis
Druid: Wis
Fighter: Str
Monk: Con
Paladin: Cha
Ranger: Dex
Rogue: Dex
Sorcerer: Cha
Warlord: Int
Warlock: Con
Wizard: Int

Humans: Any
Dragonborn: Str
Drow: Cha
Dwarves: Con
Elves: Dex
Goblin: Dex (small), Str
Gnomes: Dex (small), Con
Half-Elves: Any
Half-Orcs: Str
Halflings: Dex (small), Cha
High Elf: Int
Kobold: Dex (small), Con
Minotaur: Str
Shifter: Wis
Tiefling: Int
Warforged: Con

Want a +4 bonus for Strength on your Fighter?

Standard Array with a 16 as highest: You have to pick both a STR race and class but all your other abilities cap at +2.

Roll stats and got a 16: See the above.

Point buy: Well if you buy an 18, you probably can't buy a 16 too anyway. If you buy a 16, see above.

If would encourage interesting race/class options.

Shadeydm · May 4, 2012

Its funny to see people reference 18/00 strength I played AD&D for years and the only time there was ever an 18/00 at the table was if someone has gauntlets of ogre power. Even if you had an 18 the odds of rolling 100 to go along with it were extremely low. I seem to recall that something like half the percentile range for strength was just the next bonus increment after 18 but with my 1E books packed away in the basement can't say for sure. i'm not advocating they bring it back it was fun for its time but I agree with the idea point buy is the best system for character creation.

Viking Bastard · May 4, 2012

Janaxstrus said:
I like the simplicity of that method. Not sure how it would work in play without some hard caps on bonuses. Seems like it might be easy to get huge bonuses and throw the math out of whack

It is a little higher right out of the gate than I'd optimally like, but it is just damn simple and intuative. If you could keep all other bonuses capped at 10 total, then I don't see a big problem. (But feel free to show me the errors of my ways.)

Thalionalfirin · May 4, 2012

satori01 said:
Ever? You guys just used 3D6 in order all the times you played, and never an accidental 18 in Str

None of that hoity toity 4d6, drop the lowest and arrange however you like?

No human characters made using the Unearthed Arcana table?
No Cavaliers getting level boost up to Strength that was class ability for them and only them pushing someone into 18?

Obviously I am pointing out that Stat inflation has been inevitable in every edition.

We played 4d6. I think we had 3 18's total. Cleric - wisdom, Thief - Dexterity (which turned out to be a 19 because he was an elf) and Magic User - Int.

Never played with the UA rules.

If I had gotten an 18 back then, I would have first looked to see if I could have qualified for paladin.

Flatter Ability Score Bonuses

satori01

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Thalionalfirin

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satori01

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DracoDruid

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Stalker0

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DracoDruid

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Minigiant

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Shadeydm

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