D&D 5E Reclassing the 6 attributes

I would do just three stats:

Str and Con ⇒ Body
Dex and Int ⇒ Mind
Wis and Cha ⇒ Soul

(Terms subject to change.)


Body would cover athletic skills, including acrobatics and stealth; physical damage (all non-finesse weapons, including ranged); and physical saves. Would also cover anything based on appearance.

Mind would cover: knowledge skills and investigation; crafting skills; fine manipulation like sleight-of-hand or lockpicking; reaction times (initiative, get-out-of-the-way saves, etc); and hit accuracy of all types (melee, ranged, magical attacks, carnival knife-throwing, etc).

Soul would cover social interactions of all sorts (insight, deception, persuasion, intimidation, animal handling, etc); magical saves; and magical damage, where applicable (eg: some spells, smites, etc).


Gives strong reasons to want all three stats, even if they're outside your main focus. I can't see any class treating any of them as dump stats, except maybe a glass cannon mage dumping Body (which just makes them even more of a glass cannon). This is largely because the current dump stats — Str and Int — are merged with must-have stats — Con and Dex. Also because of changing where a few skills fall, like Acrobatics and Stealth being under Body.


Each class gets one stat that it's proficient in. Should be fairly easy.

Body: Fighters, Barbarians, Paladins
Mind: Wizards, Rogues, Rangers
Soul: Bards, Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers, Warlocks

Monks are a bit tricky. Could go under any of them.

Elfcrusher said:

Could elaborate or give an example? You're usually pretty insightful so I suspect you have good evidence, but I'm not seeing/understanding it at face value.

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Thanks you. To elaborate:

1. If I create a fighter subclass that gets some abilities that key off charisma then we have added mechanical options that seem to fix the problem of not having a fighter that wants a high charisma. But that just means you see even fewer and fewer battlemasters, eldritch knights and champions with a high charisma. So a charisma fighter subclass directly impacts the other subclass and stat combinations that you see (limiting those characters).

2. A similar effect happens with adding more skills or adding more stats. You dilute the pool of available stats or skills (unless you increase those in response) which while giving you options makes you worse at more skills and more stats. (this adds some limitations that weren't previously present).

Now that it's not so late

I guess the best summary of what I'm saying is to think about all the new things you can't be or might not want to be by adding whatever option you are thinking of adding. That's where the limitations come from.

mellored said:

I agree that it would be more limiting.
If you add Cha based moves, then you would effectively make a Cha based sub-class. No one would mix cha moves and Str moves.

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Also, it will look ridiculous. Somewhere between Cuteness Is Sorcery and Weaboo Fightan Magic - and the latter was one of "solutions" not addressing the real problem, only for "linear warriors vs. cubic wizards" thing. So there's also that.

shidaku said:

A feature that anyone with the right scores can take isn't what I'm talking about. Hirelings aren't a class feature. They're not a defining element of what makes a fighter a fighter.

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But it used to be a class feature. In that until D&D3, fighters get more followers. And that was a good idea.