No Ability Scores, just Modifiers

Otherwise known as the True20 ability system.

This post is in reply to some questions I was asked on a different thread:

Nonlethal Force said:

Seriously? I mean this as an honest request so as to not derail this pretty cool thread ... but could you start a new thread describing how this has effected your game? I'd love to speak more on this subject and how you think it has/hasn't affected your game. Things like:

- How do you handle ability score adjustments ever four levels?
- How your players reacted. Where they used to the original system? Did it take a long time to adjust?
- How do you do things like Tomes and Manuals that give ability score boost?

And anything else you can speak from experience. Personally, I think this idea is cool. I just think it would take a bit or reworking to make some sections of the rules work.

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I've wanted to do this for a long time, but True20 gave me the confidence to actually do it -- that, and some dissatisfaction with point-buy (and there's a thread in General going on about point-buy vs rolling, so don't bring it up here!). The ability scores don't really do anything in 3e - sure, poison and stuff can drop a score by one point, but that's about it. It's really all about the modifiers.

I went with +8 in modifiers to start because that was the norm in my group. 3 characters had +8 mods, 1 had +10 or +11, and 2 had +7. The +10 guy had two racial bonuses and only one penalty, so he was supposed to be up by +1, but he also leveraged the point buy the best. It was a 30 or 32 point-buy.

Players get a +1 stat boost every 6 levels, starting at 4th. So, 4, 10, 16. Or low, mid, high. The players balked at a boost every 8 levels, and I eventually agreed. Whether it's faster, slower, or the same as "core" depends entirely on how many odd-numbered ability scores your hypothetical core character has.

Most of them adjusted pretty quickly, and like the idea. There's still one or two that half-heartedly mutter about my weird new system, but they're really fine with it.

Anything that affects ability scores still does. If it give an even bonus (+2, +4, +6, etc), that bonus is halved. If it gives a +1 bonus for some reason, it still gives a +1 (+0 would just be silly). Poisons that inflict 1 pnt of ability damage or drain still inflict 1; I round others up or down as I deem appropriate. True20 might have poison and disease conversions.

It eliminates an unnecessary step. It makes whipping out monsters and npcs that much quicker (as does moving ability scores to the top of the stat block for the "trickle-down" effect, IMO - but that's another thread.) I'm quite happy with it. I have to tweak a few rules, but it's really pretty simple.

Nellisir said:

This post is in reply to some questions I was asked on a different thread:

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Seriously, thanks for posting this. I've heard people talk about true20 but I've honestly never picked it up. I appreciate it.

Nellisir said:

I went with +8 in modifiers to start because that was the norm in my group. 3 characters had +8 mods, 1 had +10 or +11, and 2 had +7.

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By +8 I am assuming you mean the sum of the modifiers, for example a +2 in STR, CON, WIS, CHA and a +1 in INT, DEX?

Assuming this is true, did you set up a maximum upper bound at character generation such as: No character can have greater than a +4 in any one stat before racial mods are applied?

Nellisir said:

Players get a +1 stat boost every 6 levels, starting at 4th. So, 4, 10, 16. Or low, mid, high. The players balked at a boost every 8 levels, and I eventually agreed. Whether it's faster, slower, or the same as "core" depends entirely on how many odd-numbered ability scores your hypothetical core character has.

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I can see why they would balk. It "feels" slower because it's nice to look at the chart and see that bonus come every four levels. However, I imagine this system is actually faster for your typical point buy character. In point buy, my experience is even ability scores anyway. So 5 boosts would only account for two actual mod increases.

Just out of curiosity, why'd you choose 4, 10, 16? For some reason I'd have expected you to go with the averages of 6, 12, 18.

Have you had games go into epic levels? I personally don't have many, but if I did I'd wonder if this begings to unbalance things as technically the players would be up a modifier increase by the 4th increase at 22. Then again, if it was a rolled character with enough odd scores, maybe not. Just curious.

Nellisir said:

Anything that affects ability scores still does. If it give an even bonus (+2, +4, +6, etc), that bonus is halved. If it gives a +1 bonus for some reason, it still gives a +1 (+0 would just be silly). Poisons that inflict 1 pnt of ability damage or drain still inflict 1; I round others up or down as I deem appropriate. True20 might have poison and disease conversions

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I would think the old "use a d6 to make a d3" rule could easily apply. Whatever the given die is, round up. So, a spell doing 2d4 to charisma for example:

2 becomes -1 (frequency of happening = 1: 1,1)
3 becomes -2 (frequency of happening = 2: 1,2; 2,1)
4 becomes -2 (frequency of happening = 3: 1,3; 2,2; 3,1)
5 becomes -3 (frequency of happening = 4: 1,4; 2,3; 3,2; 4,1)
6 becomes -3 (frequency of happening = 3: 2,4; 3,3; 4,2)
7 becomes -4 (frequency of happening = 2: 3,4; 4,3)
8 becomes -4 (frequency of happening = 1: 4,4)

The frequency demonstrates a wondefully normal distribution as I would expect. the actual damage is a tad weighted to the hevier side, but that is simply because in using an even number of dice the lowest amount of damage done is always even.


Anyway, thanks for putting this up!

How about ability damage? I guess characters just become nonfunctional when they hit -5?

comrade raoul said:

How about ability damage? I guess characters just become nonfunctional when they hit -5?

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Yep. There's no ceiling, but there's definately a floor.

Nonlethal Force said:

By +8 I am assuming you mean the sum of the modifiers, for example a +2 in STR, CON, WIS, CHA and a +1 in INT, DEX?

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That'd be +10, yes.

Assuming this is true, did you set up a maximum upper bound at character generation such as: No character can have greater than a +4 in any one stat before racial mods are applied?

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Yes, exactly. And they could swap up to 2 points from other abilities (giving them two scores at -1 or one at -2). It seems to work well. Sure, you can make a rocking dwarf fighter with Str +4, Dex +3, Con +4, Int +0, Wis +0, Cha -3 -- but it's not that hard to roll with the more flexible rolling methods (Str 18, Dex 16, Con 16 plus racial, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 7 minus racial). You can always cap penalties at -2, or allow only one ability at +4 or higher for a starting character.

Just out of curiosity, why'd you choose 4, 10, 16? For some reason I'd have expected you to go with the averages of 6, 12, 18.

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Honestly? Because they were just gaining 4th level when we switched. It was simpler than listening to the crying.

Have you had games go into epic levels? I personally don't have many, but if I did I'd wonder if this begings to unbalance things as technically the players would be up a modifier increase by the 4th increase at 22. Then again, if it was a rolled character with enough odd scores, maybe not. Just curious.

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No, never. Eventually this would overbalance the normal progression, but you could just as easily set the increase to one per 8 levels. And by epic levels, I'm not sure it really makes a difference.

I would think the old "use a d6 to make a d3" rule could easily apply.
Anyway, thanks for putting this up!

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Yeah, I just feel bad rounding up when it inflicts a penalty. But I usually do anyways.

You're welcome. It's fairly ad-hoc at the moment; I've found my True20 book but not referenced it. We're on a break from the game for a few weeks (I'm taking a masters-level class in town planning, plus a birthing class, plus taking the dogs to agility class while my wife is busy coaching volleyball, plus trying to clean & finish the house), and formulating rules is on the list of things to do.

Cheers
Nell.

Nellisir said:

That'd be +10, yes.

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Yeah. I ... uh ... knew that. So - Congratulations on passing my test for your math abilities! [Translation: I only had 3 hours of sleep when I posted earlier. My bad math.]

Nellisir said:

Yes, exactly. And they could swap up to 2 points from other abilities (giving them two scores at -1 or one at -2). It seems to work well.

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I like the capping lower negatives as well. From a roleplaying perspective, is is not to hard to RP one less than average stat. But roleplaying more than one gets progressively more difficult. Especially if the negatives are both in the "mental" stats of INT, WIS, and CHA. I've found many people who use CHA as a dump stat but then don't know how to RP it as a dump stat - or they do so annoyingly.

Nellisir said:

Honestly? Because they were just gaining 4th level when we switched. It was simpler than listening to the crying.

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That's funny. Not what I expected, but funny nonetheless.

I'd personally go further start them at 0 (instead of -5). Increase DCs by 5, increase base AC to 15 and everything falls into place. And it makes more sense in the long run, especially to a new player.

reanjr said:

I'd personally go further start them at 0 (instead of -5). Increase DCs by 5, increase base AC to 15 and everything falls into place. And it makes more sense in the long run, especially to a new player.

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I can see the point, but the negatives give a sense of being "less than average." You look down upon your sheet and remember something like "Oh, that's right, Fizish the sorcerer has no muscle tone" or "Kraeg the barbarian really doesn't know how to put a full sentence together." Of course, I'm stereotyping here. But while starting at zero does make it more noobie friendly, the negatives help remind us where average is.

Nellisir said:

Honestly? Because they were just gaining 4th level when we switched. It was simpler than listening to the crying.

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Well, if you are trying to emulate standard rules, this makes sense. Oftentimes a character has an odd abilitiy score that they want to pop up one at 4th level. Retaining this option is probably a good idea.

In my opinion, you could progress to an 8 level bonus as well. Give them a bonus at 2nd, 6th, 12th, 20th, and every 8 after that. Normally a character gets 5 bonuses by 20th (or 2.5 in mods), but you could raise odd ability scores instead (average of 3 are odd), giving you a total of 4 bonus mods. It works out very well and players might be more receptive when they find out they are going to have two mod boosts by 6th level.

Nonlethal Force said:

I can see the point, but the negatives give a sense of being "less than average." You look down upon your sheet and remember something like "Oh, that's right, Fizish the sorcerer has no muscle tone" or "Kraeg the barbarian really doesn't know how to put a full sentence together." Of course, I'm stereotyping here. But while starting at zero does make it more noobie friendly, the negatives help remind us where average is.

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I don't know, I think it's something that you would get used to. When you hear someone is five feet tall, you think, "That's pretty short." Players would get used to thinking of 5 as average, just like World of Darkness players get used to thinking of 3 as average (well for humans at least).