Ability damage,should it be in the game???

[Sadrik]

Ability damage is always one of those tricky things if it is in the game then you can develop all kinds of subsystems that utilize damage to abilities. For instance paralyzed could be expressed as having a dex and str score of 0. Death poison could skip hp and deal damage directly to your con. Sanity could be based on cha. Blindness could be wis 0 for sight. Deafness, you get the idea...

At the same time it can add a lot of complexity to monsters and pcs. When you sap the fighters str he now has to recalculate modifiers (albeit 5e is much simpler in this regard) to attack rolls and weight of armor, dex and AC, hp and con etc. Save modifiers change too.

Is ability damage and modification worth the added complexity in the base game? Is it worthy of a module? Could it be in a module considering this seems like a fundamentally core game function? So what is your take on ability damage and 5e?

 

[Sadrik]

My take is this is a very important game function and the core 5e mechanics have been developed so that ability damage is streamlined and easily adjudicated. Modifiers do not come from as many sources and if the character sheet is designed so that the stat is easily replaced with another value it can be simple. It also innately handles many conditions without having a bunch of conditions that duplicate the effects of what ability damage does anyway.

 

[jadrax]

I would like to see it, but it is not necessary.

 

[Mercule]

I really hate overdone level drain and permanent ability drain. Temporary ability damage is a nice mechanic that adds some tension and danger to an encounter (or adventuring day) without completely screwing the character, long-term (aside from that immediate increased risk of being dead thing). A lowered DEX is a nice middle ground between "I'm fine" and being paralyzed.

I said "expected and necessary", but that could soften. I don't see any alternative in to fill that niche, but allow for creativity from the design staff.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Given the range of stats in 5e (topping out at 20), and 'bounded accuracy' leaving soaking up and dishing out damage as about the only way to model advancement in skill/power, ability damage would be too coarse-grained a system to be usable. It also has the innate problem of a built-in 'death spiral,' in that abilities provide a big chunk of PC competence and defense, a creature that used an attack vs WIS to drain WIS, for instance, would not only need to deal very little damage to drop an 8-WIS character, each hit against even a high-WIS character would make the next hit easier.

Considering the level of abstraction and glichtiness D&D has always accepted in the use of hps, which avoid the 'death spiral' effect and rise with level, an end-run around them like that would be game-breaking.

 

[Prickly]

I vote not at all

I have found ability and level drain to be over complicated and not a fun mechanic as both a GM and a player.

I think there are better ways of handling poisons and soul sucking vampires.

4E had a disease track and that worked pretty well

 

[Sadrik]

Given the range of stats in 5e (topping out at 20), and 'bounded accuracy' leaving soaking up and dishing out damage as about the only way to model advancement in skill/power, ability damage would be too coarse-grained a system to be usable. It also has the innate problem of a built-in 'death spiral,' in that abilities provide a big chunk of PC competence and defense, a creature that used an attack vs WIS to drain WIS, for instance, would not only need to deal very little damage to drop an 8-WIS character, each hit against even a high-WIS character would make the next hit easier.

Considering the level of abstraction and glichtiness D&D has always accepted in the use of hps, which avoid the 'death spiral' effect and rise with level, an end-run around them like that would be game-breaking.

Would it change your mind if stats went higher than 20? It was stated stats go higher. That passage was for starting characters max was 20. And I disagree if you drop someone's wis score to try and sneak by them that makes sense to me.

 

[Sadrik]

I vote not at all

I have found ability and level drain to be over complicated and not a fun mechanic as both a GM and a player.

I think there are better ways of handling poisons and soul sucking vampires.

4E had a disease track and that worked pretty well

So you are for a subsystem for each potential ability damage type? A disease track for instance extrapolated over the system.

 

[SKyOdin]

No, ability damage leads to too many complications. It isn't that fun and other mechanics handle stuff like poison and disease much better.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Undecided. It depends on how dependent the system is overall on ability score modifiers, and how large those modifiers end up being.

On the one hand, ability score damage is a pretty effective way to integrate effects like disease, poison, and other things that bypass hit points. On the other hand, you don't want to have to completely recalculate your entire character sheet because of ability score damage (which in 3E at higher levels was certainly a royal pain).