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

[Campbell]

Must spread XP before giving to [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION].

This pretty much encapsulates my preferences. I'm not really a fan of sidestepping the abstraction that hp provide because it pokes that abstraction in the eye. Poking the abstraction in the eye is bad because it makes me look at D&D too closely. When looking at D&D too closely I see its made up of a house of cards. When you look at the house of cards they all tumble down.

Campbell "I guess I'm sort of channeling Hong" Oi.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I am going with "Nope" because in order for ability score damage to really work as a sub-system of the rules, the following needs to be true:

(1) It needs to be baked into monster statistics at a minimum. So a creature with poison would need to note that it does "X dex/str/whatever" damage from the outset of the system. Switching to an optional corebook for cross-referencing is probably not in the cards.

(2) Likewise, it needs to be baked into the spells, including some we'll almost certainly see early on like Feeblemind and Ray of Enfeeblement.

(3) It makes assumptions about how monsters are built that goes outside what I expect out of a simple monster-building system - namely that ability scores shouldn't directly affect a monster's stats. I don't want them built like a PC; that's an excess I've left behind.

So given all that, I don't think it works as an optional module. Maybe I'm wrong - and I hope so for all the people it's important to.

I think this objection is easy to handle, with a little discipline by the authors. All you need is some evocative keywords, sometimes mixed with some numbers for scaling. This is, in my opinion, how early D&D poison types were intended to work. They just got side-tracked.

So you don't say that a monster with a paralytic poision does 3 points of Str damage or whatever. Rather, you list it as "Paralytic Poison V" or similar.


Then you have modules like this, with an entry for each type and level. Paralytic Poison V might work out to this:

• Simple Narrative - does 3d6 poison damage. If character reduced to zero hit points, becomes paralyzed.
• Simple Grit - character is paralyzed right now.
• Ability damage - character loses 3 points of Str (with Str 0 or less being effectively paralyzed).
• Sim Grit - detailed, semi-realistic/fantastical nerve poison mechanic.

I'm assuming above that the saving throws would be outside the listing and put into the monster stats, as these would be common across listings, but if I'm wrong, they could be embedded into the listings, too.

That might sound like a lot of work, but this isn't like looking up spell listings for an NPC high-level wizard. You don't care about all of those options. If you are doing "Simple Grit", then you only care about those options. You care about the difference between Paralytic Poison V versus the VI version. And you care about the distinctions between Paralytic Poisons and other types of poisons. The whole thing probably fits on a single sheet, and after a few adventures, you've got it mainly memorized.

Not every indirection into a module is complicated in practice.

 

[On Puget Sound]

Ability alterations, plus or minus, are a big turn-off in 3e/ PF and I would not like to see them in 5e. Every barbarian needs two stats on character sheets (raging and normal); every casting of Enlarge Person requires 10 minutes of re-jiggering. "-1 to hit and AC for size, and -2 DEX means another -1 to AC, and to hit for ranged attacks, but +2 STR gives +1 attack for melee, so that cancels out the size penalty, and...what? Ray of enfeeblement? I need another eraser."

 

[Steely_Dan]

It's the during combat recalculations that are annoying.

 

[Greg K]

Ability alterations, plus or minus, are a big turn-off in 3e/ PF and I would not like to see them in 5e. Every barbarian needs two stats on character sheets (raging and normal); every casting of Enlarge Person requires 10 minutes of re-jiggering. "-1 to hit and AC for size, and -2 DEX means another -1 to AC, and to hit for ranged attacks, but +2 STR gives +1 attack for melee, so that cancels out the size penalty, and...what? Ray of enfeeblement? I need another eraser."

You could base it off the 3.0 DMG variant in which Ability damage = penalty to all associated rolls (attack, ability, skill, saving throws).

 

[Sadrik]

I would normally say "it's okay in a module" but I had to pick "Nope" here. And here's why...

I don't like the fiddliness of ability score damage. I don't like stopping a game for 5 minutes, 20 minutes, or more to recalculate everyone's derived statistics. That goes with buffs, debuffs, polymorphs, dispels, and - yes - on-the-fly ability score changes. It may be an easier burden in Next, but I don't think ability score damage does much interesting stuff that an easier-to-track mechanism wouldn't.

I think this will be easy. It will not take that amount of time, 3e did not take that long and 5e is much simpler mathematically. I think your opinion is a valid one but I think the rules for this are much simpler than you speculate. This is a pretty necessary addition in my mind. Why have such a simple and elegant system and not include this? For me the little amount of realism gained, I do not require a whole lot, is very appropriate to defining what a '0' stat is defined as. So rather than having a ton of conditions added to the game that you have to look up why not have this simply a part of the game. Everyone knows what I lost 6 points of CON means. Everyone does not know what the condition for poisoned is, and which poisoned condition? Which brings me to every poison and disease is a separate condition and it is binary on or off? This does not sound like a very good scenario to me. Further, in my mind stat damage makes it simpler for everyone at the table. A myriad of conditions and their required book look ups is not what I am looking for in my game.

I don't think it works as an optional module. It needs to be a deeply-embedded part of the system, or it won't work at all.

Here is where we agree, I think it would actually be easier to bake it in the system and then remove the concept of stat damage and add in the slew of conditions as an option. So if a creature says deals 1d6 con damage then you would just apply one of the conditions such as sicked with a failed save or something. Going the other way around I think you would have to rewrite sections. At least with the conditions module you just ignore those written sections and say stat damage = a condition or a condition track and then you go and look up said condition in the module.

* Sidebar: And actually that makes no sense to me; dextrous people are not more resistant to poison by virtue of being dextrous.

I think resisting poison should be a CON save. And it still is in the 5e playtest as far as I remember it when I ran it. If you are talking about a -1d6 DEX damage affecting a low DEX person more after they have failed their save. Then I agree that does take some explaining. The dextrous person vs the extremely clumsy, sure the super dex guy is less effected by the poison after failing a a CON save. A guy with 18 DEX and a guy with 12 DEX both take 6 DEX damage 2/3 vs. 1/2 effectiveness. It is a benefit of being dexterous. I'll reconsider I have no problem with this.

 

[nightwyrm]

Has anyone given any thought about how much should stat loss impact character performance? With the whole "bounded accuracy" thing DDN has going on and even magic items being limited to +3s, any ability damage could be a very steep death spiral.

Also, how do you prevent the game from being just about ability damage and those who can deal it? In 3e, the wizard's prefered method of killing a dragon was shivering touch, not cutting through its hundreds of hp.

 

[Dausuul]

It depends.

Ability damage is a nice alternative to conventional hit point damage, and a great way to model certain effects. So in principle, I would like to see something along those lines.

However, in practice, ability damage in 3E was a nightmare of cascading modifiers which I don't ever want to deal with again. It's one of the reasons I don't like derived stats (e.g., your attack bonus is derived from your Strength bonus, item modifiers, class, and level; your Strength bonus is derived from your Strength score; your Strength score is derived from your base Strength, enhancement bonus, inherent bonus, and size modifier). I was hoping 5E would cut way back on the number and complexity of those, but it looks like ability scores will continue to modify a variety of other stats; in which case, I'm against anything that changes ability scores on a short-term basis.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

This may have already been mentioned, but how about having ability damage applied simply as a penalty to all checks based on the appropriate ability?

Perhaps an additional rule could be that once your penalty reaches a certain point (perhaps equal to your normal score, or half of your normal score), you become incapable of performing actions based on that ability. A simple description of what that means for each ability where it isn't obvious could be supplied.

No recalculating character sheets or complex new sub-systems necessary.