If they're serious about "flatter math," then WotC needs to deal with ability scores.

[Ridley's Cohort]

3e explicitly said that +2 is the smallest off the cuff circumstance mod that the DM should bother worrying over. I think that was golden advice. A +1 is a small difference unless we are suffering a dicefest.

Is it really true that so many of you want a 13 Str and a 17 Str to feel about the same?

I suspect that many people are just assuming that the primary stat is going to be 18. The reasoning is not exactly wrong, but it is circular. If my Fighter needs an 18 to be obviously better at thwacking things than the merely slightly athletic Rogue, well, I guess 18 is going to be the only game in town.

Furthermore, I think a ramping scale on top of a ramping scale is silly. If 18 costs a mountain of "gen resources" than a non-flat bonus table is pointless. Get the cost correct in the first place.

 

[Markn]

So far this discussion has focused on stats for PCs. Keep in mind stats for monsters. Judging by the latest L&L article, most monster stats will fall in the 3-18 range as well (some pushing the boundries a little bit). That being the case, and with no bonus to hit based on level, we need the current range of +/- modifiers as opposed to older D&D ones to help differentiate monsters. If you think about it, and reading into the L&L article a bit, the to hit bonus between a goblin and a minotaur isn't going to be much. Most of the differences come down to the modifier for the attribute that gets used to attack with with level (likely a 5 level spread between the two monsters) not playing a role - at all!

So I favor the current spread. For the most part, its the only math the system can play with - unless they start handing out modifiers again, which is something they seem to be trying to avoid.

 

[BASHMAN]

I'd be okay with them changing it to this scale:

18 = +3
16-17= +2
13-15 = +1
9-12 = +0
6-8 = -1
4-5 = -2
3 = -3

It flattens the math, and also is a tip of the hat to BECMI.

 

[Falling Icicle]

I'm of the exact opposite mindset as the OP. I'm worried that, with skills only granting a meager +3 bous and there not really being any other significant bonuses gained from leveling, that the maximum +5 of ability scores is not enough. The game already feels far too swingy as it is, with the d20 roll mattering much, much more than one's ability scores and skills do.

Looking at their DC table, a "trivial" task is DC 10, and a moderately difficult task is DC 14. I would expect that a person that has achieved the pinnacle of human perfection in an ability score (20, +5) and is trained in the task being attempted would almost always succeed at a "moderately" difficult task. And yet, he will not. With his +8 total bonus he needs to roll at least a 6 on his d20 to succeed, meaning he has a 25% chance of failure.

A 25% greater chance of success between an 8 ability score and an 18 is the very least I'd want to see. To use Strength for an example, we're talking about a scrawny, below average person compared to an olympic bodybuilder! Or let's compare an incredibly agile gymnist to a fairly clumsy person. I watch the kinds of things that they can do and I can't imagine even being able to attempt some of the things they can pull off. I'd expect such a person to have alot more than a 25% advantage over a clumsy person like myself!

 

[B.T.]

For those who want more variance between skill rolls, I think I would suggest keeping ability score modifiers the same (10 is +0, 12 is +1, etc.) but only apply half your ability score modifier to attack rolls and you can apply the whole ability score modifier to skill checks.

 

[dfan]

I'm of the exact opposite mindset as the OP. I'm worried that, with skills only granting a meager +3 bous and there not really being any other significant bonuses gained from leveling, that the maximum +5 of ability scores is not enough. The game already feels far too swingy as it is, with the d20 roll mattering much, much more than one's ability scores and skills do.

Totally. It seems like the designers have already decided on the basic math (and of course the d20 mechanic has been around forever), but ability scores seem like a drop in the bucket compared to the swings of a flat d20. To put it another way, when you and I both make strength checks, and your strength is 18 compared to my 8, our gigantic different in strength is only going to make any difference at all 25% of the time.

I'm sure people have played with variants like rolling 4d6-4 instead of 1d20. That would make modifiers a lot more useful in common situations (because your +5 could move the success threshold from one side of the bell curve hump to the other). At that point you're basically playing a different game, though...

 

[tomBitonti]

Except that an 8 is hardly a clumsy oaf. It's slightly below average.

Yeah. And looking at differences, the range is nominally -4 to +4, so the possible difference is up to 8 (abs) -- 40% -- which seems quite large.

(Actually, that is cheating, but just a little: The low end is really -3.5, since a 2 is not in the usual range. An "average" value of 10.5 works out to an average slightly higher than zero. Is it 0.25? I'm not sure if the shift of the distribution actually works out to that.)

The problem with high ability scores, taken with feats like power attack, is that the resulting values wash out the difference between weapon types. The math of stats and feats makes what actual weapon is used, aside from the weapon basic properties (light/1-H/2-H) irrelevant.

What meaning is there between a 1-8 and a 1-10, when you throw around bonuses of +4 (or +6) for Str, +2 (and more) for power attack.

TomB

 

[Minigiant]

What meaning is there between a 1-8 and a 1-10, when you throw around bonuses of +4 (or +6) for Str, +2 (and more) for power attack.

TomB

What meaning is there between a +0 bonus and a +2 bonus, when you throw around base rolls of 1-20 (and more) for normal attacks?

 

[chriton227]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is that a 25% swing in the chance of success is not the same as a 25% swing in effectiveness. Assume a situation where a PC with a +2 stat hits on 11+, that would be a 50% chance of success. The +4 stat would be a 9+ (60%), the -1 would be a 14+ (35%). The high stat character isn't hitting 25% more often than the low stat character, they are hitting 71% more often. As the base target number increases, this becomes more pronounced. If the +2 stat needed a 15+ (30%), the high stat would need a 13+ (40%) and the low stat would need a 18+ (15%), so the high stat character would be hitting almost 3x as often. On the flip side, the easier the target number the lower the swing in effectiveness would be, but unless the target number dipped to zero or below the swing in effectiveness would never be less than 25%.

In my experience across a number of D&D campaigns of various editions, even a 1-2 point difference in attack bonus can be very noticable. It was less the case in 3.x than in 4e since iterative attacks gave you more chances to hit and attacks at the highest attack bonus tended to hit fairly reliably, but in 4e we've had many sessions followed up with trying to brainstorm how to get a character just another point or two because of how noticable the slight attack bonus difference was. I'd be a fan of returning to a bonus progression more like the old Basic D&D (-3 to +3).

 

[tomBitonti]

What meaning is there between a +0 bonus and a +2 bonus, when you throw around base rolls of 1-20 (and more) for normal attacks?

When attacking with a 2-H weapon, a +2 bonus turns into a +4 to damage, if you convert the bonus into power attack. If you had 1-12 + 6 damage (say), then the expected damage per hit goes from 12.5 to 16.5, for about 30% more damage.

If you hit on a 16 (25%), then a +2 makes that 35%, for 40% more damage (ignoring crits).

TomB

Although: This is perhaps more a statement of problems in 3.5E, problems which may not translate into D&DNext. The problem is that Str adds to both attack bonus and to damage. Dex has a related problem in that it affects AC and Weapon Finesse Attack Bonus and AOO's (with combat reflexes) and Reflex Saves.