D&D 5E Reduced standard array in exchange for a bonus feat at 1st.

[ccooke]

By the standard point buy rules you can't buy anything higher than a 15. The only way to get an 18 with this rule is to buy a 15, get a +2 racial bonus and then spend four points to get a half feat bumping that to 18. That gives an array something like 15, 14, 11, 10, 10, 8. So... one great stat, one good, three average, one bad. That's okay, really.

 

[Flamestrike]

By the standard point buy rules you can't buy anything higher than a 15. The only way to get an 18 with this rule is to buy a 15, get a +2 racial bonus and then spend four points to get a half feat bumping that to 18. That gives an array something like 15, 14, 11, 10, 10, 8.

Nah, what you'd see a lot of is an array of: 15, 14, 13, 10, 8, 8

The +2 racial raises the 15 to 17 and the +1 racial raises the 13 to 14. Barring the 17, all even numbers (17, 14, 14, 10, 8, 8).

You're then faced with the choice of a half feat for the +1 to your main ability score to bump it to 18, or going with something like GWM, Sharpshooter, Lucky or Alert (the 'big 4').

Casters would drop the 17/18 in their casting Stat, and the 14's in Dex and Con.

 

[Scott Christian]

Just let them have both. The game will not break, and it'll make them feel great about their characters.

 

[Krachek]

Don’t bother with array, once character is setup add a feat in exchange of -2 con.

 

[GlassJaw]

Meh, stat adjustments aren't needed at all. Too messy. Better off keeping everyone at the same level to start. A couple of stat points isn't going to affect balance at all, but some players may be intimidated by the choice of stat points vs. feat. Remove the anxiety.

Human does need to be tweaked though. Here's what I do:

+1 to all stats, or +2 and +1 to 2
1 bonus language
1 bonus skill proficiency
1 bonus tool, gaming set, or instrument

 

[jgsugden]

While it wil increase the power level of the PCs, just granting a feat at level 1 to all PCs will not break the game.

 

[Li Shenron]

Standard human has +1 to six abilities
Variant human has +1 to two abilities + 1 skill prof + 1 feat

I'd let a character have +1 to three abilities + 1 feat, if they really don't want the skill.

 

[Mistwell]

I'm thinking about reducing the Standard array to 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 8 and granting all races a bonus feat at 1st level.

That leaves room for a 16 in your main stat and a 14 in your secondary stat for all races (accounting for a half feat for Humans) and a 12 in a tertiary stat (two tertiary stats for Humans on account of the +1 to all scores).

Thoughts? Would you change any of the numbers?

I think this should work fine. If you try it out I hope you let us know how it goes.

 

[Jediking]

By the standard point buy rules you can't buy anything higher than a 15. The only way to get an 18 with this rule is to buy a 15, get a +2 racial bonus and then spend four points to get a half feat bumping that to 18. That gives an array something like 15, 14, 11, 10, 10, 8. So... one great stat, one good, three average, one bad. That's okay, really.

Nah, what you'd see a lot of is an array of: 15, 14, 13, 10, 8, 8

The +2 racial raises the 15 to 17 and the +1 racial raises the 13 to 14. Barring the 17, all even numbers (17, 14, 14, 10, 8, 8).

You're then faced with the choice of a half feat for the +1 to your main ability score to bump it to 18, or going with something like GWM, Sharpshooter, Lucky or Alert (the 'big 4').

Casters would drop the 17/18 in their casting Stat, and the 14's in Dex and Con.

You are both correct, but in my experience I have only had a couple players start with an 18 out of this. Many of the +1 feats are limited in their additional scopes, and it never really affected anything. The risk of having a truly bad dump stat in either CON/DEX/WIS or limit their other roles helped balance it out.

YMMV, but it hasn't been an issue for me

 

[Charlaquin]

Whenever I run a game, I use point buy (27 points).
Any player can spend 4 points on a feat (leaving 23 points), and a character can only have one feat at 1st level.

it has worked out great and I haven’t seen any balance issues yet. Opens up a lot more options for players, and usually 1-2 players choose it.

*Remember that a feat is worth +2 to any ability score, but at character creation it is balanced as +2 to primary ability scores (scores that are 13+ that cost 2 pts to raise). So the total value is 2*2=4 pts

I like this a lot. I might steal it.

EDIT: I suppose you could apply the same logic to arrays and say you can either take the standard 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 or take the lowered 15, 14, 11, 10, 10, 8 plus a Feat. Maybe even rolled stats. 4d6 drop lowest or 3d6 and a feat.