D&D 5E Variable stat caps. Anyone ever used?

FrogReaver · Jul 12, 2019

mortwatcher said:
As some of the others pointed out, I kind of fail to see the purpose of this change. If the max cap is 20 anyway, you are going to put the highest cap on your primary stat so you can max it, you lowest cap on your dump stat that you would probably never put nowhere near the cap anyway, and then disperse the rest as you will. There are not that many opportunities (especially if you play with feats) to raise your stats anyway, so you are unlikely to cap more than 1 stat.

I had in mind roll in order assigned stat caps

Flamestrike · Jul 12, 2019

As a different variant, I've considered implementing a rule where:

1) Every ASI devoted to a stat of 10 or less raises that Stat by +4,
2) Every ASI devoted to a Stat of 18 or higher only raises it by +1

It encourages more diverse characters, and makes 'half feats' basically freebies for high stats.

I'm now toying with variations of that rule whereby ASI's grant 'points' that can be spent on advancing stats.

Something like: +1 to an ASI now grants 15 'Stat points', and it costs X number of Stat points (where X = the Stats value) to raise a Stat by +1.

So an ASI grants 30 points. Raising an Ability score of 8 to 9 costs (8 points). Raising it to 10 costs another 9 points. Raising it again to 11 costs another 10 points (leaving you with 3 'points' left over).

That said, it may have the opposite effect of encouraging dump stats at low level!

aco175 · Jul 12, 2019

I always liked having each race receive bonuses and penalties. It makes more sense that a halfling. cannot be as strong as a goliath, or an orc. A goliath cannot be a dexterous as a halfling. This is just the way it is. If you want a fighter, it makes more sense to pick one race over another and a thief over another race as well. If you do away with this, you should look at the other racial adjustments as well since the balance may be affected. A race getting +2 to strength may not get other cool things over a race getting +2 to something else.

At least nobody has brought up penalizing woman characters over male characters.

Flamestrike · Jul 12, 2019

aco175 said:
I always liked having each race receive bonuses and penalties. It makes more sense that a halfling. cannot be as strong as a goliath, or an orc. A goliath cannot be a dexterous as a halfling. This is just the way it is. If you want a fighter, it makes more sense to pick one race over another and a thief over another race as well. If you do away with this, you should look at the other racial adjustments as well since the balance may be affected. A race getting +2 to strength may not get other cool things over a race getting +2 to something else.

I'd really like to see more support for non-standard classes to break some of the 'Elven Wizard, Halfling Rogue, Half Orc Barbarian and Dwarven Fighter or Cleric' stereotypes.

Muscle wizards, or Int based fighters or charismatic Rogues.

At least nobody has brought up penalizing woman characters over male characters.

Or the even more cringe-worthy trend in Old School games to have different Human 'races', each with inherent Stat mods.

Scientific racism just blindly accepted and put in RPG form as if it was normal.

TSR's Birthright (which I loved) was really bad at that. As was Rolemaster and plenty of other games.

There was always a 'dark skinned race' that was penalized Intelligence and granted a bonus to Strength and was suited to 'Barbarians', or a 'fair skinned race' that got bonuses to Wisdom, or an 'asian themed race' that got bonuses to Dex and had favored class 'Monk'.

I am so glad we've moved on from that rubbish.

DND_Reborn · Jul 12, 2019

Flamestrike said:
As a different variant, I've considered implementing a rule where:

1) Every ASI devoted to a stat of 10 or less raises that Stat by +4,
2) Every ASI devoted to a Stat of 18 or higher only raises it by +1

It encourages more diverse characters, and makes 'half feats' basically freebies for high stats.

I'm now toying with variations of that rule whereby ASI's grant 'points' that can be spent on advancing stats.

Something like: +1 to an ASI now grants 15 'Stat points', and it costs X number of Stat points (where X = the Stats value) to raise a Stat by +1.

So an ASI grants 30 points. Raising an Ability score of 8 to 9 costs (8 points). Raising it to 10 costs another 9 points. Raising it again to 11 costs another 10 points (leaving you with 3 'points' left over).

That said, it may have the opposite effect of encouraging dump stats at low level!

You know, I like some of this idea a lot. It is much easier to improve something that is average than to make something good even better (the law of diminishing returns).

Flamestrike · Jul 12, 2019

dnd4vr said:
You know, I like some of this idea a lot. It is much easier to improve something that is average than to make something good even better (the law of diminishing returns).

It encourages more rounded characters, and makes a '20' something special.

Basically a PC with the 'default' array (plus racials, presuming +2/+1) winds up with a 17 (main stat), 2 x 14's, a 12, a 10 and an 8.

If he is dedicated to maxing out a single ability score (in his main stat) he will require at least 2 full ASI's to do it (1st ASI gets him +2 to 19, and the second one at 8th gets him +1 to 20). He winds up with:

20, 14, 14, 12, 10, 8.

If he's happy with the 17 and instead looks after 2 of his dump stats, he instead increases both by +4 for stats of:

17, 14, 14, 14, 14, 12.

Im still tweaking the idea.

WaterRabbit · Jul 12, 2019

I don't really care for this idea as it reduces race/class combinations. For example, I am currently playing the least common race/class combination -- Goliath/Wizard. Since we are using a point buy system, the character's stats are diverse by definition. I am also in a Pathfinder game at the moment as well. There is no way to create a Goliath/Wizard in Pathfinder and still have the character viable (aside that Goliaths aren't a race in PF).

None of the ideas presented so far seem to me to support non-stereotypical race/class combinations. I would be more in favor of getting rid of the racial stat adjustments. I would also like to see race and culture divorced more from the races to support more interesting concepts. For example, an elf raised by orcs should not have access to elven weapon training.

FrogReaver · Jul 13, 2019

WaterRabbit said:
I don't really care for this idea as it reduces race/class combinations. For example, I am currently playing the least common race/class combination -- Goliath/Wizard. Since we are using a point buy system, the character's stats are diverse by definition. I am also in a Pathfinder game at the moment as well. There is no way to create a Goliath/Wizard in Pathfinder and still have the character viable (aside that Goliaths aren't a race in PF).

My idea? I think it actually increases the likelihood of such characters - provided of course you do the stat capping after everything else has been determined.

None of the ideas presented so far seem to me to support non-stereotypical race/class combinations. I would be more in favor of getting rid of the racial stat adjustments. I would also like to see race and culture divorced more from the races to support more interesting concepts. For example, an elf raised by orcs should not have access to elven weapon training.

No system can cover every concept well. I think the half-elf raised by orcs is a great place for you and the DM to get together and agree on a houserule regarding that PC. It's such a minor exception I wouldn't expect that to be core in any system.

FrogReaver · Jul 13, 2019

dnd4vr said:
Again, it comes back to the same question: why a lower limit on stat caps? If you don't want racial bonuses that steer class selection, caps will do the same thing. If I find out my STR cap is 16, for example, I am less likely to pick a Fighter or other battler class, especially if my DEX cap is 16 also. Then it turns out my cap for CON and WIS are both 20. Now, a Druid maybe is looking nice "long-term".

The idea is to roll the stat cap after every other detail has been chosen (including stat assignments and class). I happen to think that people will be willing to take the risk of playing a character they really want as long as they have a semi decent chance of getting a good stat cap.

I don't know, the more I think about it the more I realize it just doesn't seem that anything like this will influence things. How many stats do you typically see that reach the 20 cap, especially outside of the primary stat? We have one, but it is in the primary anyway.

In my proposed system there's a decent chance your primary stat would be capped below 20.

Finally, I do like the idea of reducing racial bonuses to only +1, and I also like the idea of bringing back a -1 penalty to offset it. Maybe instead of a +2, make it two +1's? Or, just remove stat bonuses altogether for race and class and don't worry about it. If you want a strong half-orc, but a high stat in STR, if you want an agile elf, but the high stat in DEX, a smart gnome would have high INT.

I was thinking two +1's would be better. That actually pairs better against the base human with +1 in everything too.

FrogReaver · Jul 13, 2019

Flamestrike said:
As a different variant, I've considered implementing a rule where:

1) Every ASI devoted to a stat of 10 or less raises that Stat by +4,
2) Every ASI devoted to a Stat of 18 or higher only raises it by +1

It encourages more diverse characters, and makes 'half feats' basically freebies for high stats.

I'm now toying with variations of that rule whereby ASI's grant 'points' that can be spent on advancing stats.

Something like: +1 to an ASI now grants 15 'Stat points', and it costs X number of Stat points (where X = the Stats value) to raise a Stat by +1.

So an ASI grants 30 points. Raising an Ability score of 8 to 9 costs (8 points). Raising it to 10 costs another 9 points. Raising it again to 11 costs another 10 points (leaving you with 3 'points' left over).

That said, it may have the opposite effect of encouraging dump stats at low level!