D&D 5E D&D Q&A 12/13: Racial Ability Scores, Cleric Options & Monsters

[nightwalker450]

I prefer no penalties, because then no option looks like a bad idea.

The truth behind the math is that we still have penalties, since the human baseline was moved up, they are actually the ONLY race with a bonus. All of the other races simply have 1 stat that is at baseline and penalties to everything else.

-- Baseline is now +1 to all stats.
Human +1 to stat of your choice
Dwarf -1 to all stats except Constitution or Wisdom (pick one)
Elf -1 to all stats except Dexterity or Intelligence (pick one)
Halfling -1 to all stats except Dexterity or Constitution (pick one)

 

[Kobold Stew]

I prefer no penalties, because then no option looks like a bad idea.

The truth behind the math is that we still have penalties, since the human baseline was moved up, they are actually the ONLY race with a bonus. All of the other races simply have 1 stat that is at baseline and penalties to everything else.

-- Baseline is now +1 to all stats.

This argument just shows how artificial the use of "carrot" and "stick" is, when one can re-define baseline to be "with a bonus".

 

[Ratskinner]

I've been thinking about ability scores quite a bit lately, and I think D&D should either divorce them entirely from class abilities (ending MAD, etc.) or it should just wrap them into classes directly. I prefer divorcing them, because then that makes it very easy to create the high-charisma fighter, or the high dexterity wizard, etc.

For those who need simulationist justification for things...well, its really about what a "level" means. Instead of representing a discrete unit of expertise/training, you can reconstrue level to mean an overall assessment of your (primarily combat) abilities. So the Strong and Charismatic fighter both do the same damage with the same chance to hit. They just achieve it in different ways; the Strong by pushing through, the Charismatic through feints and flourishes, the Dextrous through is puissance and speed.

It gets a little weirder for Rogues and their skill-centric class design, but its certainly not an insurmountable problem.

Alternatively, have multiple fighter-ish classes for the various styles of fighter, each one gets ability scores according to what they need. (For that matter, just make "Feat of Strength" a fighter class ability and call it a day.) Let's just skip this muddling stage of separating the ability and the class.

You can do the same thing with races and note that if your class and race have the same/similar "ability stunt" that they stack.

Of course, I realize that this would probably "not be D&D" for some people, so we'll never see it. ::shrug::

 

[Sunseeker]

This argument just shows how artificial the use of "carrot" and "stick" is, when one can re-define baseline to be "with a bonus".

Considering that with proper language, one could argue an apple is an orange, that's not really something to hold against them.

We could have no stat-bonuses and only get racial features. But I'd rather that list be kept short, I'd hate to have a laundry-list of stuff to consider when making a character, and giving dwarves "Iron stomach" as their class feature is going to pigeon-hole them a lot worse than giving them +1 to a stat.

 

[Sunseeker]

I've been thinking about ability scores quite a bit lately, and I think D&D should either divorce them entirely from class abilities (ending MAD, etc.) or it should just wrap them into classes directly. I prefer divorcing them, because then that makes it very easy to create the high-charisma fighter, or the high dexterity wizard, etc.

For those who need simulationist justification for things...well, its really about what a "level" means. Instead of representing a discrete unit of expertise/training, you can reconstrue level to mean an overall assessment of your (primarily combat) abilities. So the Strong and Charismatic fighter both do the same damage with the same chance to hit. They just achieve it in different ways; the Strong by pushing through, the Charismatic through feints and flourishes, the Dextrous through is puissance and speed.

It gets a little weirder for Rogues and their skill-centric class design, but its certainly not an insurmountable problem.

Alternatively, have multiple fighter-ish classes for the various styles of fighter, each one gets ability scores according to what they need. (For that matter, just make "Feat of Strength" a fighter class ability and call it a day.) Let's just skip this muddling stage of separating the ability and the class.

You can do the same thing with races and note that if your class and race have the same/similar "ability stunt" that they stack.

Of course, I realize that this would probably "not be D&D" for some people, so we'll never see it. ::shrug::

Since damage and skills are really the only things we use the base 6 stats for, if we removed them from affecting those things, we might as well eliminate them entirely.

 

[dkyle]

Since damage and skills are really the only things we use the base 6 stats for, if we removed them from affecting those things, we might as well eliminate them entirely.

He didn't say to not have skills be based on ability scores, but that class abilities should be independent of ability scores. I think the mention of Rogues was to suggest that making their skill-based design independent of ability scores is tricky precisely because skills would still be based on ability scores.

Assuming that interpretation, I agree. Ability scores should just be used for skills. Let classes/feats/specialties/whatever work with any ability score allocation. In particular, there's very little reason to forcibly tie combat mechanics with skill mechanics through ability scores.

Really, Gygax got this mostly right in the very original D&D. Ability scores had very limited mechanical impact, and where there more for inspiration and to help resolve actions not specifically addressed by the rules, things which are now codified into skills.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

The last several updates about Next all seem to be "play my way". If I want to play a "white mage" I'm locked out of certain deities, and if I want to play a martial cleric I'm locked out of others? If as a DM I want original or non-traditional deities, that may not be supported by the cleric creation rules?

For better or for worse, it sounds to me like they're putting a bit more of character creation in the hands of the DM than was the case for a lot of groups in 4e.

They say in this very Q&A that there will be DM guidelines for deity/domain creation, so if you want to play a martial cleric of a non-martial deity, you can just use those guidelines to customize... IF the DM is on board with it.

Honestly I think this is one of those things that will prove a powerful tool for campaign building. The DM (or campaign setting guide) gets to decide what kind of weapons, armor, and spells a Cleric of Thor (or whoever) is trained to use, and if you want to make an odd PC who worships Thor but fights with a crossbow, you can have a talk with the DM to customize the domain and fit that character thematically into the game world.

 

[Nellisir]

I think there are a couple issues with 5e races that confuse the issue a bit. Like, if the only way to offset not having penalties is to give humans +1 to everything, that seems a bit silly to me.

Yeah...I'm not quite sure how to do what I did in the current system, at least not smoothly.

The last campaign I ran, I got rid of 3-18 stats and just used bonuses. Str +1, Dex +2, Con +0, Int +2, Wis -1, Chr +3, for instance. Characters started with all stats at +0, they had 7 points to allocate, and they could reduce stats (but not lower than -2) for a few more points. +3 starting cap on all stats. Instead of bonuses or penalties, I just tweaked the caps. Dwarves could have up to a starting +4 bonus in Con or Wis, but no more than a +2 in Chr, for instance. It encouraged certain traits and discouraged others, but everyone had the same number of points and nobody was penalized. The players were very happy with the whole system, and I thought it ran slick as anything.

 

[Sunseeker]

He didn't say to not have skills be based on ability scores, but that class abilities should be independent of ability scores. I think the mention of Rogues was to suggest that making their skill-based design independent of ability scores is tricky precisely because skills would still be based on ability scores.

Assuming that interpretation, I agree. Ability scores should just be used for skills. Let classes/feats/specialties/whatever work with any ability score allocation. In particular, there's very little reason to forcibly tie combat mechanics with skill mechanics through ability scores.

Really, Gygax got this mostly right in the very original D&D. Ability scores had very limited mechanical impact, and where there more for inspiration and to help resolve actions not specifically addressed by the rules, things which are now codified into skills.

I disagree, I like the stats of my character to influence their abilities. When you take stats out of it, it just makes everything too cookie-cutter and as I already pointed out, begs the question of needing stats at all. Why not just have each class give a fixed array of stats in that case?

 

[Sunseeker]

Yeah...I'm not quite sure how to do what I did in the current system, at least not smoothly.

The last campaign I ran, I got rid of 3-18 stats and just used bonuses. Str +1, Dex +2, Con +0, Int +2, Wis -1, Chr +3, for instance. Characters started with all stats at +0, they had 7 points to allocate, and they could reduce stats (but not lower than -2) for a few more points. +3 starting cap on all stats. Instead of bonuses or penalties, I just tweaked the caps. Dwarves could have up to a starting +4 bonus in Con or Wis, but no more than a +2 in Chr, for instance. It encouraged certain traits and discouraged others, but everyone had the same number of points and nobody was penalized. The players were very happy with the whole system, and I thought it ran slick as anything.

See, now that's a, to quote you, "slick" way to improve on stats. Why do we need base scores AND modifiers? Why not just use the modifiers? The only thing we need to keep the full scores around for is ability damage, which is kind of obnoxious anyway and I'd be happy to get rid of. Makes a +6 str much less OMGWTFBBQPWNAGE than a 22 str.