D&D 5E Classes - Primary Stat Secondary Stat

[JacktheRabbit]

Currently the way character classes are is rather ad-hoc. There is no desire to balance the classes between the stats which purely in my opinion is a mistake. Charisma has gone from being pretty close to pointless in 1E to be the incredibly inportant in 5E. This is just for fun, this is not an indication that I think the current system is crap. One possible consequence is one would have to create Constitution based skills so that class that are Con primary do not become skill nerfed.

With this in mind I was thinking of a rebalance of classes where every class had a primary stat and a secondary stat that all abilities are based around and where we try to spread out the classes as much as possible. Having that thought in mind this is how I would balance the classes. Would you ability score them different?

Class - Primary Stat - Secondary Stat - Reason/Thought
Barbarian
Constitution / Strength
The harsh barbarian life makes one hearty and strong

Bard
Charisma / Intelligence
A performer and keeper of lore

Cleric
Wisdom / Charisma
Wisdom from the Gods and the ability to promote ones god

Druid
Wisdom / Dexterity
Being one with nature you glide about it

Fighter
Strength /Constitution
You carry a big weapon, you wear heavy armor, you kill things

Monk
Dexterity /Wisdom
Your a wise and wiley figure moving deftly with purpose

Paladin
Charisma / Strength
The shining face of righteousness and its strong arm

Ranger
Strength / Dexterity
Strong and Agile through the wild

Rogue
Dexterity / Charisma
Nimble to succeed and personable to talk your way out when you dont

Sorcerer
Constitution / Intelligence
Your power comes from within and you have studied it closely

Warlock
Intelligence / Constitution
You study the beyond gaining its knowledge and hardening your body with its abuse

Wizard
Intelligence / Wisdom
You study, you learn, you study more, you learn more.


As you level up you gain major abilities that work off your primary stat and lesser but useful abilities that work off your secondary stat.

 

[FrogReaver]

Them are very limited subsets of the archetypes those classes are meant to be able to portray

 

[ccs]

Charisma has gone from being pretty close to pointless in 1E to ~~~

This right here told me to stop reading.

 

[Nevvur]

Warlock = Intelligence
Paladin = Wisdom
Everyone's secondary stat = Con

Done.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This right here told me to stop reading.

That's great. Thanks for telling us this! It was really important that we know how much you didn't want to participate in the thread.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I am a big fan of TAD (two attribute dependency) as a design goal, and greater/lesser stat would be an interesting way to do that. I think the classes would probably need a pretty big overhaul to make it work. Maybe like races, the class would have a primary stat, and the subclass would have a secondary stat. That would probably make the idea more palatable to people who want things like a dex barbarian. Plus every class could have (in theory at least) five subclasses (one for each stat).

 

[Satyrn]

Oh my.

I'd rather go the other way, and divorce classes from ability scores altogether - or maybe find some way to make all ability scores roughly equal in importance to any class.

So, like, give a fighter something that uses Intelligence, some other thing that uses Charisma, and make these things so that a fighter who pumps up his Intelligence and Charisma over Strength and Constitution is equally but differently as good as the stereotypical fighter.

And thus in doing so leave it up to each player to ppace his ability scores in whatever way fits his concept, without being constrained by the rules to play the stereotype.

 

[steeldragons]

I very much enjoy and appreciate (and use in my own homebrew system games) using multiple ability scores to help define -and differentiate- classes. It is also useful in helping to provide some degree of "in world" occurrence.

That is, are there Paladins walking around your world as commonly as Fighters? I'm going to wager that for most games/settings, that's going to be a "no." Are there as many Paladins walking around as Barbarians? Again, in most worlds, my instinct is telling me that is probably not the case.

Of course, doing this effectively means you do have to bring back in BECM-2e's Ability Score minimums to be the gatekeeper of how many of what classes might be found in a given world (or party). I tend to follow a general scale, that each ability increases with each additional ability.

I take the Big 4 "root" classes, they are singular ability classes. The broadest access and easiest to do well in (because you need not be overly concerned with increasing more than your "Primary" ability score).

So, to flesh out the above example...

Fighter: Str. Pretty much any warrior guy.

So anybody with a Str of 9 or better can be a Fighter.

A Barbarian is a special kind of warrior guy, whether you define them through culture or combat-technique or combinations thereof. No one is going to dispute that Barbarians are/need to be "tough." SO...

Barbarian: Str. + Con.

Barbarians would need a 13 Str., minimum, and then a 9 in Con. On the whole, Barbarians are just going to be bigger stronger guys/gals than a good chunk of your run-of-the-mill fighters (town guards, common soldiers, at least a percentage of adventuring explorers, etc...).

What's another warrior guy? OO! That knight in shiny armor archetype, upstanding guy with the divine calling/oath to a greater purpose, and divine magic or magical powers granted for their strength of faith and personality. Sounds to me like that guy ought to be...

Paladin: [warrior guy] Str. + [divinely powers/-ed] Wis. + [personal fortitude in convictions/ideals] Cha.

Ergo, Paladins would need a 13 Str. [Heavy armors is heavy ], a minimum Wisdom of 13 (your are wiser/more enlightened, by definition, than I would gather most common Fighters), and then you also need a minimum of 9 Cha. to be able to start out as a 1st level Paladin.

 

[CubicsRube]

That's great. Thanks for telling us this! It was really important that we know how much you didn't want to participate in the thread.

I think the point (thast i strongly agree with) from ccs is that charisma was the god stat in 1e.

Not sure at all why op said it was near useless.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I am a big fan of TAD (two attribute dependency) as a design goal, and greater/lesser stat would be an interesting way to do that. I think the classes would probably need a pretty big overhaul to make it work. Maybe like races, the class would have a primary stat, and the subclass would have a secondary stat. That would probably make the idea more palatable to people who want things like a dex barbarian. Plus every class could have (in theory at least) five subclasses (one for each stat).

That was my other thought but it would take a lot more work to put in a single post and would require as much or more work to implement. Barbarian would mean constitution and then the two to four subclasses that are based off a second stat.