Xeviat
Dungeon Mistress, she/her
Hi everyone. Long time player, started with 3E and have followed D&D through the editions. I've been a DM most of the time and I'm very much down with house rules. Back in 3E, I had made my own classes, expanded the skill system, rebalanced the weapon table, and even made a full MP system for magic. Two-Weapon Fighting was my big problem child in 3E. I definitely lean towards the rules oriented approach to the game, and I appreciated 3E's skill examples over 5E's "just wing it" approach.
My guiding principle as a rules modder is "all options should be viable". And it is from there that I come to look at something fundamental to D&D: Constitution. I believe the Constitution ability is flawed. It is something that all characters want; in all of my 5E games, all characters have been built with at least a 12 Con, with the vast majority having a 14 (I've seen two 16 Cons, one on a Dwarf Fighter and another on a Goliath Barbarian). This has basically become a non-choice.
Yesterday, though, it dawned on me that there is another issue with Constitution: it doesn't define a character. The other stats are easy to build archetypes around: the strong-guy, the agile-guy, the smart-guy, the wise-guy (not the wiseguy), and the charming-guy (sometimes the wiseguy). The tough-guy archetype significantly overlaps with the strong-guy.
Constitution is an entirely passive ability score. It's a stat everyone wants as high as they can get it, and no build can shrug and say, eh this isn't important for my character. Having an average or a low constitution gives your character a drawback that cannot be minimized or overcame, like the other stats.
I think 4E was the only edition that I've played where Constition didn't bother me. It gave a one time HP bonus (con score) that felt like it became less important as you gained levels. It also increased your healing surge number, which was it's real strength, but this was hidden hp that felt less important to characters who didn't put themselves into danger. It was still not in a great position as far as ability scores went (if your class didn't use Str, you always put a higher Con than Str, and high Str characters felt a little disincentivized from having a high Con), but it felt a little better.
So, does anyone have any thoughts on what could be done with Constitution to make it more like the other ability scores? To balance it out so an 8 isn't fatal and make it possible that someone would put their highest stat there? Something so the bulk of characters aren't walking around with 14s?
If I were designing a game from the ground up, I'd have constition grand an active endurance point system. Something that could be used to power movement or defensive, and offensive, skills. Something like Skyrim's stamina system. A warrior could be built with higher stamina than strength and focus on special techniques over consistant output, but someone who wasn't intending on using those types of abilities would feel less incentivized to push for a high Con. I'd affix HP to Strength, since the Strong archetypes are also the Tough archetypes, and to give a reason for non strength attackers to want a higher Str.
The high-con archetype would then become the athletic character, which is different from the strong/tough character. We could even go a step further and build the sorcerer off of con, since it's inborn magic, but that would be very different.
What do you think? What con scores do you see in your game. If you don't think it's a problem, why? If you agree, what are your pie in the sky ideas? I cannot think of anything to do in 5E other than removing Con mod to HP, adding Con Score to HP, and increasing hit die recovery to recovering all spent HD on a long rest (I've tested this, high con characters end up with more daily HP but higher level characters have less HP in a fight).
My guiding principle as a rules modder is "all options should be viable". And it is from there that I come to look at something fundamental to D&D: Constitution. I believe the Constitution ability is flawed. It is something that all characters want; in all of my 5E games, all characters have been built with at least a 12 Con, with the vast majority having a 14 (I've seen two 16 Cons, one on a Dwarf Fighter and another on a Goliath Barbarian). This has basically become a non-choice.
Yesterday, though, it dawned on me that there is another issue with Constitution: it doesn't define a character. The other stats are easy to build archetypes around: the strong-guy, the agile-guy, the smart-guy, the wise-guy (not the wiseguy), and the charming-guy (sometimes the wiseguy). The tough-guy archetype significantly overlaps with the strong-guy.
Constitution is an entirely passive ability score. It's a stat everyone wants as high as they can get it, and no build can shrug and say, eh this isn't important for my character. Having an average or a low constitution gives your character a drawback that cannot be minimized or overcame, like the other stats.
I think 4E was the only edition that I've played where Constition didn't bother me. It gave a one time HP bonus (con score) that felt like it became less important as you gained levels. It also increased your healing surge number, which was it's real strength, but this was hidden hp that felt less important to characters who didn't put themselves into danger. It was still not in a great position as far as ability scores went (if your class didn't use Str, you always put a higher Con than Str, and high Str characters felt a little disincentivized from having a high Con), but it felt a little better.
So, does anyone have any thoughts on what could be done with Constitution to make it more like the other ability scores? To balance it out so an 8 isn't fatal and make it possible that someone would put their highest stat there? Something so the bulk of characters aren't walking around with 14s?
If I were designing a game from the ground up, I'd have constition grand an active endurance point system. Something that could be used to power movement or defensive, and offensive, skills. Something like Skyrim's stamina system. A warrior could be built with higher stamina than strength and focus on special techniques over consistant output, but someone who wasn't intending on using those types of abilities would feel less incentivized to push for a high Con. I'd affix HP to Strength, since the Strong archetypes are also the Tough archetypes, and to give a reason for non strength attackers to want a higher Str.
The high-con archetype would then become the athletic character, which is different from the strong/tough character. We could even go a step further and build the sorcerer off of con, since it's inborn magic, but that would be very different.
What do you think? What con scores do you see in your game. If you don't think it's a problem, why? If you agree, what are your pie in the sky ideas? I cannot think of anything to do in 5E other than removing Con mod to HP, adding Con Score to HP, and increasing hit die recovery to recovering all spent HD on a long rest (I've tested this, high con characters end up with more daily HP but higher level characters have less HP in a fight).
