D&D 5E (2014) I'm really hating Constitution right now

[Garthanos]

The only feature affected would be caster Concentration saves

I am a bit inclined to make those a selected other from whatever your main casting stat is. In other words Intelligence might have Wis or Cha.

 

[DND_Reborn]

If you remove CON I would NOT have concentration checks based on STR, otherwise you will have a ton of buff casters walking around where it serves no other real purpose for them. As @Garthanos suggests, tying into the spellcasting modifier makes perfect sense.

Also, I don't know why people are so eager to remove CON when there are elements of it that have nothing to do with functional STR as many arguments have pointed out before.

 

[BrokenTwin]

There would need to be some mechanical toggling with the Default array/point buy and racial modifiers (do we simply make all CON boosts into STR boosts, even if this violates the +2 model?)

So a few design issues if you want to go this way.

Just make the +Con a floating bonus in that case ("+X to one other stat"). Not gonna break anything.
The default arrays would definitely need tweaking. I'd say ditch both the -8 and 10 in the array and replace them with a -9. Adjust point buy to match.

As to the concentration check, I'm a big fan of just making it d20 + proficiency.

 

[DND_Reborn]

As to the concentration check, I'm a big fan of just making it d20 + proficiency.

That is an interesting idea. Removing it from a save and make it its own thing, sort of like death saves in that respect.

 

[BrokenTwin]

That is an interesting idea. Removing it from a save and make it its own thing, sort of like death saves in that respect.

It's less to remember, too. Especially for characters with multiple casting stats.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It's less to remember, too. Especially for characters with multiple casting stats.

And it avoids wizards and such having to take resilient to gain proficiency in CON saves just for concentration checks. I'll probably suggest this too our table.

 

[Horwath]

It's less to remember, too. Especially for characters with multiple casting stats.

yeah, those come up every day in hordes

I would go with proficiency+casting stat modifier.


As for point buy, I would go with 23 instead of 27 points.

 

[DND_Reborn]

yeah, those come up every day in hordes

We have many more MC casters than single class in our group--so, yeah, it happens quite a bit IME since 3E.

 

[Horwath]

We have many more MC casters than single class in our group--so, yeah, it happens quite a bit IME since 3E.

was referring to multiple stats,

we have them also but people are fanatically tied to single casting stat.

most are paladin + bard/warlock/sorcerer...I smell some divine smite/aura of protection conspiracy

 

[Bacon Bits]

I still say the game would be a better TTRPG with only four ability scores:

Brawn
Agility
Intellect
Personality

You have to change the names or else people will associate them with the older categories.

The only major issue is that it's not always easy to give monsters lots of hit points. But, if you want to have monsters that are really beefy but don't have high Brawn, just give them more hit points. You can do that. You can just cross out 10d8-10 and put in 10d8+20 if you want them to have 65 hp instead of 35 hp. The game totally lets you do that.

If you really, really want to make it all codified, you can just make abilities that change the stat used to determine hit points away from Brawn and instead use something else. This Air Elemental uses Agility instead of Brawn. That Lich uses Intellect instead of Brawn. That Beholder uses Personality instead of Brawn. Hit points represent your ability to ignore or avoid damage, so just lean into that and make hit points for some creatures based off what makes the most sense for that creature.

Unfortunately, you can't really change this aspect of the game anymore. The six stats are central to the game and changing it would make it Not D&D.