D&D (2024) Is it possible to balance the six abilities?
- Thread starter Yaarel
- Start date
To make and have unique experiences with the same class.
It's basically, 2 wizard players can play different types of wizard because wizard is tied to INT and wizard can choose different spells. One could go cold the other fire. One can go abjuration the other illusion. Etc
Rogue get dexterity. One can go Sleight of Hand and Stealth, the other Sleight of Hand and Acrobatics.
Whereas because other classes are tied to less flexible. All barbarians focus on the same Single ability Strength. Strength is one note. 2 barbarians will be playing the same style of PC. If you play a barbarian, you've mostly played them all as there is no Con barbarian. There is no real push of secondary score to do STR/CHA or STR/DEX.
Because Barbarian gets so little from mental scores to make use of them. They are stuck with STR and STR is one note and unbalanced
Theory of Games
Storied Gamist
The issue isn't the six abilities. It's that some people don't like D&D and should be playing something else but because D&D is so popular they stick with playing a game they don't like which leads to them wanting to change D&D into the game they really like.
Just play what you want to play and leave D&D alone. WotC tried to change it once before and lost nearly half their player base to Pathfinder. 4e was a huge mistake business-wise because if it 'aint broke, you don't fix it.
Just play what you want to play and leave D&D alone. WotC tried to change it once before and lost nearly half their player base to Pathfinder. 4e was a huge mistake business-wise because if it 'aint broke, you don't fix it.
payn
Glory to Marik
That’s more a result of SAD design, the skill system, and subclasses having to all be simplified per the design ethos to hit the middle. Balancing ability scores is only one part of that puzzle, and frankly the least necessary.
SAD and MAD design both end up lock you into sameness unless you purposely designed the ability scores to prevent it
payn
Glory to Marik
The point is there are many more variables at play.
Yes but I think the key issue is that every ability score doesn't matter to every class.
payn
Glory to Marik
In a MAD design it does, although 3E was sloppy in this department.
Misanthrope Prime
Adventurer
Pillars of Eternity, which IIRC the developers said was somewhat inspired by 4e D&D, has basically massaged the traditional ability scores into being useful for all classes.
The scores are "Might, dexterity, constitution, intellect, perception and resolve", which are slightly different from the D&D scores but map pretty well. Might affects all damage, physical and magical. Dexterity affects how frequently you can act (easier to do in a video game) and how quickly your abilities recharge, constitution is obviously health, intellect increases the area of your AOEs and the duration of your DoTs (barbarians, for instance, want high intellect so they can cleave big cones and shout in large areas, whereas a rogue wants high intellect so their poisons last longer), resolve is "mental health" or the magical equivalent to constitution, and perception affects your to-hit for all abilities. For social interactions, "might" often takes the place of intimidation in a general "forceful personality" sense, perception does what insight does in 5e and intellect is just as often used for persuasion as charisma (which is something I resent about D&D, as there's no mechanical way to make a rhetorical, logical argument).
All characters are encouraged to be somewhat MAD, but with these rules you can have a totally optimized smart barbarians, sagacious bards and foolish monks. I know Josh Sawyer, one of the principle creators of the game system and setting, has been partially adapting the rules for tabletop and a few years ago he released some alpha rules, but I haven't poured over them extensively.
The scores are "Might, dexterity, constitution, intellect, perception and resolve", which are slightly different from the D&D scores but map pretty well. Might affects all damage, physical and magical. Dexterity affects how frequently you can act (easier to do in a video game) and how quickly your abilities recharge, constitution is obviously health, intellect increases the area of your AOEs and the duration of your DoTs (barbarians, for instance, want high intellect so they can cleave big cones and shout in large areas, whereas a rogue wants high intellect so their poisons last longer), resolve is "mental health" or the magical equivalent to constitution, and perception affects your to-hit for all abilities. For social interactions, "might" often takes the place of intimidation in a general "forceful personality" sense, perception does what insight does in 5e and intellect is just as often used for persuasion as charisma (which is something I resent about D&D, as there's no mechanical way to make a rhetorical, logical argument).
All characters are encouraged to be somewhat MAD, but with these rules you can have a totally optimized smart barbarians, sagacious bards and foolish monks. I know Josh Sawyer, one of the principle creators of the game system and setting, has been partially adapting the rules for tabletop and a few years ago he released some alpha rules, but I haven't poured over them extensively.
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