Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
So, most who have played 5e have noticed that some of the ability scores need a bit of rebalancing when compared to different ability scores. I agree with this, but don't want this thread to debate on whether or not Intelligence and Strength suck, so I will just go ahead and assume that all of you agree that they do, but explain reasons for why they do just a bit to support my changes. Strength, Constitution, and Intelligence are objectively worse ability scores than Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma.
Strength is useful, but Dexterity is much more useful than it in more cases than not. It's used for initiative, armor class, more skills, more common and important saving throws, is a prerequisite to multiclass into more viable classes for multiclass dips than the strength based ones, practically everyone needs it and those who don't really want it, it can be used for both melee and ranged combat, and has too many uses for me to list. Dexterity is clearly superior to Strength, and this needs to change in the next edition (5.5e/6e). Here are some suggestions for how to rebalance it:
So, the main problem with Intelligence is that it is very uncommonly used in 5e. Only Wizards, Artificers, Arcane Tricksters, and Eldritch Knights care about having it, and the latter two care far less about it than their classes' main stats. Additionally, there are not many useful mechanics that everyone has access to that are dependent on it. Just compare it to Charisma. Bards, Paladins, Sorcerers, and Warlocks at least partially depend on having good Charisma, almost everyone else wants it for Persuasion, Deception, and Intimidation. The only skill that is based on Intelligence that is not dependent on your character's knowledge of lore is Investigation, which is outdone by Perception. The other skills are dependent on lore and only provide any game influencing knowledge about once a campaign each. These are my recommendations to fix Intelligence:
Constitution is the weird one. It is not a bad ability score, but it is certainly not a balanced one, either. Its role in 5e is a bit ambiguous, and is strange for a few reasons. Firstly, like Dexterity, everyone wants Constitution, and for a similar reason. Having a high Constitution is how you get higher hit points, and literally everyone wants high hit points. While there are ways to have high AC without super high Dexterity (Loxodon, Heavy Armor, Medium Armor with decent DEX), there are practically no ways of adding a different agility score to your hit points, which is a bit strange due to 5e's definition of hit points as representing a combination of "physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck." If hit points involve mental durability, the will to live, and luck, why in the Nine Hells is Constitution the only ability score that can be added to it? Luck sounds like Dexterity and Charisma to me, mental durability and the will to live sound like Intelligence and Wisdom to me, and physical durability sounds like Strength and Constitution. That covers all of the ability scores, so why is it only Constitution that's added? I'm guessing it was carried over from previous editions and is a matter of tradition, but either way it should change. Due to the fact that everyone has to have it, that creates an imbalance between it and every other ability score. This makes Constitution too good/useful to be used as the main stat of a class, leaving players in a weird kind of limbo of trying to determine if they really need to increase their Constitution. Here is how I would fix this ability score:
Strength is useful, but Dexterity is much more useful than it in more cases than not. It's used for initiative, armor class, more skills, more common and important saving throws, is a prerequisite to multiclass into more viable classes for multiclass dips than the strength based ones, practically everyone needs it and those who don't really want it, it can be used for both melee and ranged combat, and has too many uses for me to list. Dexterity is clearly superior to Strength, and this needs to change in the next edition (5.5e/6e). Here are some suggestions for how to rebalance it:
- Take away its importance for Initiative. In the new edition of D&D, I would recommend allowing a character to use their Dexterity, Intelligence, or Wisdom modifier for their initiative bonus. Dexterity makes sense to be used for initiative, as it shows how quickly you can react in combat, but the other two ability scores can fit the theme of good initiative as well. Intelligence would emulate an intelligent battle strategist analyzing the battlefield and having their mind in a constant mental state of combat-preparedness. Wisdom to show their constant awareness of their surroundings and ability to go before other creatures. This won't help Strength be better as much as it will make Dexterity be a bit less needed.
- Nerf ranged weapons and boost melee combat. Ranged combat already has the benefit of being away from all the action, and the majority of monsters are stronger at melee combat than ranged. This makes an imbalance. I recommend either decreasing the damage dice of most ranged weapons by one size, and/or increasing the damage dice of melee combat one size. For example: Greatswords/Mauls do 2d8 damage, Glaives/Halberds do 1d12, Greataxes/Lances do 1d12+proficiency bonus or something like that. Melee combatants should get an automatic Parry reaction to prevent damage. Ranged Combatants should gain other disadvantages of attacking at range. Both should be equal. Maybe even give an AC boost to melee combatants, or two different armor classes, one for ranged attacks and another for melee. There could be different mechanics to balance these styles of combat as well. These boosts to melee combat could also apply to Finesse Weapons, but this change would still help balance out STR and DEX a bit.
- Make more Strength based skills. Athletics is for grappling and other athletic actions. There could be a "Lift" skill that lets you temporarily lift twice your carrying capacity for an amount of time equal to your Constitution modifier. Other skills that are based on Strength could help keep it on par with Dexterity.
- Make different types of shields that require certain strength to use. A small shield could be used by anyone and just give a +1 bonus to AC. A medium shield could be used by those with Strength of 16 or higher and give a +2 bonus to AC and possibly half-cover. A large/tower shield would require a strength of 18 or higher and give a +3 bonus to AC and give three-quarters cover. This is just a rough draft idea to help balance out strength and dexterity a bit, and the numbers would probably be different if they did something like this, but you get the idea.
- Make heavy armor better. Dexterity is too useful when it comes to Armor Class, which is why I have the suggestion above, but that won't fix it. Not having high enough strength while wearing heavy armor will make attacks against you be made at advantage, or there could be some other extreme nerf to wearing heavy armor without high enough Strength. There could also be a benefit to wearing heavy armor, such as effects that would move you/knock you prone are halved/made at disadvantage.
- Increase the amount of ways you can fight in combat. The Grappler feat (or an equivalent of it) could be automatically given to everyone. There could be different positioning tactics to increase melee damage (like the coup de grace, stacked flanking, and so on). This could just make melee combat a bit more interesting and less weapon-spamming, balancing it a bit with Spellcasting.
So, the main problem with Intelligence is that it is very uncommonly used in 5e. Only Wizards, Artificers, Arcane Tricksters, and Eldritch Knights care about having it, and the latter two care far less about it than their classes' main stats. Additionally, there are not many useful mechanics that everyone has access to that are dependent on it. Just compare it to Charisma. Bards, Paladins, Sorcerers, and Warlocks at least partially depend on having good Charisma, almost everyone else wants it for Persuasion, Deception, and Intimidation. The only skill that is based on Intelligence that is not dependent on your character's knowledge of lore is Investigation, which is outdone by Perception. The other skills are dependent on lore and only provide any game influencing knowledge about once a campaign each. These are my recommendations to fix Intelligence:
- Make more classes and subclasses need it. The way to get stop people from multiclassing into Hexblade-Sorcadins is to give some equally good options Intelligence based characters. They could do this by adding more classes/subclasses that need it (Psionics, a Warlord class, an Arcane-Gish class, Runecasting, Intelligence-Sneak Attacking Rogues),
- They could possibly change Warlocks to Intelligence, but I would personally keep them as Charisma (especially with other changes I'm going to recommend). I think that Charisma fits them better, as they do have to create pacts and barter with otherworldly powers.
- Allow characters to start with more skills/tools/languages/weapon proficiencies equal to their Intelligence modifier. This would just boost the stat and make it a lot more valuable.
- They could add more Intelligence based skills and have the current Intelligence based skills be more useful. There could be a skill that lets you analyze an weapon/object/contraption and try and figure out how it works. For example, they could walk up to a cannon, take this action, and figure out how to use it if they roll high enough. Or, Arcana could be used to give you some damage reduction to spells that you are familiar enough with. Investigation could be made to be more distinct from Perception and more useful. There are plenty of other additions/tweaking they could to with the Intelligence skills to make them worth taking.
- Make intelligence saving throws more common and more important. One of the reasons why a barbarian is automatically dead/mind controlled if the party comes across an Intellect Devourer or Mind Flayer is because they automatically dump Intelligence. They automatically dump Intelligence because they don't have any reason to take it. If Intelligence saving throws are more common and useful, and the ability score did more than it currently does, everyone would be inclined to take it.
Constitution is the weird one. It is not a bad ability score, but it is certainly not a balanced one, either. Its role in 5e is a bit ambiguous, and is strange for a few reasons. Firstly, like Dexterity, everyone wants Constitution, and for a similar reason. Having a high Constitution is how you get higher hit points, and literally everyone wants high hit points. While there are ways to have high AC without super high Dexterity (Loxodon, Heavy Armor, Medium Armor with decent DEX), there are practically no ways of adding a different agility score to your hit points, which is a bit strange due to 5e's definition of hit points as representing a combination of "physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck." If hit points involve mental durability, the will to live, and luck, why in the Nine Hells is Constitution the only ability score that can be added to it? Luck sounds like Dexterity and Charisma to me, mental durability and the will to live sound like Intelligence and Wisdom to me, and physical durability sounds like Strength and Constitution. That covers all of the ability scores, so why is it only Constitution that's added? I'm guessing it was carried over from previous editions and is a matter of tradition, but either way it should change. Due to the fact that everyone has to have it, that creates an imbalance between it and every other ability score. This makes Constitution too good/useful to be used as the main stat of a class, leaving players in a weird kind of limbo of trying to determine if they really need to increase their Constitution. Here is how I would fix this ability score:
- First and most importantly, sever its ties to hit points. You can still add your Constitution modifier to your hit points, but only if you are a certain class. When a class would add their Constitution modifier to their hit points that they regain or receive when they level up, they instead can choose any ability score associated with their class to add their ability score modifier in place of their Constitution modifier, as shown below. This would let 5e's definition of hit points actually make some strange kind of sense, where a Rogue's hit points are their agility and luck to dodge out of the path of a blade that would slit their throat and a Barbarian's hit points are literally their physical health and might, and so on.
- Artificers add Constitution and Intelligence.
- Barbarians add Strength and Constitution.
- Bards add Charisma and Dexterity.
- Clerics add Wisdom and Charisma/Constitution.
- Druids add Wisdom and Intelligence/Constitution.
- Fighters add Strength/Dexterity and Constitution.
- Monks add Wisdom and Dexterity.
- Paladins add Constitution/Charisma and Strength.
- Rangers add Strength/Dexterity and Wisdom.
- Rogues add Dexterity and Intelligence/Wisdom/Charisma.
- Sorcerers add Constitution and Charisma.
- Warlocks add Charisma and Dexterity.
- Wizards add Intelligence and Wisdom/Dexterity.
- Make Sorcerers use Constitution as their spellcasting ability. If their magic is innate and comes from their inherent arcane nature, they get proficiency with Constitution saving throws already, and there's a subclass named after your "Bloodline," they should not be Charisma based, they should be Constitution based.
- Add more classes/subclasses that use Constitution for features (Blood Hunters, Long Death Monks, Oathbreaker Paladins, a barbarian subclass, Health Clerics, etc).
- Add a skill called Endurance that is Constitution based. When swimming long distances, you have to make an athletics and endurance check to see how fast and how long you can swim. If lifting an object above your carrying capacity, you can roll Endurance to see how long you can hold it up. Endurance would be used for any other actions that require your to maintain a difficult task involving your health and tolerance of pain.
- Make Concentration more common. Rage is concentration, rogue abilities, fighters will get fighting tactics that are concentration, Wild Shape could be concentration, certain Channel Divinities could be Concentration, etc.
- For PCs, make an "Exhaustion Buffer" that lets you take an amount of Exhaustion equal to your Constitution modifier with no negative effects, and any additional exhaustion you take afterwards gives you harmful effects based on the Exhaustion table, starting at the first effect and continuing on as normal when taking even more exhaustion. At the end of a long rest, a character automatically loses one exhaustion and can make an Endurance check to get rid of an additional exhaustion. This would allow for both Exhaustion and Constitution to have more uses in the game.
- Make Death Saving Throws be Constitution based. This would make it so even though they don't necessarily need Con for their HP, it is still important for their survival.
