DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
We added a "Tactical" Fighting Style to support INT build fighters. Otherwise, the only INT-builds you see for Fighters are EKs and Bladesingers.
D&D 5E Ability Score Balance: through the eyes of fresh players
WayOfTheFourElements
Hero
What does your Tactical fighting style do?
DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
We had two variants:
Version 1: At the start of your turn, you can choose to add your Intelligence modifier to your attack rolls or your damage rolls when using the Attack action. This benefit lasts until the start of your next turn.
Version 2: You can use your reaction to grant and ally your can see within 60 feet of you a bonus to their attack roll or damage roll. This bonus is equal to your Intelligence modifier.
jmartkdr2
Hero
The problem I see here is: if no stat is dumpable, everyone needs to be good at everything - which requires flat arrays. If everyone is going to have a +2 mod in all the abilities anyway, because anything else will be punished, why even have ability scores? Why not just assumes a flat array and give everyone a +2 to everything (or reduce the dc's)?
Not that that's a bad option - it has a lot going for it, but only going halfway by making everyone need a minimum of 12 in everything is removing real choice without reducing complexity. Go all in. Remove ability scores entirely and just use proficiency.
The other direction to go would be to open up more dump stats - make it so players don't feel like their character will be useless or too fragile or whatever if they decide to be clumsy or sickly. I find the lack of variety comes from the fact that most classes go a long way to defining what your ability scores will be because the usefulness is so lopsided. If you're playing a paladin, you tend to play the same ability scores because anything else will be a significant hindrance.
The three stats I almost never see dumped are dexterity, constitution, and wisdom. The others are often dumped for pc's who don't use them to attack, but these three can feel necessary for everyone. Add in a primary ability score for attack rolls, and you get a choice of two places to put your low number.
For Dex, I think this just means more way to get a decent (not necessarily great, but good enough) AC without using Dex for classes that don't get heavy armor. I'd suggest making medium armor either a flat AC like heavy armor or let it use either str or dex, and making the mage armor spell set a static AC (I'm thinking 15), regardless of ability scores. Now dex for AC is only a must for rogues and some bards, who were probably going to have a high Dex anyways. (I'd probably let bards take mage armor, though.)
Wisdom is fairly dumpable already, (you really only need one person in the party with good perception) but letting Inspiration be used to reroll saving throws would probably help.
Con is a tougher nut to crack - if you remove Con from hit points, it goes from 'necessary' to 'nearly useless', but obviously it's too important (outside of saves, even) to be dumped under the current system. So you'd need to lessen the impact on hp without removing it. My current thinking is to make to add you Con score (the 3-18 number) to your hp once. This also helps with low-level squishiness, but I don't know if it will really work. This needs playtesting.
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WayOfTheFourElements
Hero
Well, players would need to sacrifice competence in one area for competence in another. Which imposes more interesting choices. Just like real life. I like that.
DND_Reborn
The High Aldwin
I think part of it is what you consider dumping a stat. For me, that is an 8 (i.e. no improvement off of the base for point-buy). If you are rolling stats, you might get one or even two sometimes.
I don't think leveling them out makes it necessary to have flatter arrays as you suggest, but it does make having them a bit more beneficial.
TwoSix
Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer
I don't think it required to do a flat array. One method I've been playing with is giving each class features at 1st level that scale on each stat. The game I'm doing it for has less classes (just Warrior, Rogue, and Mage), but each class has a Strength based feature, an Int based feature, etc, and you can pick 2 of the 6 features when you start the class. So you could have Str and Con as your highest features and still be a Mage, or Wis and Cha and still be a Warrior. You'll be a DIFFERENT kind of Warrior or Mage, but you're still quite capable.
Why do you care about their stats? You have to remember, adventurers aren't comment people, they are exceptional. Sure it could be great of someone wanted to play someone with a low constitution and role play that out, but it becomes problematic and not fun if you try and railroad the players into playing a way you think is fun. It defeats the purpose of an RPG. At low levels, the game is hard enough, a 12 con isn't very high. You don't need to need players. They aren't gonna be able to make it through very many encounters before they have to rest. If you nerf them, they are gonna feel cheated, and may not want to play no more. You said 4 out of 5 are new players? The last thing you want to do is put a sour taste in their mouths. You should instead find a way to buff them. Maybe start them off each with a common magic item and maybe a healing potion.
Asisreo
Patron Badass
For STR, isn't 18 the highest AC pure dex is able to give you (without features, spells, etc)? That's the same as plate armour which requires a lower ability score to get to. That compounds with how many ASI's a fighter has, making it easy for a fighter to have a 20+ AC without ASI's and feats to helping him. Dex does nothing in plate.
Sure, technically a wizard can have higher AC with dex but it would be weird if they didn't have strength as their dump stat as a wizard.
In fact, all spellcasters should have a decent dexterity. However, keep in mind that the majority of spellcasters shouldn't even be targeted to begin with and should focus on high attack power. Spellcasters as tanks are fine-ish but you might drop concentration until level 4 where you can finally pick up a feat (or build a vhuman).
Sure, technically a wizard can have higher AC with dex but it would be weird if they didn't have strength as their dump stat as a wizard.
In fact, all spellcasters should have a decent dexterity. However, keep in mind that the majority of spellcasters shouldn't even be targeted to begin with and should focus on high attack power. Spellcasters as tanks are fine-ish but you might drop concentration until level 4 where you can finally pick up a feat (or build a vhuman).
I've found that Dex is primarily busted only in whiteboard discussions. In actual use, Dexterity is a primary ability for about 1/3 of characters, and a secondary or tertiary ability score at best afterwards. Str is the primary ability for about the same number of characters, with the rest spread among the spellcasters.
Int is the dump stat of choice with our group, usually relying on 1-2 characters to be decent at it. Con is also a minimum 12, because the bonus HP are pretty much considered mandatory for survival. We houseruled a way to make Int less dumpworthy (extra languages/tools), but Con is integral to the HP of the game, but I wish it were otherwise.
Int is the dump stat of choice with our group, usually relying on 1-2 characters to be decent at it. Con is also a minimum 12, because the bonus HP are pretty much considered mandatory for survival. We houseruled a way to make Int less dumpworthy (extra languages/tools), but Con is integral to the HP of the game, but I wish it were otherwise.
