D&D 5E Ability Score Increases (I've changed my mind.)

[ReshiIRE]

I view the Sorcerer as having a magical bloodline. In other words, magical "technologies" have engineered their bodies to perform magical tasks. The Sorcerers dont need to understand these technologies, but need experience to pilot their bodies under stress. Because Sorcerers literally use their own body as the source of their magical powers, it is one of the few character concepts where using Constitution as a spellcasting ability makes sense.

Warlock is inconsistent. They make a bargain with a magical creature. Maybe Charisma relates to skillfully navigating the personal relationship with this magical creature. But the rest of the flavor is inconsistent. Sometimes the Warlock is more like a Wizard where the Warlock learns how to do magic while the creature is a mentor. Sometimes the Warlock is more like a Sorcerer where the creature magically transforms the Warlock to do magic, so the Warlock doesnt really understand the magic and is "cheating" when being able to do magic. In this context, the abilities of Intelligence or Constitution could make sense.

If the Warlock is Charisma, maybe the magical creature did magically transform the Warlock, but the new magical nature requires the personality of the Warlock to guide this magic. Maybe while leveling, the Warlock needs to talk the magical creature into giving "upgrades" to expand the new magical nature to do more magical features.

In any case the flavor of the Warlock is ambiguous.

The more I think about it, to me a 5.5E would allow a Warlock to choose either Intelligence or Charisma as their main Ability Score (reflecting that in playtest material Warlocks were Intelligence, which makes sense; the fact that on 5E's arrival there was only class at all concerned about Intelligence besides skills and saves is baffling to me).

Then, for a 6E, Warlocks as you suggested would have a variety of different main scores depending on their patron, to reflect that as a class they 'break the rules' in many ways and have more complicated and difficult progression. One key rule however would be that Dexterity could not be the core ASI and that Hexblade in particular would need to be carefully chosen to make the subclass less prone to being chosen purely for multi-class 1 level-up shennanigans.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Then variant human and customised origin would remove gaining a feat at a start and humans would be reworked to actually be interesting mechanically.

I agreed with your feat policy, but this bit actually reminded about something I meant to mention earlier (in one of these fantasy species threads.) Humans are tricky to design. Or more correctly tricky to balance. In a lot of fiction many fictional species are defined by things they're better at than humans or things they can do that humans can't. It is very common that on individual level they're just better than humans. They may have some weakness, but not so often, and when they do those tend not to fully compensate for their strengths. In wargames and such this can be compensated by numbers. If Warhammer elves are just straight up superior to humans, you simply get less of them in an army. But in an RPG you need to balance individuals, and that is far more difficult.

 

[Scribe]

I view the Sorcerer as having a magical bloodline. In other words, magical "technologies" have engineered their bodies to perform magical tasks. The Sorcerers dont need to understand these technologies, but need experience to pilot their bodies under stress. Because Sorcerers literally use their own body as the source of their magical powers, it is one of the few character concepts where using Constitution as a spellcasting ability makes sense.

Warlock is inconsistent. They make a bargain with a magical creature. Maybe Charisma relates to skillfully navigating the personal relationship with this magical creature. But the rest of the flavor is inconsistent. Sometimes the Warlock is more like a Wizard where the Warlock learns how to do magic while the creature is a mentor. Sometimes the Warlock is more like a Sorcerer where the creature magically transforms the Warlock to do magic, so the Warlock doesnt really understand the magic and is "cheating" when being able to do magic. In this context, the abilities of Intelligence or Constitution could make sense.

If the Warlock is Charisma, maybe the magical creature did magically transform the Warlock, but the new magical nature requires the personality of the Warlock to guide this magic. Maybe while leveling, the Warlock needs to talk the magical creature into giving "upgrades" to expand the new magical nature to do more magical features.

In any case the flavor of the Warlock is ambiguous.

I've had this same conversation here (I think) regarding Sorcerer/Warlock.

To step back a few.

Paladin and Bard? No problem. Both are Cha casters for different reasons, but I don't feel it's a problem.

Sorcerer as Con. I can see it, but Cha is (as a caster stat) more than persuasion to me, it's more an undefinable force of personality. Not Intellectual, not even a question of Will (Wisdom?) but something innately part of that person, the soul?

The Warlock on the other hand, is where I would go Con.

Your not going to persuade an eldritch being for power, it's not your power at all, you don't have an understanding at an intellectual level, or even have a higher power to appeal to.

To me it's stolen power that you are a conduit for, and I just think it fits.

 

[ReshiIRE]

I agreed with your feat policy, but this bit actually reminded about something I meant to mention earlier (in one of these fantasy species threads.) Humans are tricky to design. Or more correctly tricky to balance. In a lot of fiction many fictional species are defined by things they're better at than humans or things they can do that humans can't. It is very common that on individual level they're just better than humans. They may have some weakness, but not so often, and when they do those tend not to fully compensate for their strengths. In wargames and such this can be compensated by numbers. If Warhammer elves are just straight up superior to humans, you simply get less of them in an army. But in an RPG you need to balance individuals, and that is far more difficult.

They are quite difficult to design. To be honest (and this would warrent a seperate thread to flesh out more, but let me indulge in this tangent) I almost feel it's better to straight up remove humans and have no 'baseline' species for comparison. Either that or you will have to make humans separated very much by culture which is world and scenario dependant and could lead to some unfortunate connotations or other issues.

I just feel what we have, right now, somewhat reflects that humans are very adaptable (as all intelligence species would be to a degree but I'm not getting into this argument again) but is mechanically not interesting and doesn't have an ability to be reflected in teh games fiction or mechanically outside of level 1 choices.

I suppose that humans could have some ability to shift strengths between level ups in some manner or (in a radical 6E) be able to adapt special feats for multi-classing, but I'm not sure how well that would work in scenarios where half-elfs / half-orcs are defined as being half-human half-elfs or such, as they would also need to have that adaptability reflected somehow.

 

[Yaarel]

The more I think about it, to me a 5.5E would allow a Warlock to choose either Intelligence or Charisma as their main Ability Score (reflecting that in playtest material Warlocks were Intelligence, which makes sense; the fact that on 5E's arrival there was only class at all concerned about Intelligence besides skills and saves is baffling to me).

Then, for a 6E, Warlocks as you suggested would have a variety of different main scores depending on their patron, to reflect that as a class they 'break the rules' in many ways and have more complicated and difficult progression. One key rule however would be that Dexterity could not be the core ASI and that Hexblade in particular would need to be carefully chosen to make the subclass less prone to being chosen purely for multi-class 1 level-up shennanigans.

When the Psion class comes out, I strongly want the player to choose which spell casting ability to use for it, whether Charisma, Intelligence, or Wisdom. Each ability makes sense for a different flavor.

When I think about the Fighter, the player can already choose which ability to use, Strength or Dexterity.

Other classes also make better sense with a choice.

Cleric is Charisma or Wisdom, as an inspirational leader and intercessor. And so on.

 

[Umbran]

It amazes me how people can be so easily broken by something so insignificant.

Mod Note:

It unfortunately fails to amaze anyone that folks forget that indirect phrasing doesn't mean you aren't being insulting.

Be better, or leave the thread, please and thank you.

 

[the Jester]

You don't have to do anything!
My argument has to do with game design and is as follows:
1) The 5e base game attempts to recreate classic fantasy archetypes (to "make dnd feel like dnd"), and does a so-so job of it. It relies on players figuring out that certain race-class combinations are every so slightly better than others, and then choosing those (vs earlier editions that just limited race-class combinations explicitly).

That's not how I have ever seen 5e played. I've seen any number of race-class combos that are not "optimal" if that means the ASIs go to the stats your class likes best.

 

[ReshiIRE]

The Warlock on the other hand, is where I would go Con.

Your not going to persuade an eldritch being for power, it's not your power at all, you don't have an understanding at an intellectual level, or even have a higher power to appeal to.

To me it's stolen power that you are a conduit for, and I just think it fits.

I can see what you are getitng at fiction wise, but that would require a redesign of Warlock to be a defense oriented caster, as having 20+ Con as as Warlock with a d8 hit dice, taking the average is comparable to having 16+ Con as a Barbarian with a d12 hit dice, taking the average, at level 8 (assuming atleast a starting 16 in Con for both and assuming the Warlock focuses on getting Con to 20 and the Barbarian focuses on getting Strength to 20).

Basically, the optimal build taking aside skills would be to invest in Dex and Con as a Warlock and become pretty difficult to hit outside of saves and being able to frontline easily (Hexblade becomes stupid attractive in a LOT of parties thanks to this). In addition, Warlock would be an attractive caster class in a lot of scenarios, depending on sub-class; the more martial or frontline Clerics may like this combination, for example.

 

[Garthanos]

I don't know about 2-4, but #1 I disagree with. There's a reason why bad boys are popular. There's often just something about them that draws people. Charisma fits as much as anything else and more than some stats.

Charisma approximate domain of spiritedness and zealous confidence (justified or not), and Wisdom the Domain of more cautious Discipline. I think earlier editions that combined the two for will power got it right.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

When the Psion class comes out, I strongly want the player to choose which spell casting ability to use for it, whether Charisma, Intelligence, or Wisdom. Each ability makes sense for a different flavor.

When I think about the Fighter, the player can already choose which ability to use, Strength or Dexterity.

It isn't just 'choose which to use' it is that different weapons use different stat (apart some which can use either) so a dex fighter and strength fighter at least have somewhat different style and probably different rules too.

I really want ability score so mean something, so I'm not a fan of 'choose whichever and then it works just he same'. Again, at that point you might just as well get rid of the ability scores.

Now one potentially interesting way to do this (but it would be a big redesign) to have different spells to use different stats. So illusions and enchantment spells might use charisma, healing and communing spells could use wisdom etc. And of course some spells might be 'finesse spells' and could choose between different stats. So that way your caster would play differently depending on their casting stats.