Ability scores do not affect attacks/defenses

I'm going to answer a lot of questions at once, so tap me on the shoulder if I misinterpret your post.

Stalker0: I thought your post implied it would be good/cool if players could have higher secondary scores than primary scores. Others here seem to think you interpreted it as a bad thing. Could you clarify?

Why wouldn't a Wizard max out Wis and drop Int?
Their damage would suffer. My system still applies primary ability scores to damage. I don't see a balance issue with thunder-wave specifically. Also wizards are hitting many targets, so damage bonuses multiply and are very important. Some RAW wizard builds can thunder-wave for 'push 4' every turn anyways.

There is a bit more of an issue with the orb wizards. They could max Wis and keep a lower Int score, but wizards are already capable of builds with 18 Int and 18 Wis by RAW. The worst my system could do is make the '20 Wis' build viable, which is hardly much different. I think that the problem here is orb wizards (a scaling saving throw penalty versus a static saving throw target number!?). My system only barely exasperates this problem.
I do endorse DMs that find orb wizards troublesome and use a house rule.

A more valid issue is leaders that do not focus on damage. Many leader classes have 'trigger on hit' effects on their attacks but don't care about damage. They could boost secondary effects of their attacks by dumping their main ability.
Again, I don't think this is a huge problem. Leaders are hardly the balance breakers of 4e. The most powerful builds tend to be strikers (I'm looking at you rangers) and I don't see a problem with buffing a leaders abilities by 1 or 2 occasionally. Warlords are probably the worst offenders with their + Int to attack roll abilities, but again, this is not on the 'bloodclaw reckless' level of game breaking.
Remember that leaders still attack almost most every turn. A much lower damage score is a serious detriment not to be underestimated. Those numbers really add up after awhile.
Speak up if you really think that leaders with huge secondaries are a problem or if you have more good examples like the artificer one mentioned by Flip.

Making builds with higher secondaries than primaries optimal is not a problem for me. In fact it is part of the intention of this system. I don't think that primary ability scores are in the dust, builds that focus on primaries are still optimal. I think that under my system, builds that focus on primaries or secondaries have the potential to be optimal. I wanted to encourage this.

Re: Fanaelialae's suggestion for armor
I also experimented with reducing the Def value for all armors to match the lowered attack and NAD values. I decided not to go this route because it didn't balance out well (ex. characters in hide would have +1 AC relative to plate with your numbers, whereas they have 1 less than plate under RAW assuming +4 Dex or Int mod).
I think I am going to follow the advice of some in this thread and apply bonuses to characters rather than alter monsters. I'm going to use a static bonus to attack (equal for all players) and a static bonus to NADs (depending on class/race perhaps).
 

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The best hack we'd managed for attack totals was using a weapon of the wrong magical +, and re-naming it .. but that affects both to-hit and damage.

Alternately, you can simply hide all weapons from the attack power cards, and write things in yourself.

(Gosh how I wish Character Builder had better support for adding house rules that actually affected the math..)
 


Done.
Here is the first implementable build.
PEACH
Let me know if I made any math errors with the scaling.

Attacks and NADs scale 22 points over 30 levels. AC scales 21 points over 30 levels. These numbers become 28 and 27 respectively with enhancement modifiers. I think this reflects RAW. Also NADs do not diverge with level.

AC currently scales 1 point less over 30 levels than NADs. I think the same is true (or greater) in RAW. I could fix this by changing the AC bonus to +1 at 5/15/25 similar to expertise and paragon/epic defences instead of +1 at 15/25 as it is now.
 
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It may be worthwhile to get a little more detailed on the agility bonus' "primary/secondary' thing. Ie, melee rangers aren't primary, most fighters and barbarian's aren't secondary but it says 'any', so...

Also, if you are a primary Int (wizard, say) who takes a 10 in that stat, still +2?

Looking at NADs for a few of my characters for a sec:
Dragonborn Inspiring Warlord 14 - +1 Fort & Will from Race, +2 Will from NAD... you mention a "class defence" bonus in 4/5, which isn't there, but I'm assuming the +1 Fort & Will from class still applies. So I'd go from F26,R20,W26 to F26,R24,W28 at 14th level with a +2 neck. AC would be 29, which matches my AC of 29. Good, good. If I were a tactical warlord, it looks like my AC would probably have dropped a point, unless Int counts as a primary (back to the better definition thing).

My 11th human guardian fighter's A29, F27, R23, W23 with his +3 neck and scale & lg shield - his AC would become 28 (10 + 7 Scale + 6 (Chart) + 3 (Enh) + 2 (Sh)), and dropping one there doesn't necessarily seem warranted (guessing it's the masterwork bonus at play there), especially since he wouldn't regain the lost point until 14th. He'd get +2F, +1R, +1W from race, +2W from stat, +2F from class, and +2R from shield, for a total of F26, R25, W25. Wow, that'd be a lot more well rounded :)

Anyhow, looks very interesting. Wish I could make it work in the CB.
 

It may be worthwhile to get a little more detailed on the agility bonus' "primary/secondary' thing. Ie, melee rangers aren't primary, most fighters and barbarian's aren't secondary but it says 'any', so...

Also, if you are a primary Int (wizard, say) who takes a 10 in that stat, still +2?

Looking at NADs for a few of my characters for a sec:
Dragonborn Inspiring Warlord 14 - +1 Fort & Will from Race, +2 Will from NAD... you mention a "class defence" bonus in 4/5, which isn't there, but I'm assuming the +1 Fort & Will from class still applies. So I'd go from F26,R20,W26 to F26,R24,W28 at 14th level with a +2 neck. AC would be 29, which matches my AC of 29. Good, good. If I were a tactical warlord, it looks like my AC would probably have dropped a point, unless Int counts as a primary (back to the better definition thing).

My 11th human guardian fighter's A29, F27, R23, W23 with his +3 neck and scale & lg shield - his AC would become 28 (10 + 7 Scale + 6 (Chart) + 3 (Enh) + 2 (Sh)), and dropping one there doesn't necessarily seem warranted (guessing it's the masterwork bonus at play there), especially since he wouldn't regain the lost point until 14th. He'd get +2F, +1R, +1W from race, +2W from stat, +2F from class, and +2R from shield, for a total of F26, R25, W25. Wow, that'd be a lot more well rounded :)

Anyhow, looks very interesting. Wish I could make it work in the CB.


All of this criticism is helpful.

I noticed that you added the NADs correctly despite your expressed confusion, so I guess my paper was legible. I'm going to clarify some of the terms and concisely define 'racial defense bonus', 'class defense bonus' etc.

I was not thrilled with my design of the 'agility bonus' either. I'm thinking of this option:

If any of your class's key abilities are Dex or Int, your agility bonus is +1.
If your primary defense is Ref, your agility bonus is +2 instead.
If you have a class feature or feat that allows you to apply another of your key abilities to AC in light armor, your agility bonus is +1.
If the defense associated with that ability score is your primary defense, you have a +2 agility bonus instead.
When wearing light armor, apply your ability bonus to AC. Any factor that would normally prevent you from adding a Dex/Int modifier to AC also prevents you from adding your agility bonus to AC

You make a very good point about definitions. Primary and secondary ability scores are not defined in the rules. The above re-write uses 'key abilities' which are defined in class entries. The above re-write allows light armor fighter, ranger or warlord builds.

Your fighter's AC:
+3 Scale has a +9 armor bonus (WyvernScale). This is an improvement of +2 from level 1 due to masterwork armor.
A comparable character in light armor has seen an improvement of +1 from level 1 due to ability score increases.
Masterwork armor is intended to cause heavy armor to scale with level as well as light armor. This is approximated by increasing the bonus as you get better enhancement modifiers. At any level the bonus from light or heavy armor may or may not match up for comparable characters.

If your fighter were in hide at level 1 with a +4 Dex bonus, he would have the same AC at level 1. His AC at level 11 would be +3 armor, +3 enhance, +2 shield, +5 from his improved Dex, +5 level. AC 28. Although AC is intended to scale evenly, it scales unevenly by RAW. The AC for your character would be equal at 11th level in both hide and scale assuming they had the same AC at level 1. I see this as an advantage of the system.

There
 

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Yep, sounds good. I'll consider doing it at some point, but it's tougher to get my group to do things the CB won't do. I actually already have them doing a hit modification that is similar and every level I have to tell them what their hit bonus is, because they print up a new CB sheet and forget. Every. Level. Argh.
 

Yep, sounds good. I'll consider doing it at some point, but it's tougher to get my group to do things the CB won't do. I actually already have them doing a hit modification that is similar and every level I have to tell them what their hit bonus is, because they print up a new CB sheet and forget. Every. Level. Argh.

This.
About 1/3 of the players in my group are social gamers. They enjoy RP and killing minions. They feel cool when the monster's stop twitching and the NPCs do what they want. They don't much care if expertise is a tax on feats, non-AC defenses scale poorly with level, or ability scores are heavily restricted by attacks and defenses. I would try this house rule with advanced and math savvy players only.
That's not to say that a newb couldn't play by this house rule. Part of the DMs job is to crunch numbers and rules for the players that know/care less. It would just be too much work for little payoff.
 

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