I was evaluating my reasons for why I'm so dissatisfied by a certain video game and I realised that one of the reasons was ability scores. This then made me realise that one of the things that annoys me about D&D is also ability scores.
The problem is that I can never really get the character I want or envision because I have to balance between the effectiveness of the character in the system and the vision I have of the character in my head. The two rarely match up.
An intelligent, charismatic, but strong and tough warrior, for instance, that uses heavy plate and a bastard sword. Try making that without sacrificing huge amounts of system effectiveness. In, say, 4e, having a 13 in Charisma basically amounts to nothing useful. At 14, you're starting to get into the arena of usefulness, but if you want it to really mean anything, you need at least a 16, ie. a +3.
I'm not saying I want every stat to be an 18, quite the contrary, I'm saying that I want lower numbers to MEAN something. If I can only have an array of 18, 16, 12, 12, 10, 8, for instance, then I want those 12's to be more than just a meaningless +1 that gives me virtually no chance at success on skills or abilities or powers that use it. I want to be able to say, "He's very strong (18), and incredibly tough (16), but also more intelligent (12) and charismatic (12) than your average brute."
When thinking about this particular video game and the reasons why I was dissatisfied with it, I thought of another video game which gave me a very strong sense of satisfaction and fun, and realised that it doesn't use ability scores, despite both games being RPG's. I could simply say that the character is strong, charismatic, intelligent and tough and reflect that through game-play and how I selected skills and powers to match that ideal. It'd be nice if I could do something similar with my D&D characters.
The problem is that I can never really get the character I want or envision because I have to balance between the effectiveness of the character in the system and the vision I have of the character in my head. The two rarely match up.
An intelligent, charismatic, but strong and tough warrior, for instance, that uses heavy plate and a bastard sword. Try making that without sacrificing huge amounts of system effectiveness. In, say, 4e, having a 13 in Charisma basically amounts to nothing useful. At 14, you're starting to get into the arena of usefulness, but if you want it to really mean anything, you need at least a 16, ie. a +3.
I'm not saying I want every stat to be an 18, quite the contrary, I'm saying that I want lower numbers to MEAN something. If I can only have an array of 18, 16, 12, 12, 10, 8, for instance, then I want those 12's to be more than just a meaningless +1 that gives me virtually no chance at success on skills or abilities or powers that use it. I want to be able to say, "He's very strong (18), and incredibly tough (16), but also more intelligent (12) and charismatic (12) than your average brute."
When thinking about this particular video game and the reasons why I was dissatisfied with it, I thought of another video game which gave me a very strong sense of satisfaction and fun, and realised that it doesn't use ability scores, despite both games being RPG's. I could simply say that the character is strong, charismatic, intelligent and tough and reflect that through game-play and how I selected skills and powers to match that ideal. It'd be nice if I could do something similar with my D&D characters.