D&D 5E Attribute progression

[Bill Zebub]

I got this idea from Mausritter, but modified it as a replacement for ASIs:

Every time you gain a level, roll 1d20 for each attribute, in any order you choose. The first time you roll higher than the attribute, add +1 to that attribute and stop there. If you run out of attributes...well, better luck next level.

Even if you added +1 at every level that would average out to twice as many total points as the ASI method (for most classes), but with a strong bias toward non-primary attributes. It would make 20's exceedingly rare.

I think this would work particularly well with the old school "3d6 in order" rolling method.

Thoughts?

 

[aco175]

That is a cool idea, but appears more powerful at first thoughts. I can also see where some players want to have advantage on rolls in their main stat to get to 20 faster. Then, this leads to problems with multi-attribute dependent PCs and needing to 'fix' that part.

Would be cool to give inspiration towards this though and the player can save all the inspirations gotten to when they level.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I got this idea from Mausritter, but modified it as a replacement for ASIs:

Every time you gain a level, roll 1d20 for each attribute, in any order you choose. The first time you roll higher than the attribute, add +1 to that attribute and stop there. If you run out of attributes...well, better luck next level.

Even if you added +1 at every level that would average out to twice as many total points as the ASI method (for most classes), but with a strong bias toward non-primary attributes. It would make 20's exceedingly rare.

I think this would work particularly well with the old school "3d6 in order" rolling method.

Thoughts?

I played in a three year OD&D campaign that ended a couple years ago. We had the option to attempt to level up an attribute when our characters gained a level. We picked one, rolled 3d6. If it was higher than the existing score, that attribute went up by one.

It worked very well. Rolling 3d6 meant that it became more difficult to surpass an existing score the higher it was.

We also used OD&D/1E attribute bonuses--not 3E. So we were primarily trying to get 16 in our primary attributes to get that ten percent XP bonus.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I played in a three year OD&D campaign that ended a couple years ago. We had the option to attempt to level up an attribute when our characters gained a level. We picked one, rolled 3d6. If it was higher than the existing score, that attribute went up by one.

It worked very well. Rolling 3d6 meant that it became more difficult to surpass an existing score the higher it was.

We also used OD&D/1E attribute bonuses--not 3E. So we were primarily trying to get 16 in our primary attributes to get that ten percent XP bonus.

Oh I like this system.

 

[Quartz]

I vaguely remember something very similar for the original Runequest. IIRC you kept a record of every time you used a stat and every so many successes gave you a roll to try to increase it. And to increase the stat you had to roll higher - with some modifiers.

 

[mhd]

This is basically how The Dark Eye 2nd edition worked. Attributes started at d6+7 there, bonus progression was of course different.

Hackmaster basically has AD&Ds strength percentiles for every game, and you could increase all of them bit by bit. Rolemaster had their weird "potential" stats...

Constant attribute progression was basically the core of Tunnels & Trolls. I think this works best if most of the attributes are actually worth it (recent D&Ds are quite single-statty), and the increments actually matter. I tried something like this for my very first 5E game, for a bigger zero-to-hero experience. Didn't feel like the right game for it.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

It's a clever and elegant approach that's random without being too random. It would also make level-ups more exciting. 5e level-ups are generally satisfying from a power standpoint, but if you aren't someone who chooses spells every level you are bound to have some level-ups where there is no excitement for the actual levelling.

My own preferred implementation would be something like on certain levels you can just choose instead of rolling to ensure that even the unluckiest player still eventually has decent stats where they need them. I'm not so opposed to people having 20s in stats, eventually.

 

[jgsugden]

As long as you do not exceed 20 on the ability score, no system, even all 20s at first level, will break the game. It sounds like fun. Go for it.

 

[Bill Zebub]

My own preferred implementation would be something like on certain levels you can just choose instead of rolling to ensure that even the unluckiest player still eventually has decent stats where they need them. I'm not so opposed to people having 20s in stats, eventually.

That sounds like what the current ASI system does, so I'm clearly missing something. What are you thinking of?

 

[Benjamin Olson]

That sounds like what the current ASI system does, so I'm clearly missing something. What are you thinking of?

Right. I meant the system you proposed for most levels, but letting people actually just choose a stat to increase on levels divisible by 5 or some such.