D&D 5E Attribute Score Method

[DND_Reborn]

I would go for opposite.

every score is it's own modifier.

10(+0) is average
for humanoids(before racials, if any) is spread from 6(-4) or 14(+4)
for average NPCs you can roll 8d2-2, that gives 1/256 chance for max or min score and 27,3% chance for an average 10(+1)

for PCs you can play with number of d2s for various degree if PC power or starting stat limitations.

5d2+4 works closest to 4d6D1

In some respects I would agree with you. Ultimately, I don't even see much point in having raw ability scores anymore. Only two features in the game use the actually ability score IIRC. I think eventually (I hope) D&D will just go to listing modifiers, since that is what really matters.

So, instead of having STR 14, DEX 10, CON 15, INT 12, WIS 13, CHR 8 you would have STR +2, DEX +0, CON +2, INT +1, WIS +1, CHA -1.

 

[Alexander Moonbeam]

In my campaigns, each player can choose to use either point-buy, or roll 4d6 and drop the lowest.

Everybody's happy.

 

[the Jester]

Players in my game roll 4d6 drop 1 and arrange to taste.

My personal preference is to roll 4d6 drop 1 in order.

 

[Charlaquin]

It is also why earlier in D&D when 3d6 was rolled:

3: -3
4-5: -2
6-8: -1
9-12: --
13-15: +1
16-17: +2
18: +3

Using 3d6, I would return to those modifiers instead of the modifiers as they are in 5E, personally.

So the relationship between scores and mods follows a bell curve instead of scaling linearly. That makes so much more sense with a 3d6 score generation method!

 

[Horwath]

In some respects I would agree with you. Ultimately, I don't even see much point in having raw ability scores anymore. Only two features in the game use the actually ability score IIRC. I think eventually (I hope) D&D will just go to listing modifiers, since that is what really matters.

So, instead of having STR 14, DEX 10, CON 15, INT 12, WIS 13, CHR 8 you would have STR +2, DEX +0, CON +2, INT +1, WIS +1, CHA -1.

ofc.

but we can keep the scores simply as legacy items.

Also having str 1 with -9 modifier better describes really weak/tiny creatures than str 1 with -5 modifier, in game mechanics.

 

[DND_Reborn]

So the relationship between scores and mods follows a bell curve instead of scaling linearly. That makes so much more sense with a 3d6 score generation method!

Well, I don't know about Chainmail or OD&D, but B/X and BECMI that was how it worked IIRC.

Also having str 1 with -9 modifier better describes really weak/tiny creatures than str 1 with -5 modifier, in game mechanics.

I agree, but with BA you either have to change the "normal scale" as you suggest (instead of 3-18ish it would be 6-15 or something) or you have to adjust the numbers in terms of BA. For example, if a STR 18 is +8, then proficiency max a +6 seems pale by comparison and it throws BA out the window... personally, I am ok with that as I have always felt BA capped around 30 was "too tight" and would prefer a cap closer to 40 for things.

 

[tetrasodium]

In some respects I would agree with you. Ultimately, I don't even see much point in having raw ability scores anymore. Only two features in the game use the actually ability score IIRC. I think eventually (I hope) D&D will just go to listing modifiers, since that is what really matters.

So, instead of having STR 14, DEX 10, CON 15, INT 12, WIS 13, CHR 8 you would have STR +2, DEX +0, CON +2, INT +1, WIS +1, CHA -1.

They would need to add a tag to represent +0.5 so that two minor items could together amount to +1 like an EXAMPLE strength item & it would get complicated when you have an EXAMPLE athletics item with it making the PC ask if the two stack when making an athletics check... If not then it becomes obvious & spotlighted that the item serves n purpose & never will without a very specific item, if yes then you either med to start writing #.5 all over or check for combos adding to +1 all the time rather than just when you add or remove an item that mods something. TBH I think the better route would be to regress towards expanding the range of +/-0 on the attributes.

 

[DND_Reborn]

They would need to add a tag to represent +0.5 so that two minor items could together amount to +1 like an EXAMPLE strength item & it would get complicated when you have an EXAMPLE athletics item with it making the PC ask if the two stack when making an athletics check... If not then it becomes obvious & spotlighted that the item serves n purpose & never will without a very specific item, if yes then you either med to start writing #.5 all over or check for combos adding to +1 all the time rather than just when you add or remove an item that mods something. TBH I think the better route would be to regress towards expanding the range of +/-0 on the attributes.

I would just scale items, etc. For example instead of races getting +2 ASI and +1 ASI, just give them +1 mod instead of the +2 ASI (or if you want a more powerful game, two +1 mods).

I would be fine with expanding the ranges, say -9 to +9 (representing the old 1 through 19) and then expand proficiency up to +10-12ish. Of course, everything would need to be scaled accordingly--ACs would cap around 30-35 or so and DCs could go up to 40 for nearly impossible as it was in prior editions--BUT I understand the point of BA was to remove those things, so again...

 

[tetrasodium]

I would just scale items, etc. For example instead of races getting +2 ASI and +1 ASI, just give them +1 mod instead of the +2 ASI (or if you want a more powerful game, two +1 mods).

I would be fine with expanding the ranges, say -9 to +9 (representing the old 1 through 19) and then expand proficiency up to +10-12ish. Of course, everything would need to be scaled accordingly--ACs would cap around 30-35 or so and DCs could go up to 40 for nearly impossible as it was in prior editions--BUT I understand the point of BA was to remove those things, so again...

The problem is that 1d20+mods only has so much room for feats spells & magic items before the mods make the 1d20 irrelevant so shrinking the designspace allocated to magic items spells feats & so on means that either you need to dial back the treasure again... shrink the viable level range before the system breaks down... or use a dice pool. There are systems like fate shadowrun modiphius's 2d20 games & so forth that use raw low numbers rather than an abstraction.. but all of them use a dice pool that tends to vary based on the score. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you could use a dice pool in an interesting way in d&d like with proficiency dice(dmg263) but you'd need to radically change the system to such a massive degree that I'm not sure it could even charitably still be called d&d

 

[DND_Reborn]

The problem is that 1d20+mods only has so much room for feats spells & magic items before the mods make the 1d20 irrelevant so shrinking the designspace allocated to magic items spells feats & so on means that either you need to dial back the treasure again... shrink the viable level range before the system breaks down... or use a dice pool. There are systems like fate shadowrun modiphius's 2d20 games & so forth that use raw low numbers rather than an abstraction.. but all of them use a dice pool that tends to vary based on the score. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you could use a dice pool in an interesting way in d&d like with proficiency dice(dmg263) but you'd need to radically change the system to such a massive degree that I'm not sure it could even charitably still be called d&d

Yeah, I understand about the shrinking value of the d20. But, looking at something like d20 SW, I think 40 as the cap works fine.

You could retune ability scores back to 3-18 for a -7 to +7 with 10-11 being average, and then cap proficiency at +8-10 maybe, allowing a few extra points for magic items, features like Archery fighting style, and so on, so that (sans Expertise) the cap total should be 19-20ish.

But, you would have to retool the entire game around that, which isn't worth it IMO. So, I would just retune abilty scores to 5-15 or go with straight -5 to +5 modifiers.