Attribute scores don't make sense

[AntiPaladin]

I think it's fine the way it is.

Even ability scores give you a modifier increase, odd ability scores are typically used for feat qualifications. When you ding certain levels, you get a choice of which scores to increase, either for modifier or feat reasons. Seems great to me.

 

[Vayden]

Sign me up for "this cow is too sacred to lose" train. You could get rid of hp, and it would still be D&D to me, but 6 stats 3-18, crits on a 20, and using all of the true polyhedrals are the three rules mechanics that tell me I'm playing D&D. (Well, that and the killing dragons and taking their stuff).

 

[ravenight]

Personally, I think the biggest problem is actually the general lack of penalty for low stats. The main reason previous systems designed to remove randomness from character creation had trouble (and have been tweaked to the point of starting with 5 10s and an 8, then adding more) is because the benefit for having 18 in a primary class stat was far too large to be overcome by the penalty for low scores in non-class abilities. I think it would have been nice if 4e had tried to overcome this in some way (for example, it could add together 2 stats for your defenses, instead of taking the higher one, but give a lower base value - so 8 + Int mod + Dex mod or whatever). As is, we have PCs with all high stats, so an 8 int is as dumb as a PC gets. That's actually fine, in its own way, but it contributes to the disconnect from the 3d6 roll that makes this system seem outdated. Another possibility that would have been nice is if they had made a table of potential score distributions, where the more wildly skewed distributions had fewer total points, and the broader distributions more total points. I know the current system does this, but I mean do it such that I can play a character with 4 Int if I want, I just don't get some obscene bonus in return.

Maybe a house rule is enough...

 

[Aldarc]

Using a character which is well known

Raistlin

Character was written up as having low con score

the player wondered why this was the case

the player created the backstory about Raistlin being a sickly child which further got rolled into his backstory of his test of high sorcery which later was put into novels

from little things big things grow

anything which aids a players ability to perceive their character and better explain the in's and out's of who what where etc is a good thing, if you don't use the ability scores that way it fine but do not tell others that notion has no bases in their reality

everyone needs a starting point to flesh out their multidirectional persona and this just happened to be easy start point

just thank the makers they didn't go the 2ed cheats and routes skills and powers were every stat had a secondary stat

But couldn't you still just drop the score and have the modifiers like True20?

 

[see]

We don't have the traditional 3-18 range anymore. Stats actually range from 8-18 plus modifiers (unless you use an officially cautioned-against method advertised as giving less-than-average results). Monsters/NPCs have stats appear on their sheets, but they don't actually have a game effect; ability damage/drain no longer exist, so temporary low scores don't happen; no races have negative ability score modifiers.

The "sickly mage" will be Con 10 at 21st level; the "dumb fighter" will have Int 10; the "clumsy cleric" will have Dex 10.

 

[Particle_Man]

I like the attributes the way they are.

I think they should have allowed a "redo" of assigning attributes as a retraining option, though.