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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amrûnril" data-source="post: 8383091" data-attributes="member: 6841183">I definitely agree with the OP’s sentiments here: that making more ability scores useful for each class is a desirable goal and that Pillars of Eternity shows a good example of what this can look like, but that its specific implementation wouldn’t be a good thematic or mechanical fit for D&D.While it would be possible to construct a new system with a different number/set of abilities, I think that, for a lot of players, moving away from the six traditional ones would make the game stop feeling like for D&D. I also don’t think it’s plausible, or necessarily desirable, to move away from certain classes having an association with certain abilities. I would, however, like to see every class get some benefit out of every ability, while avoiding situations where a character can rely on a single ability for almost every combat statistic. Here are some tentative thoughts on what that could look like in terms of individual ability scores:Strength could add to the damage of all weapon attacks, even those that use a different ability to hit. If we want to go a bit further, it could also grant armor proficiencies automatically at high enough thresholds.Dexterity is already pretty universally applicable, but if we want to make it a bit more useful to strength-based characters, it could apply to AC even with heavy armor (perhaps at a discounted rate). Alternatively (though this would be a larger departure from D&D tradition) wisdom could contribute to AC instead of dexterity, and high dexterity could allow some number of extra reactions or bonus actions per rest.Constitution already does a great job of being useful to everyone, though if other stats become more universally useful in combat, it might be worth giving constitution a few more uses out of combat.Intelligence could contribute to known options for most class/subclass abilities. A high intelligence bard, for instance, could know more spells, even if the power of those spells depends on charisma. Similarly, a high intelligence battlemaster could have more maneuver options available. Obviously, applying this would require a lot more class/subclass level rewriting/balancing than other suggestions, and scaling things by both intelligence and level could get a bit fiddly. I think it would do a good job, though, of making intelligence good for a character of any class who wants to be good at finding the right tools for specific situations.Wisdom, as noted above, could contribute to AC, representing insight about where attacks are likely to be aimed.Charisma seems like the hardest ability to find a universal application for. It could be used for more saves and as the basis for specific abilities (I think a couple battlemaster maneuvers already do this), but I think that would still seem underwhelming, from a combat perspective, for characters who don’t use it for spellcasting.</blockquote>

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