D&D 5E Character sheet: Ability score or modifier in the big box?

[Joe Liker]

I actually feel very strongly that it's insufferably rude and intrusive to tell another player how to record his/her character information.

As long as the information is all present and accurate, it's really none of your business how the record is formatted. "Correcting" anyone on something like this is highly inappropriate behavior.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I kind of like the presentation of the Starter Set characters (and remember, they intentionally left the boxes unlabeled so we could do it however we like).

At my table players are free to list it however they want. I do make sure to let them know about the example of doing it an alternative (new) way, if they're used to doing it the old way.

On the other hand, I would not be happy if they ditched the 3-18 scores. They are product identity--part of what makes it D&D rather than an ever-evolving generic fantasy RPG.

This is the only reason why it's anything more than a minor annoyance. I don't want to see 3-18 disappear. I'm afraid that having the mod emphasized is sort of the first step towards eliminating the scores for 6E. That would make me sad. The scores are one of my sacred cows.

I doubt it. I consider it at least as likely that a 6e (in the reasonably distance future when it happens) will focus more on tradition than even 5e. They'll notice the complaints people have about some of the lore they unnecessarily changed and change it back. (IMO, while mechanics left much to be desired, D&D lore hit its high point in 2e. Improvements have come since then, but none of them are sufficient to justify the omissions and manglings.)

One nice thing that works well with keeping the ability scores as is, is when you are building a non standard human character in point buy where your primary ability score for the class is not the one you get a +1 in. You can set up your primary/secondary ability scores as 15/15 or 17/15 or 15/17 depending on which ability score bonuses you get. You can then split your ability score increase at level 4 to make that a 16/16 or 18/16 or 16/18 and get two modifier bumps and catch up to the other players.

Yes, this is a bit convoluted, but we have a few players at our table who did this. A halfing rogue/monk started with 17 Dex/15 wis; a Dragonborn wizard started with 15 Dex/15 Int. If the ability scores were reworked to just be the bonus, this granularity would be lost.

And some things should stay with tradition if the alternative does not make them significantly better.

Definitely. I would say that change for the sake of change has no point in a product such as a role-playing game. Change needs to materially improve a game and maintain product identity to be called for.

 

[was]

As long as they're both there, I really don't care which one is in the bigger box.

 

[drjones]

The only absolutely WRONG way to do it is to assume that the way you like it is correct, important and justifies being aggressively weird about requiring the people one plays with to do it the same way.

I like the modifier big. Especially for players new to the edition who may be confused by the sheet in general it makes it very easy to point them to the numbers they will often be using.

 

[eryndel]

I voted prefer stat/score. In fact, when I printed out character sheets to help my family make characters for Lost Mine, I had them just put the score in the larger box, modifier in the smaller. I didn't even recognize that the pregens were different until afterwards.

Still I can understand the utility of making the mod prominent.

 

[the Jester]

Whatever makes the person playing the character happy. Personally, I'm old school and will keep putting the score as the primary/big number.

 

[Wormwood]

Depends on the game. If I'm playing OD&D/Basic then my stat scores are what I want to look at, but in 5e the bonus is all I need to refer to in play.

 

[murquhart72]

On my own character sheets, the actual ability scores should be presented prominently, and in the correct order of: strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution, charisma.

Everyone else, of course, is welcome to write them down however they want.

Correct order puts Dexterity between Constitution and Charisma. Remember, Thieves are a class from a supplement, Dexterity doesn't really matter to each character as much as Constitution does

 

[redrick]

I voted neutral because I most certainly don't think there is a right way to do it. When filling in my own character sheets, I put the score in the big box and the mod in the small box, but plenty of folks at the table do the reverse, and when filling out pre-gens for new players, I have put the mod in the big box before.

As far as the anachronism of 3-18 — it is a minor failing of D&D 5e for me that odd ability scores have almost no mechanical meaning. We use point buy and standard array at our table, and I often find myself using the point buy to just adjust my standard array for no odd scores after racial bonuses.

I do like that 3-18 still mean something beyond the actual mechanics of any given edition. AD&D's to-hit calculations are different from 5e's, but I can still look at 18 strength and say, "yeah, that's damn strong." So maybe, in a putative 6th edition, the math will change again, but that idea of "wow, yeah, 18, nice" will stay the same.

 

[Arilyn]

I prefer stat in big box and modifier in small, even though it's not logical. It would grate on me if I had to flip it, even though it's completely silly.