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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blackbird71" data-source="post: 6599398" data-attributes="member: 6794081">There were no "ability modifiers" as such in AD&D.  Each ability had its own table (AD&D seemed to love making you look things up on tables) which listed the various effects modified at different levels of that ability, such as bonus spells, damage modifiers, defense adjustment, reaction, extra hit points, etc.  Each ability had multiple modifiers that it affected, and when your ability was high enough to receive bonuses, there was always something different between each ability score; e.g. for STR, at 16 your damage adjustment went up, at 17 your damage mod stayed the same but your hit probability went up, etc.  The table may have been a bit cumbersome, but they gave each level of ability meaning, as opposed to having all the odd scores feel meaningless. That all depends on starting stats - always adding 2 to an odd number means it remains an odd number.  For some reason, whenever building a character in 3/3.5/PF with point buy, I always seemed to end up stuck with an odd ability score somewhere where it didn't do me any good. That always felt like wasted points, but at least once I hit level 4 I could correct it.  I did notice some of these limitations, and yes you are right, those are helpful towards what I am looking for.I have some very good reasons to want to include multiclassing, I just don't care for the method used in 5E.  It shouldn't be too difficult to modify though.To be fair, the "powers" given to non-magical classes in 4E mechanically had little difference than the spells given to the magical classes; that's why they took a lot of flak.  It was too much of a homogenization making all the classes feel the same, magical or not.  But I digress.Definitely a plus, and one of the main selling points for me at the moment.Yes, that's a bit of what I'm looking for. I'm not going to deprive the players of magical items entirely, but every item they come across should have a history and identity, and be a rare find to be treasured rather than coinpurse fodder.I'm still trying to figure this one out - I do like that these give casters more than the "one spell per rest" that lower levels in old systems had, but I'm not sure whether I want to leave them as is.I'll look into that, thanks.I know, and the more I think about it the more of a sticking point this becomes.  It may seem like an exaggeration, but this one detail really could upset the whole world I have been planning.  The problem is how best to solve it.  Part of the issue with bards is that they have always suffered from a bit of an identity crisis in that their characteristics have shifted so drastically between each edition, it's hard to figure out what exactly they are supposed to be.I'm not as concerned about the paladin, as the holy warrior actually fits within the framework I have so far.  The ranger is a bit more problematic.  I did see the non-magical ranger build, and it's a step in the right direction, but frankly the 5E ranger just fails to impress in general.  At least from my perspective, it feels the most like the class that was tossed in at the end when they had to go to print and didn't have time to iron out all the details.  I have a hard time pointing out what exactly is wrong with it; it just feels fundamentally mediocre.  Short of a ground-up redesign, I'm not sure how else to fix it.Good to know; I'll keep that in consideration.I'm right with you on 2E; so how close does 5E get you to that same "feel"?I'll consider this; I wouldn' mind the bard having some casting ability, but it would need to be severely limited compared to what it is now.Very good to know; I hope we don't have to wait too much longer to see it!  The pessimist in me wants to believe that if it hasn't been released by now, it will probably be splatbook material, but I'll try to get him to shut up for now.The world I have planned will involve several specialized religous orders, so whether 2E specialty priests or 5E domains, I was expecting to do a bit of class creation.  Part of what bothered me on 5E before was the apparent lack of domains for truly evil clerics, but I hadn't seen the death domain; I'll have to look into that.I'm not sure yet, but I'm certain that I'll come up with more as I learn more about the system.  You've given me a lot of good ideas to start with though, and it has been much appreciated!</blockquote>

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