D&D 5E D&D Next playtest post mortem by Mike Mearls and Rodney Thompson. From seven years ago.

[James Gasik]

But some people are talking about swapping any ability they want in for strength. That's why it's difficult to have these discussions. On the other hand, intelligence can be useful to a fighter based on skill proficiencies.

If you want it to be useful in combat I could see it adding some bonus, but then you get balance and complexity issues. Not a bad idea I'm just not sure what it would look like. Seems like you'd need a whole set of strength (or dex?) + int or wis or cha modifications. How far does it need to go and which classes would get the benefits? Go back to having feats that require a minimum X [ability score] that primarily benefits martial characters?

Ugh, no, let's not go back to the Combat Expertise days. Sure, it gave you a reason to want Int, but beyond 13 it was just more skill points. As for helping with Int-based skills, sure, unless you have a Wizard or something in the party, then it's not all that effective, since you know they're going to have an Int of 20 before long.

However, I did have an idea for what Intelligence could do; Each +1 ability modifier for Intelligence grants a bonus Reaction each turn that cannot be used to cast spells.

 

[payn]

However, I did have an idea for what Intelligence could do; Each +1 ability modifier for Intelligence grants a bonus Reaction each turn that cannot be used to cast spells.

I really like this idea. Divorce offense mods from stats and just give them to class. Let the stat mods give bonuses to other elements of combat. This is a winning idea.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This thread has taken a serious tangent...
Charisma, Wisdom, or Intelligence fighters. We have subclasses that accomplish this with some hefty caveats, Hexblade being the most notable for Charisma. So it already can be done in 5E, but typically it is to allow a spellcaster to be at least somewhat proficient in physical combat. So you have Pact of the Blade/Hexblade or Bladesong to enable Intelligence.

yes it buffs casters to very close to as good with a weapon as fighters... but you do get we want the reverse... to buff the fighter to be closer to casters.

These ability swaps come with some penalties. Only certain weapon types are allowed or the swap is only for a limited amount of time or times per day.

I'm sorry but hexblade/blade pact doesn't have a limit and the bladesinger is just limited to 1 handed

My preference for a charismatic fighter or intelligent strategist would be adding a kicker to a regular fighter. The ability to add charisma to damage one attack per round like a minor sneak attack.

there was an exploit on 4e rogue I think would work well... sly flourish

Additional maneuvers to gain advantage or position enemies to result in a multi-round setup for a big payoff. Make the mental stat add-on not the root of power.

again this sounds a lot like a 4e martial rogue

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The 3e wizard makes the 5e wizard look like a declawed kitten.

yes 3e boosted 2e wizard (by many orders of magnitude)
4e made all classes close* to equal by nerfing casters and raising noncasters
5e boosted casters again (maybe only half way to 3e levels, but slightly over 2e) but nerfing non caster back down to only slightly over 3e.

*close, not exact.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Heh. I do love the whole "but my believability" argument.

100% agree but I have to nit pick

An artificer picks up a magic crossbow and can use Cha for attacks. A fighter, doing exactly the same thing, with exactly the same weapon MUST use Dex, despite being "the weapon guy".

We already allow casters to swap out stats for making attacks. What's the issue with allowing non-casters?

Int not cha

but yeah.
in 5e you can easily make a caster that make str, dex, int, wis, or cha attacks

 

[GMforPowergamers]

But some people are talking about swapping any ability they want in for strength. That's why it's difficult to have these discussions. On the other hand, intelligence can be useful to a fighter based on skill proficiencies.

it's easy if you don't pretend an 8 str isn't stronger then average people in the US. then again I am not argueing a str 8, If I have an 11 str and 16 Int why CAN'T I use my int to hit? "Fight smarter not harder"

If you want it to be useful in combat I could see it adding some bonus, but then you get balance and complexity issues. Not a bad idea I'm just not sure what it would look like. Seems like you'd need a whole set of strength (or dex?) + int or wis or cha modifications. How far does it need to go and which classes would get the benefits? Go back to having feats that require a minimum X [ability score] that primarily benefits martial characters?

not feats, options... not cost, just 'hey you have X stat higher then Y stat so use it'

 

[glass]

The 3e wizard makes the 5e wizard look like a declawed kitten.

In a lot of ways that is true, but on the other had the 5e Wizard got a lot of playability and quality-of-life improvements compared with 3.P (including, most significantly, AE-style readying instead of vancian preparation). I would say that 3.P has a much higher optimisation ceiling, but a much lower floor.

The tangent is based on the idea that the postmortem and surveys said that people wanted combat simplicity and one of the designer's goals was not to design with their own personal biases.

I am not convinced this is even possible, or would be desirable even if it were. But if it were, it would require far more rigour and adherance to structure than Mearls is capable of (given his regarding 4e-style class roles as an unwelcome limit on his "freedom to design" - to really counteract his biases, he would have to accept much greater limits than that IMNSHO).

 

[billd91]

not feats, options... not cost, just 'hey you have X stat higher then Y stat so use it'

The problem with this debate is, as I see it, from a role playing game design perspective where there are nods to genre conventions, using a stat just because it's higher is a bad justification. That's just a purely game mechanical/power wish fulfillment justification when we should be looking at the elements of genre.
This is a heavy weapon and requires application of power to wield effectively.
This is a finesse weapon and requires application of deftness.
This is a projection of your mental power and requires the application of mental strength.
etc.

So this takes us back to something I've talked about on these boards before with respect to giving stats better weights and where I think 4e went wrong in its application of picking stats for your NADs. 4e paired the stats, and gave players a choice then semi-cooked classes to make use of 3-4 of those stats. That enabled some PCs to dump 3, others to only dump 2, and optimize their characters.
I believe they should have paired them but set one to be offensive and one to be defensive. That gives all 6 some weight, though some classes will still be able to dump some because they are less relevant. In this arrangement you get:

	Offense (used for offense - attacks/spells)	Defense (used for defenses, saves, AC, etc)
Physical-oriented	Strength	Constitution
Skill-oriented	Intelligence (call it Acuity, maybe?)	Dexterity
Mental-oriented	Charisma	Wisdom

The only pairing that's really kind of weird is Intelligence/Dexterity but that was weird in 4e as well. It kind of works if you consider Intelligence as a degree of acuity, possibly mental or physical or both. Dexterity as a defense is more along the lines of reflexes.
Then if, by genre convention, it's a heavy weapon that requires application of physical power, the offensive stat is Strength. If it requires deftness/finesse, it's Intelligence. If it requires a projection mental power, it's Charisma. It's not about just putting all of your offense under your highest stat and maximizing its use for both offense and defense if you can.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Ugh, no, let's not go back to the Combat Expertise days. Sure, it gave you a reason to want Int, but beyond 13 it was just more skill points. As for helping with Int-based skills, sure, unless you have a Wizard or something in the party, then it's not all that effective, since you know they're going to have an Int of 20 before long.

However, I did have an idea for what Intelligence could do; Each +1 ability modifier for Intelligence grants a bonus Reaction each turn that cannot be used to cast spells.

Fundamentally, we always have this issue with in-game smartness scores* in that how they likely would most benefit a character in an adventuring lifestyle would be that they would make good decisions, but that's almost always instead gated by player decision.
*and for our purposes we'll ignore that games tend to mix and match terms and concepts of beneficial mental faculties every which way possible.

Instead we have these alternate paths to making them useful like using the score instead of Str/Dex or gating abilities like Combat Expertise or extra reactions (or in mid-late 2E, getting to use the extra-languages granted for combat-focused proficiencies like fighting styles, specialization, bling-fighting, etc.). At a purely theoretical level, I think they all are approximately the same in value. Obviously 3e's specific implementation of the extra-abilities version did leave a huge span of score where there was no further benefit, but at the same time left open room for more Int-prereqed feats (whereas extra reactions works exactly if and only if extra reactions would be a significant tactical benefit). Maybe also one where Int allows you to get more situations where you get advantage on attacks. I tend to prefer these to 'replace' (normal combat stat with Int score) methods, if only in that the later are just replacing one hand-wavy abstract measure for another, and also because Str does have a benefit in combat (and, for all the grief Oofta is getting, they're not wrong that burly mighty knight character is a common fantasy gaming power fantasy that has systematically gotten most of its' niche eaten away in the currect system).

Overall I wish that all attributes got individual and non-overlapping ways they benefited you in combat, but that is a significantly harder challenge to design. Plus, if the same is not done for interacting with the system in combat for spellcasters or the like, it again becomes another thing the martial classes have to be good at where the caster (or Moon Druid) gets to ignore some/all their stats. All of this is secondary to my primary preference of making class and level be the primary avenues of combat success with the role of attributes overall diminished (the real way, IMO, that we will get smart fighters or strong wizards, etc.).

 

[Minigiant]

I am not convinced this is even possible, or would be desirable even if it were. But if it were, it would require far more rigour and adherance to structure than Mearls is capable of (given his regarding 4e-style class roles as an unwelcome limit on his "freedom to design" - to really counteract his biases, he would have to accept much greater limits than that IMNSHO).

It's definitely possible. That was 4E essentials before it died.