D&D 5E D&D Q&A 12/13: Racial Ability Scores, Cleric Options & Monsters

[Sunseeker]

Sure you could do all those things, but then if it doesn't "scream" D&D, it seems to me it's due to all those other things you've done, not just taking ability scores out of combat.

Strings. I see the ability-score system as a core element of the game. It defines you. It determines your class(assuming you roll in-order), which determines your combat role, your skills, your saves, and so on. Remove that corner stone and all you are left with is player choice.

Are ability modifiers in combat really what makes 3.5 "scream" D&D, and without them, it doesn't? Is the original D&D, with it's almost absent ability modifiers, somehow almost absent of D&D-ness?

Having not played it, nor having any strong desire to do so, I can't really say. Perhaps when D&D was first created it screamed D&D much more loudly, because it did so in a fairly large RPG vacuum.

Also, for 3.5, I probably would scale the modifier to make it fit with the expectations of the rest of the system. But even without that, taking levels in classes is still a mechanic that's not easily converted into a pure XP point-buy system. Classes organize mechanics, and can be easier to balance, than freeform point-buy.

Class mechanics don't need levels. Class features do. It doesn't matter if you're level 1 or level 15, wizards still have vancian casting. Use point-buy to purchase new spell "tomes", powerful spells simply cost more. You wouldn't have low XP players buying Disintegrate right off the bat.

 

[Ratskinner]

Strings. I see the ability-score system as a core element of the game. It defines you. It determines your class(assuming you roll in-order), which determines your combat role, your skills, your saves, and so on. Remove that corner stone and all you are left with is player choice.

There's some truth to that. However, given the popularity of "arrange to suit" and point buy, or even array picking, I'm not sure that we should assume that "roll'em in order" should be the best way to generate a random character anymore. Perhaps a few tables; roll a d4 for class, d12 for background, d4 for race, d20 for theme (games using the advanced classes, could roll d20 for class on a different table.) Its a lot simpler to add randomness to a choice-based system than vice-versa.

 

[dkyle]

Strings. I see the ability-score system as a core element of the game. It defines you. It determines your class(assuming you roll in-order), which determines your combat role, your skills, your saves, and so on. Remove that corner stone and all you are left with is player choice.

So then, to be clear, 3.5 is not, by the book, a game that qualifies as D&D? Because rolling in order is not any of the provided options. If you do roll, you're rolling how good of stats you get to choose to distribute, not rolling to determine class or archetype or any sort of implied background.

But then, I've always hated rolling for stats, so seeing it as the corner stone of D&D is rather foreign to my point of view.

Class mechanics don't need levels. Class features do. It doesn't matter if you're level 1 or level 15, wizards still have vancian casting. Use point-buy to purchase new spell "tomes", powerful spells simply cost more. You wouldn't have low XP players buying Disintegrate right off the bat.

By class mechanics, I mean the class mechanics we've seen in D&D (and mostly been talking about 3E-style classes that can be mixed-and-matched).

Again, yes, you could do all sorts of different mechanics that make the game less recognizable as DnD. But none of them are necessary, or even encouraged, by taking ability scores out of the combat system.

Suggesting all these other mechanics and decrying them as "not DnD" does not in any way demonstrate that specifically taking ability scores out of combat makes a game "not DnD".

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Ability scores are important because they provide a way to prevent cherry-picking of classes, feats, etc. WITHOUT super-strict rules on multiclassing. They're a somewhat organic and intuitive way to define your character's relative strengths and weaknesses: if I make a dumb fighter, he'll never be great at casting wizard spells. And since I don't get straight 18s for my ability scores, I have to choose whether it's more important that my fighter be smart enough to maybe learn a spell or two, or charismatic enough to act as negotiator, or whatever. (If I'm rolling stats in order, of course, the process is a bit different but the result is the same: characters with well-defined strengths and weaknesses that change only very slowly.)

Certainly you could make a system without those restrictions, but then you're left with two options: either it's completely up to the players how powerful and diverse their characters are (in which case the "dumb fighter" and "clumsy wizard" and a million other genre archetypes are instantly rendered crippled character options), or else you have to come up with some new, and probably less organic and intuitive, way to restrict character creation and development.

 

[dkyle]

Ability scores are important because they provide a way to prevent cherry-picking of classes, feats, etc. WITHOUT super-strict rules on multiclassing.

If classes and feats are well-designed and balanced in the first place, then "cherry-picking" is not a problem.

They're a somewhat organic and intuitive way to define your character's relative strengths and weaknesses: if I make a dumb fighter, he'll never be great at casting wizard spells. And since I don't get straight 18s for my ability scores, I have to choose whether it's more important that my fighter be smart enough to maybe learn a spell or two, or charismatic enough to act as negotiator, or whatever.

So instead of doing this, I'm saying you could just decide whether you stay pure fighter, or take Wizard levels to pick up a few spells. There's still a choice, but it's a much clearer and more flexible one. Why shouldn't "being a Wizard" be sufficient to cast spells? Why shouldn't "being a Fighter" be sufficient to fight well? Because in practice, what you suggest doing in 3.5 just leads to a ridiculously gimped character. Ability scores nerf the concept of a Fighter/Wizard into oblivion, and I don't see why that's a good thing.

Certainly you could make a system without those restrictions, but then you're left with two options: either it's completely up to the players how powerful and diverse their characters are (in which case the "dumb fighter" and "clumsy wizard" and a million other genre archetypes are instantly rendered crippled character options), or else you have to come up with some new, and probably less organic and intuitive, way to restrict character creation and development.

Not at all.

The "dumb fighter" presumably benefits from being pure fighter, and from having high ability scores for skills other than intelligence based ones. The "clumsy wizard" presumably benefits from being pure wizard, and from having high ability scores from skills other than dexterity based ones.

There's no reason, unless the game is otherwise imbalanced, for the "dumb fighter", "smart fighter", "charismatic fighter" to be imbalanced with each other. Removing ability scores from combat mechanics simply makes all these approaches viable. It does not make any one of them inherently superior.

 

[Nellisir]

And since I don't get straight 18s for my ability scores,

Just wanted to point out that rolling for ability scores was the only way I've ever seen to get straight 18's. I stopped rolling because the results were so out-of-whack between characters.

 

[Blue]

Honestly I think this is one of those things that will prove a powerful tool for campaign building. The DM (or campaign setting guide) gets to decide what kind of weapons, armor, and spells a Cleric of Thor (or whoever) is trained to use, and if you want to make an odd PC who worships Thor but fights with a crossbow, you can have a talk with the DM to customize the domain and fit that character thematically into the game world.

Actually, I'd be not just fine but quite happy with that outcome. But I worry we'll get "Magic Domain God" is XYZ, "War Domain God" is ABC, and everythign spelled out using their divisions. If my world features a history of war with devils that was won because of the mage-knight who ascended to replace a falled god, I don't want to only be able to offer worshipers of "magic" or "war", but a balanced one that encompasses both parts simultaneously. Not as good at war as a dedicated war god, etc. So if there's rules for creating our own domains, I'll be happy. (And by creating, I really me "creating in a balanced way that doesn't involve having to playtest".)

 

[Wepwawet]

Second question: Will there be room for "white mage" style cloth-wearing clerics? (Answer: yes. In response to feedback they're putting more stuff like armor proficiencies back into the deities/domains, so your deity selection can determine whether you're a plate-wearing warpriest or a hemp-clad hippie healer. And also there will be guidelines for customizing deities/domains, so don't get your panties in a bunch about all clerics of (X) having to wear the same armor.)

Thank gods! The last playtest iteration was awful because of the Cleric and not enough differentiation. I'm glad they're going back on that one