D&D General Decoupling Ability Scores from Offense
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Iry
Hero
My basketweaving elf can't get better at basketweaving without gaining levels!
And if he COULD gain levels just from weaving baskets, he learns to throw around Meteor Swarms too!
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
I think it's a great idea--and I think you could do a LOT worse than look at 4e for how to go about it. That is, both 4th edition D&D proper and Gamma World 7e did things in this direction, just in somewhat different ways.
That is, 4e had the Inherent Bonuses option: get rid of all the various benefits you normally get from equipment, and gain stuff at <listed rates.> Any weapon you pick up, if you can use it, you can hit with it the way the system expects you to, other than your stats. You'd just be adding that bit (and, it sounds like, typical feat bonuses as well).
GW7e was pretty constrained numbers-wise, but despite having a semi-unfavorable stat gen system (3d6 strict, as I recall), it had rules to make sure your basic stats were always good for what you needed. Your character has two origins (typically randomly-rolled). Each origin is associated with a key stat. Your first origin gets 18 in its main stat (regardless of what you rolled for that stat), and your secondary origin gets 16 (ditto). If your two origins share the same key stat, you get 20 in that stat, but all your other stats are rolled as normal--your focus is better, but you lose out on getting a second "free" good roll.
You wouldn't have to have the execution work exactly like either of these things. But starting from these ideas, considering what you like and don't like about each method, could prove useful.
I, personally, have the half-baked ideas of a "simple baseline" system that uses seven stats, but I'll spoilerblock the digression about it.
I'd have four stats for non-combat applications (Might, Dexterity, Wits, Presence) and three for combat effectiveness. The three combat stats would generally cover offensive potency (typically damage), rider potency (typically how much of a buff or debuff an action inflicts), and utility potency (typically number of targets, area size, or number of uses); I'd call them Impact, Finesse, and Scope. I have a notion of making the combat stats class- or source-specific, but I haven't thought enough about the consequences of doing so. As an example thereof, however, a Paladin might have Fervor (Impact), Grace (Finesse), and Patience (Scope); you still must choose how to allocate your points among those three, but they'd be designed to all be useful, so that focused and generalist characters could all work for doing something. So maybe you have a starting score of 1 in each, and get 6 more points to put into them, up to a max of 5. You could do 5/3/1, 4/4/1, 3/3/3, whatever you like. Still allows for build variation, but decoupled from the narrative concerns that are now handled by the four non-combat stats.
TaranTheWanderer
Legend
A straight skill system does this. I liked the 3e skill system better than 5e because you could have different skills and raise them up separately but it relied too mush on stats and it wasn’t a straight skill system. Games like Fate have no levels but skill trees. Your highest skill is limited by your ‘level’ in a way but levels don’t have the same meaning in that game. You can play an entire campaign at the same ‘level’.
I feel like I’m being a sales person even though I don’t mean to but WWN did a good job of setting up skills too. As you level, you get skill points to spend. Higher skills cost more. Attacking and magicking are skills.
I’ve noticed that a lot of the suggestions presented already exist in other systems. Some are very similar to 5e.
Quartz
Hero
Skill can substitute for talent? Yes. You could take the higher of your Proficiency Bonus or your stat mod in appropriate situations. I've done this for the Fighter, allowing them to use PB instead of Dex when calculating AC:
Defensive Bonus: Your base Armour Class can become 10 + Armour + Defensive Bonus. Your Defensive Bonus is the lower of your Proficiency Bonus or your levels in the Fighter class and is limited by armour as your Dex bonus is (e.g. max of +2 with Medium Armour). You may add to your AC with a shield, Fighting Styles, magic, and the like. Your Defensive Bonus may not be used with Unarmoured Defence.
The awkward wording is there to prevent multiclassing cheese.
This is one of those things that is going to require 3rd party creation and hopeful implementation by a large number of the player to become a "thing", because my sense is that it isn't something WotC would ever want to do on its own. The six ability scores are the clarion call of D&D as a game and as such the entire baseline and main focus that I don't think they'd ever want to reduce their use even further. If ability scores aren't used for things in the game, then they have no point. If they have no point, then they fall off the game. If they fall off the game, then you don't have "Dungeons & Dragons" anymore.
Do I think that most PCs start the game with a 16 in their main stat and thus their melee or spell Attack bonus is almost always a +5? Sure. Could you replace that +5 (consisting of a +3 from main ability mod plus +2 from proficiency) with a straight +5 attack bonus on your class level chart that goes up as you level? Sure. Does that actually DO anything that the game doesn't already do? No. The only thing it DOES do is stop some players from having their attacks be bad because they accidentally put a low number in their main ability score.
But then again... if players actually read the character creation section of the PH/Basic Rules... it makes it pretty clear what your primary stat is supposed to be and even says in the Quick Build section to make X ability score your highest score. If players don't read the book to learn how their character should work... that's not something WotC necessarily has to change the rules in order to avoid.
Do I think that most PCs start the game with a 16 in their main stat and thus their melee or spell Attack bonus is almost always a +5? Sure. Could you replace that +5 (consisting of a +3 from main ability mod plus +2 from proficiency) with a straight +5 attack bonus on your class level chart that goes up as you level? Sure. Does that actually DO anything that the game doesn't already do? No. The only thing it DOES do is stop some players from having their attacks be bad because they accidentally put a low number in their main ability score.
But then again... if players actually read the character creation section of the PH/Basic Rules... it makes it pretty clear what your primary stat is supposed to be and even says in the Quick Build section to make X ability score your highest score. If players don't read the book to learn how their character should work... that's not something WotC necessarily has to change the rules in order to avoid.
TwoSix
Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer
Sure, but the idea isn't only to prevent accidental bad builds. It's also to empower deliberate playing against type (I want to play a fighter who's good at History instead of Athletics), and/or to allow more freedom if random or procedural generation of stats is used.
I think seeing a Str 10 Int 16 fighter as good at combat as a Str 16 Int 10 fighter is either something that makes you say "Yes, I like that" or "No, that's wrong", and there's not really a lot of wiggle room. It's an aesthetic preference.
jmartkdr2
Hero
I think this would work better if there were useful, player-driven ways to use skills in combat for each ability score. As of right now it's really just Athletics and sometimes Stealth (environment permitting).
Note that, IIRC, the only printed rule for feinting in combat is a Battlemaster maneuver.
