Do inital stats weight too much?

[fistoftyr]

One thing that worries me of the flat numbers is what happens if your stats are rubbish?

Adding bonuses per class level balances things longer term, your save/to-hit/skill check will always be worse than someone with an 18, but you can get to be competent. Nurture ends up compensating Nature somewhat.

Editions before 4th gave more weight to initial stats, with STR under 18/X being poor for a fighter or your AC always lacking for low Dex, but still your basics like saves, THAC0/BAB did improve enough to make you competent at least. But 5e seems the one most biased towards the Nature over Nurture side.

Because of this possible imbalance, and the super-charged value of initial stats, the only viable stat generation method would be point distribution. Random stats can make for huge imbalances between party members that level bonuses will never correct.

Now, I do not like rolling dice for stats that much because I am never lucky , but it is certainly part of the 'old school' feel.

 

[Invisible Stalker]

I'll be looking for the background that allows for advantage when rolling for ability scores. 5d6 drop lowest two, that sounds good to me.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Are you suggesting that if one character has substantially better ability scores than another character, it shouldn't matter? I would hope that if my fighter has 12 Str and yours has 18, yours will beat mine down in a straight-up melee. Moreover, I would hope that this 18 Str fighter could reliably grapple an 8 Str wizard of any level (if he could get close enough). How strong, agile, tough, smart, wise, and charismatic your character is should be more important than anything; it's really what the game is built around, which is what the 5e writers have correctly identified.

What is important, though, is making sure that all six ability scores mean something, which is where 3e does not do a good job, 4e does worse, and basically every edition of D&D has failed at. If all six ability scores mean something, characters don't get really imbalanced unless their total weight of ability scores is different.

The six-save concept is a good thing, but there is a lot more work to be done on this front.