Sounds like you only came to the game with 3e. Flatter ability bonuses is QUITE D&D; in the old days, you needed to have a 15 to get a +1 in most cases.
Actually, one of things I was thinking is that it was so un-D&D. In AD&D, most ability scores gave you nothing through the average range, and then kicked in a bonus that went up with each point.
STR is perhaps the worst offender. A 9-15 STR gave you no combat bonuses. 16 gave you a mere +1 damage, 17 +1 to each, 18 +1/+2, up to 18/00 giving you +3/+6. That's far from 'flat.'
The OP's idea is to give a bonus for merely above avera
Sounds like you only came to the game with 3e. Flatter ability bonuses is QUITE D&D; in the old days, you needed to have a 15 to get a +1 in most cases.
Actually, one of things I was thinking is that it was so un-D&D. In AD&D, most ability scores gave you nothing through the average range, and then kicked in a bonus that went up with each point.
STR is perhaps the worst offender. A 9-15 STR gave you no combat bonuses. 16 gave you a mere +1 damage, 17 +1 to each, 18 +1/+2, up to 18/00 giving you +3/+6. That's far from 'flat.'
The OP's idea is to give a bonus for merely above average, and then give a slightly better bonus to the range of high scores that paleo-D&D gave a sharply increasing series of bonuses to. He's going in the same direction Gamma World went in 1992 and D&D went in 2000, when ability bonuses were put on a more linear progression, he's just reduced the slope.
5e is looking very hard at AD&D to get that 'classic feel.' Innovations from 3.0 may not be in nearly as much danger as those from 4e, but some of them might yet be wound back. ge, and then give a slightly better bonus to the range of high scores that paleo-D&D gave a sharply increasing series of bonuses to. He's going in the same direction Gamma World went in 1992 and D&D went in 2000, when ability bonuses were put on a more linear progression, he's just reduced the slope.
5e is looking very hard at AD&D to get that 'classic feel.' Innovations from 3.0 may not be in nearly as much danger as those from 4e, but some of them might yet be wound back. And it seems unlikely anything is going to continue to move in the same direction it did in 3e & 4e.