D&D General Friday Nonsense: Add One Stat To D&D (For PCs)

[Parmandur]

Im a political intrigue junky and social is my favorite pillar. I'd love to see a some type of social stat. I'd like something more unique than "social" but I think of things like station or echelon and it seems too formal. For lack of a better term at the moment, I suppose social will do.

Traveller, for example has a social stat. It denotes rank and characters upbringing and customs. I dont use it like a typical mod in that high and positive are better. I view it more like a spectrum. The higher the number, the more upscale your customs are. You can wear a uniform or formal wear proficiently and conduct yourself in an acceptable manner. On the other end, you know your way around blue collar and lower customs places. Each has a benefit depending on where the story takes you. A high character will stick out like a sore thumb in a back alley thieves den, but a low score is going to be spotted as a fraud from a mile away at a swanky party of high society socialites.

Yeah, this was going to be my answer. In the sorts of societies D&D Settings are full of, these sorts of hierarchies and manners would be a legitimate aspect of social interactions, and are a different dimension than raw Charisma or Intelligence.

Not sure itnwould fit neatly with the intrinsic attributes of D&D, but it would be my choice for a 7th.

 

[Parmandur]

I feel like this could be more succinctly described as “Luck”

Luvk lacks a certain...something...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Luck, adapted from Fighting Fantasy, a fellow old school RPG. It's a 3d6 score, just like the main six scores. (Add an extra 10 stat to the point array choices, for characters created that way.)

In 5E, it would be used for situations where something purely luck based, not skill based, but you want to reflect that some characters are just born lucky (those with the Lucky feat, halflings) and others are not. Probably no one get proficiency on these rolls, unless there was a specific subclass that granted that.

Lots of DMs already do "luck rolls," but with those, every character is effectively the same. This would add the idea that some characters really area unusually lucky/unlucky, based on their stat bonuses.

 

[TiQuinn]

Concentration already indicates that Constitution isnt just physical - grit and mental endurance is in there too

Yeah, but I don’t think it’s just Concentration. The ability to dig deep and persevere, to me, is not defined by concentration. It’s a different quality.

Hence why I think it’s a seperate stat.

 

[Lanefan]

Inspired by another thread: an actual Number of Lives stat. Maybe you get 1 per level (that you keep if you don't use) but that feels like a lot. Maybe 9, just because. Half your level?

In any case, you lose one every time you would have otherwise died, and when the last one goes, you are dead, dead. As long as you still have at least one, after a long rest, you wake up wounded and scarred, but alive.

1e already had that: you could only be brought back from the dead a number of times equal to your starting Constitution score, regardless of the method used. After that, you're dead-dead-dead.

 

[Lanefan]

As for what stat to add?

Well, clearly the most important and defining stat for any character is - on a 3-18 bell-curve scale - shoe size.

 

[Minigiant]

Magic

Just
Magic

 

[CreamCloud0]

combustibility.

 

[Marc17]

Things I have used in the past:

Lives: We got 1d4 lives per character for one campaign I was in. Rolled at character creation. This was named "Luck" and I think it was used once or twice for changing things besides death.

Reputation: Got points according to the adventure reward and how well it was known. Could boost it by hiring bards tomato songs about you, tell your stories, spread the news of your deeds, etc. The higher it was the more chance people would have actually heard of you. If it was good or not was a different matter, and nobody got to a decently high level without a decently high reputation without actively keeping their deeds secret.

Piety: Every character got their own piety score which shows how often PCs actually did things like pray, make donations, respect the gods, etc. Even clerics, as in a world where the gods are given, being a cleric could just be another job. Not doing things as standard procedure in this case. Characters only got credit if they actually stated they did such things.

Honor: Never actually used this but was very similar to Piety as being a score that was kept track of as PCs actually did something honorable. (Basis for this and the Piety score comes from Lone Wolf and Cub comics. Characters there with high or low of such could just be told by others. Perhaps in 5E it might give advantage or disadvantage to social rolls, but usually would just modify the DMs (my) general consideration of their actions.)

Corruption: to be used in a horror game or one that dealt with "dark magics". There were several options I found on such including in some official D&D books. In the end I never implemented such as I didn't think it would really carry over a feeling of dread or even doom. Horror as such is just to emotional and better done by description and setting the mood with flavor text during play.

 

[J-H]

Ja Ne Sais Quois: a new ability score used only for unspecified rolls. It has no associated skills, but gets added to things like death saves, or any roll where the DM isn’t quite sure what stat, if any, is appropriate to add.

What if it was "you can add this to any roll in place of your normal modifier, but you don't add your Proficiency Bonus"? This makes it the Luck stat.

Death save? Add luck. Attack roll when you're not good with weapons? Add luck. Trying to pick a lock when you don't know how? Add luck.

A wizard with a maxed luck (+5) makes an attack roll with a dagger... he only gets +5. The rogue (max dex & proficiency) gets +7 to +11, so the "lucky" character isn't ever better than a specialized character. Putting ASIs into Luck helps characters get lucky, but doesn't substitute for true proficiency or primary-stat ASIs.