D&D 5E Honor and Sanity score

[Tales and Chronicles]

Hey everyone,

I've just finished Dming LMoP for my table and gave the reins to a fellow player, branching into OotA. Since I now have more time to plan/create stuff, I'll be working on a setting that our whole table could use for future campaigns. Reading through the DMG, I'm tempted to use the optional Honor and Sanity scores rule (without the part where the DM can raise or lower the stat; I'll treat them as any other ability score) to differentiate a little some classes from others. We often found that there's was too many charisma spellcasters in the game and that some saves where overly represented in spells and features.

My question: how about using Sanity as the Warlock spellcasting stat and Honor for Paladin? Sanity would replace any instance of the Charisma stat for the Warlock, same thing for Paladin and Honor. I usually try to make every stat relevant for every character so dumping stat is harder, so even if those abilities are primarily useful a specific class (much like the wizard and intelligence) the new score should be made useful in the game.

Also some spell saves would be modified:
Honor saves:
Holy Aura
Blinding Smite
Searing Smite
Sacred Flame
Divine Word
Dispel good and evil
Zone of Truth
Empathy/Antipathy
Hallow
Compelled Duel
Fear
Spirit Gardian
Staggering Smite
Wrathful Smite
Sanctuary
Gardians of Faith
+ Oath of the Crown, battlemaster and Swashbucker taunt features.

Sanity Saves
Vicious Mockery
Weird
Hideous Laugther
Imprisonement
Bestow Curse
Dream
Dissonant Whisper
Eyebite
Prismatic Spray
Prismatic Wall
+ Fey pact Dark Delirium, probably some Mystic features/powers, GOO pact Thrall.

 

[Satyrn]

It is an Interesting idea, and I like it.

There's a few things I can think of that you need to consider.

1) The gnome gets a racial feature called gnome cunning that gives them advantage on Int, Wis and Cha saves. Does that extend to Honor or Sanity saves? I'd vote yes to Sanity saves.
2) Are you gonna adjust any of the classes' save proficiencies? I'd actually give every class a third save - so each gets their current "good" (Dex, Con, Wis) and "bad" (Str, Int, Cha) saves - plus another bad save (with Honor and Sanity counting as bad). This way, my barbarian would still have his Str and Con save and be proficient in Honor as I think that would make sense.




Also since you're going through the spells, I think you ought to shift all the mind control spells like charm person, suggestion, and the like to Charisma saves as they ought to have been from the start.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

It is an Interesting idea, and I like it.

There's a few things I can think of that you need to consider.

1) The gnome gets a racial feature called gnome cunning that gives them advantage on Int, Wis and Cha saves. Does that extend to Honor or Sanity saves? I'd vote yes to Sanity saves.
2) Are you gonna adjust any of the classes' save proficiencies? I'd actually give every class a third save - so each gets their current "good" (Dex, Con, Wis) and "bad" (Str, Int, Cha) saves - plus another bad save (with Honor and Sanity counting as bad). This way, my barbarian would still have his Str and Con save and be proficient in Honor as I think that would make sense.




Also since you're going through the spells, I think you ought to shift all the mind control spells like charm person, suggestion, and the like to Charisma saves as they ought to have been from the start.

1) I dont know 'bout gnomes because I'm not sure they'll be in my campaign. I've always considered gnomes a little quirky/excentric, so I dont know if they'd fit for a Sanity saves, that's something to consider. For racial stats, I'll probably do something like this to replace PHB scores:
Dwarf: +1 Con, +1 honor, +2 Str (Mountain), +1 Con, +1 Honor, +1 Wis (Hill)
Halfling (Stout): +1 Honor
Triton: change +1 Cha to +1 Honor
Dragonborn: +1 Str, +1 Cha, +1 Honor
Tiefling: +1 Int, +2 Sanity
Aasimar: +1 Cha, +1 Sanity
Genasi: +1 Con, +1 Sanity

2) I dont think I'll change the classes saves, I dont really mind players having more weak saves. Probably change Warlocks and Paladin CHA save to Sanity and Honor, and maybe Monk's Str save to Honor.

For the rest of the spells, I'll probably try to rebalance more saves to charisma, int and strength by poaching in Wis and Dex saves.