D&D General Hypothetical: D&D without ability scores (or bonuses)

[Tigris]

The 6 attributes are the most sacred of the D&D legacy elements. But what if we just eliminated them entirely? What if we just used skills, proficiencies, feats, etc to define what a character is good at mechanically?

Could D&D be D&D without ability scores? Would you play D&D without ability scores?

Well there are such games which work. Beacon comes to mind (it does have stats but they are different from ability scores (only affect defenses) and also they would not be necessarily.


However, leaving them away does lead to some problems.

Ability scores do tie together combat and non combat in a really simple manner. Beacon, Lamcer and other games which dont have them, often have combat feel completly separated from the non combat part. Sometimes even like its 2 different characters. While a spellcaster using charisma for casting also feels charismatic in non combat. And a brute force barbarian who hit things hard, is also good at using the brute force to open doors.

Then they also do tie together abilities in a coherent way. Skills in real life also have some links together. People who are good at swimming and biking most likely are also not that bad at running.

Endurance, strength, speed and flexibility are real life stats which are measured in "sport tests". Similar "intelligence" does have a measurable effect to many difference things, similar good look does have a positive effect (provable) in your life in different aspects.


Of course training still does also matter, but having some mechanic to tie connected things together helps to make the feel more coherent and also allows you to do get better at things without needing a specific mechanism for that 1 thing.


Then having attributes can also just be a "natural" (or more natural) way of progress. After several levels of training your strength increases and thus you are stronger in combat feels a bit less unnatural than "ok your proficiency (with everything) now increases by 1".


Of course there are way around all these things, but they often are more complex and require more work. Also getting rid of othet things lile 15+ skills, gets rid of a lot more space/complexity than getting rid of 6 attribute scores, while losing less.


Some way around these limitations:

• Using skill powers like D&D 4e did, can tie skills used mainly out of combat together with combst abilities
• Having you get new/stronger attacks like in Gloomhaven (new card each levelup) also feels like a natural poeer increase without needing stats.
• Using backgrounds like 13th age instead of skills also tie together thematically abilities fitting together
• Designing classes with both in combat and out of combst in mind and having abilities for combat mirroring abilities for non combat can help. Like giving characters which out of combat can break doors easily combat abilities which can kick enemies away etc.

 

[TerraDave]

Of course. Increase proficiency bonus by 3, so starts at +5. Have some ways (feats, class abilities) of giving smaller bonuses to nonproficient checks.

But you have already seen the pushback in the thread.

 

[el-remmen]

It would be “D&D” just not D&D (or should I reverse the use of quote marks?). Either way, it is all D&D to me.

 

[TwoSix]

I’d play it. I can think of several ways to do it while still maintaining the 5e core. Or you could go a lot further with a more extensive redesign.

Whether maintaining ability scores is somehow definitional of D&D is not something I feel qualified to weigh in on, precisely because that isn’t a topic I care about.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, can you make a good tabletop role playing game without them? Yeah, sure.

Could it be D&D? No. I think PF2e boxing the 3-18 bell curve is a total break with being D&D.

I'd rather go the other way, and drop the modifier number and Skills, and have a 3-18 target to roll at or under with a d20. That could still be D&D, maybe arguably more purely D&D.

 

[Tonguez]

The thing is if I just test D20 + Athletics v DC I'm just doing Attributes using a different name for them.
Of course I may decide to give myself Acrobatics and Stealth and Sleight of Hand which means I have to replace Dex three times, so how do I distribute the bonuses? (or are they just all +2)

And what happens if I dont have an Investigation Skill but want to go into a Library and research - is it just a straight D20 roll?

You could change the number of Attributes but I cant think of any benefit of not having them or just renaming them as 'Skills"

 

[Voadam]

It would work, I would play.

Make a lot of stuff class and background based for bonuses on checks. Could give a small bonus (replacing a stat bonus) for the whole class list of skills then add proficiency for chosen skills.

 

[AlViking]

Having the six abilities scores is certainly a sacred cow for D&D, how impactful those abilities need to be for it to still be D&D is debatable. Before 3rd edition ability scores didn't tend to be all that impactful unless you had a high score, and since ASIs and the like didn't exist high scores were somewhat rarer.

So you could certainly lessen or even remove the impact the ability scores have on skills, saves, class features, etc.., but you would still need them there doing "something" for it to be D&D.

Before 3e there were very few rules around adjudicating success or failure of skills, at least not until the Skills and Powers book came out. For the most part it was just up to the group to figure it out. For better or worse there's significantly more rules on how to resolve the challenges. I think it's for the better but older editions still have fans. So for me getting rid of that system bonuses and penalties altogether (instead of just replacing them with something roughly equivalent) would be a mistake.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I think it would be a better game if we axed ability scores and just used skills and proficiencies. Ability scores and skills are redundant and interact in annoying ways that add a lot of complexity and the illusion of choice while offering little to no actual new options for playing, and they only come to the fore in the least developed systems. Without ability scores but keeping skills you retain the character building flexibility while removing a complicated step.

But you can get nearly the same result by removing skills instead. Just use ability mods as a catch-all for those things. Maybe keep tool proficiencies for downtime stuff, use background and class features for situational bonuses, etc.

 

[Scott Christian]

The 6 attributes are the most sacred of the D&D legacy elements. But what if we just eliminated them entirely? What if we just used skills, proficiencies, feats, etc to define what a character is good at mechanically?

Could D&D be D&D without ability scores? Would you play D&D without ability scores?

I mean, would I try it? Sure. But, would a lot of people boycott? Yes.

The real question is: Would they ever attempt it? And, even more importantly, if so, why? And there is not good reason for the why.