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

[Scott Christian]

I will say this, when I run my system, there are no ability scores, just skills. That said, these skills can seem to mirror some of the "classic" abilities. I am not sure there is a way around that. I just liked the idea of not tying an ability to your class. It makes the character development more freeing in my opinion. You can have the strong wizard who controls magic with the force of his own muscles, or a fighter who has studied the academics of arcana their whole life.

 

[Reynard]

The way I would do it is add traits or feats that represent mechanical impacts on play (but not just boring bonuses).

Strong as an ox: you can carry twice as much weight as the average person (i would make that a standard based on size and number of limbs btw).

Alertness: your chances of detecting hidden traps, doors or other features is doubled (this would rely on old school 1 in 6, 2 in 6, etc), and sneaking enemies had disadvantage on their stealth roll (the DC would be based on environment).

Like that.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

You can have the strong wizard who controls magic with the force of his own muscles

Flex Mentallo!

 

[Koloth]

Up through and including 2e, attributes directly impacted most abilities and things a character did. Starting with 3e, attributes mostly resolved to a +/- modifier. IIRC, your prime spell casting attribute directly impacted how high level a spell you could cast(required 10 + spell lvl?) but pretty much every other use for an attribute was the +/- modifier.

PF2 has already ditched direct attributes in favor of the +/- modifier.

Question: Are you more concerned that your character has a 16 Int or a +3 modifier?

Dumping even the modifiers might be a step too far.