D&D General I don't think there's interest for stats below 8

[Yaarel]

I have taken a dislike to negative bonuses.

So, I prefer 10 to be the lowest score available.

I know that 10 is "average", so 8s and 9s are common.

But I prefer these lower scores for the NPCs, while the PCs can avoid their negative bonuses.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

1e Gamma World had a section on "Hopeless Characters", and 2e GW advice to PCs included the observation that being a hero is tough and very-low-stat individuals were unlikely to successfully face the hazards they would meet. (Both games used 'roll for stats'.)

Classic Traveller suggested characters with low stats join the Scouts, since it had the highest chance of death in service.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I like negative bonuses. I help about a dozen kids roll up 5e characters every day at my Summer camp job. The other day I saw a couple roll 18s but was much more jealous of the one who rolled the ultimate in rarity, a 3 (at four d6 drop the lowest that's a 1 in 1296 chance). I mean that's something to roleplay. And if there's not going to be substantial variance in bonuses there's little reason to have bonuses.

Now I do think the game would be streamlined if we used, say, a 2d6-2 score generation method, made the score just be the bonus, and just adjusted to always having positive bonuses. Translating scores to positive and negative bonuses (the things that actually matter) is an unnecessarily cumbersome system that only still lives because of tradition. Mathmatically adding 2 to a d20 roll to hit 20 is the same as subtracting 3 to hit 15 and addition is slightly easier than subtraction for most people so maybe an all positive bonus system is better. But I want the possibility of some bonuses being very low.

 

[tetrasodium]

I like negative bonuses. I help about a dozen kids roll up 5e characters every day at my Summer camp job. The other day I saw a couple roll 18s but was much more jealous of the one who rolled the ultimate in rarity, a 3 (at four d6 drop the lowest that's a 1 in 1296 chance). I mean that's something to roleplay. And if there's not going to be substantial variance in bonuses there's little reason to have bonuses.

Now I do think the game would be streamlined if we used, say, a 2d6-2 score generation method, made the score just be the bonus, and just adjusted to always having positive bonuses. Translating scores to positive and negative bonuses (the things that actually matter) is an unnecessarily cumbersome system that only still lives because of tradition. Mathmatically adding 2 to a d20 roll to hit 20 is the same as subtracting 3 to hit 15 and addition is slightly easier than subtraction for most people so maybe an all positive bonus system is better. But I want the possibility of some bonuses being very low.

It's not binary. Subtracting 2 3 or 4 for very low attributes is easier on the brain for most people than adding 8 or 9 though

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I have taken a dislike to negative bonuses.

So, I prefer 10 to be the lowest score available.

I know that 10 is "average", so 8s and 9s are common.

But I prefer these lower scores for the NPCs, while the PCs can avoid their negative bonuses.

That is what point-buy is for. You can generate a character with minimum of 10 in every stat easily.

 

[Richards]

I don't think my recent lizardfolk PC would have been as much fun to roleplay without his 6 Int and 5 Cha. And he made it all the way to 20th level.

Johnathan