If you could add one new ability score, what would it be?

[mosaic]

If you could add one new ability score, what would it be?

I've toyed with the idea of a Perception score for a long time. Pull Listen, Spot, etc out of Wisdom and tie them to a new score that is only about the accuity of one's senses. This also solves the problem of animals having really high Wis scores because they have good senses.

My other thought would be a Faith score. Determines how strongly the character holds his/her religious beliefs. Would be the primary ability for clerics and would affect how well they cast spells. It would affect other players because they would have to make a successful Faith save in order to be affected by healing and other divine buff spells, the logic being that you have to believe in a god in order to be healed by him. But sckepticism might also offer some protection against divine spells too, so it could even out.

Any other ideas? I remember Comliness (sp?) - physical attractiveness - from the old AD&D 1.0 Players Handbook II.

 

[frankthedm]

This also solves the problem of animals having really high Wis scores because they have good senses.

Why is this a problem? It nicely seperates human learning capacity with horse-sence and wolfpack tactics. The smart person knows the % of a risk of jumping over the fire, the wise animal avoids it.

It would affect other players because they would have to make a successful Faith save in order to be affected by healing and other divine buff spells, the logic being that you have to believe in a god in order to be healed by him. But sckepticism might also offer some protection against divine spells too, so it could even out.

In the video games it apears in, that works, in D&D, not so much.

Luck needs a stat IMHO

 

[Nifft]

Mojo - the stat for magical puissance and luck.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Thanee]

Luck would be ok. Otherwise you can't really add a single stat, you need to add them in pairs.

[SBLOCK=Alternate D&D Stats]Muscle (melee damage rolls, carrying capacity, speed, Climb, Jump)
Toughness (HP)
Fitness (Fortitude save, long distance running, Swim)
Agility (AC, Reflex save, Balance, Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, Tumble)
Coordination (melee/ranged attack rolls, Open Lock, Sleight of Hand, Rope Use)
Appearance (first impression, circumstance modifier in many social situations)
Learning (Cleric/Wizard bonus spells, skill points, Appraise, Craft, Heal, Knowledge)
Wits (Wizard spell DC, Bluff, Decipher Script, Disable Device, Forgery, Search, Survival)
Perception (Listen, Spot, Initiative)
Empathy (Druid bonus spells, Handle Animal, Ride, Sense Motive)
Willpower (Cleric/Druid spell DC, Sorcerer bonus spells, Will save, Concentration)
Presence (Sorcerer spell DC, most social skills)[/SBLOCK]

Bye
Thanee

 

[MarauderX]

Sanity. PCs loose or gain the ability to withstand certain knowledge, perhaps like Cthulu. If they open a library of evil books and set about reading them, they would certainly go insane before finishing them.

Luck. PCs have strange twists always going their way - until something bad happens to lower their score. Magic items could boost it, such as a rabbits foot.

Comeliness. Shear looks give the PCs the benefit of not being attacked first or of NPCs wanting to help or talk to them without ever meeting them before. Works with Diplomacy & turning instead of CHA.

 

[smootrk]

I would agree with OP that perceptual skills are separate from being wise. I know some wise people (even actual priests who are quite wise, and quite learned), yet I would give them quite low perceptual skills.

Note that I relate Perception to spot, listen, etc. not to interpersonal intelligence, which is noticing others emotional state, or understanding different personality issues. I see these as Charismatic issues. Maybe Charisma ought to be defined more like 'interpersonal intelligence'.

 

[The Truth]

I've toyed with Perception in the past. It modified Spot, Listen, and attack rolls (both melee and ranged). Beefy monsters like ogres or giants could have a low perception, making their attacks inaccurate but damaging. Combine it with an armor-as-DR system, and you could make combat a bit more interesting . . . the armored guys are easy targets, but you have to do a lot of damage for it to count. Swashbuckler-ish characters could evade lots of attacks, but could get easily taken down by a lucky hit.

In that same vein, you could even roll Str and Con into one stat (like Body), and Perception and Dexterity to another (say, Agility). Make Mind equal to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, and you have something of a d20 Tri-Stat system. They also corollate nicely to the three types of saves.

I like the idea of a Faith stat . . . had I not started my heavily religion-centric campaign last week, I might have incorporated something like that into it . Luck would also be a good addition . . . but figuring out the mechanics of it could be tricky (unless you were playing with Action Points; then it could just modify those).

 

[paradox42]

I used to have Perception and Luck for my 2nd Edition campaign; in 3.X I haven't bothered to update them but of the pair I think Luck fits better with the modern ability score paradigms.

Mechanically, Luck could be used to boost just about any skill under certain circumstances- perhaps the PC would get a certain number of "Luck Substitutions" per day based on the Luck modifier. Also, high Luck should grant the character one or more rerolls per day, like the granted power of the existing Luck Domain. Low Luck would reverse these; negative modifiers would allow the DM a certain number of rerolls or skill modifications per day to use on the PC, and force the character to take the worse result each time.

Of course, the biggest problem with creating a new stat (particularly one like Luck) is in assigning scores to existing characters and monsters. That is a huge job- and worse, if a monster or NPC (in light of my suggested Luck mechanic above) has a negative modifier, who gets to force the reroll? The players? What if the NPC or monster is an ally of theirs? What if the alliance is temporary?

 

[Psion]

Perception is a good one, but wisdom is close enough.

Given just one score, I think I'd actually choose appearance/comeliness. It's one attribute that 3e really fails to quantify. Course, it's not too much use in the dungeon, but my games are social enough it can be important. Legendary beauty is the stuff of legends, and it could become significant in a fantasy game.

 

[Crothian]

I'd also include appearance/comeliness just to get it away from Charisma. I tire of things that grant -2 cha just because they are ugly. It seems the other aspects of Charisma are generally ignored.