D&D 5E If you could rearrange ability scores

[Ratskinner]

how would they look?
My ideal setup is:

Optimally, I would get rid of them. I don't feel they add much to the game which couldn't be achieved while eliminating the "roll attributes" part of character gen. Unfortunately, that would involve re-writing much of the rest of the game architecture. Which isn't exactly what you're shooting for in a "family reunion" edition.

So, I guess if I were to re-work it:

Brawn - muscle & size
Grace - whole-body movement and control (I'd also accept Agility)
Cunning - craftiness and cleverness, fine motor skills
Will - determination and force of personality
Perception - how well you pay attention to your surroundings
Lore - how much you know about the world, especially rare knowledge

Since people so readily identify themselves with their character's decision-making, I generally think "Intelligence" can be dropped. I mean, if Strength or Brawn can break down an obstacle with a roll, why can't Int? The answer, I think, is that few people really want that heavy of a simulation:

DM: You see a sphinx in the room, she refuses to let you pass until you answer her riddle. Its very hard DC 28.
PlayerA: Yes! I rolled a 20!
DM: Okay, having sussed out the sphinxes riddle, you move on to....

I think most people would rather something like:

DM: You see a sphinx in the room, she refuses to let you pass until you answer her riddle.
PlayerA: Gahh! "Fine, sphinx, speak you're riddle."
DM: <blahblahblahriddlyriddle>
PlayerB: Whaaaa?
PlayerA: Do I recognize any of that? I rolled a 22 Lore.
DM: You're pretty sure that that "land of the bleak seasons" is a reference to Trobaria. That "straw-crowned king is part of their fall harvest festival, too."

There's nothing wrong with the first way, but IME people seem to think that they the player, not the character, should do things like actually solve the puzzle. I could be wrong, I guess.

 

[Rune]

Finally, I'd put the six stats in a circle on the character sheet.

Oh, hey! I did that!

 

[delericho]

Oh, hey! I did that!

View attachment 57617

Cool. I particularly like that you don't have any stat at the top of the circle - placing one there could indicate that it is somehow the "best" stat.

 

[Rune]

Thanks!

Yeah, actually, they're aligned so that Strength is near the melee attack spot, Dexterity is near the ranged attack spot, and Intelligence and Wisdom are near the magical bonus/dc spots.

 

[Szatany]

Interesting idea to isolate mobility-based from the rest, but dividing Dexterity this way might still have a problem related to movement (not mobility). That when having your hands bound, or being paralyzed, or grappled, you still have mostly the same perception capabilities but not the manual ones.

I understand the benefits of divorcing perception from manual dexterity, but then you run into an issue of having some abilities more useful than others. One of them will be subpar to things like strength, probably manual dexterity.

Strength - no change
Constitution - no change
Agility - mobility based portions of dexterity, sneaking, doding, armor class, finesse melee weapons, movement
Dexterity - manual prowess, open locks, crafting, thrown weapons
Perception - senses, projectile weapons, initiative
Intellect - no change, sans shortened name
Charisma - no change
Will - strengh of will and ability to focus

 

[Li Shenron]

I understand the benefits of divorcing perception from manual dexterity, but then you run into an issue of having some abilities more useful than others.

Yes, having them more or less equal should be IMO an important purpose of rearranging, equal to better representation of different characters.

Overall, Dex and Wis still have more importance than the others. However, I wouldn't increase the number of scores (I wouldn't even rename them), but rather try to find the minimal rearrangement of the things covered by each, so that we still had the iconic 6 scores.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If I was to rework the abilities... my first step would be to determine every kind of "skill" that would be in the game that an ability score would modify. Once I did that... I'd start creating, dividing, and merging ability scores until every ability score modifies almost an equal number of skills.

If right now DEX and INT modify 10 skills and STR modifies 3... then I'd start dividing up the components of DEX and WIS into small bits so that all of them end up modifying about 3.

That would be my first step towards balancing the ability scores.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

S
I
W
D
C
CH

 

[am181d]

For D&D, I prefer:

Strength
Dexterity
Constitution
KNOWLEDGE <-- measure of general knowledge
OBSERVATION <-- intuition and perception
PERSONALITY <-- willpower and charisma

Note that under this model there is no longer an ability score that measures how clever you are. That is limited by player ability and (to a lesser degree) player preference. I know that that's not for everyone!

For the Sci-Fi RPG I'm working on, there are only five stats:
TOUGH!
QUICK!
SMART!
ALERT!
BOLD!

 

[Dausuul]

As I see it, the traditional scores suffer from the following problems:

• Dexterity does far too much.
• Intelligence and Charisma do too little.
• Wisdom combines spiritual strength with alertness, which have nothing to do with each other.
• The mental ability scores straddle the boundary between "player attributes" and "character attributes," leading to arguments over whether a low-Int character is "smart enough" to figure out what the player wants to do, and similar things.

So here's my first cut at a replacement list:

Strength: No change.
Alertness: Modifies Spot and Listen, AC, and Reflex saves. (Combines the alertness aspects of Wisdom with the defensive aspects of Dexterity.)
Dexterity: Modifies ranged attack rolls, acrobatics, and stealth. (Offensive aspects of Dexterity.)
Constitution: No change.
Spirit: Modifies Will saves and social skills. (Combines Charisma with the defensive aspects of Wisdom.)
Lore: Modifies knowledge skills. (Essentially Intelligence, but without the implication that it constrains player decision-making.)

This still leaves Lore as a bit of a weak sister to the rest, but it takes care of the other problems.