D&D (2024) Is it possible to balance the six abilities?

[Xeviat]

I'm seeing a lot of good discussion, including bits and pieces of what I think should be done to balance all the scores. But first, some of my thoughts on the issue:

• We should keep the 6 ability scores, as I don't want to remove D&D traditions. They "feel" something to players.
• Offensive uses do not balance the ability scores. Everyone is encouraged to keep one offensive stat maxed, 16+ starting is basically assumed, this applies equally to everyone.
  • The only time offensive stat functions affect balance is when an otherwise overpowered stat (Dexterity) also can be used for offense.
• Likewise, skills don't exactly balance the ability scores. People use the skills they want to for the character they built. Someone having low Persuasion, for example, is a statement of how the player wants to play their character.
• Saving throws are where a lot of the balance can be achieved. We have 6/7 defenses that players can't decide to not get targeted.
• Purely passive ability scores are bad. I'm looking at you, Constitution.
• Every ability score needs a passive function that feels good to have high and feels bad to have low.

This leads me to my fundamental feeling about the ability scores: Constitution is the chief problem. Constitution is a problem because everyone wants it high, but it doesn't feel cool when it's high. In my 10 years with 5E and 24 years with D&D in general, most PC Constitution scores have been 14. Rarely, I'll see a Barbarian who pushes higher, and I've seen a few 12s, but that's it. The only time this wasn't the case was in 4th Edition.

In 4th Edition, you added your Constitution Score to your HP, but that's it. You didn't get Con mod to HP every level. This made Con a one time HP boost, but the difference between 10 and 20 HP disappeared after a few levels. But, Con mod was applied to your number of healing surges, which recovered 1/4th of your HP when used (by a healing spell, a class ability, or just spent during short rests). This meant a high Constitution score helped you recover HP throughout the day. It effectively increased your daily HP without effecting your per combat health as much. If you were a ranged character, you could justify even an 8 Con, relying upon your party to defend you and focusing on your strengths.

That doesn't happen in 5E. 95% of characters in the games I've ran have 14 con. Some say this is a problem with point buy, but you'll run into it with any ability score generation method except for roll in order.

So what's my solution?

1. Each stat needs a reasonable passive that feels good when it's high and feels like a penalty when it's low.
2. Each stat needs an equally frequent saving throw. Saving throws should handle all defensive rolls, rather than skills being used defensively. All saving throws should be proficient; the difference in ability scores is enough variance.
3. Each stat needs skills that feel good to have. Skills should not have defensive rolls; you choose to use a skill.
4. Offensive stat uses don't balance the stats, but they do provide for role protection and class thematic overlap.

So here are my proposed house rules:

SAVING THROWS AND DCs
All characters and creatures are proficient in all saves; this helps even out the growing difference between tertiary stats and primary stats. Save DCs are now 10 + Mod + Proficiency, evening out with d20 + Mod + Proficiency for saves. (This is technically a penalty to characters' formerly proficient saves; maybe those can be replaced with floating +2s or something else if needed, but I don't think it is).

STRENGTH
Strength measures your muscle power.
Skills: Athletics (for climbing, jumping, and swimming) and "Power" (new skill for checks to see if you can lift, move, or throw objects)
Saves: Strength saves protect against being moved, knocked prone, grabbed, or other attempts to physically manipulate you.
Passive: Carrying capacity, weapon prerequisites, armor prerequisites. (Weapon and Armor prerequisites will make you feel it when you dump Strength. No longer can a Druid get away with having an 8 Strength if they want to wear armor when they're not wild-shaped. These requirements should be low-ish, but 11 for light, 13 for medium, and 15 for heavy feels about right.)
Offensive: melee and thrown weapon attacks

DEXTERITY
Dexterity measures your flexibility and coordination.
Skills: Acrobatics (for balance, tumbling, and squeezing), Sleight of Hand, and Stealth. (Personally, I would love a 4th, but I wouldn't want to split any of those 3).
Saves: Dexterity saves help avoid area attacks or attempts to touch you.
Passive: AC (limited by armor, thus it is effectively paired with Strength; high strength allows for heavy armor, letting you have a lower Dex, high Dex allows for optimal use of lighter armor, letting you have lower Str; I do go back and forth on if AC should just be a saving throw, but that's a bigger discussion).
Offensive: finesse and projectile weapon attacks

CONSTITUTION
Constitution measures your endurance and health.
Skills: Two returning skills; Concentration (for not getting interrupted and for mind over matter biofeedback stuff) and Endurance (for actively pushing through exhaustion and temporarily ignoring penalties).
Saves: Constitution saves for resisting death, poison, disease, and other recovery things (like con saves to shake off blindness from a flash of light).
Passive: Con score to HP, Con mod to HD recovery.
Offensive: really thinking Sorcerers should use Con as their casting stat, and my Elementalist half-caster.

INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence measures your memory and reasoning ability.
Skills: Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, and Religion. (I'd really like to fold Investigation into the other 4 knowledge skills and have which skill applies to which kind of Study checks be based on the nature of what you're studying, but I can't figure out a way to do that. I'd like 4 skills to be the norm, except for Str and Con, but that might not be possible).
Saves: Intelligence saves are used to realize illusions are fake and also for mental attacks that you could "avoid".
Passive: Bonus proficiencies (skills, tools, or languages). Wizards are rebalanced by the introduction of the Concentration skill and making Arcana checks more required ("skill taxes"); Artificers and Mystics/Psions getting more skills feels fine too. Now, a 10 or 12 tertiary Intelligence feels better than an 8, but 8 isn't insurmountable.
Offensive: casting stat for Wizards, Artificers, and Mystics/Psions.

WISDOM
Wisdom measures your perceptiveness and understanding.
Skills: Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, Perception, and Survival (thinking on my desire to remove Investigation, I'm considering merging Investigation and Perception while also removing Perception's defensive uses. You decide to make a perception check when you're searching for something; you make a Wisdom save when something tries to avoid your passive senses. Also considering rolling Animal Handling and Survival together, just to have 4 skills, while also allowing Persuasion and Intimidation to be used on animals, just to round out 4 skills per stat).
Saves: Wisdom saves are used to resist mental attacks that you can't "avoid". Probably a longer discussion is needed.
Passive: This is tough. Passive Insight and Passive Perception could be what it is, but those could also just be Wisdom saves. Then again, having them be passive helps to not tip off players that someone is lying or sneaking. I like these being Wisdom saves so no one feels like Perception is a must have skill to avoid being Assassinated.
Offensive: casting stat for Clerics, Druids, and Rangers.

CHARISMA
Charisma measures your social presence and influence.
Skills: Deception, Intimidation, Persuasion, and Performance.
Saves: Charisma saves are used to resist mental attacks against your identity, like Banishment, Emotions, or Polymorphing.
Passive: Initial NPC reactions (Charismatic people are more liked in first impressions) and maybe Contacts (you get a number of NPC contacts based on your Charisma score)?
Offensive: casting stat for Bards, Warlocks, and Paladins

I know that's a lot, but I'm hoping some of my thoughts are helpful.

 

[Yaarel]

In the deep structure of the various D&D systems, there are only four entities.

Wisdom and Constitution are false abilities.

Wisdom is a nonsensical ability that lacks a consistent concept. The Will Save has little or nothing to do with Perceptive senses.

When the content relocates to its proper conceptual assemblage − Will to Charisma as part of the "force of personality", and Perceptiveness to Intelligence as part of knowledgeability and application of knowledge − Wisdom vanishes without a trace.

Similarly Constitution is a "passive" nonability. The Fortitude save can relocate to Strength as part of powering thru physical adversity. Everything left is little more than a Toughness feat. Indeed, renaming the Toughness feat the Constitution feat would mainly cover the entire ability.

Keeping Wisdom and Constitution to be as if abilities, is a fetish.


The salient deep structural entities are:

• Strength = Fortitude
• Dexterity = Reflex
• Intelligence = Perception
• Charisma = Will


It is possible to subdivide these four entities. But any subdivisions must be conceptually separable, and in terms of balance equally mechanically USEFUL in combat.

 

[Xeviat]

Athletics-Acrobatics need to consolidate. It makes no sense to jump without falling (landing), or climb without balance. They are inseparable. Body sense (gross motor skills) is a thing. The dilemma is whether to give this athleticism to Strength or to Dexterity. Whichever gets the athleticism also gets the 'dodge' bonus for the Reflex save and AC. Sensically but perhaps surprisingly, make "precision" Dexterity responsible for all d20 Attack Rolls, including melee attacks and missile attacks. Separately give the damage bonus to Strength. But where Strength Athletics is agile, including all mobility and wrestling, it actually gets the Reflex save to leap out of the way, and the AC bonus.

With four saves and perhaps two attacks, maybe an arrangement something like as follows.

	Offense	Defense	Defense
Physical	DEXTERITY Physical Attack Bonus	STRENGTH Reflex Save	CONSTITUTION Fortitude Save
Mental	CHARISMA Magical DC Bonus	INTELLIGENCE Perception Save	WISDOM Sanity Save

You have some interesting ideas here.

I'm not entirely sure I'd want all spellcasting to use Charisma. It's about role protection: do you want all wizards to have to be charming and have intelligence provide them with other features?

Dexterity is redefined to be coordination, while Strength is muscle power (which includes speed and strength since strength can move things faster). Dexterity as all attack rolls is a simple kind of genius. I'd have damage be 1dW+Dex still, because accuracy allows you to hit more vulnerable targets, and the speed of a lot of attacks is a function of the structure of the movements, assuming you have the strength to wield the weapon.

And that's where Strength can come in for damage: strength requirements on weapons. If you aren't strong enough, you can't pull back a longbow, so you don't get the longbow's added damage (you could say if you lack the strength requirement, you suffer a penalty to hit and damage with the weapon equal to the difference between your strength score and the required strength score). If you lack the strength to swing a big heavy weapon, then you're just using gravity to propel the weapon.

You could also take your ideas further by having saves for all attacks. If someone makes a weapon attack against you, you make a Reflex save to try to avoid it (whether that's parrying or your shield). You could also implement an idea I've been toying with having attacks have two save options and allow someone to make a Fortitude save to tank a hit, purposefully blocking the attack and trying to endure it (fireball could allow you to dive for cover/fall to the ground for a reflex save or covering your face and eyes with your arm for a Fortitude save).

 

[James Gasik]

Does anyone remember the 3.5 "split casters", who would use one ability score to determine how many spells they can prepare, and a separate ability score to calculate save DC's?

Fantasy Craft had something similar to that going on, though I'm currently fuzzy about how it worked, I just know that my caster character wanted all three mental stats to use his magic.

Earthdawn used two stats as well, Perception for making the Spellcasting Test, and Willpower for the Effect dice.

 

[Tonguez]

D&D needs to re-embrace Feats. Aggressively, like shifting back to the wide diversity of feats Pathfinder (1e) offers. They brings versatility to the system and the characters, while allowing different abilities to deliver more impact. ASI, while useful, doesn't even come close to bringing strong character customization the way 3.5/3.75 feats do.

At the end of the day, you can only do so much with the six abilities by themselves.

What I would love to see is a way for Skill based stunts to be codified so that a characters Skills can be used to do cool things rather than needing a feat for it. Things like Athletics being used to doing scissor kick takedowns, or wallruns or my Intelligence:Tactician Skill allowing a fighter to analyse and enemies weaknesses, get advantage on the next attack and even overcome resistances. Have Persuasion be used to Rally your allies (second wind), performance be used to Taunt an enemy or Deception be used to make feint attacks or stealth allowing a character disengage and hide in the middle of combat - make the skills cinematic and the social skills useful in combat as well as expanding the Social and Exploration pillars

 

[Minigiant]

I wonder if you give each ability score a general Offense and Defense aspect in combat

Ability Score	Offense	Defense
Strength	Melee Weapons, Thrown Weapons	Heavy Armor, Grapple
Dexterity	Ranged Weapons, Finesse Weapons	Light and Medium Armor, Grapple
Constitution	Species/Race Weapon (Breath Weapon, Eye Rays, Runes, Blood magic)	HP
Intelligence	Disarm	Feint Defense, Mage armor
Wisdom	Focus Weapons, ????	Goad and Terrorize Defense
Charisma	Goad, Feint, Terrorize	????

So you could make a Fighter or Rogue CHA that mostly Feints and Goads or goes Con based by tatooing a Rune of Fire on their hand and pew pews Scorching Ray and flaming unarmed strikes.

 

[James Gasik]

What I would love to see is a way for Skill based stunts to be codified so that a characters Skills can be used to do cool things rather than needing a feat for it. Things like Athletics being used to doing scissor kick takedowns, or wallruns or my Intelligence:Tactician Skill allowing a fighter to analyse and enemies weaknesses, get advantage on the next attack and even overcome resistances. Have Persuasion be used to Rally your allies (second wind), performance be used to Taunt an enemy or Deception be used to make feint attacks or stealth allowing a character disengage and hide in the middle of combat - make the skills cinematic and the social skills useful in combat as well as expanding the Social and Exploration pillars

Like say, 3.5's Skill Tricks from Complete Scoundrel?