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

[Yaarel]

The easiest ability system to balance is 0 ability scores.

Everyone seems to start with a +3 anyways, so it's not doing much besides grouping skills.

The abilities are mainly for the purpose of organization. They help communicate an easy to understand character concept, and help navigate what might otherwise be an overwhelming amount of options. The abilities feel useful for the game design.

Still, it helps to be clear-eyed about what exactly abilities are, and what it is they should be doing.

For example, it might be only the class that determines the amount of Hit Points. The Toughness feat is there for a player who wants an unusually tough character. Constitution has no relationship to Death Saves. No active skills. It seems the only essential mechanic is the Fortitude save, which seems easy to merge into a different ability.

 

[Yaarel]

Regarding the effort to balance the six abilities, the DSC-CIW configuration looks promising. Each of the physical abilities − Dexterity (Attack), Strength (Reflex), Constitution (Fortitude) − seem roughly comparable to each other and establish the amount of design space for each other.

The mental abilities are found wanting. As an attack stat, Charisma (DC/Attack) is in decent shape. However, Intelligence and especially Wisdom need more utility in the combat pillar of the game. An earlier post mentions Hearten, Rally, and Bloodthirst for Wisdom. These need finetuning but seem a solid way forward.


Here, Intelligence has the Perception Save versus hiddenness, illusion, or fraud. Intelligence also has the 'trait' of serving as the Ability Check for every sensory or knowledge check, which is at least situationally good in combat. In addition the following offers the potent Tactics trait to help Intelligence contribute in combat.


Tactics
Action Type: Action.
Target: one creature that can communicate with you.
Range: 10 feet per Intelligence, or Touch.

You monitor the ongoing events to coach optimal tactical responses, coordinating the timing and effectiveness of the members of your team. During your Turn, one creature can spend its Reaction either to Move without provoking Opportunity Attacks, or to do an extra Action. Its chosen Action can use your Intelligence instead of its normal ability. If you use Tactics on yourself, you spend your next Reaction, and your Intelligence can replace an other ability. Until the end of your next Long Rest, you can do Tactics a number of times equal to your Intelligence plus Proficiency.

 

[Minigiant]

There was a time when I wanted to standardize magic and tie different types of attacks to different scores via Keywords.

Touch Spells would be Unarmed Attacks. Unarmed attacks are Strength attacks unless you are a Monk. Touch Attacks would be renamed to include the world Touch.
Shocking Touch, Ghoul Touch, Vampire Touch, Burning Touch, Death Touch, Harming Touch

Ray Spells would be Ranged Attacks. Ranged attacks are Dexterity attacks unless you are using a Thrown Weapon. Ray Attacks would be renamed to include the world Ray.

Breath Spells and Weapons would be special attacks. Their DC would be based on the attackers Constitution.
Spit spells would be special attacks. They would be attacks based on Constitution.
Smite spells would be special attacks. They would be attacks based on Charisma.
Gaze spells would be special attacks. They would be attacks based on Wisdom.

In this model, a spell caster would have a huge chunk of spells not based on their main Magic stat.
And you might see odd spellcasters that lean into spells that don't focus on a class's main stat. Like a barbarian priest full of Touch spells and Breath spells.

But your classic elf would be pewwing you down with Rays.

 

[Yaarel]

There was a time when I wanted to standardize magic and tie different types of attacks to different scores via Keywords.

Touch Spells would be Unarmed Attacks. Unarmed attacks are Strength attacks unless you are a Monk. Touch Attacks would be renamed to include the world Touch.
Shocking Touch, Ghoul Touch, Vampire Touch, Burning Touch, Death Touch, Harming Touch

Ray Spells would be Ranged Attacks. Ranged attacks are Dexterity attacks unless you are using a Thrown Weapon. Ray Attacks would be renamed to include the world Ray.

Breath Spells and Weapons would be special attacks. Their DC would be based on the attackers Constitution.
Spit spells would be special attacks. They would be attacks based on Constitution.
Smite spells would be special attacks. They would be attacks based on Charisma.
Gaze spells would be special attacks. They would be attacks based on Wisdom.

In this model, a spell caster would have a huge chunk of spells not based on their main Magic stat.
And you might see odd spellcasters that lean into spells that don't focus on a class's main stat. Like a barbarian priest full of Touch spells and Breath spells.

But your classic elf would be pewwing you down with Rays.

I did something similar, to write rules in "natural english".

To "try" do something, the term "try" meant to "roll a d20".

Spell descriptions were a sentence.
"at" Target.
"in" Area of Effect.
"within" Range.
"versus" AC/save.
"inflicting" Damage.
"causing" Effect.

And so on.


Regarding abilities, I wondered if each of the mental abilities might correspond to one of the Elements: Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Ether, and Plant. It can be done sensically, but I felt it was setting specific because there were other ways to look at it where an other ability made sense.

 

[Yaarel]

Also for Intelligence, a 'flashforward' ability that calculates and predicts an event as it unfolds before it happens. Something like.


Anticipate
Action Type: Trigger (a Turn occurs that you choose to undo).
Target: Self.
Range: Special.

Your observation, reasoning, and intuition anticipate what is about to happen. Hopefully your team has enough time to avert any misfortune. When a Turn occurs whose outcome you dislike, you can declare that it never happened, and that instead it is what would have happened, and you saw this possibility play out exactly this way. To do this, make an Intelligence (Investigation) check versus DC 20. On success, all events during the Turn revert to before the Turn occurred. Total your Intelligence plus Proficiency. Within a Range 10 feet per this total, you grant an extra Reaction to each creature of your choice. The creature can use this Reaction to Move their Walk Base Speed without provoking Opportunity Attacks. Until the end of your next Long Rest, you can attempt to Anticipate the outcome a total number of times equal to your Intelligence plus Proficiency. You can only attempt to Anticipate once with regard to a specific Turn, and if successful must accept its new outcome.

 

[Minigiant]

• I did something similar, to write rules in "natural english".

To "try" do something, the term "try" meant to "roll a d20".

Spell descriptions were a sentence.
"at" Target.
"in" Area of Effect.
"within" Range.
"versus" AC/save.
"inflicting" Damage.
"causing" Effect.

And so on.


Regarding abilities, I wondered if each of the mental abilities might correspond to one of the Elements: Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Ether, and Plant. It can be done sensically, but I felt it was setting specific because there were other ways to look at it where an other ability made sense.

Natural English would be too confusing. People will forget the correct wording and use the wrong ability.

• STRENGTH
  • Fist "Stunning Fist"
  • Strike "Heavy Strike"
  • Throw "Axe Throw"
  • Touch "Vampiric Touch"
• DEXTERITY
  • Flourish "Slick Flourish"
  • Flurry "Flurry of Punches"
  • Ray "Scorching Ray"
  • Shot "Ensnaring Shot"
• CONSTITUTION
  • Breath "Fire Breath"
  • Press "Shooting Star Press"
  • Spit "Acit Spit"
• INTELLIGENCE
  • Cone "Cone of Cold"
  • Ball "Fireball"
  • Feint "Vicious Feint"
  • Missile "Magic Missile"
• WISDOM
  • Call "Call Lightning "
  • Gaze "Medusa Gaze"
  • Watch "Blade Watch"
  • Word "Healing Word"
• CHARISMA
  • Burst "Electric Burst"
  • Bolt "Lightning Bolt"
  • Shout "Demoralizing Shout"
  • Smite "Divine Smite"
  • Song "Song of Rest"

 

[FrogReaver]

As an example. Int always adds more to a Wizard than it does to a Fighter. Strength theoretically adds the same to both fighter and wizard, but in actual play it's benefits help the fighter more (fighters spend more turns attacking, they have heavier gear to carry, etc).

Thus, IMO if the abilities are balanced independently of classes then when we layer in classes they will cease to be balanced because classes use abilities differently.

*But couldn't we give each class different abilities tied into each of the various stats to solve this? Sure... but in this state the whole point of having common themed attributes is lost because they now impact each class differently - and so we might as well just tie those attribute based abilities to the class itself instead of jumping through all the mathematical conversions to get attributes to ultimately place us in the same spot.

 

[Yaarel]

As an example. Int always adds more to a Wizard than it does to a Fighter. Strength theoretically adds the same to both fighter and wizard, but in actual play it's benefits help the fighter more (fighters spend more turns attacking, they have heavier gear to carry, etc).

Thus, IMO if the abilities are balanced independently of classes then when we layer in classes they will cease to be balanced because classes use abilities differently.

*But couldn't we give each class different abilities tied into each of the various stats to solve this? Sure... but in this state the whole point of having common themed attributes is lost because they now impact each class differently - and so we might as well just tie those attribute based abilities to the class itself instead of jumping through all the mathematical conversions to get attributes to ultimately place us in the same spot.

When balancing the abilities, it is always the conceptual structure, the 'deep four': Strength, Dexterity, Charisma, Intelligence. More precisely, it is their aspect of the 'deep four' Saves: Fortitude, Reflex, Will, Perception.

The reason why six or eight abilities are possible is because the Attack bonus is so important, by itself it is worth an investment in an ability.

The abilities include traits for 'A' (Attack and Spell DC), 'S' (Save and AC), and 'U' (Utilities being various other traits such as Hit Points or Skills that are useful in combat).

When there are four abilities, every ability additionally serves as the Attack stat:
USA USA USA USA

When there are six abilities in balance, the Attack stats separate out as their own ability.
A A US US US US

When eight abilities, each of the deep four abilities has its own corresponding Attack ability.
A A A A US US US US


Thus the quest to balance the abilities is strictly about balancing Saves and Utilities. The deep four Saves are: Fortitude, Reflex, Will, Perception. Because there might be more spells or monsters that refer to one of these Saves, some might be more frequently useful than others. Generally, Reflex is the best save, followed closely by Fortitude. But it is easy to make the mental saves more appealing by adding combat Utilities.


With regard to classes, it is the Attack stat that is so important. Fighter relies on either Strength or Dexterity. Wizard relies only on Intelligence. And so on.

However, every class depends on the Saves and Utilities. Even a Fighter will waste a feat to shore up the Will Save proficiency. Especially the Wizard depends vitally on Reflex AC and Constitution Hit Points, and is actually a Multi-Ability-Dependent class.


In sum, balancing the abilities (whether they are four, six, or eight) is all about balancing the Utilities-Saves for each of the 'deep four' abilities.

 

[Xeviat]

Confused though why Constitution would need beefing up. Granting bonus hp every level up all the way to max level seems like it's doing enough heavy lifting to me?

I don't think constitution needs beefing up per say. The problem with Con is that everyone* takes 14. It hurts too much to have an 8, but it doesn't do enough to have 16-20. In my 10 years of 5E and 3E before, 90% of my players had 14 Con. In 4E, I saw a lot more variety, since the HP gain from it was hidden away in healing surges.

Con needs skills and another feature to encourage it to be raised, but it also needs to not feel like suicide to have an 8.

 

[Xeviat]

The easiest ability system to balance is 0 ability scores.

Everyone seems to start with a +3 anyways, so it's not doing much besides grouping skills.

This reminded me of an idea I had a while back for a redesign.

What if your offensive bonuses were just based on your level? In 5E, it could raise on 3, 7, 11, 15, and 19, just to be smooth next to the proficiency bonus. A level 10 fighter is deadly because they're a level 10 fighter, not because they have a 20 Str vs a 16 Str.

Then, feats could have ability prerequisites and be used to define a character's style. A Str fighter gets heavy weapon mastery and damage, an Int fighter gets Combat Expertise and defensive and controlling maneuvers.

It would eliminate the "requirement" of a 16 in your class's primary stat, while also opening up different character types, and even make multiclassing more flexible.

Otherwise, I really like how PF2 puts some of the ability bonuses into class.