D&D General Is Seven Abilities Too Many for a D&D Feel and/or Comfortable Generation?

[payn]

I had forgotten until looking it up for another thread that the to hit and damage bonuses were different in 1e. (Like +2 to one and +4 to another for the write 18% strength or whatnot).

In 3.5 finesse weapons were Dex for to hit and Str for damage. I don't remember if that bothered folks or not.

Some folks liked it for rogues because it upped their accuracy greatly. Then, they relied on sneak attack and/or magic items to make up for the low damage.

 

[Cadence]

Some folks liked it for rogues because it upped their accuracy greatly. Then, they relied on sneak attack and/or magic items to make up for the low damage.

Looks like there have been some past threads on here about the split between dex-hit and str-damage with finesse weapons that I should dig through.

D&D 5E - Finesse rebalance

In another thread there was an aside about rapiers, with part of it being: Does it bother you how perfect they are? So I started to write up a serious reply about how it's not that they were perfect, but that others were not: if any of it bothered me, it would be how imperfect a bunch of...

www.enworld.org

 

[Parmandur]

Whenever I see a thread saying, "I think X core part of D&D's traditional rules should be changed", I think, "yeah, wouldn't that be nice", but then quickly remember how much outrage a significant part of this community has had in response to some extremely minor changes that WotC has made to the rules in new books/errata (giving Goblinoids Fey Ancestry, removing alignment suggestions from PC races, changing Vistani lore to be less racist, etc).

Yeah, there are changes to sacred cows of D&D that I wish would change. However, if we as a community can't handle changes to books that won't affect your games in any way . . . we're never going to dump any of the dozens of useless/detrimental sacred cows that the game has.

Yeah, WotC learned thst lesson the hard way.

 

[Cadence]

Whenever I see a thread saying, "I think X core part of D&D's traditional rules should be changed", I think, "yeah, wouldn't that be nice", but then quickly remember how much outrage a significant part of this community has had in response to some extremely minor changes that WotC has made to the rules in new books/errata (giving Goblinoids Fey Ancestry, removing alignment suggestions from PC races, changing Vistani lore to be less racist, etc).

Yeah, there are changes to sacred cows of D&D that I wish would change. However, if we as a community can't handle changes to books that won't affect your games in any way . . . we're never going to dump any of the dozens of useless/detrimental sacred cows that the game has.

I don't expect WotC D&D to make any changes in line with what I'm thinking, but "a homebrew hack of D&D that I would like to still have a 'D&D feel'" certainly might be able to.

Just don't ask me to explain why I still wanted a D&D feel, or why I'd necessarily expect others to think it had it too. Not sure I have an articulable reason.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't expect WotC D&D to make any changes in line with what I'm thinking, but "a homebrew hack of D&D that I would like to still have a 'D&D feel'" certainly might be able to.

Just don't ask me to explain why I still wanted a D&D feel, or why I'd necessarily expect others to think it had it too. Not sure I have an articulable reason.

My first thought when hearing "7 Abilities," is Pendragon with it's chivalric Virtue based character system. Something radical like that could be dynamite, but it would mean something very un-D&D.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

My first thought when hearing "7 Abilities," is Pendragon with it's chivalric Virtue based character system. Something radical like that could be dynamite, but it would mean something very un-D&D.

I personally thought of Fallout's "SPECIAL" system. (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck.) It's basically just D&D's Ability Scores, but with Luck added and Wisdom renamed to Perception (because that's basically just what it is, at least in 5e).

I think that a system like that could work well in D&D 5e's base system, maybe with a "Luck" score being your Proficiency Bonus (or maybe a Proficiency Dice size that you choose at character creation), or something along those lines.

 

[Cadence]

I personally thought of Fallout's "SPECIAL" system. (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck.) It's basically just D&D's Ability Scores, but with Luck added and Wisdom renamed to Perception (because that's basically just what it is, at least in 5e).

I think that a system like that could work well in D&D 5e's base system, maybe with a "Luck" score being your Proficiency Bonus (or maybe a Proficiency Dice size that you choose at character creation), or something along those lines.

My current, just penciled in with many erase marks, idea is:

Strength - Agility - Dexterity - Constitution - Awareness - Will - Charisma

Beyond the attributes there would be traits that one could get that wouldn't make sense as having a negative or average ability, things like devotion (for a cleric), spell capacity (with a better name, for a wizard), connection to patron (with a better name, for a Warlock), rage (for a barbairan), or qi (for a monk) etc... Maybe education for extra skills. A character who wanted only to dip in the class might only need a 1, a character who wanted to advance all the way might need to get it up to a 4. And they could be bought during character creation or with the ASIs at leveling.

 

[Parmandur]

My current, just penciled in with many erase marks, idea is:

Strength - Agility - Dexterity - Constitution - Awareness - Will - Charisma

Beyond the attributes there would be traits that one could get that wouldn't make sense as having a negative or average ability, things like devotion (for a cleric), spell capacity (with a better name, for a wizard), connection to patron (with a better name, for a Warlock), rage (for a barbairan), or qi (for a monk) etc... Maybe education for extra skills. A character who wanted only to dip in the class might only need a 1, a character who wanted to advance all the way might need to get it up to a 4. And they could be bought during character creation or with the ASIs at leveling.

Gotta say, it's a bit too involved for my taste, but it would probably work.

 

[DND_Reborn]

) Would adding a seventh ability add a lot of complexity to that part of character creation? Is it already a bit fiddly to take a point total and split it among six things?

No, but it should be something neither mental nor physical-- like a magic, essence, or similar ability.

Which brings me to a different point: they shouldn't be call abilities, they should be attributes.

2) Is there something magic about six for the D&D feel to you? (I mean they tried adding comeliness back in 1e). Or does the number of them not matter?

Nothing "magical" really except they stem from a fairly logical break up of the attributes people have: some are strong, some dexterous, some intelligent, some charismatic, etc. IMO they have enough distinction to set each apart, as where if you tried break them down further it might be too granular, if you group them together (like combining STR and CON) they might be too broad.

There are systems out there with 2 or even 3 scores, others with a dozen or more, any number can work IMO as long as each score is required and serves a purpose--hopefully for each PC regardless of their focus or role in the game.

3) Would it be bad or good if each class really had two stats that were particularly helpful instead of just having one that they really lean on?

IMO in 5E this is already the case if you look at the game as it is now.

IME this is the typical ranking of abilities
Barbarian: STR/CON/DEX
Bard: DEX/CHA/WIS (or INT)
Cleric: WIS/CON/STR (or DEX)
Druid: WIS/DEX/CON
Fighter: STR or DEX/ CON/ DEX or STR
Monk: DEX/WIS/CON
Paladin: CHA/STR (or DEX)/CON
Ranger: DEX/WIS/CON
Sorcerer: CHA/CON/DEX
Warlock: CHA/DEX/CON
Wizard: INT/CON/DEX

Unless you have a combat-lite style of play, DEX and CON are already usually the #2 and #3 scores, helpful regardless of class in significant ways. Most classes can have a score that is primary, allowing them to focus on these as secondary and tertiary, but a some classes (e.g. Paladin) also needs to have other abilities to focus on. This is why players sometime are disgruntled about such classes, because they feel their DEX and/or CON must suffer to be good at what they need to be good at.

Now, by retooling DEX and CON so they are "helpful" but don't feel nearly as essential, it helps mitigate this.

And then two more going for if they would break the D&D feel for you, and not necessarily if they would work in terms of mechanics.

4) What is your gut reaction to splitting Dexterity into something like Dexterity (Coordination/Aim) and Agility (Reaction/Acrobatics) ?

IMO all you would be doing is taking a score which is already good, and making it two scores that would both be highly desired. This falls into the "too focused" concept for the separate scores.

5) What is your gut reaction to merging Strength and Constitution so that handled both weight training and cardio type fitness?

And this would fall into the "too broad" category IMO.

Finally, I would get rid of ability scores in the current sense altogether. One thing I've said before related to skills in 5E is this:

Being strong doesn't make you good at athletics, practicing athletics is what makes you strong.
Being intelligent doesn't make you know more, knowing more makes you intelligent.
And so on.

It wouldn't be "D&D" really at that point, but something like having proficiency in three Strength-based skills would give you a +3 STR mod, having two Charisma-based skills would give you +2 CHA mod, etc.

I've always liked the idea, but never taken the time to try to flesh any of it out.

 

[Lanefan]

Anyway, I'm plodding towards a homebrew hack of D&D that I would like to still have a "D&D feel" even if it changes some things pretty substantially. One of my questions for this is about how it feels to keep track of abilities and divvy up the points or roll the dice for generation.

So, the three main questions:

1) Would adding a seventh ability add a lot of complexity to that part of character creation? Is it already a bit fiddly to take a point total and split it among six things?

Doesn't add any complexity except a seventh roll at char-gen.

2) Is there something magic about six for the D&D feel to you? (I mean they tried adding comeliness back in 1e). Or does the number of them not matter?

3) Would it be bad or good if each class really had two stats that were particularly helpful instead of just having one that they really lean on?

My take is there should be a mix - have some classes work best with one really good stat, some with two not-quite-as-good, and a few that need all stats to be at least middling-good.

And then two more going for if they would break the D&D feel for you, and not necessarily if they would work in terms of mechanics.

4) What is your gut reaction to splitting Dexterity into something like Dexterity (Coordination/Aim) and Agility (Reaction/Acrobatics) ?

Fine. While you're at it, split the other five in half as well; there's room for it. More important is to assign abilities, bonuses, etc. in such a way that no one stat is required by everyone (as Dex is now in 5e) and no one stat is useless to everyone.

A quick stab at it, off the top of my head:

Strength becomes Athletics (carrying, jumping, etc.) and Brawn (to-hit and damage for ALL melee, taking a lot of this away from Dex)
Intelligence becomes Learning (spell acquisition, research, knowledge) and Memory (spellcasting, lore)
Wisdom becomes Intuition (divine caster requirement) and Willpower (save bonus)
Dexterity becomes Agility (dodging, AC bonus, body dexterity) and Dexterity (aim, lockpicking, small-scale manual dexterity)
Constitution becomes Toughness (hit points, physical resilience) and Stamina (endurance, save bonus)
Charisma becomes Spirit (spiritual strength*, some saves) and Charisma (persuasion/attractiveness as now)

* - this would affect revival odds, as IMO revival from death via conventional spell should never be automatic.

5) What is your gut reaction to merging Strength and Constitution so that handled both weight training and cardio type fitness?

Don't like it. Better to beef up Strength by giving it back some of what Dexterity has stolen from it over the years, such that Strength = offense, Dexterity = defense.