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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Falling Icicle" data-source="post: 6224873" data-attributes="member: 17077">This article gives some interesting insights into their design process. It does beg some questions, though.If it's simpler to remove fort, ref and will saves, and just use the abilities (which it is), why not just remove saving throws as some separate type of check, and just have them be ability checks? After all, having an ability check and an ability save be different things means you have to keep track of two modifiers instead of just one (since some things can modify saves but not checks, or vice versa). It can also cause some rules confusion and debates, i.e. "does this bonus apply to ability checks and saves, or just checks?" Using his own logic, it would be better to remove the "jargon" of saving throws and just have ability checks. Of course, they won't do that because then people would be like "OMG there are no saving throws?! That's not D&D!"And then there's the question of why they insisted on keeping 1-20 ability score ratings, which is a really dumb sacred cow. The ability modifier is what actually matters, and having the score has caused no end of confusion for new players in my experience. I have to keep reminding them that they just use that +2 in front of their Dexterity, not the 14. Keeping the 1-20 score is just a mindless appeal to tradition. And this also rears its ugly head whenever it comes to increasing ability scores. People will quickly notice that odd number scores do absolutely nothing for their characters. It's a waste of a point. It's nothing but a speedbump to a real bonus. I really think they should just get rid of the ability scores and just have the modifiers as your score. Of course, they won't ever do that either, because, tradition.</blockquote>

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