Level based ability score increases pointless?

[delericho]

While ability scores increasing with level makes a certain amount of sense from a 'realism' standpoint, they're actively harmful to the game as a whole - since most characters have most of their abilities tied to a single ability, the 'choice' is really nothing of the sort, and they therefore serve to increase the difference between the ultra-specialist and the 'backup guy'.

I'm afraid it's not a great poll - I dislike ability score increases with level, but if they're a feature of the game then I'll use them. I would prefer them to be removed with 5e/PF 2nd, although I don't expect this to happen.

(And, in fact, I would prefer almost all means of adjusting ability scores removed from the game, and the overall importance of ability scores dramatically reduced. As things stand, ability scores are really too important to leave to chance, but point-buy is absolutely poisonous for getting new players into the game.)

 

[Herremann the Wise]

(And, in fact, I would prefer almost all means of adjusting ability scores removed from the game, and the overall importance of ability scores dramatically reduced.

I think I go through phases where I very much agree with this and then other times I think I would miss this core element of the game. I suppose what I would like is for the "maxed out" main stat of 4e that grew from 3e not to be the expected thing. Rather than facilitating over-focusing on ability scores, it would be nice if the game encouraged a more even distribution.

A question. Imagine a stat of 12 and 16 and their corresponding modifiers of +1 and +3. That 16 feels so much stronger than the 12. Imagine then if the modifiers were instead +6 and +8. The 16 definitely feels better but not by so much. From a psychological standpoint, by not pressing so much importance into the modifiers relative to each other, could this be an answer to encouraging players not to min max their stats? What incentives could you otherwise put in to discourage focusing so much on ability scores?

As things stand, ability scores are really too important to leave to chance, but point-buy is absolutely poisonous for getting new players into the game.

Can you expand on this last point? It is an interesting point of view and I'd be interested in your thinking here.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Jhaelen]

I dislike systems without any way to increase your ability scores. For level-based systems it makes sense to tie ability increases to levels in some way. For other systems, e.g. Runequest it doesn't seem as artificial.

While ability scores increasing with level makes a certain amount of sense from a 'realism' standpoint, they're actively harmful to the game as a whole - [/b]since most characters have most of their abilities tied to a single ability[/b], the 'choice' is really nothing of the sort, and they therefore serve to increase the difference between the ultra-specialist and the 'backup guy'.

The part I bolded is the real 'problem' (assuming you feel it is indeed one: Doesn't it make sense that someone tries to increase the ability that she most often uses and requires?).

There are several ways to mitigate the problem:

1. E.g. in 'The Dark Eye' rpg, every skill is based on three ability scores, so, always increasing the same ability isn't very effective. It's extremely hard to find an ability that isn't in some way important to a character, no matter what you're playing.

2. In many rpg systems there's also a system of diminishing returns to discourage increasing the same ability over and over. TDE and Earthdawn are examples for this: In both systems it can get very expensive to increase an ability a lot.

3. Finally, many systems also set a maximum ability score, i.e. you cannot keep increasing them forever. This is a feature of all systems I mentioned so far.

So in D&D it can be a problem because creating 'SAD' characters is possible, abilities and ability modifiers increase in a linear way, and there's no upper limit. None of these is an inherent problem of allowing abilities to increase.

 

[delericho]

A question. Imagine a stat of 12 and 16 and their corresponding modifiers of +1 and +3. That 16 feels so much stronger than the 12. Imagine then if the modifiers were instead +6 and +8.

It's not just the disparity between good and excellent ability scores that is the issue - there's also the question of how the magnitude of these mods compares to other mods in the system. The difference between a +1 and a +3 on rolls is rather less important if there's a whole bunch of other factors that are going together to make up a total bonus of +25 or more.

This is especially true if what is actually at work is a whole series of trade-offs, so that the character who is less likely to hit does more damage, or has some other effect on a hit, or has better defences, or something.

(The 4e powers are actually good in this regard - IIRC, the last time I played a 1st level Fighter my at-wills were some sort of precise attack power (giving +2 to hit) or Tide of Iron (which gave no bonus to hit, but moved opponents). That's a really good trade-off - you gain in one area but lose in another, and it makes for a nice choice.)

But with ability scores you tend not to get that - the 4e Fighter is pretty much always just better off pumping strength, and a high strength is always better than a low one.

Can you expand on this last point? It is an interesting point of view and I'd be interested in your thinking here.

Sure.

Regarding "point-buy being poisonous for new players getting into the game":

I'm very much of the opinion that, if at all possible, new players should create and play their own custom character. A lot of the fun of RPGs is telling your own stories with your own characters, so best to get into that.

Now, it should be obvious that random rolls for ability scores are better for new players. Explaining the concept behind the ability scores is dead easy - people grasp what Strength is without any fuss, and even the Int/Wis split isn't particularly difficult.

So, with random rolls, they can build a picture of their character (easy), decide whether he should be strong or smart (easy), roll the dice (easy), and assign the numbers (easy-ish). Done, and one step closer to the fun.

But with point-buy there's just a whole lot more that needs to be understood - the mapping between points and stats (not 1-1 in 3e, 4e or PF); the mapping of stats to modifiers; the notion that a 12 isn't much different from a 13 now, but might be later on; how the various trade-offs work...

This is great for veteran players, but it's a hassle for new players. Even with players experienced in other systems but new to D&D it can be an issue - when starting my current 3.5e campaign the experienced D&D player had his Rogue's stats done in 5 minutes; the others took a good 20 minutes and were getting quite frustrated by the end.

Regarding stats being too important to be left to random chance:

On average, 4d6-drop-lowest would seem to be roughly equivalent to an inexpertly done 28-point buy, which in turn is roughly equivalent to an expertly done 25-point buy. (Of course, both PF and 4e use more generous point-buy systems. Even in 3e, when was the last time you saw someone use 25 points?)

However, the big risk with random rolls is if one player rolls significantly better or worse than the others.

(In the worst instance I ever saw, I watched one player roll 10-17-18-18-18-14. To this day, the player in question swears he wasn't intentionally cheating, and FWIW I believe him; however, those dice were not rolled cleanly - there was almost no bounce between rolls. Meanwhile, another player rolled stats barely above the 'reject' threshold for 3e. Unfortunately, this then interacted with system mastery in the worst way, so we got an optimised super-stat Elf Wizard and an unoptimised barely-acceptable Halfling Bard (3.0e), with her skill points spread thinly across a lot of skills. The upshot was that the bard was useless, while the elf was a better rogue than the rogue, a better fighter than the fighter, and so on... (In case you're wondering, I wasn't the DM of that one.))

Even ignoring disparities within the group, there's still the issue that almost every roll that is made in 3e/4e/PF is modified by some stat, and that the stats serve as gatekeepers for many of the feats and high-level spells (and, in 1st and 2nd Ed, for classes). They're really important, both at the start of the campaign and throughout.

Another example: My current campaign is shortly going on hiatus (for Christmas and then a wedding). I've told my players that when we come back they can perform a character rebuild, which is exactly what it sounds like - they have to keep the core concept of the character the same, but anything else they want to change they can do. Now, over the last few months the player of our artificer has spent quite a lot of time reading up on the system and developed quite some system mastery. Having seen his first draft of a rebuilt character, the change is pretty dramatic - the character both fills his role much better, encapsulates the concept that was drawn up for him much better, and is considerably more powerful... largely due to drawing points away from a 'wasted' stat across to where they will be much more useful.

Ultimately, I think my preference is to switch to something close to the old BECMI model (but not quite; I would go for 1-3 -3, 4-6 -2, 7-9 -1, 10-11 nada, 12-14 +1, 15-17 +2, 18+ +3), eliminate almost everything that modifies stats, and eliminate stats as a gatekeeper for feats. Put together, this makes stats less vital (but still useful), and should enable the game to work quite happily with random-roll and a suitable point-buy co-existing.

 

[delericho]

I dislike systems without any way to increase your ability scores. For level-based systems it makes sense to tie ability increases to levels in some way.

Sure, I can see that. But I'm not sure D&D characters really need so many "moving parts", and I'm inclined to think that ability score increases are an area ripe for simplification.

Here's a question: when Bruce Wayne goes through all that training to become Batman, does he become more powerful because his stats increase, or because he went up lots of levels and so advanced a whole bunch of martial/mental skills?

Realistically, the answer is almost certainly "both". However, when modelling the character in a game, does it really matter whether that +2 comes from a Str increase or a BAB increase, provided the total number added to the dice roll comes out about the same? (IMO, the answer to that one is "no". YMMV, of course.)

1. E.g. in 'The Dark Eye' rpg, every skill is based on three ability scores, so, always increasing the same ability isn't very effective. It's extremely hard to find an ability that isn't in some way important to a character, no matter what you're playing.

2. In many rpg systems there's also a system of diminishing returns to discourage increasing the same ability over and over. TDE and Earthdawn are examples for this: In both systems it can get very expensive to increase an ability a lot.

3. Finally, many systems also set a maximum ability score, i.e. you cannot keep increasing them forever. This is a feature of all systems I mentioned so far.

Sure, other games have other solutions to these issues. D&D could certainly do well to at least consider some of these.

 

[pemerton]

A question. Imagine a stat of 12 and 16 and their corresponding modifiers of +1 and +3. That 16 feels so much stronger than the 12. Imagine then if the modifiers were instead +6 and +8. The 16 definitely feels better but not by so much. From a psychological standpoint, by not pressing so much importance into the modifiers relative to each other, could this be an answer to encouraging players not to min max their stats?

A difference of +2 is still a difference of +2. Assuming the system is built to produce the same rate of success (around 50% to 70% seems typical) then the 18 will be equally advantageous relative to the 16, whatever the actual bonus.

An analogue: the improvement from a +1 to a +3 sword, in 4e, is more-or-less the same as the improvement from a +4 to a +6 sword. What matters is not that the first is a tripling of the bonus while the second only a 50% increase, but rather that each is a +2 step within a framework of scaling target numbers.

 

[Baron Opal]

I dislike them being tied to level.

I do want characters to be able to improve their attributes beyond that of a rare tome or wish. However, I would like characters to expend some resources for those gains, be it cash to study at the feet of the master or a favor to gain access to meditate at a shrine. It should be an option rather than something automatic that the math needs to take into account.

 

[kitsune9]

I know that other posters have covered this, so I'll second their statements.

Odd ability scores matter.
With 5 increases over a 20 level range, a character can boost their score up to an additional +3 bonus. This becomes more important when factoring in abilities such as Power Attack or wielding weapons two handed.

As for my opinion on the matter, I like them. I never did quite understood how characters who started out at 1st level in AD&D didn't improve their abilities scores unless they got magic treatment. Now some would argue that the current systems are too random--that I could agree with, but it's a start that with your character, some ability scores get better with experience (particularly if your character is starting off really young).

 

[airwalkrr]

As a kid, I always thought it was ridiculous that characters could NEVER get any stronger or healthier or smarter or wiser without some magical intervention.

Personally, I'd rather that D&D gave MORE ability score bonuses and then phased out BAB and saves in favor of ability checks.

I believe the assumption is that AD&D player characters are heroes who have already attained their fullest potential with regard to their ability scores. The fighter is assumed to spend his downtime working out and practicing weaponplay to keep his Strength up. The thief is assumed to spend his downtime in agility exercises and tinkering with mechanical trap parts that he has scavenged along the way to keep his Dexterity up. The magic-user is constantly reading his spellbook and studying magical scrolls to keep his Intelligence up. And so on. The increased talent and ability of characters is already reflected in the experience and leveling system and does not need to be compounded with boosts to ability scores.

 

[Wiseblood]

Putting this mechanic in seems artificial. Something to soothe the hunger for better stats than you started with. Predictable advancement like this makes me wonder if it is a benefit or if it is required to function.