D&D 5E Make Constitution great again

[Lucas Blackstone]

I'm surprised people felt the need to defend Constitution, or were boggled by the suggestion of it being a dump stat even after I pointed out that the OP was obviously trolling.

I do like the idea of attaching more skill uses to it as some people mentioned since it has none with the traditional skill set up.

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

I've made an entire post about Monster Manual an Volo's Guide to Monsters saving throws.

Wow, that must've been painful combing through all that. So there you have it: Con is King.

 

[ClaytonCross]

I'm surprised people felt the need to defend Constitution, or were boggled by the suggestion of it being a dump stat even after I pointed out that the OP was obviously trolling.

I do like the idea of attaching more skill uses to it as some people mentioned since it has none with the traditional skill set up.

I think with it be used for concentration checks, health, and resisting fatigue from various elements is just as useful as any of the skills that the other ability scores have. You could argue use of environmental concerns and monster selections that use abilities or poison effects would make its usefulness very different from DM to DM.... but then so to are ALL other skill checks. The fact concentration checks, health, poison, and con. saves are so common and fundamental makes it unavoidable for constitution to be useful and as a result there is no need to add skills based on constitution.

The abilities need skills to prop them up more since they serve no purpose to other classes without them.
- Intelligence would be pretty much Wizard only dump stat players didn't want to have a fighter who could investigate hidden doors or A cleric of Ioun with a great knowledge of history.

- Charismatic Rogues (persuasion, deception) / Intimidating Barbarians.

etc. but Constitution does need a skill since it adds to concentration and health of any character you get tough with the ability alone, and if you take toughness and/or durable feat you can really make that huge still with out a skill.

 

[Horwath]

Personaly, I would delete the stat. Or at least rename it as "14".

There is like 80% characters with 14 con, 19% share 12 or 16 and 1% is everything else.


Constitution should be merged into strength. As your general fitness and physical power.

 

[CapnZapp]

Constitution, it gives you hit points as well as saving throws against disease, poison, and other con based items.

But really, it is THE dump stat and has been basically forever.

Opinions?

You must either be mad, Doc, or you're in a very combat light game. Try adding more monsters, and we'll see what stats you'll be dumping...

(My players all try to place their second best score in Con, for those sweet sweet extra hit points. It's not always feasible, but no character have had a worse Con modifier than +1, so...)

a dump stat Con is not

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[akr71]

You must either be mad, Doc, or you're in a very combat light game. Try adding more monsters, and we'll see what stats you'll be dumping...

(My players all try to place their second best score in Con, for those sweet sweet extra hit points. It's not always feasible, but no character have had a worse Con modifier than +1, so...)

a dump stat Con is not

I don't typically play wizards, but can you imagine a wizard with low Con? Extra squishy and loses concentration on all his/her spells. Con is always 2nd or 3rd highest stat.

 

[Eltab]

OP,
You're still having nightmares from the 4e Dual-Stat Star'Lock (which had to be afraid of peasants bearing pitchforks at L30 because its AC was so bad).
CON in 5e is fine.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I'm surprised people felt the need to defend Constitution, or were boggled by the suggestion of it being a dump stat even after I pointed out that the OP was obviously trolling.

I do like the idea of attaching more skill uses to it as some people mentioned since it has none with the traditional skill set up.

I'd rather take a Troll thread and turn into helpful information any day.

I think there are many new players and DMs on these forums (I used to be one) and reading how other people make their games better can be very useful.

 

[Blue]

CON would be better if it had a skill associated with it. Perhaps strong integration into the exhaustion mechanic?

CON already had additional things built into it that others don't, not just HPs per level but every single HD used for recovery has CON baked in. In addition, CON is one of the top three saves, probably top two saves. And that's before considering Concentration saves.

Looking at just one category - what skills are attached - is only a partial picture of the usefulness of the ability score. CON as a whole is on the forward edge of the power curve already. Adding to it would be going in the wrong direction.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Complaining that CON is a dump stat is like saying the Yankees or Lakers don't get enough media attention.