One Thing That AD&D Got Right

[billd91]

I still totally like stat boosts in 3e/PF. 3e freed players from the necessity of having a stratospheric stat just to get into a class or have any bonus over average people. And advancing boosts allow the PC to shore up a stat that had to be left weaker because of a lower than desired die roll.

But I believe it's one of the features of 3e that works best when the stats are rolled and not bought by point buy. I also refuse to blame the great design that it is for the actions of chronic optimize-aholics. They are the ones to shoulder all of that blame themselves.

 

[pawsplay]

Yeah, there's no rule that says you have to use all your increases on your prime requisites/save stats/etc.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Oops. Seem I took it totally out of its intended (and original) context.

Game balance, huh? Hm. Well, to me, stats are the absolute central core of the system. So, it would make sense (again, to me) to arrange stats how you want them, in a way that "makes sense" (subjectively, most likely) then build/adjust all the other mechanics to work well with them.

 

[MoxieFu]

What I didn't like about stat-boosts with increasing level was that it took the relative ability scores off the bell curve and put it on the linear curve. This was also done with changing the ability score bonuses that increased with every two points of ability score. With a linear curve there's no upper end of the scale.

When characters can easily have a score of 20 at first level that creates a greater disparity between characters and with ability scores of the same character. I personally blame this for much of the "Swinginess" in combat in 3E. Then 4E came out and allowed you to increase TWO ability scores for every four levels.

I prefer rules-lite games and keeping power creep in check. Maintaining reasonable ability scores is one reason why.

 

[Orius]

However, the trouble was in AD&D was that those stat-bonuses *did* exist. Wish spells, magic items (girdle of storm giant strength, gauntlets of dexterity) and the like, and all of them were inconsistently applied.

Also, I disagree with the idea that boosting stats makes bad stats stand out more. I mean it might make it more nociable that you've got no bonus or even a penalty on one or two bad scores, but even if you don't increase stats ever, the bad scores are still there. Mechanically a -1 from a stat is still a -1, no matter how many plusses you have, and whether or not you get more plusses from leveling.

Honestly, I don't really feel worked up one way or other about ability score increases.

 

[Shades of Green]

What if the maximum normal benefit gained from a stat was a +1 or +2 at the extreme? What if the largest boost to actual ability came from gaining levels and devoting resources towards the skills the character wants to excel at?

Swords & Wizardry (a retro-clone of OD&D) uses a maximum +1 bonus for stats of 15-18 and a maximum -1 penalty for stats of 3-6. On one hand this keeps the power-creep squarely at check, but on the other hand this makes the difference between low and high ability scores quite irrelevant; or was that the point of the whole exercise - make you rely less on high ability scores and allow you to play a Fighter with STR 15 with no major penalty?

 

[Jhaelen]

This is a shameless narcissistic self-promotion, in which I talk about why boosting abilities beyond 1st level is bad. (Because of balance, ironically.)

I disagree.

You may argue that the way 3e/4e treats ability boosts isn't implemented very well but it's better than a system offering no way to increase abilities, especially if you're rolling for your ability scores.

If you look beyond D&D you'll find plenty of examples for better ways to treat ability boosts.

While we're at it: Level-caps were a bad idea, too

 

[steenan]

Stat increases can be a good thing if the rest of the system is built to be consistent with it. Two important questions are what exactly do the stats represent and how they affect tests during a game.

If we focus on the specific example of D&D, I agree that increasing stats is not a good idea. There are several reasons for it:
1. The advancement is already represented by other things (BAB and skill ranks in 3e, half level bonuses to everything in 4e). Increasing stats make it redundant.
2. Each class has a narrow focus, making only 2 or 3 stats useful 99% of time. This encourages increasing high stats and ignoring low ones, making the spread greater with all problems that come from it.
3. While high stats are harder to get at character creation, the difficulty of increasing them in game does not depend on stat value. It leads to the same issue as point 2.
4. Nearly nothing depends on the stats alone. Because of that, the stats by themselves have no meaning. It's impossible to tell what given value of a stat represents, because in-game events would contradict it. That's an argument for removing stats completely, not only for not increasing them.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Somewhat disagree.

While I don't contest that it's possible to grant stat increases in such a way that a disparity occurs, I don't think it's at all a necessary conclusion.

For example, in my next campaign I plan to include special character-specific quests based on their backgrounds once per tier. Upon completion of the quest, the character who was the focus of the quest will gain a +2 to the higher of the "tertiary" stat pair. As such, all defenses should remain at roughly the same level for most classes.

Another approach would be to replace the +1 to two stats with +1 to all stats. At that point, all stats would scale at an even pace.

Though stat increases no doubt can cause issues, and despite that I don't think increasing stats is outright necessary (since the 1/2 level bonus also suggests improvement in 4e), I don't believe the concept of stat increases to be, itself, a flawed mechanic.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Swords & Wizardry (a retro-clone of OD&D) uses a maximum +1 bonus for stats of 15-18 and a maximum -1 penalty for stats of 3-6. On one hand this keeps the power-creep squarely at check, but on the other hand this makes the difference between low and high ability scores quite irrelevant; or was that the point of the whole exercise - make you rely less on high ability scores and allow you to play a Fighter with STR 15 with no major penalty?

Yes, that was indeed the point. S&W is very rules light which goes hand in hand with less severe bonuses and penalties. The way to accomplish this is by giving the actual scores themselves more value rather than just treating them as benchmarks for bonus levels. If the game features a lot of stat checks to succeed at a variety of actions then the value of that 14 relative to a 9 or 10 becomes very clear. The character sporting a 14 DEX might not have a bonus to hit with missile fire or to AC but when the time comes to determine who can dodge that rolling boulder trap, make the leap over the pit of boiling mud, or untie that complicated knot fast enough he will be smiling and glad that he didn't dump a 10 there just because there was no bonus so "why bother".

Complex skill systems that make skill points or other build resources more important to success than the raw stat undermines this method.

In order for the stats to matter beyond giving a bonus, the mechanics need to allow them to matter.