D&D General Order of ability scores

[Coroc]

/tinfoil hat on

@Morrus

This is a obvious subconscious cospiracy made by an alliance of Illuminati-Freemasonry-Lizard people to force us to make characters more focus on their physical abilities rather than mental in hope that we will project that mental state to ourselves in real life and to guide our friends and family that way.

Their goal is to have majority of population as physically able, feebleminded workers/drones/slaves while they control all key positions on the planet and keeping all the capital in their small group.

...


Proceeds to make variant human with Observant feat with abilities;

STR: 8
DEX: 8
CON: 8
INT: 16
WIS: 16
CHA: 16

...

"my Third eye is wide open"

/tinfoil hat off

Yea, the orc hits, you miss, you observe the orc cutting you to pieces.
At least your body is beautiful to behold by the next observer since you got a cha of 16.



Just joking

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

It's a fascinating question. And would it change anything if you renamed the abilites, without changina anything about how they work?

Does...

Strength
Dexterity
Constitution
Intelligence
Wisdom
Charisma

… feel like...

Muscle
Agility
Vitality
Intellect
Wits
Charm

?

 

[Dalabar]

It's a fascinating question. And would it change anything if you renamed the abilites, without changina anything about how they work?

If we're renaming the abilities can we please go with:

Gumption
Chutzpah
Moxy
Childlike Wonder
The Cut Of My Gib
A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi

If anything lets just replace Charisma with A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi... we might finally end the myth that 18 CHA characters are drop dead gorgeous.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Back when I played around with the idea for my own ruleset for a minute, I had come up with this set:

Might, Agility, Guile, Insight, and Knowledge

M.A.G.I.K.

Guile was originally Cunning, which would have made it M.A.G.I.C. But it's really hard to find attributes beginning with "G". I did, however, consider using "Gnowledge" and that's when I realized how I was constraining my options and game design just for the sake of a meaningless anagram. Lesson learned.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Does the order of ability scores affect their perceived importance (aside from their actual mechanical importance).

In other words, does a character sheet that lists:

Charisma
Intelligence
Dexterity
Wisdom
Constitution
Strength

subtly encourage a different type of character and/or game to:

Strength
Dexterity
Constitution
Intelligence
Wisdom
Charisma

I feel like this seemed like a valid question up into 3E, but 4E and 5E have shown that, in fact, players are sufficiently rational that it is proven that order on sheet does not impact perceived importance.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Personally, I always thought alphabetical would be used at some point.... instead of a physical/mental separation. Or why not do mental and then physical. Of course, it really doesn't matter and I understand why earlier editions listed them as they did, but even then cleric would come before fighter, so why not have Wisdom listed before Strength? Funny to think about.

 

[ART!]

Partly it's an issue of how they are positioned on a character sheet.

If they're listed vertically with the modern order, then STR is "on top" and Charisma is "on the bottom", and I think that has some bearing on how people view things and how they interact with the character sheet and therefore the character.

I think a horiztonal arrangement is better because it puts all the abilities at the "same level". You still have the reading left-to-right issue, but I think it's less of an issue than the vertical option.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

You would think it psychologically should have an effect, but I haven't observed one with either D&D or other systems, so I'm assuming any effect is small enough to be insignificant.

 

[Retreater]

I came in with 2E, so anything other than: Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha is a little odd. I do think the 4e order of stats (Str, Con, Dex, Int, Wis, Cha) made sense for that edition based on what the attributes modified.

 

[Stormonu]

The only proper list is STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA, COM. All else is Heresy.

Order doesn’t matter, except when you’re trying to find your bonus (which should be in the big box, with the score in the small box folks ).