Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Racial Ability Scores: Default Low Ability Score
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="TheCosmicKid" data-source="post: 7814609" data-attributes="member: 6683613"><p>Locking the lowest roll to a particular ability score for every member of a race is way too restrictive. It effectively means a player is defining their character with only five ability scores rather than six, and means that all members of a race are going to look a lot alike. If you want to reinforce this idea that, say, halflings are on the physically weak side, you might want to consider a gentler "Strength can't be your <em>highest</em> score", or at the very most "Strength can't be in your top three", rather than going all the way to "Strength must be your lowest".</p><p></p><p>It's also worth mentioning, just in case you're thinking along these lines, that no requirement of this form is a balancing factor against requirement-free humans. Freedom of choice at character creation is not comparable to freedom of choice in play; after all, once in play, a nonhuman character built this way is going to have an ability score block that looks exactly the same as a block a human character could have. In other words, if the player was planning on putting their lowest score in Strength anyway, picking halfling over human would not cost them anything at all. So you have to make sure that the <em>other</em> human and nonhuman racial features are balanced against each other, independent of these requirements. (This is the same balance logic as for old race-class limitations and the like.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="TheCosmicKid, post: 7814609, member: 6683613"] Locking the lowest roll to a particular ability score for every member of a race is way too restrictive. It effectively means a player is defining their character with only five ability scores rather than six, and means that all members of a race are going to look a lot alike. If you want to reinforce this idea that, say, halflings are on the physically weak side, you might want to consider a gentler "Strength can't be your [I]highest[/I] score", or at the very most "Strength can't be in your top three", rather than going all the way to "Strength must be your lowest". It's also worth mentioning, just in case you're thinking along these lines, that no requirement of this form is a balancing factor against requirement-free humans. Freedom of choice at character creation is not comparable to freedom of choice in play; after all, once in play, a nonhuman character built this way is going to have an ability score block that looks exactly the same as a block a human character could have. In other words, if the player was planning on putting their lowest score in Strength anyway, picking halfling over human would not cost them anything at all. So you have to make sure that the [I]other[/I] human and nonhuman racial features are balanced against each other, independent of these requirements. (This is the same balance logic as for old race-class limitations and the like.) [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Racial Ability Scores: Default Low Ability Score
Top