D&D 5E Racial Min/Maxes on Ability Scores?

[Snarf Zagyg]

A fair number of people have been suggesting such things lately. I doubt we'll ever see it for D&D, but the way things are going you never know.

Well, D&D is, what, 46 years old?

For 26 years of that time (more than half) saving throws were completely independent of ability scores*, and were related only to class and level. So it's not completely unheard of, right?

*Okay, you could get bonuses to saving throws for certain high abilities in some cases.

 

[jmartkdr2]

My only issue with that is that it removes the part of the system where you have different numbers for different things.

Maybe a “Primary, Secondary, Tertiary” Conpetence, and guidelines for which to apply to what thing, but yeah it think you need differing math for difference game numbers.

I'm kind of coming around to "reduce the ability mods" as a good compromise option - it leaves them in place (so what they represent is still represented) but makes hitting minimum optimization a lot easier since proficiency takes up the slack.

I'd still want a small boost to all save for mid- and high-level characters, but that should probably happen anyways.

This still leaves issues with halflings being as strong as goliaths, but I think any fix for that (if needed) should be size-related, not strength-score related because trying to fit everything from a vole to a dinosaur into a range of 1-30 when humans are 3-18 isn't going to make sense anyways. Spitball idea: Maybe three pc sizes (small medium large) and have that affect what kind of weapons you can use (only your own size or disadvantage) and change damage dice to compensate. You might need to bring back size modifiers to hit or something to balance it, though, and it's obviously a lot more fiddly than 5e typiccally runs, but 5e is already running on the idea that a halfling barbarian and a orc barbarian are pretty much the same for all muscle-based activities anyways.

 

[CleverNickName]

I'm kind of coming around to "reduce the ability mods" as a good compromise option - it leaves them in place (so what they represent is still represented) but makes hitting minimum optimization a lot easier since proficiency takes up the slack.

I'd still want a small boost to all save for mid- and high-level characters, but that should probably happen anyways.

Hmm....that's not a bad way to do it, now that I think about it.

In D&D's Best & Purest Edition(TM), the rules had a more parabolic scale for ability score modifiers:

3 = -3
4-5 = -2
6-8 = -1
9-12 = 0
13-15 = +1
16-17 = +2
18 = +3

If we took that idea and expanded it for 5E, we could have modifiers like this:

3 = -3
4-5 = -2
6-8 = -1
9-11 = 0
12-14 = +1
15-17 = +2
18-19 = +3
20 = +4

 

[Pauln6]

Hmm....that's not a bad way to do it, now that I think about it.

In D&D's Best & Purest Edition(TM), the rules had a more parabolic scale for ability score modifiers:

3 = -3
4-5 = -2
6-8 = -1
9-12 = 0
13-15 = +1
16-17 = +2
18 = +3

If we took that idea and expanded it for 5E, we could have modifiers like this:

3 = -3
4-5 = -2
6-8 = -1
9-11 = 0
12-14 = +1
15-17 = +2
18-19 = +3
20 = +4

Don't you just have a two tier system where you have full bonus or half bonus rounded up?

So bounded things like attack rolls are +1 attack/+1 damage at 12 to +3/+5 at 20.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Hmm....that's not a bad way to do it, now that I think about it.

In D&D's Best & Purest Edition(TM), the rules had a more parabolic scale for ability score modifiers:

3 = -3
4-5 = -2
6-8 = -1
9-12 = 0
13-15 = +1
16-17 = +2
18 = +3

If we took that idea and expanded it for 5E, we could have modifiers like this:

3 = -3
4-5 = -2
6-8 = -1
9-11 = 0
12-14 = +1
15-17 = +2
18-19 = +3
20 = +4

Any variation could work:

The first set would also allow higher modifiers to stay the same (if that is a goal anyway... I like the idea because then you don't have to adjust a lot of stat blocks...).

 

[CleverNickName]

Don't you just have a two tier system where you have full bonus or half bonus rounded up?

So bounded things like attack rolls are +1 attack/+1 damage at 12 to +3/+5 at 20.

Maybe? I'm not sure I understand.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Hmm....that's not a bad way to do it, now that I think about it.

In D&D's Best & Purest Edition(TM), the rules had a more parabolic scale for ability score modifiers:

3 = -3
4-5 = -2
6-8 = -1
9-12 = 0
13-15 = +1
16-17 = +2
18 = +3

If we took that idea and expanded it for 5E, we could have modifiers like this:

3 = -3
4-5 = -2
6-8 = -1
9-11 = 0
12-14 = +1
15-17 = +2
18-19 = +3
20 = +4

The modifiers are the thing that actually matters, not the scores themselves. Reducing the granularity of modifiers do not make thing better, it makes them worse.

 

[CleverNickName]

The modifiers are the thing that actually matters, not the scores themselves. Reducing the granularity of modifiers do not make thing better, it makes them worse.

Unless you think it's a problem that players can max out an ability score too quickly. Increasing granularity makes it so that characters don't automatically get to increase an ability score modifier every 4 levels. With the right adjustments, players will still hit 20 in Dexterity like always--it'll just be at 12th or 16th level, and not 4th level.

Not everyone feels like this is a problem. But some folks might.

 

[DND_Reborn]

The modifiers are the thing that actually matters, not the scores themselves. Reducing the granularity of modifiers do not make thing better, it makes them worse.

I think the idea is that with smaller modifiers, they don't matter as much? Instead of the maximum spread being say +1 to +5 with RAW, it is only +1 to +3 (or whatever).

Proficiency picks up the slack with higher bonuses later on when you adjust the progression to +8 or so instead of +5.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Another spitball idea:

If we decouple ASI's from feats, then having a 'good enough' ability score becomes a lot less important, since with the current setup higher ability scores = more feats.

So if we move standard ability boosts to character level and leave feats as class-based (although this would involve some re-balancing) we could reduce the issues of 'bad' race-class combos while leaving starting ability scores (where racial ASIs really matter) alone.

We could even add a feat for breaking racial caps with a prereq of already being at the racial cap... so a 20 Int dragonborn is still possible if you really need it.