D&D 5E Removing Ability Score from offense

[Xeviat]

You certainly could, but why? What would be the purpose of the change? As I see it, you are possibly gaining a +1 or maybe +2 bonus to your total modifier by the end of the game compared to if you begin at 16 (+3) and don't bump it.

FWIW we use a modifier proficiency progression from +2 to +8, capping abilities at +4 for a while. We did it because we felt proficiency should count for more in the game. The difference between a level 1 pc (+2) and level 18 (+8) of +6 feels better than the RAW difference of only +4.

So, why do you want this? From your OP I just don't see a big reason for it? Can you elaborate more please? Maybe some concrete examples?

I thought I went into it in my OP.

The reasons I thought of this change were:
1) To diversify character builds (now you could have a smart fighter, or a charming rogue, not everyone would have their highest stat determined by their class).
2) To remove trap choices (related to 1, but you aren't punished for, say, playing a tiefling rogue and now you're starting with a lower Dex).
3) To make the game easier to balance.
4) To make less race/class combos sub optimal.

The new variable lineage ability scores works towards a few of these, but you're still limited in your stat choice by your class.

 

[Xeviat]

It moves the importance of the stat to skills and saves, not attacks. This lets you play a intelligent swordsman, a wise wizard, or a charismatic rogue without losing ground in your main combat feature.

If this doesn't immediately strike you as a good thing to enable, than I imagine such a rule change would not be your preference.

This sums up my ideas very concisely! Thank you!

 

[Xeviat]

Personally, I've stopped having races grant ability score bonuses. I have a primary bonus (+2) tied to class, and the secondary bonus (+1) tied to their background. Each class and background offers two options out of the six possible ability scores to affect, and you can't double up on the same bonus to get a +3 to a stat. For me, this lets a PC get to feel competent in their class, as well as decouples race and class to open up new combinations that might otherwise be less likely to happen. Personally, it works really well at my table, and I haven't felt like it encourages or rewards min-maxers. But then again, I'm never worried about min-maxers. As long as everyone is having fun and there is an equal share of the spotlight (which I feel is largely the DM's job anyway) then let people min-max. Min-maxing isn't inherently bad nor the "wrong" way to play.

This would be a really good way to handle things too. It makes it more clear that your Fighter should have a high Str or Dex.

My idea, though, would allow you to allocate your stats in a way that felt right for your character. Your offensive oomph would be dictated by your level, so you could be a hardy and intelligent fighter who isn't particularly strong, and you'd get talents/feats that worked around those ability scores.

+2 to Str or Dex for Fighters still means you could make an 8 Str/8 Dex Fighter and be a terrible fighter. I like the notion of removing traps.

 

[Xeviat]

Again, yes. By removing the stats from combat you create the problem not only with strength but with every single stats. Intelligence becomes irrelevant for wizards, charisma is not even needed for charisma based characters and so on.

The solution of a more randomized character creation is a better approach in my opinion. (I described it earlier) and it works. The downside is that your character might not have the exact stats that the player might wish. But the variety of characters will increase dramatically.

This would definitely be coupled by making sure each stat had things. You'd want every stat to have a fair number of skills, a worth while defense, and another feature. Str has carrying capacity, Con has hp, Int could get languages/tools ... etc.

 

[Xeviat]

Exactly. So why should you ever make a strong barbarian if strength gives you nothing? Dump strength, boost wisdom and you have a barb or fighter that has a nice way to circumvent one of the class weaknesses. This means that You will no longer see barbs or fighters with high strength score as strength would not be useful anymore. Not only that, but raising strength would be detrimental as putting more points in wisdom would alleviate a barb weakness, that is wisdom saves... When you have nothing to loose and everything to gain from a method, it is a no brainer to do this.

A strong barbarian would have access to different Strength prerequisite features, like feats or talents or whatever the system was designed around. There might still be ability score requirements for certain armor and weapons too.

So a Strong barbarian would have better athletics and carrying capacity, be able to use a two-handed weapon, and have access to strength talents. A Charming barbarian would have better intimidation and have access to charisma talents (and likely be more of a leader role character).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

This would definitely be coupled by making sure each stat had things. You'd want every stat to have a fair number of skills, a worth while defense, and another feature. Str has carrying capacity, Con has hp, Int could get languages/tools ... etc.

Int getting tools and/or languages would help a lot.

 

[Xeviat]

Does it make strength a really bad stat to take a high value in in general? Dex and Con still help on defense, Intelligence helps


The feat tree idea seems really important if going this route - and seems to open a lot of cool design space.

Would Dex still affect initiative and ac and Con still affect hitpoints? (If so, does Str become not very useful?)

That's why this wouldn't quite be something I'd advocate for 5E, not without a lot of work (might not be too much, just gutting and replacing the feat system). You'd need to change up the ability scores so they each had a solid non-skill/save feature.

 

[DND_Reborn]

The new variable lineage ability scores works towards a few of these, but you're still limited in your stat choice by your class.

I could be wrong, but that is kind of the point.

Anyway, I've tried this, it had weird consequences and don't recommend it, but maybe you'll come up with a better way to implement it so you don't run into the same issues myself and others have outlined. Or, maybe you will see them as features and not bugs?

Well, good luck with it.

 

[Baron Opal II]

All the talk about moving ability score bonuses around in the Race/Lineage system, and issues of minmaxing, has got me thinking. What if we removed offensive power from ability scores?

I really don't see the point of it.

For me, I think the major part of the issue is that I don't consider "sub-optimal" as equivalent to "bad". Sub-optimal is just ... less than optimal. Having a variation in the attributes helps distinguish one fighter from another. You can already have a smart or charismatic fighter, or whatever. If you're a fighter with their highest attribute in Dexterity, you're the archer. If Constitution, the brick. Intelligence, the tactician or observer.

I can understand it better if attributes are rolled, but it seems now that people are choosing everything. If you are decoupling attribute bonuses from race, attribute, or whatever, then why bother with it at all? If you're a fighter, this is your attack bonus. If you are a wizard, you get this many spells. By uncoupling results from choices, you make the choices meaningless. If it is that lopsided, where your options are not optimal, sub-optimal, mediocre, and poor but rather optimal and poor, that is a problem with the game rules.

 

[Xeviat]

I really don't see the point of it.

For me, I think the major part of the issue is that I don't consider "sub-optimal" as equivalent to "bad". Sub-optimal is just ... less than optimal. Having a variation in the attributes helps distinguish one fighter from another. You can already have a smart or charismatic fighter, or whatever. If you're a fighter with their highest attribute in Dexterity, you're the archer. If Constitution, the brick. Intelligence, the tactician or observer.

I can understand it better if attributes are rolled, but it seems now that people are choosing everything. If you are decoupling attribute bonuses from race, attribute, or whatever, then why bother with it at all? If you're a fighter, this is your attack bonus. If you are a wizard, you get this many spells. By uncoupling results from choices, you make the choices meaningless. If it is that lopsided, where your options are not optimal, sub-optimal, mediocre, and poor but rather optimal and poor, that is a problem with the game rules.

But the current system still allows for trap choices. If someone builds a fighter or rogue with 8 Str and 8 Dex, thinking that they want their character to be a charming investigator but none of the other classes fit, the character is not going to contribute in combat regardless of their other stats. Decoupling ability scores from offensive capability (at least directly) broadens the kinds of characters people could play.

I didn't mention decoupling from race. You could easily still have racial ability score bonuses along with this system. Wood Elves are agile and perceptive. High elves are agile and intelligent. But Orcs can be wizards too, and a 10th level orc wizard is as good a wizard as a 10th level high elf wizard because they're both 10th level (the orc wizard likely has different talents than the high elf wizard).