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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 1187620" data-attributes="member: 2209">Fine, here are the rules from the 3.5 srdSTRENGTH (STR)Strength measures your character’s muscle and physical power. This ability is especially important for fighters, barbarians, paladins, rangers, and monks because it helps them prevail in combat. Strength also limits the amount of equipment your character can carry.You apply your character’s Strength modifier to:• Melee attack rolls.• Damage rolls when using a melee weapon or a thrown weapon (including a sling). (Exceptions: Off-hand attacks receive only one-half the character’s Strength bonus, while two-handed attacks receive one and a half times the Strength bonus. A Strength penalty, but not a bonus, applies to attacks made with a bow that is not a composite bow.)• Climb, Jump, and Swim checks. These are the skills that have Strength as their key ability.• Strength checks (for breaking down doors and the like).DEXTERITY (DEX)Dexterity measures hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, and balance. This ability is the most important one for rogues, but it’s also high on the list for characters who typically wear light or medium armor (rangers and barbarians) or no armor at all (monks, wizards, and sorcerers), and for anyone who wants to be a skilled archer.You apply your character’s Dexterity modifier to:• Ranged attack rolls, including those for attacks made with bows, crossbows, throwing axes, and other ranged weapons.• Armor Class (AC), provided that the character can react to the attack.• Reflex saving throws, for avoiding fireballs and other attacks that you can escape by moving quickly.• Balance, Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock, Ride, Sleight of Hand, Tumble, and Use Rope checks. These are the skills that have Dexterity as their key ability.So Strength is muscle and physical power and Dex covers hand eye coordination, agility, and reflexes. Which sounds like it covers HTH accuracy?I read your above explanations for why you felt it is wrong to think of physical accuracy as Dexterity instead of Strength and I think it is a fine rationale for the mechanics of Strength but I also think it is unsupportable from the descriptions of the abilities.A high strength baseball player hits more home runs because when he hits, it goes farther. Does a high home run percentage of hits correlate to higher batting average or do they strike out more often? I don't know, I'm not a baseball statistics fan.I think the Str attack bonus is simply historical because that is how it has always been in D&D.The issue for gameplay is how it would affect game balance to shift it to Dex.High strength fighters would be a little less accurate and high dex characters would be a little more accurate. After low levels class BAB would outstrip ability bonuses for character to character comparisons so training would eventually win out over innate ability. At the margins of extreme play though, every point counts and you would be slightly weakening power attacking high strength brute fighters while powering up high dex characters more.So it would be more swashbuckling oriented than tank oriented compared to the current rules.I don't see it as necessarily bad, just a little different balance.</blockquote>

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