D&D (2024) What should be ability score cap for standard PCs?

[Horwath]

Right now it's 20, there is suggestion in UA that on level 19 you can get the score to 22.

Personally, I'm for classic 18, as it removes the pressure to max your primary stat and leaves room for secondary stats/feats.

OFC, special class features and magic items can raise that cap as it is now, maybe reduce that special class features to +2 MAX.

 

[DEFCON 1]

My opinion is it doesn't matter what WotC puts in their book. Every DM can decide for themselves what their max will be if they want something different.

No reason for anyone to get into arguments about what they think is the "right" answer. WotC will do what WotC will do, and everyone else can just make other personal decisions.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

I’m fine with the current max of 20, and enjoy having ways for high level PCs to get a stat higher then that either through items, high level feats, epic boons, or other methods. Grant it my group enjoys high fantasy and characters becoming god-like at high levels similar to how 4e did epic destinies.

I actually have two level 7 characters in my current campaign I’m running with a Strength score higher then 20 (25 for the Barbarian, 23 for my Fighter/Monk/Rogue). They have been having a blast with it, and the latter doesn’t even need that strength since he is a Dex Build characters. I also plan on giving the other two PCs ways of increasing their stats too.

 

[Vaalingrade]

No cap, fam.

 

[Cadence]

For the last few days I've been wondering what the ability scores mean relative to the world in a completely non-systematic hand-wavy way. Say the IRL world population from 1200-1400 was in the ballpark of 400-million, with really big countries (China) having say 60 million, Holy Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire having 12 million, England having 2.5-4.5 million (depending on Plague status), Ireland and Denmark having 600,000, Cairo and Hangzhou at 400k, Paris, Granada, Venice around 100-150k, Lots of big cities in Europe 30-60k.

What score puts one among the very highest in the world? (1 in 10 million?)
What puts one among the highest in the empire? (1 in a million?)
In the country? (1 in 100,000?)
In the metropolis? (1 in 10,000?)
<who knows>
18 (extremely roughly, just go with it 1 in 100; using best 3 of 4d6 is 1.62%; using 3d6 is 0.46%; assuming no ASIs

So, I think at least 22 and I might go further - say 24.

 

[ichabod]

18 (extremely roughly, just go with it 1 in 100; using best 3 of 4d6 is 1.62%; using 3d6 is 0.46%; assuming no ASIs

If you have a normal distribution, the z-score for 1% (1 in 100) is 2.326. If your mean is 10 and 1% is 18, then your standard deviation is 8 / 2.326 = 3.4394, then 20 is approximately 18 in 10,000; 22 is approximately 24 in 100,000; and 24 is approximately 2 in 100,000.

If we go with 18 being 0.46 (3d6 being normal people, 4d6dl being exceptional people), then z is 2.605, and sigma is 3.071. Then 20 is 56 in 100,000, 22 is 5 in 100,000, and 24 is too low for the web calculator I found to calculate (so less than 1 in 100,000). But if you're assuming 400 million population there's going to be at least 400 people walking around with 24's.

 

[TwoSix]

18 base, with magic items only allowing for increases. ASIs are simultaneously boring and mechanically optimal, so anything that pushes the game away from their use is a plus in my book.

My personal approach is to leave the 20 base alone since it's familiar, and simply use a higher starting stat baseline.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

No cap, fam.

RIP feats.

 

[Cadence]

If you have a normal distribution, the z-score for 1% (1 in 100) is 2.326. If your mean is 10 and 1% is 18, then your standard deviation is 8 / 2.326 = 3.4394, then 20 is approximately 18 in 10,000; 22 is approximately 24 in 100,000; and 24 is approximately 2 in 100,000.

If we go with 18 being 0.46 (3d6 being normal people, 4d6dl being exceptional people), then z is 2.605, and sigma is 3.071. Then 20 is 56 in 100,000, 22 is 5 in 100,000, and 24 is too low for the web calculator I found to calculate (so less than 1 in 100,000). But if you're assuming 400 million population there's going to be at least 400 people walking around with 24's.

Something like that works (why not go mu=10.5 and sd is approx 2.958?). I was just thinking that most people would do better with the 1/Number of people calculation than they would with z-scores.

Mini-rant warning: Tangentially, while a latent trait "Strength" could be put on an arbitrary scale like a normal, there is of course no reason that anything tied to the manifestation of that trait in the real world would be normally distributed. For example, there is no particular reason that the +1 modifiers or carrying capacity would line up nicely with the values on that scale. I wish every intro stat class that taught the 68-95-99.7 rule or made the students use a normal table had to cover Chebyshev's inequality (and maybe a few of its relatives) too.

 

[ichabod]

why not go mu=10.5 and sd is approx 2.958?

I was just going with commoners having 10s in all their stats, but that would probably be a better assumption.