D&D (2024) Reducing ability score impact.

[GMforPowergamers]

My knowledge of the editions of DnD before 4E is mostly just zeitgeist osmosis, but considering Crawford's works sit in the OSR vein, that doesn't surprise me much.

yeah, there were whole charts though, so things were diffrent...

str gave A bonus to damage then a lesser one to attack, but had the ability to do feats of str... int had what the max level... you know what I am linking a page or two

Strength

Strength (Str) measures a character's muscle, endurance, and stamina. This ability is the prime requisite of warriors because they must be physically powerful in order to wear armor and wield heavy weapons. A fighter with a score of 16 or more in Strength gains a 10% bonus to the experience...

advanced-dungeons-dragons-2nd-edition.fandom.com

Intelligence

Intelligence (Int) represents a character's memory, reasoning, and learning ability, including areas outside those measured by the written word. Intelligence dictates the number of languages a character can learn. Intelligence is the prime requisite of wizards, who must have keen minds to...

advanced-dungeons-dragons-2nd-edition.fandom.com

 

[GMforPowergamers]

One D&D is just 5e with a few tweaks. Like Tasha's, etc. They aren't going to radically change ability modifiers because it wouldn't be backwards compatible. I don't see them touching ability scores at all.

TBH the ability scores changed in 2000 and have not since, so I doubt WotC will ever go back to TSR stats

 

[Pauln6]

TBH the ability scores changed in 2000 and have not since, so I doubt WotC will ever go back to TSR stats

In fairness, the most common bonuses in 1e were 15 +1 to 18 +3 which would basically be similar to 50% of the current bonuses in 5e rounded down. Saving throws would scale with DCs but my concern would be that many monsters, who struggle to hit now when PC ACs are 20+ would be even more ineffective. You would probably need to cap magic armours at +1 and consider how monks and barbarians would be affected in comparison. I'm not sure it's worth it overall.

 

[Scott Christian]

While ability scores do not represent realism, it allows many the chance for immersion.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Not a fan. I do not like further dilution of ability scores.

 

[Lojaan]

Is there a need to reduce ability score impact? I have not heard of this before.

 

[tetrasodium]

Is there a need to reduce ability score impact? I have not heard of this before.

Yea kinda. Back in 2e & earlier you could do roll stats & usually nobody cared if Bob's were slightly (or not so slightly) better. There was also the secondary effect that after the primary stat or maybe two players could arrange the rest however even if that meant a flavorful splash if it wasn't a rather high roll. When 3.x shifted +1/-1 from ~15/~6* to 12/8 for +1/-1 it narrowed the dead zone of even from being several points to being two points & suddenly it made a huge difference where you placed any attrib. Even widening it from 12/8 to 14/6 for +1/-1 would do a lot to minimize pressure players feel to minmax their way of chargen because four of the 6 in a standard array are +/-0 & doing a lot of scraping to scrounge up an extra +1 quickly runs into "Is a +1 really worth that pound of flesh?". Doing so would have the secondary benefit of expanding the system math allotted to magic items

* Each attrib varied slightly & they did a lot of things.