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ABILITY SCORES
The first thing that strikes me is that the ability scores are
unnecessarily complex. Use the bonus as the score and you eliminate a
level of complexity which doesn't appear to be needed. There are a
few things this would affect. The biggest thing it affects is
generating the abilities themselves, but we'll look at that in a
moment. It also makes the system less granular. This means everything
that affects or relies on the ability scores must be halved such as
feat prerequisites and poisons (as always in D&D when you create a
fraction, round down and minimum one). The biggest problem with this
comes up with ability score increases, which means a character would
only get one every 8 levels, 2 in total.
Look at generating ability scores. There are 3 main methods of
generating ability scores. The normal method is rolling dice. 4d6
drop lowest 24 dice in total, with the additional actions of removing
the lowest and adding the remaining 3 together 6 times. This requires
some time to do, and has the possibility of creating wildly under or
overpowered characters which creates a host of problems. The next and
probably most popular method of generating ability scores is the point
buy. While much more balanced, it has the possibility of overwhelming
new players, and even taking a considerable amount of time to veterans
who agonize over where to place each of 25 to 32 points. It also
favors number crunchers, allowing them to create characters
considerably more powerful than others. The last and mostly unused
(except for NPCs) method is the array. The standard array is six
abilities 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. This is the best method for
streamlining. This is slightly lower than the average of 4d6, and
you'd loose 2 ½ points if converting to bonuses as I suggest. So
convert to bonuses we have 2, 2, 1, 1, 0, -1 (I'd still use that for
NPCS). Then we want to add 2 points to this somewhere for PCs to be of
average power in a standard game. My first inclination would be to
remove the negative and increase one of the +2s but most people think
having a negative somewhere gives some character.. So we'll add it
on the ones that were almost there anyway, the 15 & 13. So final
suggested PC array is 3, 2, 2, 1, 0, -1 (equivilent to 16, 14, 14, 12,
10, 8).
[Taking it down a Notch: Not converting to modifiers. I'd suggest
and array of 16, 15, 13, 12, 10, 9 to give some options to increase
stats at halfway points, and this is a good boost over the standard
array used for NPCs. I like PCs to be special, and usually players do
too]
[Taking it One Step Further: To eliminate another step in character
creation, you can tie these abilities to the classes. Suggested
abilities for each class:
Class Str Dex Con Wis Int Cha
Barbarian 3 2 2 1 0 -1
Bard 1 2 0 -1 2 3
Cleric 2 0 1 3 -1 2
Druid -1 0 2 3 1 2
Fighter 3 1 2 2 -1 0
Monk 2 2 1 3 -1 0
Paladin 2 0 1 2 -1 3
Ranger 2 3 0 2 -1 1
Rogue 0 3 1 -1 2 2
Sorcerer -1 2 2 0 1 3
Wizard -1 2 2 0 3 1
]
[Taking it Sideways. Add 5 to each ability score so you have a 1 to 10
range for normal characters after racial adjustments, which would avoid
negatives. This works fine with skills, AC, & Saves, as you just add 5
to the DCs. A problem comes with Hit Points & Damage, which get very
inflated; It would need some serious play testing to discover exactly
how it affects balance. If you want to counteract this remove the
effect Con has on HP and Str on Damage. Con becomes almost useless in
that case, and Str, while still useful for hitting things, lifting, and
athletics, becomes a much less useful ability. One could take it
halfway, Con still gives a bonus to HP, but only a one time bonus. Str
could be divided as the user sees fit giving some bonus to hit, and
some to damage, as a sort of automatic Power Attack]
[Taking it All the Way: Eliminate ability scores altogether. Each
class gets bonuses to things that normally would be done by the ability
scores, or just things they'd be good at. I'd make all negative
scores above in 'taking it one step further' equivalent to 0 for that.
All other things that would affect abilities would instead just affect
the final numbers, I.E. a Bull's Strength would give you +2 to hit
and damage in melee. Poisons would just give cumulative minuses.]
ABILITY SCORES
The first thing that strikes me is that the ability scores are
unnecessarily complex. Use the bonus as the score and you eliminate a
level of complexity which doesn't appear to be needed. There are a
few things this would affect. The biggest thing it affects is
generating the abilities themselves, but we'll look at that in a
moment. It also makes the system less granular. This means everything
that affects or relies on the ability scores must be halved such as
feat prerequisites and poisons (as always in D&D when you create a
fraction, round down and minimum one). The biggest problem with this
comes up with ability score increases, which means a character would
only get one every 8 levels, 2 in total.
Look at generating ability scores. There are 3 main methods of
generating ability scores. The normal method is rolling dice. 4d6
drop lowest 24 dice in total, with the additional actions of removing
the lowest and adding the remaining 3 together 6 times. This requires
some time to do, and has the possibility of creating wildly under or
overpowered characters which creates a host of problems. The next and
probably most popular method of generating ability scores is the point
buy. While much more balanced, it has the possibility of overwhelming
new players, and even taking a considerable amount of time to veterans
who agonize over where to place each of 25 to 32 points. It also
favors number crunchers, allowing them to create characters
considerably more powerful than others. The last and mostly unused
(except for NPCs) method is the array. The standard array is six
abilities 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. This is the best method for
streamlining. This is slightly lower than the average of 4d6, and
you'd loose 2 ½ points if converting to bonuses as I suggest. So
convert to bonuses we have 2, 2, 1, 1, 0, -1 (I'd still use that for
NPCS). Then we want to add 2 points to this somewhere for PCs to be of
average power in a standard game. My first inclination would be to
remove the negative and increase one of the +2s but most people think
having a negative somewhere gives some character.. So we'll add it
on the ones that were almost there anyway, the 15 & 13. So final
suggested PC array is 3, 2, 2, 1, 0, -1 (equivilent to 16, 14, 14, 12,
10, 8).
[Taking it down a Notch: Not converting to modifiers. I'd suggest
and array of 16, 15, 13, 12, 10, 9 to give some options to increase
stats at halfway points, and this is a good boost over the standard
array used for NPCs. I like PCs to be special, and usually players do
too]
[Taking it One Step Further: To eliminate another step in character
creation, you can tie these abilities to the classes. Suggested
abilities for each class:
Class Str Dex Con Wis Int Cha
Barbarian 3 2 2 1 0 -1
Bard 1 2 0 -1 2 3
Cleric 2 0 1 3 -1 2
Druid -1 0 2 3 1 2
Fighter 3 1 2 2 -1 0
Monk 2 2 1 3 -1 0
Paladin 2 0 1 2 -1 3
Ranger 2 3 0 2 -1 1
Rogue 0 3 1 -1 2 2
Sorcerer -1 2 2 0 1 3
Wizard -1 2 2 0 3 1
]
[Taking it Sideways. Add 5 to each ability score so you have a 1 to 10
range for normal characters after racial adjustments, which would avoid
negatives. This works fine with skills, AC, & Saves, as you just add 5
to the DCs. A problem comes with Hit Points & Damage, which get very
inflated; It would need some serious play testing to discover exactly
how it affects balance. If you want to counteract this remove the
effect Con has on HP and Str on Damage. Con becomes almost useless in
that case, and Str, while still useful for hitting things, lifting, and
athletics, becomes a much less useful ability. One could take it
halfway, Con still gives a bonus to HP, but only a one time bonus. Str
could be divided as the user sees fit giving some bonus to hit, and
some to damage, as a sort of automatic Power Attack]
[Taking it All the Way: Eliminate ability scores altogether. Each
class gets bonuses to things that normally would be done by the ability
scores, or just things they'd be good at. I'd make all negative
scores above in 'taking it one step further' equivalent to 0 for that.
All other things that would affect abilities would instead just affect
the final numbers, I.E. a Bull's Strength would give you +2 to hit
and damage in melee. Poisons would just give cumulative minuses.]
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