is it possible to be able to have ability scores beyond 20?

[Joe dirt]

what are the ways, if any, that a character can have a score in something beyond 20... thanks

[Dudewithknives]

what are the ways, if any, that a character can have a score in something beyond 20... thanks

The manuals/tome can get you to a 22.
Barbarian can get a 24 str and con at level 20.
Belts of giants strength make your str a set number over 20.
Polymorph technically can make your stats higher but you are not your class anymore so that is iffy if it counts.

Past that. None that I know of.

Also, no the stupid idea someone had that a racial bonus can put you over 20 is completely wrong.

[Aett_Thorn]

Barbarian capstone ability increases your Str and Con to max 24.

Magic Tomes can increase a score over 20.

Belts of Giant Str, I believe, too.

[mormon_soldier]

There are a couple of magic items that let you break the limit. Giant's belt, for strength, and various tomes for a given attribute.

[Greywander]

In addition to the previously mentioned tomes and manuals, barbarian capstone, and magic items, you can also get ASIs as epic boons once you reach 20th level. These epic boon ASIs can raise an ability score to the maximum of 30, but you'll have to grind away for a while to get enough epic boons to get that far. You're also competing with the other epic boon choices, some of which are pretty nice.

[Caelic]

There are also certain encounters in published modules that will raise an ability score above 20. (There's one in Curse of Strahd, and one in Out of the Abyss, and I believe there's one in Tomb of Annihilation.)

[nickl_2000]

Don't forget wildshape. I belive that there are some forms that have higher than 20s in physical stats

[willdaBEAST]

Deck of many things is one way. With "Star" you can increase a stat up to a max of 24. It's a little unclear to me if you can then ASI up to 24, or if you need to draw another "Star" card to increase above 20.

[Snowbluff]

There is also a Dark Gift in Amber temple that raises your Cha by 4. You can get up to 22 cha doing this. Stacks with putting in a Cha tome to get 24, IIRC.

[Blood of Gaea]

True Polymorph and Shapechange can both do it.

Just a nitpick on the tomes that give +2 to a stat, it raises your max stat by 2, so it can stack with other bonuses, like the Barbarian capstone.

[Matrix_Walker]

A longshot, but since it has not been mentioned...

If you are a race that does not get a bonus to a particular stat, and use an ASI to raise your stat to 20, and then get killed and reincarnated as a race that has a stat bonus, the racial bonus will raise you over 20, as the racial boinuses are not limited.

[Naanomi]

Though 30 is a hard cap that nothing can exceed

[smcmike]

A longshot, but since it has not been mentioned...

If you are a race that does not get a bonus to a particular stat, and use an ASI to raise your stat to 20, and then get killed and reincarnated as a race that has a stat bonus, the racial bonus will raise you over 20, as the racial boinuses are not limited.

I don’t buy this.

[Blood of Gaea]

I don’t buy this.
*Shrug* I would allow it if it happened in my game, so long as they weren't trying to game the system with it.

[Matrix_Walker]

I don’t buy this.

Would you have them just lose the ASI they spent? Or have them respend the Feat? How would you handle the situation?


*Shrug* I would allow it if it happened in my game, so long as they weren't trying to game the system with it.

Even if they were, they'd have to have the right score and the luck to hit a useful race on the percentile... it would be a longshot.

[smcmike]

Would you have them just lose the ASI they spent? Or have them respend the Feat? How would you handle the situation?

I dunno. I figure they should be happy not being dead. Seems unlikely to come up.

My point is that I don’t think the racial bonuses are exceptions to the 20 cap. Fairness doesn’t come into it.

[JNAProductions]

I dunno. I figure they should be happy not being dead. Seems unlikely to come up.

My point is that I don’t think the racial bonuses are exceptions to the 20 cap. Fairness doesn’t come into it.

Um... Why not? It's a game. Played to have fun.

[smcmike]

Um... Why not? It's a game. Played to have fun.

I don’t think this extreme corner case has any meaningful impact on the fairness of the game. A DM is free to do whatever they like if it does come up. My point is that I do not read the rules to allow racial ability score increases to exceed 20, and think the argument that they can, by the rules, is specious.

[Kalashak]

I'm with smcmike, I don't see any reason why that would break the cap.

[Greywander]

I'm actually surprised that the Reincarnate spell doesn't require you to roll new ability scores. I can understand keeping your mental stats, assuming that you come back with the same memories and personality (otherwise you might as well roll a new character), but it seems like creating a new body would rejig your physical stats at the very least.

As far as I'm aware, racial bonuses cannot raise an ability score to be higher than 20. In fact, nothing can raise an ability score higher than 20, unless it specifically says so.

Some effects, such as the tomes/manual as well as the barbarian capstone, actually raise this cap, so you would be able to raise them past 20 normally, but only up to a point. Barb capstone lets STR and CON go to 24, each tome/manual increase your max by 2, cumulatively (so five tomes lets you get to the hard max of 30). So if you have, say, an Intelligence of 13 and you read a Tome of Clear Thought, your INT will increase to 15, and you'll be able to raise it to a max of 22 using ASIs.

Aside from various forms of shapeshifting or wearable magic items, your best bet to get a permanent boost past 20 is from a tome/manual. But if you want to actually raise something to 30, you're probably looking at epic boons in a post-20th-level game.

[Foxydono]

I'm not sure if mentioned already, but epic boons can also raise your ability scores to 30.

[clash]

I'm with smcmike, I don't see any reason why that would break the cap.

I would like to know where people are seeing a hard cap at 20. ASI description says "you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature." but the racial bonus has no such limitation, unless there is a general rule somewhere that I am not seeing.

[Naanomi]

It isn’t an explicit rule per se, but every ability that raises stats seems to go out of its way to state whether it can break the 20 cap or not; which is a lot of implicit evidence that it takes an exception to exceed 20 rather than it being the default assumption

[Throne12]

I don't know if anyone said this yet but epic boons if the DM gives out.

[smcmike]

I would like to know where people are seeing a hard cap at 20. ASI description says "you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature." but the racial bonus has no such limitation, unless there is a general rule somewhere that I am not seeing.

The language on PHB 15 is “Some of these features increase your ability scores . . . . You can’t increase an ability score above 20.”

The second sentence appears to be a statement of a general rule. I understand the idea of tying it to the previous sentence, but it certainly isn’t explicitly limited to ASIs received through leveling (I’m not sure if it’s worth mentioning, but racial bonuses are also labeled Ability Score Increases). Subsequent langauge in the book also suggests that 20 is meant to be a general cap.

[Sigreid]

Would you have them just lose the ASI they spent? Or have them respend the Feat? How would you handle the situation?



Even if they were, they'd have to have the right score and the luck to hit a useful race on the percentile... it would be a longshot.

Does reincarnate not make you re roll stats?

[Unoriginal]

Reincarnate only changes your racial modifiers (and the traits tied to your biology).


On the other subject:

No, racial modifiers CANNOT break past 20. 20 is the humanoid limit, with only explicit features able to break it.

The guy who keeps spamming that "Lucius Threvor the Nameless King" troll thread does not respect the rules and has refused to learn them. There is a reason why he got perma-banned on more than 10 accounts.

[Matrix_Walker]

The language on PHB 15 is “Some of these features increase your ability scores . . . . You can’t increase an ability score above 20.”

The second sentence appears to be a statement of a general rule. I understand the idea of tying it to the previous sentence, but it certainly isn’t explicitly limited to ASIs received through leveling (I’m not sure if it’s worth mentioning, but racial bonuses are also labeled Ability Score Increases). Subsequent langauge in the book also suggests that 20 is meant to be a general cap.
They are clearlying discussing leveling up and getting the ASI trait. But I see your point, the language does exist outsige of the description for the ASI traits... kind of.


Reincarnate only changes your racial modifiers (and the traits tied to your biology).


On the other subject:

No, racial modifiers CANNOT break past 20. 20 is the humanoid limit, with only explicit features able to break it.

The guy who keeps spamming that "Lucius Threvor the Nameless King" troll thread does not respect the rules and has refused to learn them. There is a reason why he got perma-banned on more than 10 accounts.

Maybe this needs it's own thread...

I think you have that backward. There is no general rule prohibiting attributes over 20 to my knowledge, only ASI specific rules that prevent it. Reincarnate indicates swapping out the racial traits, which list no such limit listed with them. If Reincarnate imposes a maxima of this kind, it shoud be noted there sicnce it is not listed with the modifers printed with the races. My guess is that by the time you get a maxed stat and the reincarnate spell available, it's not that big a deal to let someone have a small percentage chance of getting to a 22.

It's just a theorcrafting point that will quite likey never come up in play. I believe I've been polite-ish. No need to call for the ban-hammer!


Does reincarnate not make you re roll stats?

No. You keep your stats and change your racial modifiers to the new race.


Here is a JC tweet to confirm.
https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/957034259524431872

[smcmike]

They are clearlying discussing leveling up and getting the ASI trait. But I see your point, the language does exist outsige of the description for the ASI traits... kind of.

Yes, they are discussing leveling up and using ASIs, because that is the only way one might ressonably expect to break the 20 point cap. The reason it isn’t mentioned in the racial bonuses section is that it isn’t normally possible to break the cap with racial bonuses. Still, the sentence stands on its own. “You can’t increase an ability score above 20” is literally RAW (a term I normally dislike).

PHB 173 says, “Adventurers can have scores as high as 20.” Again, a plainly stated general rule.

Also, the language of the Barbarian capstone and the Manual of Health refer to a “maximum” in an ability score. Why would you assume that this “maximum” applies only to one type of Ability Score Increase, and not to other Ability Score Increases?

ps - I don’t think anyone was suggesting you’ve done anything offensive. It’s just that a repeated spammer used this very same argument in his spam post 2 days ago, so it’s hard not to mention that.

[DnDegenerates]

Where does it mentions the hard cap? I know you can't increase it past 20 with ASI, but how many of the same tome could you use past 20? Not that it is likely, but assume a paladin found multiple manuals of bodily health. How many could he use?

[smcmike]

Where does it mentions the hard cap? I know you can't increase it past 20 with ASI, but how many of the same tome could you use past 20? Not that it is likely, but assume a paladin found multiple manuals of bodily health. How many could he use?

See above????

[DnDegenerates]

See above????

My intention was to point my question directly at the tome/manual mechanics. Not the ASI maximum of 20, nor the barbarian capstone.

More specifically, the tomes say the maximum is increased by 2. Not that they can only increase it by 2 once. Nor that you can only use one tome of somesuch per character.

"This book contains intuition and insight exercises, and its words are charged with magic. If you spend 48 hours over a period of 6 days or fewer studying the book's contents and practicing its guidelines, your Wisdom score increases by 2, as does your maximum for that score. The manual then loses its magic, but regains it in a century."

Okay, the books magic comes back in a century.

What if you found box of the things unused?

Is there a limit to the amount of times you can increase any one stat with tomes?

[Sigreid]

My intention was to point my question directly at the tome/manual mechanics. Not the ASI maximum of 20, nor the barbarian capstone.

More specifically, the tomes say the maximum is increased by 2. Not that they can only increase it by 2 once. Nor that you can only use one tome of somesuch per character.

"This book contains intuition and insight exercises, and its words are charged with magic. If you spend 48 hours over a period of 6 days or fewer studying the book's contents and practicing its guidelines, your Wisdom score increases by 2, as does your maximum for that score. The manual then loses its magic, but regains it in a century."

Okay, the books magic comes back in a century.

What if you found box of the things unused?

Is there a limit to the amount of times you can increase any one stat with tomes?

just the limit of 30. An elf could potentially use it enough times to actually max out with their long lifespan.

Also, there's the Hammer of Thunderbolts, Girdle of Giant Strength (any) and Gauntlets of Ogre Power trilogy that will use all your attunement slots but give you a strength of 30.

[DnDegenerates]

That's just insane.

Where do I dig for the 30 hard cap ruling to show my table? These manuals / tomes have come up in conversation at our comic shops this past week.

Thanks for the Intel.

[Blood of Gaea]

That's just insane.

Where do I dig for the 30 hard cap ruling to show my table? These manuals / tomes have come up in conversation at our comic shops this past week.

Thanks for the Intel.
All of the tomes and manuals are listed on magic item table H, on page 148 of the DMG.

[DnDegenerates]

All of the tomes and manuals are listed on magic item table H, on page 148 of the DMG.

Thank you good sir.

[Matrix_Walker]

Yes, they are discussing leveling up and using ASIs, because that is the only way one might ressonably expect to break the 20 point cap. The reason it isn’t mentioned in the racial bonuses section is that it isn’t normally possible to break the cap with racial bonuses. Still, the sentence stands on its own. “You can’t increase an ability score above 20” is literally RAW (a term I normally dislike).

PHB 173 says, “Adventurers can have scores as high as 20.” Again, a plainly stated general rule.

Also, the language of the Barbarian capstone and the Manual of Health refer to a “maximum” in an ability score. Why would you assume that this “maximum” applies only to one type of Ability Score Increase, and not to other Ability Score Increases?

ps - I don’t think anyone was suggesting you’ve done anything offensive. It’s just that a repeated spammer used this very same argument in his spam post 2 days ago, so it’s hard not to mention that.

I see that more as scale providing hyperbole, but I will capitulate that it's close enough to say it's not RAW then. I sent JC a twitter reply, so maybe he'll confirm it for us.