House rule idea with character creation

[Ryblackadder]

So I like characters min maxed in a fun way. Like a barbarian who’s incredibly strong but socially so inept he manages to be slapped by every woman he meets, or a wizard who’s an absolute genius but he’s absolutely absent minded and is easily distracted (low wisdom). So here’s my idea, when making a character you can add 1 to any stat but you have to subtract 3 in another. A variant of this rule would have you need to also subtract 1 in another stat as well. Is this a fun idea or way too over powered or unusable? Suggestions to change? Also this is a mindflayer heavy campaign so dumping intelligence all the way isn’t going to be much of an option. What are your thoughts?

[Fishyninja]

My first question would be how are you obtaining your initial stats?

Point Buy or 4d6 drop 1?

I ask because Point buy is design to give a fairly even spread of results so getting an extra +1 here or there wont be an issue but a -3 could be really detrimental.

With Rolling the player may get lots of high stats anyway or their character could be consistently under 10's.

I would say if you want to enhance the character's weakness, rather than altering their attributes, why don't you think of some negative feats by expanding on their flaws. For example the Barbaraian, if he is talking to women gets disadvantage on all social checks. The distracted wizard has to keep rolling con saves to keep concentrating on one thing.
I feel in my opinion that would be more fun for your players.

[Theodoxus]

Here's what I did - which I think would play well with your stereotypes, if you force certain classes to take specific disabilities:

Ability Score Generation

Scores are generated using a modified 27 Point Buy.
Ability Score Point Cost



Score
Cost
Score
Cost
Score
Cost


3
+5
8
0
13
-5


4
+4
9
-1
14
-7


5
+3
10
-2
15
-9


6
+2
11
-3
16
-11


7
+1
12
-4
17
-13







You can choose up to 2 disabilities, for a total of +4 points for Point Buy.

Skill Disability Adjustment



Point
Disability
Disadvantage


+2
Clumsy
Acrobatics


+2
Smelly
Animal Handling


+2
Banal
Arcana


+2
Sedentary
Athletics


+2
Truthful
Deception


+2
Forgetful
History


+2
Insensitive
Insight


+2
Soft Spoken
Intimidation


+2
Clueless
Investigation


+2
Faith Healing
Medicine


+2
Civilized
Nature


+2
Unobservant
Perception


+2
Untalented
Performance


+2
Uncouth
Persuasion


+2
Faithless
Religion


+2
Non-dexterous
Sleight of Hand


+2
Obnoxious
Stealth


+2
City Slicker
Survival

[Ryblackadder]

It’s point buy. No one is brave enough of my players to roll for stats lol. 27 point system as well.

[kraitmarais]

I would say if you want to enhance the character's weakness, rather than altering their attributes, why don't you think of some negative feats by expanding on their flaws. For example the Barbaraian, if he is talking to women gets disadvantage on all social checks. The distracted wizard has to keep rolling con saves to keep concentrating on one thing.
I feel in my opinion that would be more fun for your players.

I like this idea.

This is more of a roleplay issue than an ability score issue, and 5e already has the flaw system to help encourage players to roleplay this kind of thing. Fishyninja's idea can help tie the idea into game mechanics a bit more, and is probably more robust than some ability score tweaks.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Point
Disability
Disadvantage


+2
Clumsy
Acrobatics


+2
Smelly
Animal Handling


+2
Banal
Arcana


+2
Sedentary
Athletics


+2
Truthful
Deception


+2
Forgetful
History


+2
Insensitive
Insight


+2
Soft Spoken
Intimidation


+2
Clueless
Investigation


+2
Faith Healing
Medicine


+2
Civilized
Nature


+2
Unobservant
Perception


+2
Untalented
Performance


+2
Uncouth
Persuasion


+2
Faithless
Religion


+2
Non-dexterous
Sleight of Hand


+2
Obnoxious
Stealth


+2
City Slicker
Survival





This seems like a bad idea, given that skills are not created equal and most characters have skills they never use. Most characters will never make a performance or sleight of hand roll in their entire careers, for instance. Or consider a heavy armour user, who will pretty much always have disadvantage on stealth anyway.

Also, rather more trivially, some of the name choices are... odd. Why are obnoxious people bad at stealth - wouldn't something like 'obvious' or 'unsubtle' fit better? And non-dextrous is unfortunately named when there is a dexterity attribute it does not directly relate to.

[Fishyninja]

I like this idea.

This is more of a roleplay issue than an ability score issue, and 5e already has the flaw system to help encourage players to roleplay this kind of thing. Fishyninja's idea can help tie the idea into game mechanics a bit more, and is probably more robust than some ability score tweaks.

Thank you. Though I think Theoduxus nailed it on the head though.

For me I am more than happy to let players play up their flaws or strengths but I will not let them start modifying stats willy nilly.
I have a wizard in my group who wanted to max his damage and skills so he picked Con as his dump stat, so at he has I think a -2 Modifier so now he plays off that he has a blood disease which weakens him.

We have also agreed (unbeknownst to the other players) that if he has to make a concentration check and nat 1's he is knocked unconcious for 1d6 rounds.

[JoeJ]

It seems rather pointless to have any kind of modifiers to ability scores if you're doing point buy.