Making CON more of an active ability score

[Greywander]

One of the big issues with CON is how passive it is. You don't do anything with CON, rather you have things done to you. It's one of the reasons it feels so vestigial. We could just fold it into STR, and I suppose that's a fine option. But I'm curious if we could rather just broaden what CON is to allow it to take a more active roll. Add some CON skills to the game, for example. Ways to actively use CON in combat (aside from certain specific racial spells/abilities).

Perhaps CON could be expanded into more of a spiritual ability. For example, it has been proposed that the reason why certain spells and such can't damage items on your person, only unattended items, is because every creature has an "aura" that envelopes those items when they're on your person. This aura could also offer an in-universe explanation for some of the weirdness that results from HP, such as wading threw lava or falling great heights (or even just surviving a mighty blow). CON, then, might have to do with aura manipulation, allowing you to extend it further or strengthen it. Or weaken another creature's aura. I'm not really sure what a practical example of "aura manipulation" would look like, though.

Anyway, that's just one thought. What are some ways that you can think of to use CON more actively? What sort of skills would you propose that primarily use CON? If you decouple skills from ability scores (which is actually RAW; you can find it in the DMG), how would you use existing skills with CON instead of their normal ability score? For example, making an Intimidation check by eating glass shards or something.

[solidork]

It might not be primary for any skill, but in situations where you're doing something over a long period of time or expending a great deal of effort it can make sense to call for an ability check that keys off of Constitution instead of the normal ability.

Dancing all night, running a marathon, a truly epic research binge, trying to see in the middle of a sandstorm, parkouring halfway across the city, pacifying an animal by wrestling with it until it's exhausted, disabling a magical trap by safely grounding the magical energy through your body, performing an extremely long ritual, finding edible food through trial and error, hiding by holding yourself suspended in the rafters, maintaining a lie while under interrogation, etc.

[Greywander]

I can't help but feel like stamina and endurance falls under STR, though. CON is more about healthiness. If you want to run a marathon, that's STR. If you want to work 60 hours straight on a project you need to rush, that's CON. It's less about running out of breath or your muscles becoming sore, and more about how much you can abuse your body before it starts falling apart. Figuring out what's edible through trial and error sounds like CON (since it involves risking your health), but hanging from the rafters sounds like STR (since it only involves your muscles getting tired).

That's my take, anyway. I can certainly understand why some people would put endurance under CON. And you might reason that doing so gives you more things to do with CON, but I don't think it's significant enough. It's like putting a band-aid over the stump of a severed limb; it's better than nothing I guess, but it doesn't really fix the problem. I'd prefer to leave endurance as part of STR (which is also considered a low value ability score and could use the help) and instead expand CON into an entirely new dimension.

Hmm. I've done some work on playable undead, including ghostly undead, and one thing I've done is to sort of treat CON as the undead's ability to manifest themselves and maintain physicality. Even a zombie or vampire has some parts of their body that don't work right, which is why they're undead and not just alive, so they have to manifest a "ghostly body part" that fulfills the missing functions necessary to keep the body moving. Skeletons do this by manifesting ghostly muscles to manipulate their skeleton like a puppet, or ghostly eyes to see, and so on. Only the minimum effort is used, which is why a skeleton's muscles are invisible and don't interact with anything except the skeleton. A ghost has no physicality at all, so if it lacks the force of will to manifest, it just disappears. But a ghost with a strong will can manifest an entire body out of nothing, and with an especially strong will they can even interact with things physically.

Is there maybe something there we could use? I mean, it kind of sounds like it's leaning towards being able to temporarily manifest a missing body part if you succeed on a difficult CON check, but something that needs to be understood is that this is extremely difficult, and undead only do it because they have to. A ghost can manifest an entire body, but only because it would disappear otherwise. If you lop off a zombie's arm, it won't manifest a ghostly arm to replace it, because its will to manifest is only barely strong enough to maintain what it already had. Living creatures can't manifest missing body parts simply because they've never needed to, so their ability to manifest is practically nonexistent. But what it might do is allow you to ignore pain and continue to use a damaged body part at normal capacity, using just the barest of manifestations to hold together your still-mostly-intact body. So, things like connecting the severed ends of individual nerves, or strands of muscle tissue.

But as with aura manipulation, the question is how would you generally use this? We can come up with these incredibly niche cases, but what would a typical use of CON in this fashion look like? Perhaps this manifestation ability is also a property of aura; can we find a common underlying foundation between these two ideas, and then perhaps explore how this foundation might be used in other ways? TBH, this is starting to sound like a sort of spiritual-physical energy, similar to something like ki, so maybe that's something we can explore.

[DarknessEternal]

I can't help but feel like stamina and endurance falls under STR, though. CON is more about healthiness. If you want to run a marathon, that's STR.

The following situations are already covered by Con in the RAW:
Suffocation
Forced March
Extreme Heat
Extreme Cold
Chases
Frigid Water
Starvation

[Crucius]

I thought of the Endurance and Tolerance skills.

Endurance being stamina type situations, or withstanding exhaustion. Where Athletics are short bursts of power (lifting a heavy object), Endurance is required for long hauls (dragging a heavy object up a hill).
Tolerance being resistance against pain and pushing through it, withstanding the effects of drugs and alcohol physically, and withering elemental effects like cold and heat.

I agree with you that this mostly feels like STR skills, so I folded STR and CON together into Physique.

And if I look critically at these skills, they don't feel super active like most other skills are. They still read quite passive, Tolerance especially where it's mainly overcoming external factors inflicted upon you... which is the definition of a saving throw.

Edit: I do like the supernatural element you are trying to give CON. Gives you a much greater design space for skills. Beware some might find it odd that one of the attributes has a clear supernatural flavor to it. All the other attributes can manifest into supernatural features (mostly spellcasting from those stats), but are in themselves not inherently supernatural in nature.

[Dimers]

I can't help but feel like stamina and endurance falls under STR, though. CON is more about healthiness. If you want to run a marathon, that's STR. If you want to work 60 hours straight on a project you need to rush, that's CON. It's less about running out of breath or your muscles becoming sore, and more about how much you can abuse your body before it starts falling apart. Figuring out what's edible through trial and error sounds like CON (since it involves risking your health), but hanging from the rafters sounds like STR (since it only involves your muscles getting tired).

That's my take, anyway. I can certainly understand why some people would put endurance under CON. And you might reason that doing so gives you more things to do with CON, but I don't think it's significant enough. It's like putting a band-aid over the stump of a severed limb; it's better than nothing I guess, but it doesn't really fix the problem. I'd prefer to leave endurance as part of STR (which is also considered a low value ability score and could use the help) and instead expand CON into an entirely new dimension.

Marathon runners are not unusually strong, they're unusually enduring. I'd definitely classify doing anything for a long time as Constitution-based, regardless of whether Strength also needs more things to do. Which I personally don't believe it does -- I use Strength all the time in games, for helping allies move, getting into places, intimidating people, carrying extra equipment, and of course grappling and most Athletics checks.

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In 4th-ed, two classes could make attacks based on Constitution. The Battlemind was a psionic melee warrior, channeling psychic power through her body for speed, toughness and blows that struck with more force than her muscles alone could account for. The Warlock acted as a conduit for otherworldly power that was a strain to bring into the natural material world. (A lot of warlock attacks used Charisma instead. Only vestige pacts were Con-only. Infernal, star and sorcerer-king pacts could choose either one. Fey, dark, binder and hexblade warlocks only used Charisma.) For both classes, the concept came down to shaping power in a way that tests or strains the limits of the body and mind.

People always thought the justification was pretty weak for weapon attacks, but it's a reasonable interpretation for spell attacks, including the weapon-using cantrips that already exist in 5e. Battlemind would be a half-caster or 1/3 caster with heavy armor, shields, bladetrips that integrate with Extra Attack, a psychic-damage analog for Divine Smite and Improved Divine Smite, access mostly to mobility and energy manipulation spells (short-range, if offensive), and proficiency in Con and Cha saves. 4e Con-lock would be a full caster with light armor and Con and Int saves, heavy on personal mobility, single-target debuffs and single-target damage, always able to tack on some damage to a single spell target. Class features might include vision upgrades and tradeoffs (like "boost your attack roll now but take a penalty to all saves for a round" or "an ally loses X hit points and you heal 2X"). Both would be spells-known. Neither one works well as a subclass of an existing 5e class, partly due to class features, partly due to spell list differences.

You wouldn't want to make active Constitution effects or Con-based classes too powerful, since the stat does already have an awful lot of passive value for surviving attacks and maintaining concentration.

[Guy Lombard-O]

For what it's worth, there's the niche case of the Rune Knight. Con serves as the RK's "casting stat" for its rune abilities.

[solidork]

I can't help but feel like stamina and endurance falls under STR, though.

Then we disagree. Pretty much everything that can apply the exhausted condition but be resisted calls for a Constitution saving throw. The other main way I can see adjudicating the situations I suggested ability checks would be to do them with the typical ability/skill pairing and then call for a Constitution saving throw to avoid some kind of deleterious effect from the effort.

Honestly, I think you're looking for a problem where there isn't one. Constitution not being used actively might violate an aesthetic sense of game design symmetry, but in practice it's still one of the most important ability scores for any character and doesn't really need any more emphasis placed on it.

This aura idea straight up makes every character fundamentally magical, which is not a neutral choice. I don't entirely agree with them, but I think the people who don't like how few options there are for someone who doesn't wield supernatural powers have a point.

[H_H_F_F]

CON rather than STR representing endurance and stamina isn't just common sense - it's how previous editions have explicitly treated it as well. And not just previous editions: it's how 5E treats it, too.


For example,
if you have to swim from an offshore island to the mainland, your DM might call for a Constitution check to see if you have the stamina to make it that far. In this case, your DM might allow you to apply your proficiency in Athletics and ask for a Constitution (Athletics) check.
And

Constitution checks are uncommon, and no skills apply to Constitution checks, because the endurance this ability represents is largely passive rather than involving a specific effort on the part of a character or monster.
A Constitution check can model your attempt to push beyond normal limits, however.
The DM might call for a Constitution check when you try to accomplish tasks like the following:
• Hold your breath
• March or labor for hours without rest • Go without sleep
• Survive without food or water
• Quaff an entire stein of ale in one go

[Greywander]

Marathon runners are not unusually strong, they're unusually enduring. I'd definitely classify doing anything for a long time as Constitution-based, regardless of whether Strength also needs more things to do.
This is semi-related to the next quote, so read my reply to that, too.

As far as my limited understanding goes, there are two types of "strength" that one can develop: bulk, and definition. If you lift a heavy weight a few times, it gives you bigger muscles with more raw strength. Great for deadlifting, but they tire out fast. If you lift a light weight many times, you get that chiseled look. You can't necessarily lift more weight, but you can go for longer before your muscles get tired.

It's entirely possible I have a wrong interpretation, but my feeling is that both of these fall under STR. STR, in my mind, is general fitness, which includes both bulk and definition. The nature of ability scores is to be overly broad, so while these could be separate stats, the game just isn't granular enough to keep them separate. It's kind of like how INT can represent either raw intelligence or education; your farmboy fighter isn't an idiot, they just never had a formal education. Instead, skills are generally how you define more specific abilities, though even skills are also quite broad. So you could totally split Athletics into a "Strongman" skill and a "Marathon" skill if you wanted to.

Anyway, by having STR cover both bulk and definition, it allows for some aesthetic choices in determining how your character is strong. Not every STR build wants to be built like a Jojo character.


Then we disagree. Pretty much everything that can apply the exhausted condition but be resisted calls for a Constitution saving throw.

CON rather than STR representing endurance and stamina isn't just common sense - it's how previous editions have explicitly treated it as well. And not just previous editions: it's how 5E treats it, too.
This is semi-related to the previous quote, so see also my response to that.

Maybe we don't actually disagree, rather we're just using the same terms to refer to slightly different things. Exhaustion is a long term fatigue; you don't get a level of exhaustion from sprinting until you run out of breath. Remember, you have to finish a long rest in order to reduce your exhaustion level by 1, so this is a long term effect.

We could say that there are two types of endurance: short term, and long term. Sustaining a high or medium intensity task for a time frame of minutes or even up to an hour or two would, in my interpretation, fall under STR. It's about running out of breath or your muscles getting tired. Stop for a few minutes and you're good to go again. Remember, a short rest doesn't cure exhaustion. Sustaining a low intensity task over a period of hours, days, or longer would be in the realm of CON, and that's when you'd start taking exhaustion penalties. A forced march is just walking, but for more than 8 hours. A forced march is radically different from running a marathon.

I'm fine with using CON for things like holding your breath, since that's not really a muscle thing. It does get a bit tricky because, while fitness and healthiness are separate things, they are related and there's a lot of overlap. You can't become more fit without also becoming healthier, but different people do have different levels of each. They aren't the same, especially from person to person. A lot of dog breeds, for example, are so inbred that they have all kinds of health issues, but can also be quite athletic.


I do like the supernatural element you are trying to give CON. Gives you a much greater design space for skills. Beware some might find it odd that one of the attributes has a clear supernatural flavor to it. All the other attributes can manifest into supernatural features (mostly spellcasting from those stats), but are in themselves not inherently supernatural in nature.

This aura idea straight up makes every character fundamentally magical, which is not a neutral choice. I don't entirely agree with them, but I think the people who don't like how few options there are for someone who doesn't wield supernatural powers have a point.
Kind of maybe? While the explanation might be more mystical, I think we can find something where the action itself is befitting for beefy martial types. For example:


Focus Aura
By taking the Focus Aura action, you can concentrate your vital force to enhance or suppress the vitality of yourself or another creature or object. If targeting an object, you must be holding or carrying the object, or it must be unattended and within your reach. If targeting another creature, you must be grappling that creature or they must be within your reach. If the target is not being grappled and is unwilling, then you must succeed on a melee weapon attack against the creature in order to influence their vital force.

Once you've successfully targeted a target with this action, then the next time before the end of your next turn that damage is dealt to or by your target (your choice), you can make a Constitution (Vitality) check with a DC equal to the damage rolled. If you succeed, then you can either increase or reduce that damage by an amount equal to your proficiency bonus.

[Pretend there are more rules governing damage rolls influenced by multiple focused auras, and how you can cancel out someone else's focused aura with your own, and such.]

So it sounds kinda mystical, but how would you actually use this?

Let's say you want to show off or intimidate someone by stabbing yourself with a sword. By focusing your aura (either on the sword, or on yourself), you can reduce the damage dealt when you stab yourself, possibly even negating it entirely.

Let's say you're trying to bust a hole through a wall that appears weakened. Before you strike, you take a moment to concentrate before unleashing a mighty blow.

Let's say you're about to walk through a hazard, like fire or poison gas. You take a moment to gather yourself, then stroll boldly through the hazard, reducing or potentially negating the damage.

Let's say you're trying to protect someone or something important. By keeping a hand on them, you can better protect them, reducing the damage they take.

Since this is an action, it's not really a viable way to boost your own damage in combat. But it can work as an out of combat utility, or as a support ability.

I think I may have figured out what "aura" could be. It might be your ability to assert existence. Not necessarily your existence, just existence in general. This can explain how HP works (you continue to exist despite sustaining lethal wounds), it can explain why your stuff doesn't catch fire in a Fireball (your aura makes your equipment "more real" than unattended objects, making them less vulnerable), and it can even explain the undead manifestation thing (a ghost is literally asserting its own existence in spite of no longer existing).

This can then go on to explain a number of other supernatural abilities. Teleportation is just asserting that you exist somewhere else. Phasing through objects is asserting that you are "more real" than the object, or that the object is "less real" than you, making you treat it like an illusion (alternatively, that you are less real and therefore you are the illusion). Withering Touch and similar abilities is a matter of overpowering another creature's existence with your own, draining their aura and weakening their vital force. Conjuration and Evocation are asserting the existence of something else. And so on.

Now, these are high level abilities. You wouldn't expect to be able to teleport or phase through objects with just a CON check. It's like how INT is used to cast wizard spells, but an INT check by itself does not allow you to cast spells. Consider a bard casting Suggestion. This is a high level ability reserved for those with the specific spell. As a bard spell, it uses CHA. The spell's effect is quite potent, and while you can't replicate it with a simple CHA check, what you can do is produce a similar, but much weaker effect with a Persuasion roll. Persuasion is a low level ability that anyone can do just by passing a check.

Thing is, I'm not sure what low level versions of the above would look like. Low level teleportation is just... movement. Which is already handled by other mechanics. Phasing through walls or conjuring things are high level stuff; I can't think of what a low level example of conjuration would look like. Maybe you just happen to have an important item in your pocket (that you plausibly could have grabbed earlier and forgotten about)? But even that seems too strong, more like a class feature.

The Focus Aura action is a good start, but it's only one action. We need a general feeling for what "asserting existence" does, and how one can use it. Ideally it would manifest in mostly mundane ways, something that's mystical in nature but subtle enough that it just looks like luck or natural talent.

One last thing I'll say is that it should be fine for martials to get more mystical at higher levels. Hercules wasn't exactly a normal person (though being a demigod does tend to have that effect). If you want to play as John Normal, then cap your level at 10 or lower. At some point, you have to either become superhuman, or else fall behind. That's just how scaling works; after a certain point, you're beyond what a normal person could ever do. It just seems really weird that people complain so much about how OP casters become in tier 3 and 4, but don't want to give high level martials mythical abilities, nor do they want to cap levels at a lower value. It's like complaining that you can't compete in NASCAR on a bicycle, but you refuse to use a car and you refuse to just stick to the Tour de France.

Edit: It occurs to me that I said a lot of words just to explain that "aura" is basically the physical analogue to psionics.

[DarknessEternal]

We could say that there are two types of endurance: short term, and long term. Sustaining a high or medium intensity task for a time frame of minutes or even up to an hour or two would, in my interpretation, fall under STR.


The RAW disagrees. See my previous post at "Chases".

[Dimers]

As far as my limited understanding goes, there are two types of "strength" that one can develop: bulk, and definition. If you lift a heavy weight a few times, it gives you bigger muscles with more raw strength. Great for deadlifting, but they tire out fast. If you lift a light weight many times, you get that chiseled look. You can't necessarily lift more weight, but you can go for longer before your muscles get tired.

It's entirely possible I have a wrong interpretation, but my feeling is that both of these fall under STR.

If you can't lift more weight, then by 5e RAW, you haven't gained Strength. The same holds for exercise that increases your endurance without improving your ability to cleave goblins with a greataxe, or without improving your long jump distance. Endurance just doesn't seem to be coupled to the Strength stat as it exists. I expect (without hard proof) that the game designers would treat your 'chiseled' strength as representing an improvement in Constitution.


While the explanation might be more mystical, I think we can find something where the action itself is befitting for beefy martial types.

The Focus Aura action seems like a good addition for a heroic/cinematic-feeling game, but be aware, "beefy martial types" won't be the only beneficiaries. Bards and rogues can easily get Expertise in Vitality. Wizards, clerics and hexblades can be more SAD and therefore focus more secondary resources on Constitution. Spellcasters can learn enhance ability for advantage. Putting the Vitality skill only on certain classes' lists can help, but backgrounds, bards, dipping and skill feats exist. It's been a persistent problem in 3e and 5e that skill-based abilities don't stay tied to their intended themes.


One last thing I'll say is that it should be fine for martials to get more mystical at higher levels. ... It just seems really weird that people complain so much about how OP casters become in tier 3 and 4, but don't want to give high level martials mythical abilities ...

In my experience, people often do want to let all high-level characters do epic things. At a rough guess, I'd say it doesn't get much press here for two reasons: (1) "high level" doesn't apply to a lot of actual games anyway, and (2) it's purely homebrew territory and therefore lacks the common basis for discussion, i.e. RAW.

[Greywander]

The RAW disagrees. See my previous post at "Chases".
I see you posted something about chases, but without a source. I'm not able to find it, though the DMG does specifically mention marathons as an example of a CON check. So perhaps I have been mistaken after all. I did say that STR was sustained activity measured in minutes, up to an hour or two, while CON was multiple hours or days, and it looks like the record times for marathons are at just over 2 hours, so it seems like marathons are right at the boundary that I defined between the two.

Probably a good rule of thumb is that anything under an hour is STR, anything over an hour is CON.


If you can't lift more weight, then by 5e RAW, you haven't gained Strength.
That's because STR represents both bulk and definition. This would be like saying that if you haven't received an education, then you haven't gained INT. You give your character a high STR or INT score, and decide how you want to represent it aesthetically. An uneducated genius will do just as well on History or Arcana checks as the educated midwit, despite the fact that you'd expect an educated person to do better at recalling facts and trivia even if the other person is much smarter. A lean fighter can lift more simply because the game isn't granular enough to distinguish between bulky characters and lean characters. That's all.

Now, I'm not saying you're wrong, as I am starting to see some hints that CON was meant to represent even shorter term endurance after all. I'm just saying your argument isn't convincing. I mean, I could even bring up how DEX somehow makes you better at both painting Warhammer minis as well as gymnastics. With that in mind, it's not a stretch at all to think that STR encompasses both bulk and definition.


The same holds for exercise that increases your endurance without improving your ability to cleave goblins with a greataxe, or without improving your long jump distance. Endurance just doesn't seem to be coupled to the Strength stat as it exists. I expect (without hard proof) that the game designers would treat your 'chiseled' strength as representing an improvement in Constitution.
You might be right.


The Focus Aura action seems like a good addition for a heroic/cinematic-feeling game, but be aware, "beefy martial types" won't be the only beneficiaries. Bards and rogues can easily get Expertise in Vitality. Wizards, clerics and hexblades can be more SAD and therefore focus more secondary resources on Constitution. Spellcasters can learn enhance ability for advantage. Putting the Vitality skill only on certain classes' lists can help, but backgrounds, bards, dipping and skill feats exist. It's been a persistent problem in 3e and 5e that skill-based abilities don't stay tied to their intended themes.
I think a big part of the problem is that dedicated skill monkeys don't just get more skills, they also get better skills. In a game where every +1 is hard to come by, expertise is ridiculous. It might make sense to level things out and just give the skill classes more skills, but not better skills. The problem is that even with proficiency and a maxed ability score, you can still be outdone by the rogue or bard with expertise. Advantage helps, but it doesn't change the range of possible results, only their likelihood, and Enhance Ability can be cast on anyone (and should be cast on whoever is already best at that skill, which often isn't the caster).

So this isn't really a problem with CON skills specifically. More just a problem with the skill system in general. D&D treats ability checks as secondary, and hands out bonuses a bit too freely. Imagine for a moment if attack rolls and saving throws were folded into ability checks. Suddenly the idea of having expertise or advantage on a weapon attack or saving throw sounds more than a little broken.


In my experience, people often do want to let all high-level characters do epic things. At a rough guess, I'd say it doesn't get much press here for two reasons: (1) "high level" doesn't apply to a lot of actual games anyway, and (2) it's purely homebrew territory and therefore lacks the common basis for discussion, i.e. RAW.
I was reminded of this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?638191-Why-don-t-high-level-non-casters-get-cool-anime-abilities) that I posted a while back. And yeah, skimming through the first couple pages, it's mostly people saying that other people don't want these mythical abilities. So maybe it's just some vocal minority. There is at least the idea that martial classes are meant to be mundane, even if people aren't necessarily agreeing with that idea, but there's nothing mundane about a 20th level character. I understand not wanting to make every class magical, but I guess I don't see mythical figures like Hercules as anything similar to a caster.

But that's an entirely different discussion.

[Kane0]

Honestly I think i'd prefer cutting out Con in the process of going towards four stats from that other thread you started

[Greywander]

I mean, yeah, that's what I did with the four stat system. If we're condensing ability scores down, then it makes sense. But there's reasons we might want to keep the six stock ability scores, too. Mainly because it makes it easier to convert monsters and such to be usable in whatever homebrew you're using this for. In that case, it makes more sense to change how the ability scores work, rather than changing the actual list of ability scores. So both are valid. I just wanted to explore the idea to see if there was anything we could do with CON to make it a more active ability score.

[Kane0]

I tried altering Constitution to Discipline once, in conjunction with altering Wisdom to Intuition. It retained the concentration functions but also took over for a lot of mental resilience rolls which usually meant what were once wisdom saves, and lost a lot of purely physical resistance saves which shifted to Strength (renamed Might). I still couldn't find any skills that make sense for it to natively take over though, so it wasn't enough of a success to justify shaking the boat.

Edit: Wait I tell a lie, Concentration became an actual skill in that test which was natively tied to Disc.

Edit2: I also had a second aborted test which did a bunch more rejiggering, still six stats with each one tied to something: The three 3.X saves, initiative and perception, but I couldn't find a corresponding core function to tie directly to Charisma before moving to the skill list and concentration would have doubled up with fortitude/will saves. So that didn't go anywhere.

[SociopathFriend]

Perhaps Con needs its own "tough" equivalent of the Dodge Action?

Something like reducing damage by your Con mod? With a cap based on your total Con score?

[Cheesegear]

One of the big issues with CON is how passive it is. You don't do anything with CON, rather you have things done to you. It's one of the reasons it feels so vestigial.

No. One of the reasons it feels vestigial, is because all the things that CON is for, most DMs don't use.

CON determines how long you can go without eating. **** that. Rations are cheap, and every party has an Outlander. Are we seriously keeping track of food? ...No. That's dumb. Can't we just handwave that we have food, unless the plot says we don't? Every time we enter a town we'll remove 5gp or something. Also, you're not going to do a plot where we don't have food, because that's lame. Besides, if you say we don't have food, the party Druid casts Goodberry. **** you, DM.

CON determines how long you can hold your breath...Why the **** would anyone ever need that? Underwater!? Don't you just drink a cheap potion?

Extreme Temperatures...I've been DMing 5e for close to a decade and I can count on one hand the number of times I've given a ****. Even in Rime of the Frostmaiden where cold is supposed to be pervasive...Nope. Every character gets Cold Weather Gear for free, and you never need to actually worry about the cold - ever.

Chases...Similar to Temperatures. I've used the Chase rules barely a handful of times. Because similar to Forced March rules which I've also never used, failing at a chase, or failing at travel, means that plot doesn't happen. Or rather, plot happens outside the scope of the players and that's just...Kind of ****. If players don't see something happen, then it may as well not have happened at all.

TL;DR
Everything CON is actually for, you probably don't use - I know I don't.

CON feels useless because we - the DMs - made it useless because survival campaigns are basically all the same, and stop becoming about survival the second anyone in the party realises that magic can replace almost anything that CON is supposed to address.


But I'm curious if we could rather just broaden what CON is to allow it to take a more active roll.

- Remove Outlander.
- Remove Goodberry.
- Remove Create Food and Water.
- Remove Potions of Water Breathing, and Water Breathing in general.
- Enforce carry weights and backpack limits and force your players to think about their ration supply.
- Alter the fact you can adventure for three days-plus without food...Change it to simply you make a CON save at the end of a Long Rest if you haven't eaten since the last Long Rest.
- Make a campaign with ****huge travel times and enforce a clock that forces a march.
- Make the campaign take place on the ocean, where water isn't really drinkable, and the salt and the sun combined will dehydrate and then cook you.


What are some ways that you can think of to use CON more actively?

Goliaths and Dragonborn both use CON for their species' abilities; Damage reduction and Dragonbreath, respectively.

My gut says maybe add a damage reduction mechanic to CON... But then there already is, when you take a Short Rest you add your CON when you roll Hit Dice. The damage mitigation already exists, albeit after combat/damage is already done, not during.

But I'll just go back to my previous; All of the ways in which we're already supposed to actively use CON, we don't.


Something like reducing damage by your Con mod? With a cap based on your total Con score?

Again, that feels like using your CON modifier twice; Once when you take damage, and once again when you Rest. I suppose you could remove the CON bonus on Short Rests? But I feel that would actually cause more problems than it would solve.

Or do you mean more like an Abjurer's Shield; If I have 14 Con, I have a 'pool' of say, 7 (half) Temporary Hit Points? But then that just ****s with mechanics - especially at low levels - and now the DM is forced to use hostiles that hit harder.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I see you posted something about chases, but without a source. I'm not able to find it, though the DMG does specifically mention marathons as an example of a CON check. So perhaps I have been mistaken after all. I did say that STR was sustained activity measured in minutes, up to an hour or two, while CON was multiple hours or days, and it looks like the record times for marathons are at just over 2 hours, so it seems like marathons are right at the boundary that I defined between the two.

Probably a good rule of thumb is that anything under an hour is STR, anything over an hour is CON.


That's because STR represents both bulk and definition. This would be like saying that if you haven't received an education, then you haven't gained INT. You give your character a high STR or INT score, and decide how you want to represent it aesthetically. An uneducated genius will do just as well on History or Arcana checks as the educated midwit, despite the fact that you'd expect an educated person to do better at recalling facts and trivia even if the other person is much smarter. A lean fighter can lift more simply because the game isn't granular enough to distinguish between bulky characters and lean characters. That's all.

Now, I'm not saying you're wrong, as I am starting to see some hints that CON was meant to represent even shorter term endurance after all. I'm just saying your argument isn't convincing. I mean, I could even bring up how DEX somehow makes you better at both painting Warhammer minis as well as gymnastics. With that in mind, it's not a stretch at all to think that STR encompasses both bulk and definition.


You might be right.


I think a big part of the problem is that dedicated skill monkeys don't just get more skills, they also get better skills. In a game where every +1 is hard to come by, expertise is ridiculous. It might make sense to level things out and just give the skill classes more skills, but not better skills. The problem is that even with proficiency and a maxed ability score, you can still be outdone by the rogue or bard with expertise. Advantage helps, but it doesn't change the range of possible results, only their likelihood, and Enhance Ability can be cast on anyone (and should be cast on whoever is already best at that skill, which often isn't the caster).

So this isn't really a problem with CON skills specifically. More just a problem with the skill system in general. D&D treats ability checks as secondary, and hands out bonuses a bit too freely. Imagine for a moment if attack rolls and saving throws were folded into ability checks. Suddenly the idea of having expertise or advantage on a weapon attack or saving throw sounds more than a little broken.


I was reminded of this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?638191-Why-don-t-high-level-non-casters-get-cool-anime-abilities) that I posted a while back. And yeah, skimming through the first couple pages, it's mostly people saying that other people don't want these mythical abilities. So maybe it's just some vocal minority. There is at least the idea that martial classes are meant to be mundane, even if people aren't necessarily agreeing with that idea, but there's nothing mundane about a 20th level character. I understand not wanting to make every class magical, but I guess I don't see mythical figures like Hercules as anything similar to a caster.

But that's an entirely different discussion.

I'm going to disagree with your rule of thumb being 1 hour as the break point. Here's the rationale (based on my actual area of expertise):

I'd say Strength does include what is referred to in fitness circles as 'Muscular Strength' and 'Muscular Endurance', while Constitution covers Cardio-Respiratory Endurance, which includes things like lung volume, oxygen carrying capacity of blood, etc (which would be impactful for things like breath holding) and is linked with general health.
A 400 meter race (about 1 minute) is considered anaerobic in the sense that the result is dependent on the muscles' ability to work without oxygen supplied during the race, so this is Muscular Endurance (Strength in 5e terms)
Middle distance running for a trained athlete includes races of 1-2 miles (4-10 minutes) where both muscular endurance and cardio-respiratory endurance are needed. For a less trained athlete they're going to be needing that oxygen sooner; for those who haven't tried, the 2nd lap of an 800 meter race is a different animal.
Beyond 10 minutes the primary component of fitness is Cardo-Respiratory Endurance (Constitution). While you do require muscles to move, they are only going to do so effectively if the body is able to efficiently supply oxygen.

So the break point is somewhere between 1 minute and 10. I think of the OP is looking for opportunities in game to use Con more actively, anything physical that gets into this time frame is fair game.

[Dimers]

That's because STR represents both bulk and definition. ... A lean fighter can lift more simply because the game isn't granular enough to distinguish between bulky characters and lean characters.

You feel that all high-Strength characters are necessarily toned as well as beefy in 5e? That increasing your carry weight + jump distance + melee damage will always also improve your endurance? That stance can be internally consistent, but I don't think it's in line with either reality (where there's little overlap between weightlifters and marathon runners) or, more relevantly, most descriptions in 5e.

Look at PHB Chapter 7's "Using Each Ability", for example. The Constitution entry uses the word 'endurance' and lists four activities that are about enduring a problem. Strength says 'raw physical force', 'power', 'lift', 'push', 'pull' and 'break', with six example activities that are solely about might. (I feel that "cling to a surface", "struggle to stay afloat" and "hang onto a wagon" could go either way, though two of those are in the Athletics skill, which could be used with Constitution by RAW anyway.) It really seems like 5e differentiates might and endurance, that bulky and lean characters can be made mechanically separate.

It could also be said that genius and educated characters can be mechanically separate, if the DM uses a guideline that I'm told is suggested by the DMG -- namely, not even calling for a roll for someone trained in a skill. The educated person just knows what the genius might or might not have a chance to guess. But that's getting off topic. My point is, the specific case of power versus endurance is easily separable into Strength and Constitution; there's very little in the rulebooks that suggest Strength ought to take on both roles.


I could even bring up how DEX somehow makes you better at both painting Warhammer minis as well as gymnastics.

And makes you act earlier in a combat, which I've never understood. Dexterity is a seriously overloaded concept.


So this isn't really a problem with CON skills specifically. More just a problem with the skill system in general.

Oh, definitely. Didn't mean to suggest otherwise. It's slightly worse for a Constitution skill just because that's a very common secondary stat for a SAD character, but even that non-universal situation only accounts for +1 or maybe +2 max, a piddly difference compared with Expertise/advantage.

[KorvinStarmast]

For what it's worth, there's the niche case of the Rune Knight. Con serves as the RK's "casting stat" for its rune abilities. Dragonborn's breath weapon also, establishes the save DC.

When you use your breath weapon... The DC for this saving throw equals 8 + your Constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus.

Then we disagree. Pretty much everything that can apply the exhausted condition but be resisted calls for a Constitution saving throw. The other main way I can see adjudicating the situations I suggested ability checks would be to do them with the typical ability/skill pairing and then call for a Constitution saving throw to avoid some kind of deleterious effect from the effort. My DM did this Saturday night, and it had a very good feel to it. (Particularly as I made the save).

Honestly, I think you're looking for a problem where there isn't one.
That is my assessment of the opening post.

CON rather than STR representing endurance and stamina isn't just common sense - it's how previous editions have explicitly treated it as well. And not just previous editions: it's how 5E treats it, too. Correct.

The RAW disagrees. See my previous post at "Chases". Which is in the DMG.

I see you posted something about chases, but without a source.
Become more familiar with your DMG then. I use the Chase optional rules with some frequency. We did it Wednesday night as the party tried to escape a collapsing cave complex.

I think a big part of the problem is that dedicated skill monkeys don't just get more skills, they also get better skills. In a game where every +1 is hard to come by, expertise is ridiculous. I'll disagree with that; it allows "really good at this one thing!" to arise. (Granted, it makes rogues and bards really good at a lot of stuff but that's OK, they are skill monkeys. That's their 'fit' in the mosaic.
I'd like to see Fighters get more skill proficiencies, though. Personal opinion.

So this isn't really a problem with CON skills specifically. Concur.

Honestly I think i'd prefer cutting out Con in the process of going towards four stats from that other thread you started STR/DEX/MENTAL/CHA? Something like that? Well, there are game systems that do that, but until the WoTC team decide to streamline the six ability scores to 4, that approach strikes me as utterly unproductive given how imbedded (saves and armor class, for starters) ability scores are into everything.

For Dimers: yes, dexterity as a seriously overloaded concept has been a criticism since ... the release of 5e, and with its relationship to armor class, in a few other editions.

[DarknessEternal]

I see you posted something about chases, but without a source. I'm not able to find it, though the DMG does specifically mention marathons as an example of a CON check. So perhaps I have been mistaken after all. I did say that STR was sustained activity measured in minutes, up to an hour or two, while CON was multiple hours or days, and it looks like the record times for marathons are at just over 2 hours, so it seems like marathons are right at the boundary that I defined between the two.

Probably a good rule of thumb is that anything under an hour is STR, anything over an hour is CON.


pg 252 DMG. "Chases" in big letters. CON is used for chases that last rounds.

[Greywander]

No. One of the reasons it feels vestigial, is because all the things that CON is for, most DMs don't use.
[...]
CON feels useless because we - the DMs - made it useless because survival campaigns are basically all the same, and stop becoming about survival the second anyone in the party realises that magic can replace almost anything that CON is supposed to address.
This is true, there are a lot of aspects of adventuring that would be real concerns in real life, but D&D finds one way or another to trivialize. I think that's just not the game they wanted to play, which is a shame because it sounds fun to me. Heck, the online character sheet I made keeps track of things like coin weight, and has an option to drop your pack to remove it and its contents from your encumbrance.

I guess it just comes back to that we should probably just play a different game instead of trying to make D&D do everything. I think that's one of the reasons why I tend to be drawn toward universal systems. I had an interest in GURPS a while back, but it was simultaneously too complicated and too simple; with only four stats, and only two of which influenced skills, it's just difficult to have much granularity. IIRC, the best way to build a mage is to put one rank in each spell (necessary to be able to cast it), then pump IQ, which adds to your rank in all spells. As well as half the skills. So a mage is also a great doctor, negotiator, etc. Then I was looking at Fudge, but I don't think that's the right system for me, either. But a good universal system that can be made to do anything would be what I'm looking for.


I'm going to disagree with your rule of thumb being 1 hour as the break point. Here's the rationale (based on my actual area of expertise):
[...]
So the break point is somewhere between 1 minute and 10. I think of the OP is looking for opportunities in game to use Con more actively, anything physical that gets into this time frame is fair game.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge! This makes a lot of sense, particularly since holding your breath is also CON. I guess I was partly wrong, mostly just with regards to the time scale.

This makes me wonder if there's any method of using two ability scores on one check. Maybe add +2 or +3 to the DC and add both modifiers to the roll? You could always just roll two checks, but that would take longer.


Look at PHB Chapter 7's "Using Each Ability", for example. The Constitution entry uses the word 'endurance' and lists four activities that are about enduring a problem.
Look at the activities mentioned, though. Three of the five are long-term endurance, on the scale of multiple hours or even days. Holding your breath is something that doesn't really fit anywhere else, so it falls to CON as a catch-all. Drinking something in one shot is similar, though it could also be thought of as related to healthiness (e.g. in that choking is unhealthy).

Again, it's not that you're wrong, it's just that this isn't a conclusive example. I am coming around to the idea that CON is intended for shorter term endurance as well, but this isn't what's convincing me.


Dexterity is a seriously overloaded concept.
What if we split Dexterity into one stat for full-body agility and another stat for fine motor skills? The agility stat would likely apply to AC and Acrobatics, while the fine motor skills stat would apply to Stealth, Sleight of Hand, Thieves' Tools, crafting, and ranged weapons.

I was actually thinking about making another thread on this exact topic. I think what's happened is that this is simply a character archetype. The protagonist who fights using fine motor skills, such as guns or something, needs a way to also defend themselves. Tanking hits is more appropriate for the Big Guy, so dodging attacks makes more sense. It's not so much that these two things are any way related, but rather that you just tend to want both of these if you're playing that kind of character.


Oh, definitely. Didn't mean to suggest otherwise. It's slightly worse for a Constitution skill just because that's a very common secondary stat for a SAD character, but even that non-universal situation only accounts for +1 or maybe +2 max, a piddly difference compared with Expertise/advantage.
Squishy mage + concentration checks push casters to want CON. It's just the optimal way to build a caster. This ends up with a weird result where every mage is like an anime grandpa, where they look old and weak until they take their shirt off (https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/onepunchman/images/d/d7/Bang%27s_body.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20200316021718).

If you want a different result, then we need to change the mechanics so that CON is less optimal for mages. Either by making CON less valuable, or by making something else more valuable. Moving concentration checks to using WIS, for example, would at least be more in character for casters.


Become more familiar with your DMG then.
Oof, that's harsh. Yeah, I looked it up, and you're right. What's strange is that they use exhaustion, but specifically allow this particular exhaustion to be cleared after a short rest.


I'll disagree with that; it allows "really good at this one thing!" to arise. (Granted, it makes rogues and bards really good at a lot of stuff but that's OK, they are skill monkeys. That's their 'fit' in the mosaic.
Okay, but imagine if martials could get expertise in weapons. Or if casters could get expertise in schools of magic. Ability checks are treated as secondary to combat, which I understand, but that's not how everyone plays. In a game with less combat, skill monkeys become inordinately OP. It just simply isn't properly balanced. The goal seems to be to erase the need for ability checks, probably so you can just skip past them and get to the next combat sooner.


STR/DEX/MENTAL/CHA? Something like that? Well, there are game systems that do that, but until the WoTC team decide to streamline the six ability scores to 4, that approach strikes me as utterly unproductive given how imbedded (saves and armor class, for starters) ability scores are into everything.
Not necessarily. Saves could be cut back to Fort/Reflex/Will, possibly with the addition of Psyche or something to cover mental saves. DEX still exists for AC purposes.

TBH, if you're considering fusing STR and CON anyway, then why not also combine some of the mental stats? Mental stats are already largely interchangeable when it comes to spellcasting. All it would really affect is skills.


pg 252 DMG. "Chases" in big letters. CON is used for chases that last rounds.
Thanks, I found it, and you were right. Still seems a bit strange to me, especially since this is one of the few times they let you clear exhaustion with a short rest.

[KorvinStarmast]

Okay, but imagine if martials could get expertise in weapons. Proficiency bonus does a part of that. Weapons specialization was a thing in AD&D 1e (and IIRC 2e) so it's not like they haven't tried it. So let's go back to 'low barriers for entry' as a 5e theme and there's you answer.

Or if casters could get expertise in schools of magic. Why? You would need to do a major balance overhaul.

Not necessarily. Saves could be cut back to Fort/Reflex/Will, possibly with the addition of Psyche or something to cover mental saves. Will covers that. While Fort/Reflex/Will could have been kept and probably not harmed this edition, and I think they did this for greater variety, but I am not sure.

TBH, if you're considering fusing STR and CON anyway, then why not also combine some of the mental stats? Isn't that what I proposed in the four?

Still seems a bit strange to me, especially since this is one of the few times they let you clear exhaustion with a short rest. Which was how they should have done it in the first place (or let LR clear one level, GR all of them, or maybe 'burn an HD during a short rest to clear a level' ... though that's leaning toward the fiddly side).

[Sorinth]

If you want something "active" then I would suggest something along the lines of exerting yourself to help with any skill check. That way rather then carving out a seperate niche it's just something that is generall usefull for all skills but comes at a potential cost when using it. So:

If you fail an ability check you may reroll that ability check once and gain one level of exhaustion unless you succeed a DC 10 Constitution saving throw. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your constitution modifier and regain all uses on a long rest.

[SociopathFriend]

Again, that feels like using your CON modifier twice; Once when you take damage, and once again when you Rest. I suppose you could remove the CON bonus on Short Rests? But I feel that would actually cause more problems than it would solve.

Or do you mean more like an Abjurer's Shield; If I have 14 Con, I have a 'pool' of say, 7 (half) Temporary Hit Points? But then that just ****s with mechanics - especially at low levels - and now the DM is forced to use hostiles that hit harder.

I didn't say it was a good idea but OP wants an active use for it.

Personally I approve of 'passive' power and very little in D&D makes me happier than the rest of the party getting railed by a Fireball for 25 damage and being below 1/4th of their HP but myself, someone who gets a high Con every chance he gets, instead respond that I'm not even at half.

Totally passive on my part. No rolls required. But I love it.



My suggestion for the "Tough it" Action is that you gain your Cod Mod in temp hp. This can be used as much as you want BUT it draws from a pool equal to your Con Score. Refreshes on a Long Rest.

Yeah it's double-tapping Con but that's kinda what OP wants if he wants it to still do everything it normally does and more.

The idea is you can use your Reaction to ready the "Tough It" Action when an enemy attacks or casts a spell or so on and so forth- perhaps even prepare for triggering a trap or something. It's not ideal I admit but it's the first thing that came to mind. Want Con to be more active? Give it an in-battle Action.

I agree that's territory Short Rests are supposed to cover. I like Short Rests covering that territory. If the "Tough It" Action were implemented then I would remove the Con Mod from Short Rests. I agree this is a tad screwy with mechanics which is why I am never going to use it.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

This is true, there are a lot of aspects of adventuring that would be real concerns in real life, but D&D finds one way or another to trivialize. I think that's just not the game they wanted to play, which is a shame because it sounds fun to me. Heck, the online character sheet I made keeps track of things like coin weight, and has an option to drop your pack to remove it and its contents from your encumbrance.

I guess it just comes back to that we should probably just play a different game instead of trying to make D&D do everything. I think that's one of the reasons why I tend to be drawn toward universal systems. I had an interest in GURPS a while back, but it was simultaneously too complicated and too simple; with only four stats, and only two of which influenced skills, it's just difficult to have much granularity. IIRC, the best way to build a mage is to put one rank in each spell (necessary to be able to cast it), then pump IQ, which adds to your rank in all spells. As well as half the skills. So a mage is also a great doctor, negotiator, etc. Then I was looking at Fudge, but I don't think that's the right system for me, either. But a good universal system that can be made to do anything would be what I'm looking for.


Thanks for sharing your knowledge! This makes a lot of sense, particularly since holding your breath is also CON. I guess I was partly wrong, mostly just with regards to the time scale.

This makes me wonder if there's any method of using two ability scores on one check. Maybe add +2 or +3 to the DC and add both modifiers to the roll? You could always just roll two checks, but that would take longer.


Look at the activities mentioned, though. Three of the five are long-term endurance, on the scale of multiple hours or even days. Holding your breath is something that doesn't really fit anywhere else, so it falls to CON as a catch-all. Drinking something in one shot is similar, though it could also be thought of as related to healthiness (e.g. in that choking is unhealthy).

Again, it's not that you're wrong, it's just that this isn't a conclusive example. I am coming around to the idea that CON is intended for shorter term endurance as well, but this isn't what's convincing me.


What if we split Dexterity into one stat for full-body agility and another stat for fine motor skills? The agility stat would likely apply to AC and Acrobatics, while the fine motor skills stat would apply to Stealth, Sleight of Hand, Thieves' Tools, crafting, and ranged weapons.

I was actually thinking about making another thread on this exact topic. I think what's happened is that this is simply a character archetype. The protagonist who fights using fine motor skills, such as guns or something, needs a way to also defend themselves. Tanking hits is more appropriate for the Big Guy, so dodging attacks makes more sense. It's not so much that these two things are any way related, but rather that you just tend to want both of these if you're playing that kind of character.


Squishy mage + concentration checks push casters to want CON. It's just the optimal way to build a caster. This ends up with a weird result where every mage is like an anime grandpa, where they look old and weak until they take their shirt off (https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/onepunchman/images/d/d7/Bang%27s_body.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20200316021718).

If you want a different result, then we need to change the mechanics so that CON is less optimal for mages. Either by making CON less valuable, or by making something else more valuable. Moving concentration checks to using WIS, for example, would at least be more in character for casters.


Oof, that's harsh. Yeah, I looked it up, and you're right. What's strange is that they use exhaustion, but specifically allow this particular exhaustion to be cleared after a short rest.


Okay, but imagine if martials could get expertise in weapons. Or if casters could get expertise in schools of magic. Ability checks are treated as secondary to combat, which I understand, but that's not how everyone plays. In a game with less combat, skill monkeys become inordinately OP. It just simply isn't properly balanced. The goal seems to be to erase the need for ability checks, probably so you can just skip past them and get to the next combat sooner.


Not necessarily. Saves could be cut back to Fort/Reflex/Will, possibly with the addition of Psyche or something to cover mental saves. DEX still exists for AC purposes.

TBH, if you're considering fusing STR and CON anyway, then why not also combine some of the mental stats? Mental stats are already largely interchangeable when it comes to spellcasting. All it would really affect is skills.


Thanks, I found it, and you were right. Still seems a bit strange to me, especially since this is one of the few times they let you clear exhaustion with a short rest.

I think if you wanted to use both modifiers the best way would be to determine when the break point kicks in, then apply whichever is the lower. So, let's say the DM decides that after 2 minutes Con is going to be one of the determining factors in whether a check will succeed or not. The party decides to climb a 500 foot cliff, which is going to take more than 2 min. Once they've exceeded that, each subsequent check would be Athletics (lesser of Con or Str). That would make sence since your modifier would never go up, but could go down at the point where activities become aerobic.

[Witty Username]

I see you posted something about chases, but without a source. I'm not able to find it, though the DMG does specifically mention marathons as an example of a CON check. So perhaps I have been mistaken after all. I did say that STR was sustained activity measured in minutes, up to an hour or two, while CON was multiple hours or days, and it looks like the record times for marathons are at just over 2 hours, so it seems like marathons are right at the boundary that I defined between the two.

Probably a good rule of thumb is that anything under an hour is STR, anything over an hour is CON.


A nitpick here, mostly because my way of thinking on this has been irrevocably changed by some world of darkness and call of chuthuhu examples with skill checks.
Over an hour is probably Con, but under an hour is not necessarily STR. This is because endurance and bodily health are applicable to basically any skill. Take for example a ninja, hiding in murky water at night or trying to out maneuver a guard by wedging themselves at the top of a doorframe. The ninja holding that position for an extended period would likely be a Con check, but for a short time would fall under Dex, and the skill used in both of these cases would be stealth. The example from the other RPGs that was most transformative for me on this was an example of what in D&D would be I think a Con(Investigation) check (pulling an all nighter to research a topic). Another example would be a traditional Fillibuster, probably a Con(Persuasion) check to see if you can talk long enough to stall out a vote.