Some buffs to strength

[Mystical-man]

I came up with a few mechanics and rules to buff up the strength stat in general. These are designed to make the stat itself more on par with dexterity but in a way which gives it some identity. I do realise though that these are currently a lot and I'm posting this here to ask if this is too much and what could do with being cut off from this list. Anyway here's the current list of effects:



Medium Armour
You can now use your strength or dexterity modifier for calculating your AC whilst wearing medium armour.

Incredible Strength
If you have a strength of 18 or higher you count as one size larger for grapples and shoves.

Movement Speed
If you have a 14 strength or higher you now get a +5 bonus to your movement speed. This bonus increases to +10 if you have a strength score of 18 or higher.

Shove
If your strength modifier is 16 then when you successfully shove a creature you can push them up to 10 feet away from you. If your strength modifier is 20 then this changes to up to 15 feet away from you.

Carry an Ally
If your strength modifier is 16 then you can carry a willing creature as part of your movement. Starting or stopping carrying an ally doesn't cost any actions or bonus actions and is considered as part of your movement. While moving you can carry an ally with you, if you do when you move they move in the same direction but your speed is also halved. You can only do this with creatures of your size or smaller.

Additionally if your strength is 18 or higher then you can expend all your movement speed to perform a shove attack on a willing creature within 5 feet of you.

[Damon_Tor]

I would like it if object breaking was more fully baked into the system, ideally as a set of skill checks. This would include everything from sundering shields/armor to breaking locks, kicking down doors, or using a crowbar to pry open a window. Include a table of DCs for a variety of commonly broken objects.

I don't agree with making medium armor strength or dex, it doesn't make sense to me. What does that represent?

[Anonymouswizard]

I'd probably base hp off of Strength. It depowers CON somewhat, but not enough to take it from 'everybody wants it' all the way to 'don't invesf', and makes Strength a stat that most characters want a bit of.

I'll also note that the medium armour rule would do basically nothing. You still have the choice of Strength or Dexterity, and most characters in that situation would probably still prefer 14 Dex to 14 Str. Most of the other rules you've suggested are pretty situational. What you want is some that Strength provides, that crops up fairly regularly, that you can't substitute another ability for.

[Kane0]

Medium Armour
You can now use your strength or dexterity modifier for calculating your AC whilst wearing medium armour.

Incredible Strength
If you have a strength of 18 or higher you count as one size larger for grapples and shoves.

Movement Speed
If you have a 14 strength or higher you now get a +5 bonus to your movement speed. This bonus increases to +10 if you have a strength score of 18 or higher.

Shove
If your strength modifier is 16 then when you successfully shove a creature you can push them up to 10 feet away from you. If your strength modifier is 20 then this changes to up to 15 feet away from you.

Carry an Ally
If your strength modifier is 16 then you can carry a willing creature as part of your movement. Starting or stopping carrying an ally doesn't cost any actions or bonus actions and is considered as part of your movement. While moving you can carry an ally with you, if you do when you move they move in the same direction but your speed is also halved. You can only do this with creatures of your size or smaller.

Additionally if your strength is 18 or higher then you can expend all your movement speed to perform a shove attack on a willing creature within 5 feet of you.

Medium Armor: This is good, i like it.

Incredible strength: Feels like a class feature, or replacement part for the Grappler feat

Movement Speed: Seems fine, though id increase it to 15 and 19

Shove: Feels very appropriate, though again id change to odd scores

Carry: not a fan of messing with action economy at the base level, this feels more like a DM ruling which is fine but not my style

If it were my table here's what i would carry forward:
- Medium armor using str or dex
- At str 15 you can shove 10'
- At str 17 you gain +5' move speed
And move the grapple one size larger into the grappler feat. This would mimic the bonus language/tool i give for Int at the same scores.

[GalacticAxekick]

I totally agree that Strength is underpowered! Besides the classes specifically built around it, nobody has any use for it. It kills the verisimilitude of the game.

That said, I think whatever usefulness Strength has should come gradually, as your score/modifier increase. You shouldn't need several ASIs to get a return on investment. And you shoudn't have to go through several ASIs worth of benefits you don't care about to get the one that you do (i.e. bonus speed as 13 Str, improved shove at 15 Str, improved grapple at 17 Str, etc).

Here are my takes on each of your effects:

Movement Speed
You gain a bonus or penalty to your movement speed equal to 5 x their Strength modifier. For example, if your Strength modifier is -1 and your base speed is 30, your speed is 25 feet. If your Strength modifier is +5 and your base speed is 30, your speed is 55 feet.

The Monk class's Unarmored Movement would be written not to increase their speed, but instead to increase it based on Dexterity.

Improved Shove
You can shove a creature of any size. In addition, when you successfully shove a creature, you can spend your movement to shove it further. Every 5 feet of movement adds another 5 feet to the distance that you shove it. You cannot spend an amount of movement greater than 5 x your Strength score.

Improved Grapple
You can grapple a creature of any size. When you grapple any creature too heavy for you to push, drag or carry, you do not subject it to the grappled condition, but instead begin to climb along its surface. The DM may grant you various benefits and inflict various penalties on the creature depending on its anatomy and where you have climbed on its surface. For example, a dragon might not be able to attack directly you once you have climbed onto its back, and your attacks against a giant might automatically count as critical hits once you have climbed up to its throat.

Carrying Allies
You can carry a willing creature, no action required, just like you can carry an object. Remember that your carrying capacity equal 15 x your Strength score, and that maximum weight you can push, drag or lift equals 30 x your Strength score.

As a rule of thumb, a medium creature weighs a number of lbs equal to 15 x its own Strength score or more. For every size category a creature is below medium, divide its weight by eight. For every size category a creature is above medium, multiply its weight by eight. For example, a human with 10 Strength weighs at least 150 lbs. A halfling with 8 Strength weighs at least 15 lbs. A horse with 16 Strength weighs at least 1920 lbs.

[Goobahfish]

One simple 'fix' could be to remove all armour proficiencies and just have all armour availability trigger off strength?

Also, have more explicit Strength-based challenges.

[Yakk]

The variant I have played with is Brawn, which combines Str and Con.

Then add Luck, which replaces Brawn-to-HP on even levels.

Finally, add a d8 (medium) or d6 (small) HD at level 0, and don't grant max HP from your first HD.

(Death saving throws are Luck, and there are no auto-fails. Plus a can use Luck to reroll failed saves and Luck checks.)

[Lemmy]

How about...

Shields:
When using a shield, you can add half your Str modifier to your AC.

Armor
High Str allows you to reduce armor penalties (up to a limit)

Breaking / Bending Objects:
Make Str checks in general more common and more useful... Like bending a metal bar to create an improvised tool or weapon.

Physique
By far the most drastic change: Just fuse Str and Con into a single stat.

[Maat Mons]

Would merging Str and Con be alright with Belt of Storm Giant Strength giving a +9 modifier? I mean, people would get +9 HP per level, and Barbarians would get 10 + Dex + Con Str = up to 24 AC before any shield or magic.

How would the idea of adding half Str to AC when using a shield interact with the merging of Str and Con, if you did both? Would Barbarians using a shield get +1.5x Str to AC?

[Yakk]

Would merging Str and Con be alright with Belt of Storm Giant Strength giving a +9 modifier? I mean, people would get +9 HP per level, and Barbarians would get 10 + Dex + Con Str = up to 24 AC before any shield or magic.

How would the idea of adding half Str to AC when using a shield interact with the merging of Str and Con, if you did both? Would Barbarians using a shield get +1.5x Str to AC?
Oh, as part of that I rewrote most of the "set your attribute to X" items.

Each of them give you a die (1d4 through 1d12). This die adds to damage of attacks with that attribute as well as checks and saves, but not to save DCs or to-hit rolls.

They also add thematic utility stuff.

... here -- https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?640282-Stat-boosting-items-replacement

[MrStabby]

I came up with a few mechanics and rules to buff up the strength stat in general. These are designed to make the stat itself more on par with dexterity but in a way which gives it some identity. I do realise though that these are currently a lot and I'm posting this here to ask if this is too much and what could do with being cut off from this list. Anyway here's the current list of effects:



Medium Armour
You can now use your strength or dexterity modifier for calculating your AC whilst wearing medium armour.

Incredible Strength
If you have a strength of 18 or higher you count as one size larger for grapples and shoves.

Movement Speed
If you have a 14 strength or higher you now get a +5 bonus to your movement speed. This bonus increases to +10 if you have a strength score of 18 or higher.

Shove
If your strength modifier is 16 then when you successfully shove a creature you can push them up to 10 feet away from you. If your strength modifier is 20 then this changes to up to 15 feet away from you.

Carry an Ally
If your strength modifier is 16 then you can carry a willing creature as part of your movement. Starting or stopping carrying an ally doesn't cost any actions or bonus actions and is considered as part of your movement. While moving you can carry an ally with you, if you do when you move they move in the same direction but your speed is also halved. You can only do this with creatures of your size or smaller.

Additionally if your strength is 18 or higher then you can expend all your movement speed to perform a shove attack on a willing creature within 5 feet of you.

For medium armour - I am a bit worried about the shift. I can't really account for why. I think that there are some good things to it though - melee rangers fro example become a bit more viable.

Increadible strength - not a fan of this. Grappling tends to be either very powerful or not working at all in a lot of fights. I think this is just too big a boost.

Movement speed - I think this is too big a boost but also steps on the toes of classes like the monk bu also the higher speed races. Taking their special thing and making it not special doesn't work for me.

Shove works for me. I might be tempted to change it to something like "if you beat the opposed skill check by X or more then..." as I don't really like thresholds. If I were to use thresholds I think I would make them odd numbered so that the benefits you get from stat increases are more evenly spread.

Carry an Ally - I would rather this leaned more into size than strength, but no reall issues.

Expending movement for a shove attack - honestly, I think this could be done without any strength threshold and it would still give more to Str builds than anyone else (I guess at high levels a rogue with expertise might still like it, but I feel that something that boosts Str builds and high level rogues is still fine). I think wording could be tuned to "when you take the attack action..." or similar to stop incapacitaed people doing this. Something to tie it to an action if it doesn't use one itself.

[Yakk]

Strength's problems:
1. Heavy armor isn't better than high-dex light armor. A 20 Dex PC in Studded has 17 AC; a 20 Strength PC in Plate has 18 AC, and disadvantage on Stealth. 1 AC for disadvantage on stealth is a trade-off, not a benefit.
2. 1 handed finesse weaponry is as good as non-finesse weaponry.
3. Ranged weapons are almost as good at damage as 2 handed weaponry, even in melee range (XBE+SS vs PAM+GWM).
4. Faster initiative, tumbling and dex saves beat out Carrying stuff, muscle feats and str saves.
5. (Offensive) grappling is about the only big niche of strength

What if we directly addressed weaknesses?
1. Heavy armor gets +1 AC if you custom fit it (costs 1/3 item cost). Magic items require attunement to become custom-fit (and can be attuned even if they don't require it), and do so automatically when attuned.
2. Up 1 handed martial weapons from 1d8 (4)to 1d10(5) damage (1d12(6) versatile).
3. Up 2 handed weapons damage dice. Polearms do 1d12(6), Greataxe/Greatsword does 2d8(9).
4. Large and bigger foes should have lots of strength save effects on hit. People who fail them should fly around like pinballs and be knocked prone a lot.

[Anonymouswizard]

Just kill finesse weapons, if you really want 'more optimal' melee rogues* let them use DEX to attack on any weapon with 1d4 or 1d6 damage, but I personally don't see the issue. As it stands most of what they do is intrude on the role of Strength and make Dexterity very powerful.

Honestly, I think this is SAD casters making every player want to run everything off of one stat if possible. It's lead to a kind of homogenisation where people assume that every character will be attacking with their peak stat. Let Strength be the stat of melee combat, you might even see more PC grapplers if bruisers have the stat anyway.

* Monks would work fine under their current rules, so you mainly need to worry about Rogues.