Why Modifiers?

[JellyPooga]

I was just looking over a new RPG today and it's yet another game that, like D&D, has ability scores or statistics from which the actual functional modifier that you use in the game is derived. Like, I get that it's what D&D did so clones and copies are bound to arise, but why is it so ubiquitous? I mean, it's not every system and there's plenty of alternatives, but what's the purpose of an 18 Dex if the functional number being used for anything to do with Dex isn't 18, but 5 or 4 or whatever? Particularly when stats are being assigned by an array or point buy? I get it, there's a purpose when you're rolling stats, assuming you're looking for certain distributions or curves to skew the modifiers towards a particular number, but even then, why is the calculating number even on the character sheet when the useful number already is? Flipside, why derive a modifier at all? Why not use that base number? Is it because people don't like adding numbers over 10 or something? If that's the case, then implement a roll-under system or something, where any circumstantial modifiers can either be added to your base score or die roll, or represented by different dice, either in number or value.

It all just seems unnecessarily complicated, which is what puzzles me; are game designers not thinking about the system they're implementing? Are they just copy/pasting from what's familiar without considering what it is they're copying? It doesn't make any sense to me.

Just a little rant, sorry.

[False God]

Totally agree, it's one reason I've moved away from D&D as my core game.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I can't say I disagree with you. Having different scores from modifiers has never made tons of sense to me. Using the scores directly doesn't work if you want to keep a d20 and simple addition--even a score of 10 blows the d20 out of the water, doubling the average value.

I'm in the process of hacking 5e D&D into a shape that I like better going forward than OneD&D. And one of the changes is merging ability scores and modifiers. That is, your "Strength score" is also your "Strength modifier" and is in a range (for PCs) of -5 -- +5.

There have been a few things that were made more complicated coming from a D&D base, but not enough to care about (IMO):

* Rolling for stats now requires more math to keep the same distribution. Although one could argue it's the same math you were doing already, just explicitly as part of rolling. Ie floor((4d6k3 - 10)/2), done 6x.
* Carry capacity had to be reworked. Instead of 15 x STR score, it's now 150 + 30 x STR modifier.
* Similarly, jumping distance (for long jumps anyway) had to change. That's ok, I was changing that anyway.
* Class ASIs are now "+1 to one" (effectively always +2 to something, but since you can't have odd scores anyway, it's kinda moot) and +1 Skill Trick (a sort of feat replacement, but smaller).

[stoutstien]

Derived values allow you to have 1 number acting like 2 for the purpose of using different resolutions mechanics. So 20 strength and +5 strength can be used depending on the given subsystem.
I do agree it is over used and falls apart in most non bounded systems. Makes a lot of sense If the Modifier range from -2 to 2 rather than a sizable portion of the original value.

In my WIP I don't use them. Your score is your score and while there are a few situational features that might alter it for certain effects it mostly reads straight across.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'll note that having all modifiers being ten points higher changes nothing if all the target numbers are raised ten points. But that's just because the 'using scores instead blows the d20 out of the water' argument annoys me.

I can see stat modifiers working better in systems where attributes fluctuate a lot, e.g. if they're used as health/status/condition tracks. Particularly if the modifiers don't follow a simple pattern. However in most games the stats themselves basically never change and so might as well disappear.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'll note that having all modifiers being ten points higher changes nothing if all the target numbers are raised ten points. But that's just because the 'using scores instead blows the d20 out of the water' argument annoys me.


It actually doesn't fix the issue unless all target numbers are 10 higher and the distribution of ability scores is uniform. Because "subtract 10 and divide by 2" =/= "subtract 10". The dynamic range for 1d20 + score[1] is [2, 40]. The dynamic range for 1d20 + modifier (under the same assumptions) is [-4, 25]. That's not a secular shift. And in the latter case, the range accessible by d20 alone (ie if you have 0 modifier) is [1,20], which is 20 out of 30 (2/3) of the entire dynamic range. In the former case, well, the d20 alone only provides half at best of the total.

[1] assuming scores are in the range [1, 20] like 5e. If the scores can be higher, the situation gets even worse.

[Telok]

Originally the 3d6 random stat generation was used to make characters more like the general populace, mostly average across most of their abilities. Along with that, the effects of high and low scores were not linear generic effects that all had the same value. The current paradigm of picking ability scores, simplifying everything to a minimum, and wanting to have everything be equally valid/useful has completely divorced the actual "ability score" from the actual game mechanics. Modern D&D-style ability scores are basically as useful as hair color. Its just the result of relentless streamlining and standardization. For D&D these days you could easily manage with three stats; body, mind, and soul, that were a spread of +1, +3, +5. The game would work perfectly and you'd save a bunch of space on the character sheets. While you're at it you can cut the skill list to; sports, schooling, hard knocks, talky, and find clues.

[OldTrees1]

I'll note that having all modifiers being ten points higher changes nothing if all the target numbers are raised ten points. But that's just because the 'using scores instead blows the d20 out of the water' argument annoys me.

Were they talking about the average being 10 points higher or about the range being twice as long? If they were talking about the average then you are absolutely correct. If they were talking about the range, it gets more complicated. 14 Str vs 20 Str (for example someone getting better over time) has a modifier difference of 3 and a score difference of 6. This would be similar to 5E proficiency being doubled (or quadrupled for those with expertise).

The easy conversion of just using the scores as the modifiers will change how fast the modifier increases. In isolation that changes nothing if the target numbers also change how fast they increase. However it does change comparisons between 2 modifiers vs the same target number.

Example:
DC 10 vs +3 or +5 results in 70% and 80% chances.
DC 24 vs +16 or +20 results 65% and 85% chances.
This is only a slight drift when the comparison is for a small range. If the comparison was between -2 vs +8 then the drift would push them off of the same d20 range.

Whether this drift is positive, neutral, or negative is subjective and requires context.



I can see stat modifiers working better in systems where attributes fluctuate a lot, e.g. if they're used as health/status/condition tracks. Particularly if the modifiers don't follow a simple pattern. However in most games the stats themselves basically never change and so might as well disappear.

I recently ran several 3.P sessions with ability score damage. A VTT helped manage it. There is potential there, but for me, in that case, I think it would have also been fine if the score was used as the modifier.

[JellyPooga]

Using the scores directly doesn't work if you want to keep a d20 and simple addition--even a score of 10 blows the d20 out of the water, doubling the average value.In these sort of cases, there's always "roll under" mechanics. It always seemed intuitive to me that if "normal human" range for a given score is 3-18 (or 3d6), then a d20-roll-under is perfectly viable, giving virtually the exact same distribution of success as d20-add-mods where a score of 10-11 is a +0 and the target number (DC, AC, etc.) for your baseline is 10. You can even keep circumstantial modifiers virtually the same, just modifying your base score rather than the die roll.

i.e.
"Roll-Add-vs.TN"
Average score:10, Mod:+0
Average TN:10
55% success rate

"Roll-Under" (let's assume "equal to or under" is a success)
Average score:10
Average circumstantial mod: +0
50% success rate

The difference here, particularly if we're comparing to D&D of 3e or later, is that an ability score of 11 still gives a 55% success rate but in both systems, making the "roll-under" system slightly more granular but no less complex, perhaps even simpler because there's no "ability score modifier" to derive. You could literally change nothing else about the system, bar adding modifiers to the Ability Score rather than the die roll, whatever those other mods are (e.g. magic weapons, lighting, etc.) and it would be functionally identical (more or less).

If you wanted to delve into it a little more, a roll-under system can solve contested rolls much more intuitively (to my mind). By inherently incorporating a success/failure rate (i.e. rolling over your ability score is always a failure, allowing both parties not to succeed, vice versa and in-between), you have four potential outcomes to the contest rather than the two that a direct comparison of roll+mods offers:
1) Both parties Fail
2) Party A fails, Party B succeeds
3) Party A succeeds, Party B fails
4) Both parties succeed

In cases 1-3, the outcome is clear; either the contest is a wash (1) or one or other party beats the other (2-3). In the case of both parties succeeding (4), whoever rolls the highest wins the contest (allowing higher ceilings to potentially dominate a lower one), but allows for moderate success on the others part.

For example, in an archery contest, either party could miss, one could miss and the other hit or both can hit, but whoever rolls higher (with a clear advantage to the better archer if they're able to succeed with a higher die roll) gets the better "win". Where this is an advantage is when there are more than just two contestants, because just having the highest roll is not the deciding factor as much as it is when merely comparing scores.

e.g. In the classic example of a halfling vs. an ogre arm wrestling; the Ogre has huge modifiers, but rolls a 1 and then the puny Halfling comes along and rolls a 20, embarrassing the burly Ogre by winning the contest. In a Roll-highest-under-score system and assuming the two are in direct contest the Halfling will have a much more limited range of "success" to rely on and rolling over that range is an abject failure. If the Halflings Strength Score is only 10, no roll over that will allow him to beat the Ogre, whereas the Ogre, with a Strength of 24 (or whatever) will always roll a success and can only be beaten by the Halfling is A) the Halfling rolls under 10 and B) the Ogre rolls under the Halfling. Following on from this thought (sorry, pursuing a train of thought now; I haven't thought this through too much lately), super-human values (such as the Ogres 24 Strength) could even be incorporated further by adding any score in excess of 20 to the die roll after success is determined, which in our example would mean the Halfling not only has to roll under his own Strength of 10, but also has to roll at least 4 points higher than the Ogre to win i.e. the Ogre will always win on an unmodified roll of 7 or more, regardless of the Halflings roll. Borrowing from Infinity:Casus Belli, Critical success could occur by matching your ability score (i.e. if your score is 16, you crit on a 16; the highest possible result that is a success for you) and scores in excess of 20 could offer a range of crits by deducting the excess from 20 i.e. our Ogre would crit on a 16+ (20-4=16). In this context, critical hits for superhuman ability would be far more common, making fighting creatures that possess them that much more deadly, so crits could either be toned down or the increase in danger be embraced whole-hearted.

I dunno, just digging up some old thoughts again.

[Anonymouswizard]

Were they talking about the average being 10 points higher or about the range being twice as long? If they were talking about the average then you are absolutely correct. If they were talking about the range, it gets more complicated. 14 Str vs 20 Str (for example someone getting better over time) has a modifier difference of 3 and a score difference of 6. This would be similar to 5E proficiency being doubled (or quadrupled for those with expertise).

The easy conversion of just using the scores as the modifiers will change how fast the modifier increases. In isolation that changes nothing if the target numbers also change how fast they increase. However it does change comparisons between 2 modifiers vs the same target number.

Example:
DC 10 vs +3 or +5 results in 70% and 80% chances.
DC 24 vs +16 or +20 results 65% and 85% chances.
This is only a slight drift when the comparison is for a small range. If the comparison was between -2 vs +8 then the drift would push them off of the same d20 range.

Whether this drift is positive, neutral, or negative is subjective and requires context.

You're right that it doesn't directly work with how D&D does modifiers, but I've also played games where modifiers were literally 'stat-10'. I was more talking about where you plonk the centre of the range, not adjusting range size (so D&D5e would run stats from 6 to 15 instead of stats from 3 to 20 and modifiers from -5 to +5), and could have been a lot more clear.


I recently ran several 3.P sessions with ability score damage. A VTT helped manage it. There is potential there, but for me, in that case, I think it would have also been fine if the score was used as the modifier.

I honestly think I'd go with a system that doesn't have the crunch of D&D, possibly look at games like Spire or Apocalypse World for inspiration. My physical copy of Ironsworn is arriving this week or next week, so I might see if that has any ideas to help make such an idea work.

Honestly I'm not sure if it's worth it when you can replace stats with spendable pools (e.g. Cypher), but it's an interesting idea.

[Anymage]

In these sort of cases, there's always "roll under" mechanics. It always seemed intuitive to me that if "normal human" range for a given score is 3-18 (or 3d6), then a d20-roll-under is perfectly viable, giving virtually the exact same distribution of success as d20-add-mods where a score of 10-11 is a +0 and the target number (DC, AC, etc.) for your baseline is 10.

That doesn't have as good a solution as the TN mechanic for varying task difficulty by anything other than who's doing it. When you get into combat, you also have questions of how attributes will influence your rolls. The old TSR method just gave arbitrary bonuses* when your stats fell into certain ranges. Which coincidentally encouraged demihumans to place stats so that their positive modifier boosted a stat that was high enough to matter for secondary modifiers, while having their negative modifier affect a stat that was middling enough that it didn't. 3e made a lot of changes in direct response to how 2e was played.

*(Or penalties, but I can't remember the last time I saw a character actually place stats such that they had a penalty to a combat relevant stat.)

[PhoenixPhyre]

In these sort of cases, there's always "roll under" mechanics. It always seemed intuitive to me that if "normal human" range for a given score is 3-18 (or 3d6), then a d20-roll-under is perfectly viable, giving virtually the exact same distribution of success as d20-add-mods where a score of 10-11 is a +0 and the target number (DC, AC, etc.) for your baseline is 10. You can even keep circumstantial modifiers virtually the same, just modifying your base score rather than the die roll.

i.e.
"Roll-Add-vs.TN"
Average score:10, Mod:+0
Average TN:10
55% success rate

"Roll-Under" (let's assume "equal to or under" is a success)
Average score:10
Average circumstantial mod: +0
50% success rate

The difference here, particularly if we're comparing to D&D of 3e or later, is that an ability score of 11 still gives a 55% success rate but in both systems, making the "roll-under" system slightly more granular but no less complex, perhaps even simpler because there's no "ability score modifier" to derive. You could literally change nothing else about the system, bar adding modifiers to the Ability Score rather than the die roll, whatever those other mods are (e.g. magic weapons, lighting, etc.) and it would be functionally identical (more or less).

If you wanted to delve into it a little more, a roll-under system can solve contested rolls much more intuitively (to my mind). By inherently incorporating a success/failure rate (i.e. rolling over your ability score is always a failure, allowing both parties not to succeed, vice versa and in-between), you have four potential outcomes to the contest rather than the two that a direct comparison of roll+mods offers:
1) Both parties Fail
2) Party A fails, Party B succeeds
3) Party A succeeds, Party B fails
4) Both parties succeed

In cases 1-3, the outcome is clear; either the contest is a wash (1) or one or other party beats the other (2-3). In the case of both parties succeeding (4), whoever rolls the highest wins the contest (allowing higher ceilings to potentially dominate a lower one), but allows for moderate success on the others part.

For example, in an archery contest, either party could miss, one could miss and the other hit or both can hit, but whoever rolls higher (with a clear advantage to the better archer if they're able to succeed with a higher die roll) gets the better "win". Where this is an advantage is when there are more than just two contestants, because just having the highest roll is not the deciding factor as much as it is when merely comparing scores.

e.g. In the classic example of a halfling vs. an ogre arm wrestling; the Ogre has huge modifiers, but rolls a 1 and then the puny Halfling comes along and rolls a 20, embarrassing the burly Ogre by winning the contest. In a Roll-highest-under-score system and assuming the two are in direct contest the Halfling will have a much more limited range of "success" to rely on and rolling over that range is an abject failure. If the Halflings Strength Score is only 10, no roll over that will allow him to beat the Ogre, whereas the Ogre, with a Strength of 24 (or whatever) will always roll a success and can only be beaten by the Halfling is A) the Halfling rolls under 10 and B) the Ogre rolls under the Halfling. Following on from this thought (sorry, pursuing a train of thought now; I haven't thought this through too much lately), super-human values (such as the Ogres 24 Strength) could even be incorporated further by adding any score in excess of 20 to the die roll after success is determined, which in our example would mean the Halfling not only has to roll under his own Strength of 10, but also has to roll at least 4 points higher than the Ogre to win i.e. the Ogre will always win on an unmodified roll of 7 or more, regardless of the Halflings roll. Borrowing from Infinity:Casus Belli, Critical success could occur by matching your ability score (i.e. if your score is 16, you crit on a 16; the highest possible result that is a success for you) and scores in excess of 20 could offer a range of crits by deducting the excess from 20 i.e. our Ogre would crit on a 16+ (20-4=16). In this context, critical hits for superhuman ability would be far more common, making fighting creatures that possess them that much more deadly, so crits could either be toned down or the increase in danger be embraced whole-hearted.

I dunno, just digging up some old thoughts again.

Yeah. If you rewrite how the system works, you can easily have "stats" in any range. I was more talking about doing a straight "use D&D 1d20 + mod >= TN" mechanics but making mods == ability score.

[KorvinStarmast]

You may as well ask why X number of dice? Our BitD game varies the number of dice we roll based on how many dots we have in an ability.

(FWIW, D&D wise, I like the B/X approach of 13-15 = +1, 16-17 = +2, and 18 = +3 better than the WotC number scheme and I think that they could have used that and fitted bounded accuracy into the edition just fine)

In our Mothership game, we do a Rull Under (your score, Plus your skil mod if you have it) on a percentile dice roll.

[JellyPooga]

That doesn't have as good a solution as the TN mechanic for varying task difficulty by anything other than who's doing it. When you get into combat, you also have questions of how attributes will influence your rolls. The old TSR method just gave arbitrary bonuses* when your stats fell into certain ranges. Which coincidentally encouraged demihumans to place stats so that their positive modifier boosted a stat that was high enough to matter for secondary modifiers, while having their negative modifier affect a stat that was middling enough that it didn't. 3e made a lot of changes in direct response to how 2e was played.

*(Or penalties, but I can't remember the last time I saw a character actually place stats such that they had a penalty to a combat relevant stat.)

The answer to that is to modify the Ability Score for difficulty i.e. rather than having a Target Number (in D&D's case a Difficulty Class) you have a Target Modifier (or Difficulty Modifier). The difference between them is negligible, but the point is that it takes out the step of deriving Ability Mod from Ability Score. Every other metric or modifier is either unchanged e.g. a +1 sword will still offer the same +1 and the same difference in chance, it's just being applied in a slightly different place. The same applies for any other modifier, whether it's static (e.g. proficiency bonus) or a die (e.g. Bardic Inspiration). As for how abilities influence rolls, they'll do it in the exact same way they already do; an attack with a longsword is a strength check whether you're rolling and adding your Strength mod or rolling under your Strength score, just as a spell attack is an intelligence based roll or intimidation is a charisma roll. The biggest difference is the diversity of outcome possibilities that result from the details involved in making "roll under" work (such as superhuman stats and critical hits, as I discussed previously).

[warty goblin]

If you did things properly from a statistical point of view, i.e. roll 3d6 , and have your modifier be based on intervals of 3 rather than 2 and properly center the range on 10.5 , (so e.g. 7 - 13 are modifier +0, 14 - 17 are + 1, and 18 is +2) then your modifier is approximately how many standard deviations away from the mean your attribute is. This basically treats 3d6 as an easy way to generate an approximate Z statistic for how different from the mean your character is, and then smooths out small differences between attributes, while also simplifying the arithmetic. Adding a single digit number to a double digit number is easy, most people pause a bit at adding two double digit numbers because you need to keep a partial sum in your working memory. Your modifiers are also "correctly rare" in a statistical sense, something that is completely lost in the modern point buy then get +2/+1 to some scores sort of approach where there just isn't any underlying population distribution at work at all. Even the mode generous 4d6b3 roll still has this underlying association, it's just saying PCs are on average slightly better than the population as a whole in every single attribute.

(I've also always found this approach makes racial score adjustments make a lot more sense. A dwarf getting +2 to strength is simply saying that the dwarf strength distribution is shifted slightly higher than the human, i.e. on average dwarves are stronger than humans. This only gets goofy when you don't generate your characters as a sample from a population, but as bespoke entities with no relation to any population whatsoever. If you roll stats, a human who rolls a 12 is weaker than a dwarf who rolls a twelve, because they're both slightly above average for their species, but dwarves are slightly stronger than humans. If you're playing the modern lab-grown character, there's no real reason for the dwarf to be stronger because there's no sense of what a population of dwarves is like, or how that relates to your specific genetically engineered PC.)

[False God]

Larger base bonuses work fine with the d20 IF you are assuming you character is intended to generally be successful at their job. The lower the bonus, the more likely they are to fail. If you intend for your martial types to almost always be able to hit things with weapons, and your caster types to almost always succeed on spells, then higher bonuses work better to accomplish that. They also emphasize weakness, since a +2 remains positive and useful, but not competitive with a +6 in the way that +1 is competitive with a +3. Similarly, they allow "normal folk NPCs" to be presented with positive scores, without making them seem like they're about to take on a PC.

You'd probably be able to best manage this system with a point-buy, rather than flat ASI increases. The incentive to max out scores is much lower and you can grow the cost much further with a smoother grade with +/-10 than +/-5.

[Anonymouswizard]

A bonus of 15 is as likely to hit a target number of 24 as a bonus of 7 is to hit a target number of 16. Stop assuming that a systematic increase in bonuses wouldn't be tied to a systematic increase in target numbers.

What actually matters is the difference between the standard target number and standard bonus. Several games I know assume characters begin with a +5 bonus in their most skilled areas and adjust the target number tables to that.

One game I know actually does get the maths wrong, because it's a 2d6 roll under system with optional rules for roll over set one point too high (2d6+stat, standard DC of 15 instead of 14).

[KorvinStarmast]

If you did things properly from a statistical point of view, i.e. roll 3d6 , and have your modifier be based on intervals of 3 rather than 2 and properly center the range on 10.5 , (so e.g. 7 - 13 are modifier +0, 14 - 17 are + 1, and 18 is +2) then your modifier is approximately how many standard deviations away from the mean your attribute is I think that Worlds Without Number does this.

. This basically treats 3d6 as an easy way to generate an approximate Z statistic for how different from the mean your character is, and then smooths out small differences between attributes, while also simplifying the arithmetic. Yep

Adding a single digit number to a double digit number is easy, most people pause a bit at adding two double digit numbers because you need to keep a partial sum in your working memory. Interesting point on mental math.


Even the mode generous 4d6b3 roll still has this underlying association, it's just saying PCs are on average slightly better than the population as a whole in every single attribute.
And I remember that being introduced in AD&D 1e.

If you're playing the modern lab-grown character, there's no real reason for the dwarf to be stronger because there's no sense of what a population of dwarves is like, or how that relates to your specific genetically engineered PC.) That got a chuckle out of me.

[Silly Name]

Derived values allow you to have 1 number acting like 2 for the purpose of using different resolutions mechanics. So 20 strength and +5 strength can be used depending on the given subsystem.
I do agree it is over used and falls apart in most non bounded systems. Makes a lot of sense If the Modifier range from -2 to 2 rather than a sizable portion of the original value.


I also feel that most systems where I encounter derived values don't really do anything with it.

Like, in D&D 5e, the only time your actual score comes into question is Strength for determining carry weight and jump distance and height. A couple monsters attack your scores directly and kill you if they bring a score down to 0, but, really, it's a very rare use case. 99% of the time, there's no real reason to track your score instead of your modifier.

[OldTrees1]

You're right that it doesn't directly work with how D&D does modifiers, but I've also played games where modifiers were literally 'stat-10'. I was more talking about where you plonk the center of the range, not adjusting range size (so D&D5e would run stats from 6 to 15 instead of stats from 3 to 20 and modifiers from -5 to +5), and could have been a lot more clear.

You're right (as expected). The center of the target number range can be adjusted to perfectly compensate for any adjustment to the center of the modifier range.

[KorvinStarmast]

I also feel that most systems where I encounter derived values don't really do anything with it.

Like, in D&D 5e, the only time your actual score comes into question is Strength for determining carry weight and jump distance and height. A couple monsters attack your scores directly and kill you if they bring a score down to 0, but, really, it's a very rare use case. 99% of the time, there's no real reason to track your score instead of your modifier. I find this line of thinking to be needlessly reductionist, and too much focus on numbers au outrance.

[stoutstien]

I find this line of thinking to be needlessly reductionist, and too much focus on numbers au outrance.

Is it though? I've lost count on the number of new players that are confused with the amount of effort spent on rolling up ability scores just to promptly forget about them.
"No. the modifier goes in the big box and the ability score goes in the small one because you don't need it until lv 15+."

From a design standpoint it's high effort and low return besides it just being legacy.

[warty goblin]

Is it though? I've lost count on the number of new players that are confused with the amount of effort spent on rolling up ability scores just to promptly forget about them.
"No. the modifier goes in the big box and the ability score goes in the small one because you don't need it until lv 15+."

From a design standpoint it's high effort and low return besides it just being legacy.

I think this is very true for systems where you use point buy. Yes technically the attribute->modifier mapping is many to one and not invertible, so there's an extra precision possible with Str scores that isn't with modifiers (str 10 and 11 characters have the same modifier but different carrying capacities, if you only use modifiers they have the same carrying capacity) but who cares?

Like, if the chargen chapter just went "all your stats start at zero, here's how much it costs to raise them to +x, here's how many points you get back for a -x, you have Y points" I don't think much would be lost. You'd need to change a bunch of rules about carrying capacity and jumping and so on, but the end result would be functionally the same.

For 5e in specific I guess the only problem would be half feats. Those would need to need buffed, or labeled as worth half an ASI so you get two, or something.

[Satinavian]

It all just seems unnecessarily complicated, which is what puzzles me; are game designers not thinking about the system they're implementing? Are they just copy/pasting from what's familiar without considering what it is they're copying? It doesn't make any sense to me.
Mostly it is tradition.

But it is also the consequences of two desires :

- Stats should be positive because negative numbers are ugly
- A completely average person should have no modifiers for any task, only the extraordinary get ability modifiers for anything.

now you won't necessarily think both of them are important.

[KorvinStarmast]

Is it though? I've lost count on the number of new players that are confused with the amount of effort spent on rolling up ability scores just to promptly forget about them.
"No. the modifier goes in the big box and the ability score goes in the small one because you don't need it until lv 15+."

From a design standpoint it's high effort and low return besides it just being legacy. Maybe it's me, but mental addition and subtraction aren't hard.

The point of the bell curved 4d6droplow, 3d6, or 2d6+x (or percentile dice) is to give a rough numerical model of how the make-believe person compares to the average person. This is still useful.

As to single digit numbers and addition.
Kids learn how to use dice in games like Monopoly and Parchese, if not sooner.
I think that you are constructing a mountain out of a molehill there.
I understand the complaint regarding how narrow the application of the d20 roll high system is in the first place. Way back when, using a "roll under" with a d20 for success was a way that ability checks were done mechanically. (AD&D 2e formalized this for non weapons proficiencies, but we'd been doing it for a long time before that). And the thief skill tables in Greyhawk.AD&D 1e were also roll under.
Roll under is an OK approach.

I am playing another "roll under" game (Mothership) and also another one (Star Trek RPG).
Nobody has an oversized mental load for that either.

Again, this stuff isn't hard.

[stoutstien]

Maybe it's me, but mental addition and subtraction aren't hard. The point of the bell curved 4d6droplow, 3d6, or 2d6+x is to give a rough numerical model of how the make believe person compares to the average person. Kids learn how to use dice in games like monopoly and Parchese, if not sooner. I think that you are constructing a mountain out of a molehill there. But a part of the problem is the narrow application of the d20 system in the first place. Way back when, using a "roll under" with a d20 for success was a way that ability checks were done mechanically. (AD&D 2e formalized this for non weapons proficiencies, but we'd been doing it for a long time before that. And the thief skill tables in Greyhawk.AD&D 1e were also roll under. Roll under is an OK approach.

I am playing another "roll under" game (Mothership) and also another one (Star Trek RPG) and Nobody has an oversized mental load for that either.

Again, this stuff isn't that hard.

I mean yes? In games where the mod and ability scores are used they are useful but are just baggage in systems that don't is basically the entire point.
The bell curve isn't useful in D20 systems because the die is the too heavy in terms of impact so you end up needing larger modifiers here and smaller one there which isn't something the curve can provide. It's not intuitive at all past the surface layer of "I only have one resolution mechanic" when in reality you have a ton of different ones that are slightly different so it's even more confusing then having completely different models.

A lot of modern D20 systems are even worse in that regard in that they don't weight the mods either so it's becomes a game of how much randomness can you chase out of the D20.

[JellyPooga]

Mostly it is tradition.

But it is also the consequences of two desires :

- Stats should be positive because negative numbers are ugly
- A completely average person should have no modifiers for any task, only the extraordinary get ability modifiers for anything.

now you won't necessarily think both of them are important.

I fail to see how either of those are compromised by either not using a derived modifier (just use higher TN's for roll-add) or by using a roll under mechanic (high stat is good by nature of being high and wanting to roll low). High stat is good under any of these systems and average joe has no extraordinary modifier or benefit whichever way. It's just a case of shifting goalposts/expectations to create a new "normal" instead of keeping the step of creating a derived modifier.

[warty goblin]

I fail to see how either of those are compromised by either not using a derived modifier (just use higher TN's for roll-add) or by using a roll under mechanic (high stat is good by nature of being high and wanting to roll low). High stat is good under any of these systems and average joe has no extraordinary modifier or benefit whichever way. It's just a case of shifting goalposts/expectations to create a new "normal" instead of keeping the step of creating a derived modifier.

There's a real virtue to keeping numbers small. Yes d20 + stat can be made more or less equivalent to d20 + modifier by changing the DCs, but if stats are centered at ten, then the default roll is going to be a sum of two two digit numbers 55% of the time. That's a lot slower for most people to compute than d20 + single digit roll, and as noted the outcome is the same. The only thing it gets you is stats having big numbers. The benefit of the modifier system is that it turns an easy to generate approximate normal distribution into small, easy to add numbers. If one is going to ditch stats and just use a single-stage attribute system, I'd just have everybody start at 0, with stats ranging from -5 to +5 being the sort of standard range, i.e. simply eliminate the current stats entirely and only use modifiers.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The benefit of the modifier system is that it turns an easy to generate approximate normal distribution into small, easy to add numbers. If one is going to ditch stats and just use a single-stage attribute system, I'd just have everybody start at 0, with stats ranging from -5 to +5 being the sort of standard range, i.e. simply eliminate the current stats entirely and only use modifiers.

Yeah. This is my plan. And it turns out you can get those normal distribution modifiers by just doing the same work up front and then discarding the bigger numbers entirely after calculating the modifier. And that's build time, not play time. All the same benefit, but the complexity is once, up front, not persistent.

[stoutstien]

Yeah. This is my plan. And it turns out you can get those normal distribution modifiers by just doing the same work up front and then discarding the bigger numbers entirely after calculating the modifier. And that's build time, not play time. All the same benefit, but the complexity is once, up front, not persistent.

Same. Went for -3 to +3 because I'm using a dice + stat +stat as the base formula. Stuff like skills and prof don't add direct value to the total so at most its adding 4 single digit numbers. Want to do a backflip off a roof onto the back of a moving horse? Finesse + presence +die roll. This we there is a huge array of possible combos but is also very quicky to decide what to use. Lot easier to map an action as a relationship between 2 groups than trying to make everything fit in the boxes.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Same. Went for -3 to +3 because I'm using a dice + stat +stat as the base formula. Stuff like skills and prof don't add direct value to the total so at most its adding 4 single digit numbers. Want to do a backflip off a roof onto the back of a moving horse? Finesse + presence +die roll. This we there is a huge array of possible combos but is also very quicky to decide what to use. Lot easier to map an action as a relationship between 2 groups than trying to make everything fit in the boxes.

I'm going with "if two or more proficiencies you have can apply (after checking with the DM), gain advantage on the check." But of course, the result has to match all the proficiencies you applied. So straight wisdom (insight) doesn't give you advantage, but gives you the broadest range of outcomes. But wisdom (insight + religion) might only give you info about how well a priest is fitting his ostensible religious beliefs. But you get advantage.

[stoutstien]

I'm going with "if two or more proficiencies you have can apply (after checking with the DM), gain advantage on the check." But of course, the result has to match all the proficiencies you applied. So straight wisdom (insight) doesn't give you advantage, but gives you the broadest range of outcomes. But wisdom (insight + religion) might only give you info about how well a priest is fitting his ostensible religious beliefs. But you get advantage.

Nice. That would definitely make knowledge investments more appropriate. I'm doing something similar but the second "skill " is based on background and also frames how the GM would give the information back. The scholar priest would know a thing or two about dragons but the worldly former soldier trader has more of an applied understanding of why you might want to avoid them.

Im a fan of anything that promotes makes fully fleshed out characters with a little variant in their background and foci.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Nice. That would definitely make knowledge investments more appropriate. I'm doing something similar but the second "skill " is based on background and also frames how the GM would give the information back. The scholar priest would know a thing or two about dragons but the worldly former soldier trader has more of an applied understanding of why you might want to avoid them.

Im a fan of anything that promotes makes fully fleshed out characters with a little variant in their background and foci.

I treat "this is a substantial part of your background" as reasons for auto-success or converting a binary (success/failure) into degrees of success, especially for information checks. The sailor wants to walk on a thin branch (much like the spar of a mast)? Probably just going to let them do that. The soldier wants to know about a mercenary badge (from an area close-ish to where he served)? Great, I just give him the info. The scholar looking at a mural might go degrees of success--he's guaranteed to get something, but the higher he gets, the more details he extracts. Etc.

I like when characters know about the world and I can just feed information through the appropriate character. I dislike "alien" characters (where "alien" might be "from very far away") because I can't just set a reasonable "any reasonable competent adult in <area> would know that..." baseline as easily.

[Luccan]

Modern D&D probably still uses it because it's D&D. Whether or not maintaining that identity is a good reason is a personal opinion.

The system itself exists originally because the modifiers applied to different tasks were usually different. So if you had a +1 to hit because of a high Strength score in pre-WotC D&D there was no guarantee you had any bonus to damage. And at a +3 to hit you might only have +1 to damage and a slightly larger % chance to force open doors. These are examples, I don't actually remember the break down. And I don't think bonuses even scaled evenly across stats, so like your bonuses for Int weren't comparable in any capacity to your bonuses for Str.

So the rolled number served to give you a specific spot on the table to look up while keeping characters relatively uniform (so you don't end up with no bonus to hit, but +5 damage or something). WotC simplified this system in 3e, so that you still rolled in a fairly traditional way, but you didn't need to look up a table every time you played because it was consistent across stats and your bonus to anything based on a stat was always one number. Additionally, at least up to 3.5, ability drain and ability damage were actually fairly common hazards, which meant that having the score itself be higher than the bonus mattered when you could take 1d6 or more ability damage and either die or go into a coma at 0

[stoutstien]

I treat "this is a substantial part of your background" as reasons for auto-success or converting a binary (success/failure) into degrees of success, especially for information checks. The sailor wants to walk on a thin branch (much like the spar of a mast)? Probably just going to let them do that. The soldier wants to know about a mercenary badge (from an area close-ish to where he served)? Great, I just give him the info. The scholar looking at a mural might go degrees of success--he's guaranteed to get something, but the higher he gets, the more details he extracts. Etc.

I like when characters know about the world and I can just feed information through the appropriate character. I dislike "alien" characters (where "alien" might be "from very far away") because I can't just set a reasonable "any reasonable competent adult in <area> would know that..." baseline as easily.

Im using a traveler's inspired mini game for character gen so there is a big possibility for them to have at least have a passing acquaintance with the area and each other. I'll write up a fast forward version but honestly i think rolling up stats is the least interesting part.

[KorvinStarmast]

And I don't think bonuses even scaled evenly across stats, so like your bonuses for Int weren't comparable in any capacity to your bonuses for Str. They did not in the original game, nor in AD&D (although it got closer in AD&D) but in B/X and BECMI, that consistency appeared.
18 was a +3, 16-17 was a +2, 13-15 was +1, 9-12 was +/- 0, 6-8 was -1, 4-5 -2, and3 was a -3. That was about 16 years before 3e, and I think that when they chose to unify the editions in 3e someone found that general consistency appealing. (And I still do).

WotC simplified this system in 3e, so that you still rolled in a fairly traditional way, but you didn't need to look up a table every time you played because it was consistent across stats and your bonus to anything based on a stat was always one number. Additionally, at least up to 3.5, ability drain and ability damage were actually fairly common hazards, which meant that having the score itself be higher than the bonus mattered when you could take 1d6 or more ability damage and either die or go into a coma at 0 We have STR reduction, and HP max reduction in a few cases in the current edition. I wonder if INT reduction ought to be introduced, to give the min maxers who dump INT a moment's pause. :smallbiggrin:

[Luccan]

We have STR reduction, and HP max reduction in a few cases in the current edition. I wonder if INT reduction ought to be introduced, to give the min maxers who dump INT a moment's pause. :smallbiggrin:

Indeed we do, but it's much more rare than in previous editions, I think. A lot of undead still have it, which is fitting, but not much outside that and unfortunately I don't find myself often fighting undead in 5e. I'll have a chance to deploy them when we restart my campaign, though

Also, reduction to other stats should definitely be more common. More that reduce Dex would be welcome, given its god stat nature in this game. Give Strength warriors a break for once!

[gbaji]

Yeah. I think it's mostly just for historical reasons. Modern D&D rarely actually uses the actual stat scores for anything (but there are still some things). Would be intreresting to just eliminate the stats (or just change them into the modifiers) and adjust the smalish things that directly affect stats to just directly affect the modifiers instead. I suppose the only lingering bit is that the stats are part of your actual person, and some things that drain stats may have effects beyond just lowering your ability modifiers (like say dying when a stat reaches zero, versus "your modifier just keeps going more negative).

That, or you normalize all modifiers to be bonuses, but then you have to make a bunch of other adjustments to target numbers too.

I have always found the modifiers to be strange, since they are all just directly about a single stat. In RQ, there are skill category bonuses, but they are almost all based on a combination of stats. So Agility takes into account dex, str, and siz, for example (and different stats may have different weight in each bonus). There's only one actual bonus that is based on just a single stat (knowledge bonus is basically just INT-10). This has the effect of making it a bit less advantageous to just focus on a single stat. Different stats will have different amounts of effects on just about everything you do. On the flip side, stat training is a thing, and not just something you get as you gain levels, so it's more common for older and more experienced characters to just have higher stats (and thus higher bonuses) across the board. Also, training up a stat may actually improve multiple category bonuses instead of just one.

But yeah. It does seem odd to have a stat and a modifier based entirely off just that stat.

[Anonymouswizard]

We have STR reduction, and HP max reduction in a few cases in the current edition. I wonder if INT reduction ought to be introduced, to give the min maxers who dump INT a moment's pause. :smallbiggrin:

Here's a wild idea: we remove the idea of 'finesse weapons' and make INT useful for something (initiative? Bonus tool/language proficiencies? I'm sure there's other options but they don't spring to mind). That should make it a fair bit harder to treat STR and INT as dump stats, which mostly leaves CHA (I'd add in 'scrounge up a relevant contact' rolls into the game and run them off of CHA). But honestly the first thing my 5e hack did was cut the stats down to four (Physique, Grace, Wisdom*, and Presence), which to me seems to improve the balance somewhat.

I'm heavily considering gutting 'ability scores' like everybody else and going with modifiers from -2 to +5 (maybe +7 for some classes). But that's because I've reworked the only player-facing rule that actually used them, and I'll likely keep some kind of random score generation table.

* Actually closer to D&D INT than WIS, but it's a better name and does keep the non-willpower aspects.

[Witty Username]

It makes more sense in 3/.5 where there are things that use one or the other. 5e and other systems don't use ability damage much though, so it feels redundant.

I think it was an angry DM article, but it was a rant about how systems copy d&d without any understanding of context in either direction.

[KorvinStarmast]

Same. Went for -3 to +3 because I'm using a dice + stat +stat as the base formula. Stuff like skills and prof don't add direct value to the total so at most its adding 4 single digit numbers. Want to do a backflip off a roof onto the back of a moving horse? Finesse + presence +die roll. This we there is a huge array of possible combos but is also very quicky to decide what to use. Lot easier to map an action as a relationship between 2 groups than trying to make everything fit in the boxes. Star Trek RPG does something like that.

[stoutstien]

Star Trek RPG does something like that.

That is a nice little game really. Not a huge fan of narrative games but it does pull it off. Not a fan of 2D20 or meta points but thats a personal taste thing.

[Zombimode]

Like, I get that it's what D&D did so clones and copies are bound to arise, but why is it so ubiquitous?

But is it actually ubiquitous?

I can honestly not think of any game that does is besides D&D derivatives.

Fate doesn't do it. PbtA doesn't do it. World of Darkness doesn't do it. Savage World doesn't do it. 2d20 (Conan, Star Trek Adventures) doesn't do it. The Free League games (Mutant: Year Zero, Forbidden Lands, Coriolis, Alien etc.) don't do it. d100 (Chutullu et. al.) doesn't do it. GURPS doesn't do it. DSA doesn't do it.

[Anonymouswizard]

But is it actually ubiquitous?

I can honestly not think of any game that does is besides D&D derivatives.

Considering the absolute dominance D&D has over the industry I'm fairly comfortable calling any mechanic used in it ubiquitous. Although I believe even it's derivatives are moving away from this practice.

(Also Mongoose Traveller uses ability modifiers.)

[Zombimode]

Although I believe even it's derivatives are moving away from this practice.

True, I've seen this in Pirate Borg: you do roll your abilities with 3d6 but you don't write down this result, only the actual modifier. So your Strength is not 16 - its 2.

[stoutstien]

True, I've seen this in Pirate Borg: you do roll your abilities with 3d6 but you don't write down this result, only the actual modifier. So your Strength is not 16 - its 2.

Quite a few OSR adjacent systems do it this way. It's clean and simple but it does mean you can't just port them to OSR material/modules.

[Anonymouswizard]

True, I've seen this in Pirate Borg: you do roll your abilities with 3d6 but you don't write down this result, only the actual modifier. So your Strength is not 16 - its 2.

So do the various AGE games, although they set the average at one rather than zero (Modern AGE is one of my preferred D&D alikes). You just end up having a stat generation table rather than a stat modifiers table.

I believe Pathfinder 2.1 is also moving to just having modifiers, and I think it lands soon.

[lesser_minion]

I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that the 3e designers started with something 'neater', found that it didn't work with their goals, and had to patch it into something that did. 3rd edition borrows much of its basic 'chassis' from Ars Magica, which I think at the time was already using -5 to +5 with a score of zero as the human average in a stat. For a D&D game though, a 3 - 18 range is more familiar to its target audience.

If I had to guess what happened, they started with a +10 to -10 system (to fit the change from d10 to d20), changed it to a 3 to 18 system to make it more familiar to existing D&D players, and then decided either that numbers in general were too high as a result, or that ability scores were being emphasised too much. Possibly even both.

[Bohandas]

The problem I have with the ability score modifiers is the unnecessarikt complicated way they did it. They could have just bumped up all the DCs by 5 had had the modifier simply be your ability score divided by 2, but instead they did this weird thing where you have to subtract ten first and sometimes the numbers are negative, and then you have to round to the nearest whole number even though multiclassing and stuff would work better if we tracked fractional modifiers but that's a whole different kettle of fish

[NichG]

The offset by 10 doesn't bother me, but I really dislike the divide by 2.

Like, 10 offsets make sense on a d20 system since that's the average result of a roll, so if your modifier was just stat minus 10, that would mean that your stat value equals the average result of a raw stat check (well, within 0.5). That would actually be pretty legible - someone with a Str 15 has a 50/50 shot at a DC 15 check, etc.

[Zuras]

They did not in the original game, nor in AD&D (although it got closer in AD&D) but in B/X and BECMI, that consistency appeared.
18 was a +3, 16-17 was a +2, 13-15 was +1, 9-12 was +/- 0, 6-8 was -1, 4-5 -2, and3 was a -3. That was about 16 years before 3e, and I think that when they chose to unify the editions in 3e someone found that general consistency appealing. (And I still do).
We have STR reduction, and HP max reduction in a few cases in the current edition. I wonder if INT reduction ought to be introduced, to give the min maxers who dump INT a moment's pause. :smallbiggrin:

There are a few monsters that hit other stats in 5e. Some demons reduce CHA, and I’ve seen some creatures that reduce DEX, with you turning into stone if you hit 0, but that may have been something custom for an adventure, not an official monster.

There are quite a few OSR games that deal stat damage after you plow through your HP (so your HP are effectively how much damage you can take before going into a death spiral of reduced effectiveness). Neoclassical Geek Revival does this across the board, for example.

[RandomPeasant]

The problem I have with the ability score modifiers is the unnecessarikt complicated way they did it. They could have just bumped up all the DCs by 5 had had the modifier simply be your ability score divided by 2, but instead they did this weird thing where you have to subtract ten first and sometimes the numbers are negative, and then you have to round to the nearest whole number even though multiclassing and stuff would work better if we tracked fractional modifiers but that's a whole different kettle of fish

The negative thing is the real issue. A range of +0 to +10 is mathematically the same as a range of -5 to +5, so there's no mechanical reason you need the penalties. And having them makes anything that lets you add a stat bonus you don't normally (or stops you from adding one you normally do) more complicated, because now you have to deal with negative modifiers that flip whether adding your stat is desirable or not.

Also tracking fractional modifiers sounds like a huge pain in the ass. Dice produce whole numbers, stuff that interacts with dice should be done in whole numbers.


The offset by 10 doesn't bother me, but I really dislike the divide by 2.

Having a separate stat and bonus can be useful (e.g. carrying capacity in 3e is keyed off your your STR score, not your bonus) because it gives you more granularity. It also makes ability damage or ability score penalties less punishing. The problem is that there are a lot of cases where it's not particularly useful. It's hard for me to figure out even a hypothetical case where I could slice Intelligence or Constitution narrowly enough that I'd want the extra granularity.

[NichG]

Having a separate stat and bonus can be useful (e.g. carrying capacity in 3e is keyed off your your STR score, not your bonus) because it gives you more granularity. It also makes ability damage or ability score penalties less punishing. The problem is that there are a lot of cases where it's not particularly useful. It's hard for me to figure out even a hypothetical case where I could slice Intelligence or Constitution narrowly enough that I'd want the extra granularity.

I think ability damage/drain would be improved compared to 3e if all of the 1d4 sources were replaced with 1d2 or just 1 point, 1d6 with 2 points, etc; and each point of damage was a -1 to associated checks, but you didn't die until zero (so effectively you have twice the buffer before ability damage becomes lethal). And rather than having size categories modify ability scores directly, have everything they do be in the form of size penalties or size bonuses to AC/attack/etc. That would make things like Shivering Ray less dominant against big creatures as a direct kill strategy, while still allowing it to be quite a potent debuff. Carrying capacity doesn't really need the granularity I think.

Having chargen stats be responsible for a -4 to +8 range on dice rolls is a bit more extreme though. I'm curious about it, but it'd probably even more encourage hyper-specialization. That's one of those 'I want to figure out how to make this work' rather than 'this seems like a good idea' things. Seems closer to functional with the skill system (you could just allow investing up to 6 points in a skill at chargen rather than 4, give classes more skill points in general to soften the impact of points from Int, and its probably okay) than it is with to-hit/AC/saves/DCs of spells. I suppose you could do something where Str/Dex only modify damage rolls and never to-hit rolls, keep effectively the same Max Dex armors currently have, and have to-hit only get modified by BAB, enchanted weapons, and buffs.

[Zalam]

Having a number and a derived number makes a difference in presentation and visual impact.


Having Strength 18 vs. Strength 10 seems bigger than Strength +4 vs. Strength +0.


D&D uses that a little, but (for example) Champions uses that more: a super-strong PC might have Strength 50, which I think seems significantly more impressive than Strength +8 (ordinary human is strength 8-10). (but it uses a 3d6 system, so +8 is actually a pretty big modifier)

(and, to be clear, Strength 50 is enough to pick up an elephant, this is supposed to be an impressive number)


Further in said system, Strength 50 is 50 points worth of Strength; if you want 10 more, you spend 10 more points on Strength.



One could also make it a +50 modifier to checks, but that would basically require going from a 3d6 system to either 3d6*5 (super-mathy) or abandoning the bell curve and rolling d-percentiles, to get to the same end point.


(I feel this example is worth pointing out because it shows this kind of model isn't just a D&D thing, and because the extreme case shows some of the effects you can get)

[gatorized]

Roll N dice, N = your rank in the related trait.
Each die showing X or higher is a success.
Target number is either an opposed roll or threshold set by GM.

[Vahnavoi]

"Why modifiers?" depends on what those modifiers are used for and how they work.

D&D had been talked to death, so let me talk about Praedor instead. Like D&D, Praedor had six abilities with 3 to 18 range. It is a roll under system, where starting value of any skill is half of an ability's value. There are also some derived values and modifiers for carrying capacity, blood points, deep wound threshold, damage and other parts of the system that do not roll by rolling under. For example, damage is just an added value that goes up and is substracted from blood points; blood points are a resource that goes up and down; damage is compared to deep wound threshold and results over that value cause deep wounds; carrying capacity is in real weight units and so needs a multiplier to derive from ability. These additional parts do not neatly reduce to the base roll under system and removing the loses functionality.

[Bohandas]

Also tracking fractional modifiers sounds like a huge pain in the ass. Dice produce whole numbers, stuff that interacts with dice should be done in whole numbers.

Or maybe not actually using fractional modifiers then, but changing where things get rounded. As written everything gets rounded down at least twice, possibly much more if the character is multiclass (the base bonuses and the stat bonuses all get seperately rounded) but I think they should be added together first and then rounded once at the end so that you don't get multiclass characters with weird stats

[RandomPeasant]

Or maybe not actually using fractional modifiers then, but changing where things get rounded. As written everything gets rounded down at least twice, possibly much more if the character is multiclass (the base bonuses and the stat bonuses all get seperately rounded) but I think they should be added together first and then rounded once at the end so that you don't get multiclass characters with weird stats

I think the game should probably just not do open multi-classing, on account of that producing a whole bevvy of balance issues, beyond just "numbers can get weird".

[gatorized]

I think the game should probably just not do open multi-classing, on account of that producing a whole bevvy of balance issues, beyond just "numbers can get weird".

None of those balance issues come anywhere near to the balance issues of single classed wizards, druids, or clerics.

[RandomPeasant]

None of those balance issues come anywhere near to the balance issues of single classed wizards, druids, or clerics.

The only real class-level issue with the full casters is that the Druid and the Cleric learning all the spells from their class automatically is stupid. The majority of the problems are with the spells, not the classes. planar binding is exactly as broken whether you are getting it as a Wizard, a Sorcerer, or a Dread Necromancer. In fact, it would be colossally more broken if it worked like a Fighter's feats and taking it meant you could just use it as much as you wanted.

Conversely, Rogue 3/Wizard 3/Cleric 3/Druid 3 is almost unplayable in a 12th level adventure, which is massively more of an issue than the vast majority of Wizards, who are simply going to cast combat spells like acid fog or flesh to stone that are entirely unobjectionable from a power-level perspective. And, worse, it's much less clear how you're going to fix it, because here the problem actually is with trying to stitch together four 3rd level characters into a 12th level character, not simply specific abilities (and it gets even worse if you start letting classes have unique mechanics for their powers).

[Psyren]

Derived values allow you to have 1 number acting like 2 for the purpose of using different resolutions mechanics. So 20 strength and +5 strength can be used depending on the given subsystem.

This. Strength is a good example (score for carrying capacity, modifier for tests) and Score can also be used for certain features e.g. Indomitable Might. It also allows for rolled stats, which are let's face it still pretty popular.

[gbaji]

Well, and I'm not sure if someone else has mentioned this, but it also allows for a different cost buy in granularity for the bonuses. Most of the time, there is a calculation or table with cut offs for various bonus/modifiers based on the "true" value of the stat. This creates changes in "cost" to build up those modifiers. And yeah, along the way can create min/max points too.

Champions had direct stats, but there were various things that were based on (stat/3) or (stat/5), in the game (so basically calculated bonuses). But the game system has a "round up" feature to it (50% or higher in the range rounded to the next value). So this created certain numbers that were numerically useful to hit (which for a point buy system kinda worked). So a 23 in a stat was a great number to hit, because you got the round up to 24 for stat/3, and the round up to 25 for stat/5. 28 was good for one (stat/5), but not another (stat/3 actually rounded down to 27). 38 was the next "rounds up to both" number in the sequence.

Obviously, if you eliminate the stat entirely, that works fine. But if you are starting with the stat, but then calculating the bonus and using it from that point on, you run into other oddities where the initial values and round-up/downs get lost, and now folks are spending the same exp/points/whatever improving just the modifiers instead. There is some value to having characterA needing to buy 2 points of a stat to get to the next increase in bonus, while characterB only needs one. It can affect player choices in terms of character development over time. I'm not sure if that's worth it overall, but it is a point for keeping the original statistic value around, I suppose.

[Crake]

Modifiers are a great way to have an absolute and objective value assigned to an ability score (ie 0 means you have none, 10 means you have average) while still having the “average” have not adjustment to dice rolls. If you dont use modifiers, then ability scores either will need to go into negatives to reflect lower than average (at which point you lose reference to what 0 in an ability score means), or an average bonus to your roll will need to be greater than 0.

That being said, you could achieve this by halving ability scores as a baseline, and having your dice roll modifier be your ability score -5, but thats still having a modifier thats different from your score I guess

[Witty Username]

[1] assuming scores are in the range [1, 20] like 5e. If the scores can be higher, the situation gets even worse.

Well, 3-20 or 8-20, depending on generation method.
--
One advantage of scores is as a buffer. Prior to 5e there was a thing called ability damage (shadows still do it, sure, but it being rare in 5e is an understatement), this meant your score could change but more importantly that wouldn't translate to modifier as much or as quickly. Something like a d4 or d6 reduction to a modifer hurts alot, especially over time.
It also goes in the other direction, say in 5e, you get +2 to scores periodically, this only translates to a plus 1 modifier at most, and odd numbers actively encourage spliting focus from a primary score.

In 5e it is mostly vestigial, as there are almost no effects that use ability scores. But that doesn't mean a system can't use it for value.


We have STR reduction, and HP max reduction in a few cases in the current edition. I wonder if INT reduction ought to be introduced, to give the min maxers who dump INT a moment's pause. :smallbiggrin:

I really miss ability damage in general, ray of stupidity may have been a poor idea because of how many animals had 2 int back int the day. But alternative win conditions by dropping a score to 0, undead being legit terrifying, reasons to use poisons and care about desease.
And then the variants of drain and burn for additional nuance.
There was alot of good fun game design in there that got cut because... I don't actually know, it wasn't that complicated, I guess people hate setbacks.

[WilliamJoel333]

Ability scores of some kind exist in most TTRPGs. When the primary dice to resolve encounters is a d20, things can become so swingy, that skill and attribute modifiers become necessary to show the differences between PCs.

In games that rely on d12, d10, d8, or d6, however, I'm not really sure of the purpose. If it ain't broke don't fix it?

[Jay R]

It's still there because it works well. There is no problem caused by having that number on my character sheet. None.

A. 10 has meant an average score, and 18 an elite score, since the 1970s. This is probably the real reason. For those of us still playing, keeping that general approach has value.

B. Any trivial arithmetic done before the game starts is not "unnecessarily complicated".

C. In 3.5 at least, that isn't the only use for it. For one thing, a CON of 17 has (slightly) more value than a CON of 16, since if you lose 1 point of CON, it doesn't affect your hit points. For another thing, some Tomes increase the ability score by 1, 3, or 5.

D. At 4th, 8th, or later levels, when you can increase an ability by 1, there's a tactical decision to make: do you increase your most important one from 18 to 19, and wait four more levels to get a benefit to your modifier, or increase another one from 13 to 14 and get an improved modifier immediately?

E. The number you want on the character sheet is on there. No problem. But perhaps it's all right to also have the other number that I want there.

[gatorized]

It's still there because it works well. There is no problem caused by having that number on my character sheet. None.

A. 10 has meant an average score, and 18 an elite score, since the 1970s. This is probably the real reason. For those of us still playing, keeping that general approach has value.

B. Any trivial arithmetic done before the game starts is not "unnecessarily complicated".

C. In 3.5 at least, that isn't the only use for it. For one thing, a CON of 17 has (slightly) more value than a CON of 16, since if you lose 1 point of CON, it doesn't affect your hit points. For another thing, some Tomes increase the ability score by 1, 3, or 5.

D. At 4th, 8th, or later levels, when you can increase an ability by 1, there's a tactical decision to make: do you increase your most important one from 18 to 19, and wait four more levels to get a benefit to your modifier, or increase another one from 13 to 14 and get an improved modifier immediately?

E. The number you want on the character sheet is on there. No problem. But perhaps it's all right to also have the other number that I want there.

Why do you want it there?

[Anonymouswizard]

Honestly I mostly see non-D&D based games using modifiers to make judging scale easier (particularly games which use linear scales). On the other hand I've noticed a trend of games clearly based on D&D dropping them as part of trying to establish their system as it's own thing (which both M&M and Pathfinder 2e have done).

Some games also try to hide the fact they use modifiers, the only one I can think of without checking is about half the d00lite lines (where modifiers are Attribute/2).

There's also the case of some d% games wanting to use '10 is average' stats but wanting to let you roll against them. The end result is that 'stat*X' basically becomes a defined value in the system, at which point you've basically created an AD&D style stat/modifiers split coming from the other direction.

[Jay R]

Why do you want it there?

A. That doesn't matter. The fact that I want it there is the reason to include it, whether anybody else approves of my reasons or not. Whether I can explain my reasons or not. Whether I even really know my reasons or not.

B. Because it communicates. I already think in D&D terms, and an INT 10 already means an average intelligence to me. It has meant that to me for 48 years.

C. Because it's a linear scale in which the the value of zero has real meaning. Therefore the proper level of measurement is a ratio scale, not merely an interval scale (using the jargon of statistics).

For instance, if a character with CON 10 loses 5 CON (in 3.5e), then he's lost half of his constitution. If he loses the same amount again, he's dead. That is clear from using the actual number. But it isn't clear that a person who has gone from Con +0 to Con -3 is in the same situation.

D. Because it makes intuitive sense. In original D&D, being unarmored was AC 9, and wearing full plate with a shield was AC 2. That made no sense. Eventually they changed it so that wearing more armor gave a higher AC, not a lower one. That was the intuitive approach, and I want an intuitive approach to ability scores as well.

E. Continuity.

I want "daytime" to continue to mean when the sun is up.

I want 5'7" or 1.7 meters to continue to mean my height. Even if somebody translates height to some other scale for a particular purpose, I want the translation into what I understand to be included.

I want an IQ of 100 to continue to mean average intelligence. Even if a paper describes intelligence in standard deviations from the mean for some reason, I want the translation back into IQ included, to improve my comprehension.

And for the same reasons, I want intelligence shown on a character sheet such that INT 10 means "average intelligence" -- just like it has meant for nearly half a century.

[VampiricLongbow]

Outside of ability score generation and ability score damage, the ability score's value is absolutely meaningless. I am thoroughly convinced D&D would have removed this aspect of the game if the grognards were not nostalgic for it (and I believe the same for the fact that we are stuck with 20 levels, even though the vast majority of campaigns end before level 10 but that is neither here nor there).

[Jay R]

Outside of ability score generation and ability score damage, the ability score's value is absolutely meaningless.

Note that this is identical to saying that it is meaningful, and it is used.


I am thoroughly convinced D&D would have removed this aspect of the game if the grognards were not nostalgic for it ...

Note that this is identical to saying that lots of people want it. There is no other serious reason to include anything in a product.

They want to sell games to you. But they also want to sell games to me.

[JNAProductions]

(1) Note that this is identical to saying that it is meaningful, and it is used.

(2) Note that this is identical to saying that lots of people want it. There is no other serious reason to include anything in a product.

They want to sell games to you. But they also want to sell games to me.

1: In 5E, at least, there's... Two? I think two monsters that can directly affect your ability scores. That part is basically vestigial.

2: That's fair. They want it to sell, so they tailor towards the audience that'll buy.

[lesser_minion]

Note that this is identical to saying that it is meaningful, and it is used.

Note that this is identical to saying that lots of people want it. There is no other serious reason to include anything in a product.

They want to sell games to you. But they also want to sell games to me.

You're arguing for the idea that there's at least some value to the system (and some cost to fixing it), which I don't think anyone's really disputing.

The question is whether or not that value is enough to make it worth preserving.

That said, I think you're probably right that it's not worth 'fixing'. Over-emphasising 'elegance' isn't really a good approach to game design.

[gatorized]

A. That doesn't matter. The fact that I want it there is the reason to include it, whether anybody else approves of my reasons or not. Whether I can explain my reasons or not. Whether I even really know my reasons or not.

B. Because it communicates. I already think in D&D terms, and an INT 10 already means an average intelligence to me. It has meant that to me for 48 years.

C. Because it's a linear scale in which the the value of zero has real meaning. Therefore the proper level of measurement is a ratio scale, not merely an interval scale (using the jargon of statistics).

For instance, if a character with CON 10 loses 5 CON (in 3.5e), then he's lost half of his constitution. If he loses the same amount again, he's dead. That is clear from using the actual number. But it isn't clear that a person who has gone from Con +0 to Con -3 is in the same situation.

D. Because it makes intuitive sense. In original D&D, being unarmored was AC 9, and wearing full plate with a shield was AC 2. That made no sense. Eventually they changed it so that wearing more armor gave a higher AC, not a lower one. That was the intuitive approach, and I want an intuitive approach to ability scores as well.

E. Continuity.

I want "daytime" to continue to mean when the sun is up.

I want 5'7" or 1.7 meters to continue to mean my height. Even if somebody translates height to some other scale for a particular purpose, I want the translation into what I understand to be included.

I want an IQ of 100 to continue to mean average intelligence. Even if a paper describes intelligence in standard deviations from the mean for some reason, I want the translation back into IQ included, to improve my comprehension.

And for the same reasons, I want intelligence shown on a character sheet such that INT 10 means "average intelligence" -- just like it has meant for nearly half a century.

Of course it matters. If it doesn't improve the game, it shouldn't be included, regardless of what anyone wants. When you give a man a choice, he usually chooses wrong.

[Kish]

Of course it matters. If it doesn't improve the game, it shouldn't be included, regardless of what anyone wants. When you give a man a choice, he usually chooses wrong.
That's quite the philosophy.

The ideal game: one no one wants to play. (Or only women do, I guess!)

[The Insanity]

When something is done a certain way for a long time then there needs to be a good reason for changing it. Having to do very simple math isn't a good reason to me.

[JellyPooga]

That's quite the philosophy.

The ideal game: one no one wants to play. (Or only women do, I guess!)

Giving punters the choice to go and pet the tigers at the zoo isn't improving anyones visit, even if some kid put it on a "customer suggestion" card. It's a relatively accepted rule that people don't make good choices and it's by no means a given that "because it's always been done that way" is neccesarily anything approaching a good reason.

Yes, marketing is a valid reason, but what Joe from accounting thinks is a good idea is not neccesarily what's best for the game from a design or player point of view.

And for what it's worth, I do think that elegance of game design is one of the highest ideals of game design and worthy of pursuit over many, if not most or even all other aspects. Far higher than marketability, at least for those playing the game. Popular does not equal good and an elegant game, even if it only reaches as far as one persons game group, is by definition easier and/or more enjoyable to play.
By way of analogy, I doubt anyone would argue that furniture that has been hand-crafted by a master carpenter is worse than that which they could obtain from a certain popular Swedish multi-national brand. Yes, the latter is accessible to more people, but that doesn't make it better except to the ones putting money in their pockets.

[Jay R]

Of course it matters. If it doesn't improve the game, it shouldn't be included, regardless of what anyone wants. When you give a man a choice, he usually chooses wrong.

Even if my choice is "wrong", WotC wants my money, so they want both you and me to buy their games.

Note also that in this statement, "wrong" merely means "doesn't agree with gatorized".

Yes, I disagree with you. That does not make my opinion "wrong".

In any event, it does improve the game. For me, and for others who want an intuitive simulation. You ignored most of my five points in its favor, replying only to the introductory sentence of the first one, and didn't even actually address the point it introduced.

But let's skip that one, since it's about my preferences, which you have made clear are "wrong".

Here's the most important point I made, which neither you nor anybody else has replied to, or even acknowledged:


C. Because it's a linear scale in which the the value of zero has real meaning. Therefore the proper level of measurement is a ratio scale, not merely an interval scale (using the jargon of statistics).

For instance, if a character with CON 10 loses 5 CON (in 3.5e), then he's lost half of his constitution. If he loses the same amount again, he's dead. That is clear from using the actual number. But it isn't clear that a person who has gone from Con +0 to Con -3 is in the same situation.

Using a ratio scale, in which 0 CON represents a loss of all constitution, and 0 INT represents loss of intelligence, is the best representation of a simulation in which 0 CON represents death and 0 INT represents the inability to think at all. Having +0 CON and +0 INT represent an average constitution and intelligence may make trivial arithmetic trivially easier, but it doesn't communicate as well. And since both are included on the character sheet, it doesn't even improve the trivial arithmetic. The tool for that purpose is right there.

In short, the ratio scale of measurement makes it a better simulation. It improves the game for me.

Now, you may disagree with the importance of using correct levels of measurement in a simulation. You may not even care. But even so, you have given no reason why having the ability score on the sheet is bad for the game.

It improves the game (for me, and for others), by having an intuitive simulation. It doesn't detract from the game, as long as the modifier is also listed.

And finally, if it doesn't improve the game, and doesn't hurt the game, and more people will buy it that way, then yes, it should be included. Enticing cover art doesn't improve the game, either. It increases the number of people who will buy it. WotC wants my money just as much as yours.

Even if my reasons are "wrong" ("different from gatorized").

[Kish]

Giving punters the choice to go and pet the tigers at the zoo isn't improving anyones visit, even if some kid put it on a "customer suggestion" card. It's a relatively accepted rule that people don't make good choices and it's by no means a given that "because it's always been done that way" is neccesarily anything approaching a good reason.

Yes, marketing is a valid reason, but what Joe from accounting thinks is a good idea is not neccesarily what's best for the game from a design or player point of view.
That's a strawman, and I didn't say anything about marketing.

gatorized made an extremely sweeping statement; you're now trying to put it in less easily refutable terms. The thing is, though? You and gatorized are both yourselves people, whose phrasing oddly suggests you're not aware of this. That you don't like ability scores is not a reason they should not be there. If you make a perfectly steamlined game which you consider to be artistic perfection, and consider it a meaningless detail that no mere people want to play it, you've done more than make an unmarketable game--you've made a bad game.

[JellyPooga]

That's a strawman, and I didn't say anything about marketing.That I directly quoted you does not mean I am responding solely to you, nor that any of my response is necessarily in direct reference to anything you've said. I see no strawmen here.


gatorized made an extremely sweeping statement; you're now trying to put it in less easily refutable terms. The thing is, though? You and gatorized are both yourselves people, whose phrasing oddly suggests you're not aware of this.What?
That you don't like ability scoresWho's strawman is this? I didn't say that.
is not a reason they should not be there.It absolutely can be.
If you make a perfectly steamlined game which you consider to be artistic perfection, and consider it a meaningless detail that no mere people want to play it, you've done more than make an unmarketable game--you've made a bad game.Elegance is a matter of opinion, but something that is elegant is, again, by it's nature quite marketable because it has intrinsic value. Whether it is actually marketed or not is another matter and the reverse is not also true; many things that are marketable can be and are absolute garbage.

[Pex]

Why not modifiers?

It comes down to you liking strawberry ice cream while I prefer chocolate. The various game mechanics across the game systems differ for whatever reasons. No one system is better than the others; it's just your personal taste. 2E's THAC0 system worked well enough. 3E chose d20 rolling high is always better to be easier to think about. There's a Star Wars game where you roll non-numbered dice and roll a number of dice based on mark-off of skill which I found to be an interesting mechanic. Personal anecdote I won't play the game anymore because its Force Die rules is a game breaker for me, but the general dice resolution mechanic has an aesthetic appeal to me. Surely players of the game love the Force Die rules.

There is appeal to using a different mechanic for the sake of being different, but just because a mechanic is old and traditional is not itself a reason to get rid of it from everywhere. If it Honest True doesn't work get rid of it (hello 3E Truenamer), but if it works fine being old is not an excuse to dismiss it.

[lesser_minion]

Using a ratio scale, in which 0 CON represents a loss of all constitution, and 0 INT represents loss of intelligence, is the best representation of a simulation in which 0 CON represents death and 0 INT represents the inability to think at all. Having +0 CON and +0 INT represent an average constitution and intelligence may make trivial arithmetic trivially easier, but it doesn't communicate as well. And since both are included on the character sheet, it doesn't even improve the trivial arithmetic. The tool for that purpose is right there.

I'm not sure I can agree with this. A strength of 1 seems a lot stronger than a lot of things that might end up being worthy of stats in a fantasy TTRPG, so I'd prefer not to have an arbitrary floor. The floor also causes problems as you get closer to it -- in 3e, an ostensibly normal house cat can potentially move up to 50kg single-handedly, for example.

[warty goblin]

I'm not sure I can agree with this. A strength of 1 seems a lot stronger than a lot of things that might end up being worthy of stats in a fantasy TTRPG, so I'd prefer not to have an arbitrary floor. The floor also causes problems as you get closer to it -- in 3e, an ostensibly normal house cat can potentially move up to 50kg single-handedly, for example.

This isn't really so much an inherent issue with a score - modifier system as it is a design choice combined with the rules not really caring about the carrying capacity of cats.

The specific design choice is to systematically understate the tremendous effects of size on physical power. This is pretty much necessary in a game where you expect people to run up to 40ft tall monsters, whack them with a sword, and not instantly be stomped into goo. You simply can't have a Large creature be as overwhelmingly powerful vs a medium as it should be, and because for simplicity the game uses linear math this ripples down into Small and Tiny things not getting bodied by Medium things.

You'd get exactly the same sorts of problems in a game that didn't track an underlying attribute, and only used the modifier. Sure you could give the cat like a -5 Str, but then it can't do things cats are actually good at like climb trees or catch mice, unless you give the mice an AC of like 3, and if you've ever tried to grab a mouse that can move, that's definitely not right.

[Jay R]

I'm not sure I can agree with this. A strength of 1 seems a lot stronger than a lot of things that might end up being worthy of stats in a fantasy TTRPG, so I'd prefer not to have an arbitrary floor. The floor also causes problems as you get closer to it -- in 3e, an ostensibly normal house cat can potentially move up to 50kg single-handedly, for example.

Side issue:

Yes, STR is not a linear scale, in 3.5e at least. High STR scores give a carrying capacity that is exponential. That’s why I didn’t use it as an example of a linear scale.

On the lowest levels, though, it is a linear scale. From STR 0 to STR 10, the highest carrying capacity is simply STR * 10 lbs, and the zero point is clearly a zero point.

The problem this causes for a cat’s carrying capacity does not come from putting the raw ability score on the character sheet. It comes from using a stepwise function to approximate a continuous one. Yes, there are an infinite number of values of STR between what we represent as STR 0 and what we represent as STR 3.

You appear to want to discuss whether to change STR to an exponential function at the lowest levels. I certainly agree that an exponential function is not linear, and has no meaningful zero point.

Discussing changing to an exponential scale on the low levels might be a fruitful discussion. I don’t see the need, because has never even come up. In 48 years of role-playing, I’ve never had a session turn on a question about a cat’s carrying capacity.

But if you want to discuss a different model for low levels of STR, so we can accurately measure the difference between a cat’s carrying capacity and a mouse’s, feel free to start such a thread.

Meanwhile, back to the main issue:

The question in front of us is whether to include a raw ability score along with the modifier on the character sheet, or to list just the modifier. The inaccuracy of a cat’s STR score has no bearing on that issue. [Yes, changing to an exponential scale would have bearing.]

Let me make my case as bluntly as possible.

Opinion 1: The character sheet should serve your needs and wants, whether I share them or not.
Opinion 2: The character sheet should serve my needs and wants, whether you share them or not.
Fact 1: I want a raw score and a modifier.
Fact 2: Some people want a modifier.

From the above two opinions and two facts, I conclude that the character sheet should have both a raw score and a modifier. This conclusion is forced.

To disagree with this opinion, you must reject my opinion 2 – that character sheets should serve my needs and wants, whether you share them or not.

[lesser_minion]

The question in front of us is whether to include a raw ability score along with the modifier on the character sheet, or to list just the modifier.

The question is why go specifically with the 3rd edition D&D score/modifier split over any other approach to handling ability scores, and especially in games that aren't D&D. It's not just a fight between 3e stats and Ars Magica stats in the context of D&D.

[woweedd]

Honestly, OP ain't wrong. You could very easily convert a 3.5 style stat line into ST +2, DX +1, ETC and change almost nothing. Heck, it would simplify things in a lot of ways. Honestly, the main D&D still uses the classic "3-18" range is...At this point, largely just tradition. But, hey, some people do prefer it. It's far from the only element of D&D or things in general that stick around out of tradition. See also: Why the Tardis still looks like a 1963 police telephone box years after those boxes have entirely vanished from the real world. Once something's been around long enough, changing it just feels WRONG.

[VampiricLongbow]

Note that this is identical to saying that it is meaningful, and it is used.



Note that this is identical to saying that lots of people want it. There is no other serious reason to include anything in a product.

They want to sell games to you. But they also want to sell games to me.

IMO, there is little mechanical reason to include them, and any rules that reference them can be easily changed to focus on the modifier instead. I get that the ability scores are an "iconic" part of the game but in my 20 year experience of DMing, they cause a lot of confusion for new players, especially as their mechanical importance has largely been diminished with each passing edition (since 3rd). :smallsmile:

[Atranen]

Outside of ability score generation and ability score damage, the ability score's value is absolutely meaningless. I am thoroughly convinced D&D would have removed this aspect of the game if the grognards were not nostalgic for it (and I believe the same for the fact that we are stuck with 20 levels, even though the vast majority of campaigns end before level 10 but that is neither here nor there).

A bit of irony here; games with only levels 1-10 are relatively common (Dungeon Crawl Classics, Castles and Crusades, Shadowdark). Old school essentials has elves max at 10, dwarves at 12, and humans at 14. I'm not a grognard, as I'm too young to have played 1E and 2E when they came out. But, I play these old school games, and prefer levels 1-10.

I do like ability scores though. Other systems key off them noticeably more, to their benefit. In DCC, for example, ability burn to power up spells, or activate other magical effects is common. It's nice to have that separated from a modifier.


C. Because it's a linear scale in which the the value of zero has real meaning. Therefore the proper level of measurement is a ratio scale, not merely an interval scale (using the jargon of statistics).

For instance, if a character with CON 10 loses 5 CON (in 3.5e), then he's lost half of his constitution. If he loses the same amount again, he's dead. That is clear from using the actual number. But it isn't clear that a person who has gone from Con +0 to Con -3 is in the same situation.

This is a great point which I had not heard before. Ability scores are more simulationist; modifiers more gamist.

Edit to add: 5e does not really take advantage of ability scores, at all. I've heard some people suggest that modifiers themselves are unnecessary in the context of 5e. Your character gets a '+3' to their primary class abilities at 1, '+4' at 4, and '+5' at 8. Then, everyone gets +2 to hp per level. AC is determined by armor. Initiative and skills by background + class.

When that kind of system seems workable, then something is being left on the table with respect to ability scores. I don't care for how 5e uses them.

[Witty Username]

Alright we are removing levels above 10, ability scores and and ability modifiers. What do we meaningfully lose? Off brand saves that most characters fail anyway?

[Atranen]

Alright we are removing levels above 10, ability scores and and ability modifiers. What do we meaningfully lose? Off brand saves that most characters fail anyway?

The solo game of high level theorycrafting, which is a major reason for 5Es continued popularity.

[Kish]

If you've removed both ability scores and ability modifiers doesn't that mean that you've taken out that entire section of the character sheet, such that every wizard, every fighter, every cleric, and every bard are now equally and arbitrarily strong, intelligent, wise, and charismatic?

[NichG]

If you've removed both ability scores and ability modifiers doesn't that mean that you've taken out that entire section of the character sheet, such that every wizard, every fighter, every cleric, and every bard are now equally and arbitrarily strong, intelligent, wise, and charismatic?

Presumably it means that there is no such thing as 'being strong' or 'being charismatic' or 'being intelligent' rules-wise, and it'd all only be about a character's class or skills. E.g. a Fighter would have +3 to melee weapon damage by virtue of being a Fighter, transitioning to +4 as a Lv4 class feature (since we just assume the player would have maxed out strength and taken an ASI, or whatever equivalent is appropriate for your version of choice). It's like how right now there's not really any attribute score directly governing a character's speed, so sure all characters are 'equally fast' unless they have a class ability or gear loadout or racial feature or whatever that changes that, but those things do exist so practically speaking characters do have different speeds even without there being a speed stat.

I do think you lose something from doing this for what it's worth, but the amount you lose is definitely edition (and more broadly outside of D&D, game) dependent. The more obvious the optimal array is and the more control a player has in achieving that optimal array, the less impact there would be from just assuming that everyone has that and going from there. Now there's multiclassing? Well is there a reason to multiclass between classes that have different primary attributes? Now it matters. Or, are there tradeoffs that mean that different attribute arrays can represent different viable approaches even to a single class? Then you lose something. Character options like feats but they have ability score prerequisites? Then you lose something by removing ability scores. Ability scores designed so that each one universally benefits every class in potentially build-defining ways - Strength determining the damage modifier of spells and not just melee attacks (as it's equivalent does in Pillars of Eternity), Dexterity influencing movement speed, Charisma determining how strong the effects of magical buffs are on you, Intelligence scaling (or thresholding) the ability to benefit from situational modifiers, etc - then you'd be losing something.

IMO its better to make the stats more interesting, especially in ways such that the odd values also act as thresholds for things. In 3.5e 13 was a special number for example because lots of feats had ability score prerequisites of 13. 15 and 17 also, but less so. Gain +1 AC every even level of Dexterity and +1 Initiative every odd level? Could work. Gotta balance the additional complexity and book-keeping against the benefits of making each point matter. Modifiers are simpler than a 1e style lookup table, which makes off-the-cuff character creation a lot easier.

[JellyPooga]

If you've removed both ability scores and ability modifiers doesn't that mean that you've taken out that entire section of the character sheet, such that every wizard, every fighter, every cleric, and every bard are now equally and arbitrarily strong, intelligent, wise, and charismatic?

Largely speaking? Yes.

Consider a different approach to one which quantifies every ability score for every character, where instead of determining every characters Int, Str, etc. we only highlight those features that lie outside the norm. We don't need to know that Grog the Barbarian is about as Wise and Intelligent as Flinn the Rogue, so why bother quantifying that? We do want to know that Flinn has a "Rakish Charm", though and noting that as a feature or ability, along with what that specifically means, is more useful than generalising their overall Charisma because we also know that Grog is Intimidatin', which is different but would also be governed (in D&D) by the same ability score.

Outside of specific highs and lows that are worth noting, most characters should be about equal because that's how people work. If it's not relevant to the game that only the Wizard actually has a bonus to Intelligence, why have an Int stat at all? Why not just give that Wizard a "Smart" or "Educated" feature and have everyone else be undefined?

Consider a barebones system in which character creation is nothing more than "name three positive traits and one negative trait". It would be barebones, but enough to get a good feel for who that character is and what they're good and bad at. You can run a game with nothing more than that and some dice (FYI - this game is not hypothetical; Risus is a great pick-up game for conventions and one-shots). Extrapolating from there doesn't require specifying irrelevant details if we assume those details are "arbitrarily the same as everyone else", unless noted otherwise.

[Ignimortis]

Alright we are removing levels above 10, ability scores and and ability modifiers. What do we meaningfully lose? Off brand saves that most characters fail anyway?

Any idea that characters ever ascend beyond average low-heroic fantasy. Killing decently old dragons is a no-no, unless you massively nerf them to the point a level 10 party can take on an ancient in some way that isn't "drown it in hired help and hope that works". All spells beyond level 5 are gone from player access.

Basically 5e doesn't suffer much for it, but 3e definitely would lose a lot.

[Luccan]

I don't think there's any inherent value to any particular level cap, high or low. Lower level caps mostly mean that you either have a bigger jump in power between levels or that max level isn't as powerful in comparison to first level. There's nothing inherently better or worse about this, it's down to preference.

[Telok]

Giving punters the choice to go and pet the tigers at the zoo isn't improving anyones visit,.

Me! Me! I still have my original "Binky says 'send more tourists, this one got away'" shirt. I would (and did) definitely go more often to a zoo where we let idiots get mauled than to a regular one. Most zoos are just overpriced hell-holes, but a "interactive Darwinian evolution in action via hungry tiger petting" attractiin is a learning experience.

Edit

Any idea that characters ever ascend beyond average low-heroic fantasy. Killing decently old dragons is a no-no, unless you massively nerf them to the point a level 10 party can take on an ancient in some way that isn't "drown it in hired help and hope that works". All spells beyond level 5 are gone from player access.

Basically 5e doesn't suffer much for it, but 3e definitely would lose a lot.

Honestly, since dragons got turned into just big lizards with bad breath and a few off-turn minor actions, well you don't really even lose that. Its the massive hit point inflation making the really old dragons more dangerous than the young adults those 10th level D&D character regularly spank. Heck, without the level 6+ spells most of the character classes can't escape low level heroics. They're limited to hitting stuff with swords, surviving being hit with swords, and rolling ability checks at +8 to +11 instead of some apprentice mage or teenage thief rolling at +4 or +5. Going from face stabbing 20 kobolds every day to face stabbing 20 frost giants every day isn't grand epic heroics, its annoying hit & damage number inflation.

[Ignimortis]

I don't think there's any inherent value to any particular level cap, high or low. Lower level caps mostly mean that you either have a bigger jump in power between levels or that max level isn't as powerful in comparison to first level. There's nothing inherently better or worse about this, it's down to preference.

As an abstract? Sure. For D&D in particular? I wouldn't say so. Yes, the majority of games end somewhere around 10 or 12, but having the ability to go beyond that and that ability being considered core is nice.



Honestly, since dragons got turned into just big lizards with bad breath and a few off-turn minor actions, well you don't really even lose that. Its the massive hit point inflation making the really old dragons more dangerous than the young adults those 10th level D&D character regularly spank. Heck, without the level 6+ spells most of the character classes can't escape low level heroics. They're limited to hitting stuff with swords, surviving being hit with swords, and rolling ability checks at +8 to +11 instead of some apprentice mage or teenage thief rolling at +4 or +5. Going from face stabbing 20 kobolds every day to face stabbing 20 frost giants every day isn't grand epic heroics, its annoying hit & damage number inflation.
Well, that's why 5e doesn't lose much from being capped at level 10 instead of 20 - its' level 20 is basically level 5 with bigger numbers. 3e is a different story altogether, though. Even if some classes are 5e levels of dumb, there's a lot of potential, and a lot more of a power gap between level 1 and level 20 in 3e.

[RandomPeasant]

As an abstract? Sure. For D&D in particular? I wouldn't say so. Yes, the majority of games end somewhere around 10 or 12, but having the ability to go beyond that and that ability being considered core is nice.

I mean, it is factually true that whatever number of levels you have does not directly effect how powerful characters are (imagine, for instance, cutting out the levels where casters don't get new spell levels). That said, I do think there's inherent value to a level cap of 20 for D&D, or rather that "D&D has 20 levels" is such a deeply-engrained sacred cow at this point that it's not worth killing. You can make 20 levels work, so you should just do that. The issue is, as you note 5e doing, having a game where there are 20 levels, but the top half isn't any different from the bottom. At that point you're just arbitrarily separating abilities for no clear benefit, and that's bad. But the solution to that is to allow the game to change as characters level up, not just lower the level cap.

[Ignimortis]

I mean, it is factually true that whatever number of levels you have does not directly effect how powerful characters are (imagine, for instance, cutting out the levels where casters don't get new spell levels). That said, I do think there's inherent value to a level cap of 20 for D&D, or rather that "D&D has 20 levels" is such a deeply-engrained sacred cow at this point that it's not worth killing. You can make 20 levels work, so you should just do that. The issue is, as you note 5e doing, having a game where there are 20 levels, but the top half isn't any different from the bottom. At that point you're just arbitrarily separating abilities for no clear benefit, and that's bad. But the solution to that is to allow the game to change as characters level up, not just lower the level cap.
Due to work crunch, I kind of forgot to reply to that.

The issue is that somehow nobody wants to let the game change at certain points, even if they do pay that change some lip service. D&D 3.5 stumbled on this by accident, and every edition afterwards tried to swipe it under the rug. 4e and PF2e did it by reducing the core of the game to low-level (in function, if not in numbers) combat, most similar to level 3 to 6 gameplay of 3.5/PF1. 5e did it by removing anything that would hint at high levels being substantially different aside from spellcasters still getting world-scale impact spells.

Nobody's actually tried to pick up where 3.5 left off, and maybe work it into core. Yes, some form of flight (or close enough replacement) would be required by level 10. Is that a bad thing? I don't really think so. Some form of countering inivisiblity or teleportation would be necessary by level 15, because half the enemies can do one or the other or both. Is that also a bad thing? Probably not, especially if those abilities are not hard counters (so they don't cancel themselves out directly), but more like soft counters - i.e. a target goes invisible? They only get minor concealment from you. A target teleports away? You can teleport behind them as a reaction and also punch them while doing it.

[NichG]

Due to work crunch, I kind of forgot to reply to that.

The issue is that somehow nobody wants to let the game change at certain points, even if they do pay that change some lip service. D&D 3.5 stumbled on this by accident, and every edition afterwards tried to swipe it under the rug. 4e and PF2e did it by reducing the core of the game to low-level (in function, if not in numbers) combat, most similar to level 3 to 6 gameplay of 3.5/PF1. 5e did it by removing anything that would hint at high levels being substantially different aside from spellcasters still getting world-scale impact spells.

Nobody's actually tried to pick up where 3.5 left off, and maybe work it into core. Yes, some form of flight (or close enough replacement) would be required by level 10. Is that a bad thing? I don't really think so. Some form of countering inivisiblity or teleportation would be necessary by level 15, because half the enemies can do one or the other or both. Is that also a bad thing? Probably not, especially if those abilities are not hard counters (so they don't cancel themselves out directly), but more like soft counters - i.e. a target goes invisible? They only get minor concealment from you. A target teleports away? You can teleport behind them as a reaction and also punch them while doing it.

(Note for this post: I'm using the word 'tier' to refer to different scopes of play, not in the sense of the tier system of rating classes. Tier 1 means ground-scale scale, gritty play, where e.g. Tier 3 would be plane-hopping, strategic scale, take down gods stuff. When I later talk about classes with regards to tier, its in the sense of what scope of play that class gives abilities for)

One thing that works for other games that have such a wide range of power is to separate advancement from the 'tier' of play by having either alternate advancement methods to change between tiers or just saying 'we fix the tier of the game'. Tier then ends up being something which constrains what the more steady advancement resource can be used to acquire. So that way, you can still have the steady advancement go for much longer while either fixing the tier or letting the tier shift, based on what the group wants. For example things like generation in Vampire limiting you from taking higher dots in the disciplines, or powers having associated levels for superhero games - something like 'demiplane creation' can be exist and not have an outrageous cost but also 'not available below cosmic-tier play'.

For something like D&D, it'd be better if that were tied to some in-setting conceit rather than the arbitrary superhero thing of 'well, you didn't win the power lottery so now you're forever B-list until some writer decides you discover that your shark powers include time travel because of how ancient sharks are'. The tricky thing is, you'd want that conceit to be at least somewhat difficult to get around via e.g. wands, scrolls, potions, hiring an NPC caster, etc; and it should be fairly portable because of the range of settings that all fall under D&D. E6 sort of accomplishes this for a fixed tier of play for 3.5e if you're very careful about magic item creation, using feats as the *actual* gradual advancement mechanism for a character.

I suppose if I wanted to take a run at that, I'd collapse the actual 'levels' down to say 3 or 4 levels where for each level a character picks a class from a totally disjoint list. But then each class gives the character things which can be advanced by investing XP - maybe as simple as a linear progression within the class, maybe something more point-buy-like, maybe some combination of linear progression but also costing XP to do any form of horizontal advancement the class implicitly allows (learning new spells, maneuvers, improving your ancestral weapon, whatever). Then you just make sure to have very hard design constraints: no class of the first tier should grant access to flight, invisibility, save or die effects, resurrection, re-embodiment, invulnerability or immunity powers, etc; no class of the first or second tier should grant access to teleportation, strategic-scale effects, construction, effects that permanently alter a target, effects which undo 'permanent' alterations, etc; and so on. Investment in the lower tier classes should give slower diminishing returns on breadth-type things like skill points, saves, etc compared to the higher tier classes, which would focus more on expanding play into new scopes and scales but which would expect core numbers to already more or less be in place (maybe something like how gestalting works?).

So you wouldn't have e.g. Fighter 20 vs Wizard 20 comparisons, it'd be Soldier/Kensai/Mythic Swordsman vs Hedge Mage/Diabolist/Planar Architect. And if you wanted a Tier 1 game, everyone just has a first-slot class. Or if you want to get silly, still give everyone three slots to gestalt classes, but they all have to be classes available at the first tier.

This doesn't quite resolve the issue of magic items breaking tier, but since that's kind of an expensive way to do it, maybe that's actually okay?

[Ignimortis]

*snip*

I suppose if I wanted to take a run at that, I'd collapse the actual 'levels' down to say 3 or 4 levels where for each level a character picks a class from a totally disjoint list. But then each class gives the character things which can be advanced by investing XP - maybe as simple as a linear progression within the class, maybe something more point-buy-like, maybe some combination of linear progression but also costing XP to do any form of horizontal advancement the class implicitly allows (learning new spells, maneuvers, improving your ancestral weapon, whatever). Then you just make sure to have very hard design constraints: no class of the first tier should grant access to flight, invisibility, save or die effects, resurrection, re-embodiment, invulnerability or immunity powers, etc; no class of the first or second tier should grant access to teleportation, strategic-scale effects, construction, effects that permanently alter a target, effects which undo 'permanent' alterations, etc; and so on. Investment in the lower tier classes should give slower diminishing returns on breadth-type things like skill points, saves, etc compared to the higher tier classes, which would focus more on expanding play into new scopes and scales but which would expect core numbers to already more or less be in place (maybe something like how gestalting works?).

So you wouldn't have e.g. Fighter 20 vs Wizard 20 comparisons, it'd be Soldier/Kensai/Mythic Swordsman vs Hedge Mage/Diabolist/Planar Architect. And if you wanted a Tier 1 game, everyone just has a first-slot class. Or if you want to get silly, still give everyone three slots to gestalt classes, but they all have to be classes available at the first tier.
Sounds a lot like "just break down 20 levels into 3 or 4 sets of 5 to 6 level classes" with extra steps. But yes, I figure that would be the way to go - have a "tier 1 class" then a "tier 2 class" then a "tier 3" class, etc. Akin to what 4e did, except applied to a 3e-like math setup and sensibilities.

[NichG]

Sounds a lot like "just break down 20 levels into 3 or 4 sets of 5 to 6 level classes" with extra steps. But yes, I figure that would be the way to go - have a "tier 1 class" then a "tier 2 class" then a "tier 3" class, etc. Akin to what 4e did, except applied to a 3e-like math setup and sensibilities.

You could do that, but I was thinking more like 3 or 4 sets of infinite level classes with diminishing returns baked in for any vertical advancement. Sort of how in E6 you can keep getting more feats forever, but there just aren't the feats to keep stacking up attack bonus.

So like, each class has a list of class features and every X xp you can pick one but not all of the class features are repeatable. And you can always pick a feat instead of a class feature if you want.

[gatorized]

Even if my choice is "wrong", WotC wants my money, so they want both you and me to buy their games.

Note also that in this statement, "wrong" merely means "doesn't agree with gatorized".


No. It means wrong. Some ways of living and thinking about things really are better than others. It's a matter of taste, and some people just have better taste other people. The purpose of a civilized society is to point its members in the direction of what is right.