Variant Rule: Heroic Ability Scores

[Amechra]

Variant Rule: Heroic Ability Scores

Player characters are larger than life. Each player chooses a single ability score at first level - for any purpose other than ability checks or saving throws, they may treat that ability score as if it were a 16. This heroic potential increases over time - this effective ability score becomes 18 at 5th level, 20 at 11th level, and 22 at 17th level.

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Design Intent: This lets you pick one ability score and have it stay "good enough" for the purposes of your class features, allowing you to have a bit more freedom when it comes to picking out your ability scores.

Is there anything I'm missing? I predict that there will be lots of people who go for Heroic Constitition or Heroic Dexterity, but I'm more-or-less fine with that.

[nickl_2000]

So, what does it do? Spell DCs? Attack rolls? Where does it actually give a bonus, it may be easier to spell the out more specifically.

This does make multi classing a breeze though

[Amechra]

So, what does it do? Spell DCs? Attack rolls? Where does it actually give a bonus, it may be easier to spell the out more specifically.

This does make multi classing a breeze though

It boosts literally everything other than ability checks and saving throws. If I listed everything it boosts, it'd be a massive list and I'd probably miss something.

If you played a Fighter with Strength 8 and you picked Strength as your Heroic ability score, you could wear heavy armor, carry loads of stuff, and swing a greatsword with no problems. You'd have a really terrible Strength (Athletics) bonus and you'd fail a bunch of Strength saves, but otherwise? You're fine.

[nickl_2000]

I've got to ask then, why not just give a full stat at those levels?

If you don't want to, then sure give it a shot

[Yakk]

You might want to describe your purpose behind your rule, rather than just the rule.

[Anymage]

Most immediately, ability checks make me think "heroic potential" much more than attack rolls or meeting multiclass prerequisites. Cleaning out a stables by rerouting a river or having Sherlock Holmes levels of deduction feel far more mythic to me than hitting something extra hard.

Second, most people will have their prime stat at or above your listed level for most of their career anyways. Barbarians are impressively strong, rogues are impressively dexterous, and bards are impressively charismatic already. I guess this takes pressure off MAD builds, but in practice I expect it'll be used more often to let a SAD character get most of the benefits of Dex or Con for the combat perks while still keeping their prime stat and the other combat essential stat at high levels.

So yeah. Given that D&D characters are already expected to have one super high stat by their nature, I wonder what the goal is for this second stat that's high for most but not all purposes.

[MrStabby]

Actually I see it maybe being used more for Con.

Get all of those HP, especially for those classes that would want to raise a secondary stat past 16... also HP buffer is particularly useful at lower levels anyway. So like a monk, wanting to get Wis and Dex above 16, having fewer feats that are really good for the class and feeling that they have fewer HP than they would like.

[Amechra]

Most immediately, ability checks make me think "heroic potential" much more than attack rolls or meeting multiclass prerequisites. Cleaning out a stables by rerouting a river or having Sherlock Holmes levels of deduction feel far more mythic to me than hitting something extra hard.

Second, most people will have their prime stat at or above your listed level for most of their career anyways. Barbarians are impressively strong, rogues are impressively dexterous, and bards are impressively charismatic already. I guess this takes pressure off MAD builds, but in practice I expect it'll be used more often to let a SAD character get most of the benefits of Dex or Con for the combat perks while still keeping their prime stat and the other combat essential stat at high levels.

So yeah. Given that D&D characters are already expected to have one super high stat by their nature, I wonder what the goal is for this second stat that's high for most but not all purposes.

This is actually kinda the point. It lets you make a character with a sub-optimal race that can still do the things their class wants them to do. It frees up your choices a bit for MAD characters, and it makes multiclassing easier. It's for all of those people who want to play Sorcerers that aren't good at talking with people, or Clerics who aren't fantastic judges of character.

It also eases the requirement of having a decent Constitution or Dexterity, since marking them as Heroic means that you only need them for checks and saves (instead of, you know, for everything).

[Grod_The_Giant]

I think the incentive here is actually to grab it for your primary ability score-- the bonus keeps pace pretty well with what you'd get if you were spending ASIs, and ends up higher.

If you want to reduce the necessity of ability scores (without removing them entirely), what about allowing proficiency bonus instead of ability modifier when making proficient rolls? (ie, either (Str + Prof) or (2 * Prof) for attacking with a longsword or making an Athletics check). That lets you run, say, a low-Charisma Sorcerer without offering a straight power boost-- which is worth considering, as you'll wind up with a higher-than-expected score somewhere else.

[Amechra]

I think the incentive here is actually to grab it for your primary ability score-- the bonus keeps pace pretty well with what you'd get if you were spending ASIs, and ends up higher.

If you want to reduce the necessity of ability scores (without removing them entirely), what about allowing proficiency bonus instead of ability modifier when making proficient rolls? (ie, either (Str + Prof) or (2 * Prof) for attacking with a longsword or making an Athletics check). That lets you run, say, a low-Charisma Sorcerer without offering a straight power boost-- which is worth considering, as you'll wind up with a higher-than-expected score somewhere else.

Dang it, Grod, stop doing things better than me! I'm going to have to try no-ability-score 5e at some point.

As for "just swap in your proficiency bonus"... I don't really want to de-emphasize ability scores that much.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Dang it, Grod, stop doing things better than me! I'm going to have to try no-ability-score 5e at some point.

As for "just swap in your proficiency bonus"... I don't really want to de-emphasize ability scores that much.

Yeah, that's fair.