Getting rid of ability scores

[quinron]

In D&D 5th Edition, there's been a lot of discussion about the paradigm shift that Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and the implied standards set forth by the most recent Unearthed Arcana articles. I've been getting into Pathfinder 2nd Edition recently and its "ability boosts" are always +2, never +1, so you always have an even-numbered score*; the Bestiaries don't even include ability scores, just modifiers. This has gotten me thinking: given that the actual scores mattered beyond bonuses for several editions, do you think we'll see a complete elimination of scores in favor of modifiers? It seems to be the way other systems are trending (though I'm not too well-read outside D&D/PF, so take that with some salt). If you don't think we'll see it, why not? Am I missing something, or am I just thinking small?

*If you're increasing a score past 18 it gets reduced to +1, but unless you're using the optional rules for voluntary flaws to minmax, you won't see a score above 18 at character creation.

[Anymage]

The 3-18 scale will likely continue to exist because it's been around forever, and for a lot of people the fact that D&D has always done something is a good reason for it to continue doing so going forwards.

There are two questions to be asked as a followup. Everybody will need a certain primary stat in order to function well, so the game should just up and acknowledge as much even if that means that primary stats are essentially locked in place through the system. Priorities beyond that, the first question you might ask is if there's any reason why a bard might want to prioritize strength as their secondary stat over something like dexterity, and how you'd set up the system so that stats like that might be appealing. The second question is if, after you've brainstormed what might make each stat appealing enough that someone might want to think twice before dumping it, is if those rules are really worth the overhead they bring or if it's okay to have standardized archetypes and builds at the table.

[Tanarii]

If you can't roll for ability scores, it's not D&D.

(Fervently hope there weren't any editions of D&D that didn't include rolling. 4e had rolling right? It's been a while )

[P. G. Macer]

In D&D 5th Edition, there's been a lot of discussion about the paradigm shift that Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and the implied standards set forth by the most recent Unearthed Arcana articles. I've been getting into Pathfinder 2nd Edition recently and its "ability boosts" are always +2, never +1, so you always have an even-numbered score*; the Bestiaries don't even include ability scores, just modifiers. This has gotten me thinking: given that the actual scores mattered beyond bonuses for several editions, do you think we'll see a complete elimination of scores in favor of modifiers? It seems to be the way other systems are trending (though I'm not too well-read outside D&D/PF, so take that with some salt). If you don't think we'll see it, why not? Am I missing something, or am I just thinking small?

*If you're increasing a score past 18 it gets reduced to +1, but unless you're using the optional rules for voluntary flaws to minmax, you won't see a score above 18 at character creation.

In a thread currently active on the 5e sub-forum, the fact that ability scores—especially once divorced from race/lineage/ancestry—are largely unneeded does in fact seem to be the general conclusion the commenters have reached, though they noted the Sacred Cow objections still remain, i.e. how much is a game without ability scores and only modifiers still Dungeons & Dragons? There are also a number of niche cases where an odd ability score in 5e matters, most notably feats that grant a +1 ASI and carrying capacity being a multiple of one’s STR score.

Also, if my 99.9%-secondhand memory of 4e serves me, races in that edition also had +2s to stats and no +1s, with 5e once again granting +1 to certain stats via races even as evens>odds for stats was a deliberate throwback to pre-4e editions in an effort to win back people who had abandoned the D&D brand.

[MoiMagnus]

Mutant and Mastermind, which started as a d20 system, also got rid of ability score in favour of modifier only in its 3rd edition.
Up to my knowledge, all the editions that got rid of ability score also got rid of rolling for abilities, which I think would be a mistake for D&D. But designing a method for rolling 6 abilities modifiers is not that hard when you give up having the exact same repartition as taking the modifier as 4d6b3.
[My favourite method use rolling a lot of d6 and each face is associated with an ability, rather than summing numbers you count dices of each face]

[Glorthindel]

I have kinda been saying it for a while. Don't get me wrong, I love Ability Scores, and I definitely ague that rolling for scores is the only way to do it, but at the same time, they just don't do what they used to do, and instead focus on something that was very much not their main purpose.

In AD&D, Strength effects Hit Probability, Damage, Weight Allowed, and the ability to Open Doors and Bend Bars. In 5th ed, the last two are gone, and the third is mostly ignored, leaving only To Hit and Damage (and then only if you aren't a Finesse user, or got a Class Ability that substitutes another Ability Score for those things). Not a lot of difference right? Well, actually a lot. Because Strength did other things, it wasn't laser-focussed on To Hit and Damage. In 5th ed, you get +1 To Hit and Damage at Strength 12, while in AD&D you didn't get +1 Damage til 16 Strength, and +1 To hit til 17. In 5th ed, the difference between a 8 Strength character and 16 Strength character is night and day (+4 To hit and Damage), while in AD&D there was literally a difference of 1 Damage.

In contrast, the bulk of the bonuses came from your class; a Fighter gained +1 To Hit every level, and most of their damage bonus came from Weapon Specialisation. Your Strength score was a minor consideration, especially as you would be overwriting it with Gauntlets of Ogre Strength at the earliest possibility.

And its the same for the other Ability Scores; you didn't get +1 HP from Con til 15, you didn't get +1 AC from Dex til 15 (and +1 Init and To Hit Ranged til 16). You didn't get wound up about a couple of points of an Ability Score, because it really made negligible difference; A Str 9 Fighter was a viable Fighter, 7 Con was acceptable for anybody, and Rogues only worried about Dex when it impacted their Thieves Skills. Sure, a Wizard needed a high Intelligence so they didn't walk into the wall of Maximum Spell level, and Chance to Learn Spell was so crippling it wasn't worth bothering with a Wizard without at least 15-16 Int, but that was one of the many (since removed) counterbalances to Wizard power.

What my long ramble is saying, is we have made this problem for ourselves over the last couple of editions, by radically increasing the effect Ability Scores have, so of course people get more bent out of shape by the slightest thing that effects them. The Elven +2 to Dex bonus was basically flavour when it meant your Fighter went from +0 AC, Init, and To Hit Ranged to, oh, still +0, but now, when that means +1 AC for everyone, regardless of the current level of the Score, of course its a big deal.

So lets bin em. Sure, it feels wrong to old timers like me, but they didn't really do all that much before, so we are just going back to those good old days we are always pining for.

[Morty]

In D&D 5th Edition, there's been a lot of discussion about the paradigm shift that Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and the implied standards set forth by the most recent Unearthed Arcana articles. I've been getting into Pathfinder 2nd Edition recently and its "ability boosts" are always +2, never +1, so you always have an even-numbered score*; the Bestiaries don't even include ability scores, just modifiers. This has gotten me thinking: given that the actual scores mattered beyond bonuses for several editions, do you think we'll see a complete elimination of scores in favor of modifiers? It seems to be the way other systems are trending (though I'm not too well-read outside D&D/PF, so take that with some salt). If you don't think we'll see it, why not? Am I missing something, or am I just thinking small?

*If you're increasing a score past 18 it gets reduced to +1, but unless you're using the optional rules for voluntary flaws to minmax, you won't see a score above 18 at character creation.

I wouldn't say other systems are "trending" this way, because other systems never had this rather clunky distinction to begin with. Removing scores and boiling it down to only modifiers would be an eminently sensible thing to do, but it probably won't be done, because people are attached to the 3-18 scale for reasons that elude me.

[Silly Name]

I wouldn't say other systems are "trending" this way, because other systems never had this rather clunky distinction to begin with. Removing scores and boiling it down to only modifiers would be an eminently sensible thing to do, but it probably won't be done, because people are attached to the 3-18 scale for reasons that elude me.

Nostalgia/brand identity. I fully agree that in 5e the 3-18 scale is mostly an artifact of old editions and could be easily changed to just the modifiers, which would be an overall cleaner design, but like Alignment it's been with D&D since forever and while making them less important is ok, outright removal hurts the "feel" of playing D&D.

[Xervous]

I’d sooner like to see everything become MAD with better baseline coverage of ability score impact so there’s more reason to consider investing in each value. And if there’s point buy to determine scores why don’t they advance by the same point buy grrr...

Retention / rejection of scores is a marketing decision that I frankly don’t care much about. It’s cleaner with just the modifiers and it shunts out “who loses at session 0?” rolled ability scores, but it’s not a personal concern of mine since I can choose not to deal with that. They’ll probably hold on for a while more because brand identity and keep aiming for broadest appeal over a well polished system.

[OldTrees1]

What about Shadows that drain your strength?
Or poisons that attack your constitution?

When the ability is a resource that can be attacked/depleted, does using the modifier instead of a score still feel intuitive?

[MoiMagnus]

What about Shadows that drain your strength?
Or poisons that attack your constitution?

When the ability is a resource that can be attacked/depleted, does using the modifier instead of a score still feel intuitive?

(1) Those are pretty rare.
(2) The damage could be done to the ability modifier rather than the score. Either halve the damage so its the same powerlevel, or keep the same value but nerf the remaining the of creature/poison to compensate, or redesign the creature/poison from scratch to not use those kind of abilities.
E.g the shadow would be perfectly fine if it was "reduce the Strength modifier by 1" with some slight buff to compensate, or "by 1d2", "by 2" or "by 1d4" with some adequate nerf to compensate.

As for the part where an ability score at 0 kills you, I've played with plenty of games that had negative HP, and where death was at a given number of negative HP rather than 0. Didn't felt weird to me.
So I have zero problem with damage to constitution/strength being the same: damage can send you to some negative value, and death only happens at a given negative value.

[Willie the Duck]

I wouldn't say other systems are "trending" this way, because other systems never had this rather clunky distinction to begin with. Removing scores and boiling it down to only modifiers would be an eminently sensible thing to do, but it probably won't be done, because people are attached to the 3-18 scale for reasons that elude me.

Even within D&D, the setup where you rolled for attributes, but then consulted a chart and it gave you a singular bonus that you used if not all the time certainly much of the time, has existed since B/X in 1981. Clearly people have been aware that this is something you can do, not just easily, but easily for a D&D-style game, for a very long time. It likely simply hasn't been a priority.

Spoiler: In AD&D

Show

, Strength effects Hit Probability, Damage, Weight Allowed, and the ability to Open Doors and Bend Bars. In 5th ed, the last two are gone, and the third is mostly ignored, leaving only To Hit and Damage (and then only if you aren't a Finesse user, or got a Class Ability that substitutes another Ability Score for those things). Not a lot of difference right? Well, actually a lot. Because Strength did other things, it wasn't laser-focussed on To Hit and Damage. In 5th ed, you get +1 To Hit and Damage at Strength 12, while in AD&D you didn't get +1 Damage til 16 Strength, and +1 To hit til 17. In 5th ed, the difference between a 8 Strength character and 16 Strength character is night and day (+4 To hit and Damage), while in AD&D there was literally a difference of 1 Damage.

In contrast, the bulk of the bonuses came from your class; a Fighter gained +1 To Hit every level, and most of their damage bonus came from Weapon Specialisation. Your Strength score was a minor consideration, especially as you would be overwriting it with Gauntlets of Ogre Strength at the earliest possibility.

And its the same for the other Ability Scores; you didn't get +1 HP from Con til 15, you didn't get +1 AC from Dex til 15 (and +1 Init and To Hit Ranged til 16). You didn't get wound up about a couple of points of an Ability Score, because it really made negligible difference; A Str 9 Fighter was a viable Fighter, 7 Con was acceptable for anybody, and Rogues only worried about Dex when it impacted their Thieves Skills. Sure, a Wizard needed a high Intelligence so they didn't walk into the wall of Maximum Spell level, and Chance to Learn Spell was so crippling it wasn't worth bothering with a Wizard without at least 15-16 Int, but that was one of the many (since removed) counterbalances to Wizard power.

What my long ramble is saying, is we have made this problem for ourselves over the last couple of editions, by radically increasing the effect Ability Scores have, so of course people get more bent out of shape by the slightest thing that effects them. The Elven +2 to Dex bonus was basically flavour when it meant your Fighter went from +0 AC, Init, and To Hit Ranged to, oh, still +0, but now, when that means +1 AC for everyone, regardless of the current level of the Score, of course its a big deal.

So lets bin em. Sure, it feels wrong to old timers like me, but they didn't really do all that much before, so we are just going back to those good old days we are always pining for.

More recent editions have simultaneously increased the effect of ability scores while at the same time decreased that amount that the effect varies, by making them 1) important enough to be fairly mandatory, and 2) encouraging things like point buy, where there aren't characters that have to 'make do with one good roll,' or, 'rolled 4 good rolls,' etc. As such, you end up with a scenario where just about everyone has a 12-16 Constitution (it is almost everyone's 2nd-3rd most important stat), and the only real question for your primary stat (Str for greatsword fighter, Dex for archer, int for wizard, etc.) is whether you start with ~16 and run straight towards the max as quickly as possible, or stop along the way to pick up some useful feats or the like. At this point, one could probably roll the +3 for a 16 Str or Int right into the fighting or spellcasting mechanics, add two to everyone's HD rolls, and get rid of attributes (the attributes themselves and the modifiers) altogether and make an attribute-less system. I don't think that will happen, as I feel like people actually do like the mucking about with the +s and -s (both modifiers, and maybe even the attributes in the 'well, I could use this ASI to max out my 18 charisma to 20, but there are two half-feats that each give +1 charisma and a nice little perk, do I want to take twice as long to get there, but end up with two extra abilities?' kind of optimization dance).

[Anonymouswizard]

I've seen other systems with the score/modifier split, it's generally because of a desire to keep scores on the D&D scale while using a different rolling mechanic. I've also seen one homebrew which had your modifier risk to your score-10, mainly because the designer thought it would be easier for people to grasp the scale (a 5 being set to roughly half as strong as a 10).

In general a score/modifier split it's unnecessary, and the industry seems to be moving towards a state of seeing the skill/attribute split as unnecessary. Which it kind of is, games which ditch one and define their lists to fit with their intended experience run fine. It's not completely without merit, but I find it hard to find cases where it matters that much.

You could remove Abilities from 5e and have it run fine. You could also remove proficiency bonuses and increase stat scaling slightly, and it would run exactly as intended. My favourite change is to essentially double Ability Modifiers and change Proficiency into automatic Advantage (but that requires a rewrite of the rogue).

[Morty]

In general a score/modifier split it's unnecessary, and the industry seems to be moving towards a state of seeing the skill/attribute split as unnecessary. Which it kind of is, games which ditch one and define their lists to fit with their intended experience run fine. It's not completely without merit, but I find it hard to find cases where it matters that much.

Even games that don't remove attributes frequently use a completely different attribute lineup than the traditional one or don't make them and skills (or the local equivalent thereof) part of the same math.

[Telok]

An interesting comparison of AD&D ability score charts to the D&D 5e model is to check the changes in combat bonuses to noncombat abilities/bonuses.

I don't have my books handly but a short list looks like:
Strength, damage and to-hit bonuses double or triple while door opening and feats of great strength stay about the same.
Dexterity, no real change beyond attack & initative bonuses doubling or more.
Constitution, everyone gets warrior type hp boosts (double or triple again), the bonus applies to poison saves (but saves no longer generally scale up with level either), and the system shock roll is replaced by Con saves (Con 10 in AD&D is 70% success, mapping to a DC 7 5e Con save, Con 16 is 95% mapping to a DC 4 save).
Intelligence only mattered to wizards and magic is a different topic, although a 16 did get you 5 more starting languages after common & your racial language.
Wisdom, no real changes except it now governs perception which used to be race/class/player skill based and looked like "rangers have a 1/8 chance to be surprised in the forest" sorts of stuff.
Charisma, a 16 went from 8 henchmen, +4 loyalty/morale, and +5 on npc reactions to a +3 on generic checks and everything else (followers & loyalty) being full DM fiat.

That's a trend of overall more ability score based combat capability but less noncombat ability and lower saving throws. The noncombat ability has been moved to class abilities, spells, and DM fiat. This follows the last 10 years/few editions of D&D generally moving away from noncombat rules and depowering the noncombat character/class abilities (again, magic is a different topic). Whether that's a good thing or not is someone's personal preference.

[Nifft]

If you can't roll for ability scores, it's not D&D.

(Fervently hope there weren't any editions of D&D that didn't include rolling. 4e had rolling right? It's been a while )

Every edition of D&D had some tables which used pre-gens, therefore to you all editions weren't D&D.

An interesting comparison of AD&D ability score charts to the D&D 5e model is to check the changes in combat bonuses to noncombat abilities/bonuses.

I don't have my books handly but a short list looks like:
Strength, damage and to-hit bonuses double or triple while door opening and feats of great strength stay about the same.
Dexterity, no real change beyond attack & initative bonuses doubling or more.
Constitution, everyone gets warrior type hp boosts (double or triple again), the bonus applies to poison saves (but saves no longer generally scale up with level either), and the system shock roll is replaced by Con saves (Con 10 in AD&D is 70% success, mapping to a DC 7 5e Con save, Con 16 is 95% mapping to a DC 4 save).
Intelligence only mattered to wizards and magic is a different topic, although a 16 did get you 5 more starting languages after common & your racial language.
Wisdom, no real changes except it now governs perception which used to be race/class/player skill based and looked like "rangers have a 1/8 chance to be surprised in the forest" sorts of stuff.
Charisma, a 16 went from 8 henchmen, +4 loyalty/morale, and +5 on npc reactions to a +3 on generic checks and everything else (followers & loyalty) being full DM fiat.

That's a trend of overall more ability score based combat capability but less noncombat ability and lower saving throws. The noncombat ability has been moved to class abilities, spells, and DM fiat. This follows the last 10 years/few editions of D&D generally moving away from noncombat rules and depowering the noncombat character/class abilities (again, magic is a different topic). Whether that's a good thing or not is someone's personal preference.

Another early-edition oddity: if you had a high score in your Prime Requisite, you got more XP.

Strong Fighters weren't merely better at winning fights, they also advanced faster.


Regarding this though:

the last 10 years/few editions of D&D generally moving away from noncombat rules and depowering the noncombat character/class abilities

... it's my impression that having noncombat rules = depowering mundane noncombat characters, in contrast to earlier editions where you could do anything because nobody had specific features which gate-kept doing certain things.

[Anonymouswizard]

Even games that don't remove attributes frequently use a completely different attribute lineup than the traditional one or don't make them and skills (or the local equivalent thereof) part of the same math.

Yeah, it's probably worth pointing out that while many early games started with a D&D-esque lineup, modern games vary wildly in what Attributes they have. Many skill fall into the D&D tradition of some for physical ability and some for mental, but even that isn't universal.

Also worth mentioning the games which get rid of numeric descriptors entirely, or are designed around those descriptors continually changing. I think GUMSHOE is designed so skills deplete over the course of an adventure, in fact swapping scores for pools has become more of a thing. I get disappointed when I see such a focus on D&D in discussions, because at this point it's about a decade behind the rest of the industry.


Actually, I'd like to mention Advanced Fighting Fantasy here, because it's the one game I own with both an Attribute/Skill split and one of the most unusual attribute lineups I've seen. Characters are defined by Skill (roll to do a mundane task), Stamina (your HP), Luck (a generic saving throw), and Magic (used to cast magic and for a couple of Special Skills). It works surprisingly well as Skill gives a floor to untrained attempts and then your various Special Skills help to differentiate characters. It works surprisingly well. The science fiction adaptation adds in weirdness by declaring that robot characters don't get luck, but the core idea still works.

Yes, everybody bumps their Skill up to the cap unless they need those points to buy up Magic, but the game kind of expects that and it becomes a question between Stamina or Luck Out of the sample characters the only ones which don't do that are the ones which have some kind of magic.

[Nifft]

I think GUMSHOE is designed so skills deplete over the course of an adventure, in fact swapping scores for pools has become more of a thing. I get disappointed when I see such a focus on D&D in discussions, because at this point it's about a decade behind the rest of the industry.

The thing which stuck in my head about GUMSHOE was that the most critical "skill checks" were never rolled.

If you had the relevant keyword for an investigation, and you tried looking for a matching clue, you just succeeded.

Keywords were always divvied up amongst the PCs -- the quantity of your PC's skills depended mostly on your party size.

[Telok]

Regarding this though:

... it's my impression that having noncombat rules = depowering mundane noncombat characters, in contrast to earlier editions where you could do anything because nobody had specific features which gate-kept doing certain things.

I think that having noncombat rules is different from having race/class features for gating pc actions. You can still have rules for loyalty, morale, hiring, and paying of followers without making them a specific class feature. Likewise you can have class features that say only one class can climb/jump/swim when you don't have any actual rules for climb/jump/swim.

[quinron]

I think that having noncombat rules is different from having race/class features for gating pc actions. You can still have rules for loyalty, morale, hiring, and paying of followers without making them a specific class feature. Likewise you can have class features that say only one class can climb/jump/swim when you don't have any actual rules for climb/jump/swim.

This is a good way to look at it. Though I still think the problem stands - as more and more noncombat capabilities have been shunted off to class features and skill lists, the designers seem to have decided that this qualifies as having created noncombat rules, when all they've really done is created noncombat mechanics.

Social interaction is an easy example of this - you have Charisma bonuses to social interaction and you've got skills like Diplomacy and Deception, but it's still effectively GM fiat at the end of the day whether or not a given social interaction succeeds and how much effect it has.

[False God]

As the first post said, the -10, divide by 2, 0-20+ ability score system is likely to remain simply because "that's D&D".

I've played a number of games that have eliminated it, or never had it to begin with and frankly I wouldn't miss it or think less of the game if D&D got rid of it. Personally I think it's unnecessary, but it is not so intrusive to my play as to bother me.

[Nifft]

I think that having noncombat rules is different from having race/class features for gating pc actions. You can still have rules for loyalty, morale, hiring, and paying of followers without making them a specific class feature. Likewise you can have class features that say only one class can climb/jump/swim when you don't have any actual rules for climb/jump/swim.

The rule saying only one class can do X is a rule for X.

It's not a very useful simulation of X nor an explanation of how X might work, but it absolutely is a rule for X.

[Anonymouswizard]

The thing which stuck in my head about GUMSHOE was that the most critical "skill checks" were never rolled.

If you had the relevant keyword for an investigation, and you tried looking for a matching clue, you just succeeded.

Keywords were always divvied up amongst the PCs -- the quantity of your PC's skills depended mostly on your party size.

I've never actually played GUMSHOE, hence my use of the words 'I think', but yeah, it seems to basically include everything you could want when running investigations.

There's a lot of games that do cool things with skills and stats, and I'm very interested in playing more of them.

[OldTrees1]

(1) Those are pretty rare.
(2) The damage could be done to the ability modifier rather than the score. Either halve the damage so its the same powerlevel, or keep the same value but nerf the remaining the of creature/poison to compensate, or redesign the creature/poison from scratch to not use those kind of abilities.
E.g the shadow would be perfectly fine if it was "reduce the Strength modifier by 1" with some slight buff to compensate, or "by 1d2", "by 2" or "by 1d4" with some adequate nerf to compensate.

As for the part where an ability score at 0 kills you, I've played with plenty of games that had negative HP, and where death was at a given number of negative HP rather than 0. Didn't felt weird to me.
So I have zero problem with damage to constitution/strength being the same: damage can send you to some negative value, and death only happens at a given negative value.

So the negative HP helped improve the intuition around using negative ability modifiers when a ______ (shadow) is draining your ______ (strength). That is good to hear. That was the only case I could think of to question which was more intuitive.

[Kane0]

In D&D 5th Edition, there's been a lot of discussion about the paradigm shift that Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and the implied standards set forth by the most recent Unearthed Arcana articles. I've been getting into Pathfinder 2nd Edition recently and its "ability boosts" are always +2, never +1, so you always have an even-numbered score*; the Bestiaries don't even include ability scores, just modifiers. This has gotten me thinking: given that the actual scores mattered beyond bonuses for several editions, do you think we'll see a complete elimination of scores in favor of modifiers? It seems to be the way other systems are trending (though I'm not too well-read outside D&D/PF, so take that with some salt). If you don't think we'll see it, why not? Am I missing something, or am I just thinking small?

*If you're increasing a score past 18 it gets reduced to +1, but unless you're using the optional rules for voluntary flaws to minmax, you won't see a score above 18 at character creation.

Could scores be removed? Easily.
Will scores be removed? Very unlikely.

It's a major sacred cow, like having 20 levels/9 spell levels and classes including the fighter and wizard. You would need significant audience push to change those more resilient aspects of D&D game design.

[gijoemike]

What about Shadows that drain your strength?
Or poisons that attack your constitution?

When the ability is a resource that can be attacked/depleted, does using the modifier instead of a score still feel intuitive?

Exactly, 3.X and PF allow a PC to easily modify their stats. Having dead numbers is a safety net when getting ability drained/damaged. But this is unique to this system. Take 13th Age instead. In 13th Age buff/debuffs spells don't alter ones stats, nor do magic items. So the game loses NOTHING by using just modifiers. Instead magic items and spells do something interesting and active. Passive +/- adjustments are rather lame or extremely heavy handed ( Lookin' at you Shivering Touch).

[SandyAndy]

I actually have a system that we've used in games here. The ability scores are only used to determine your modifiers and the modifiers are on a -5 to +5 scale. So for character creation we just do 2d4 and that gives you your scale of 1 to 10 how cool are you. The only downside is that you could easily get more negatives than positives but that's how D&D was for decades and if you want more points than you can easily just peg 8 to +4 modifier and shift the scale to be more in line with 5e. I haven't run into any problems with this and if you NEED ability scores for whatever reason then you can just run it backwards to fill out the sheet.

[noob]

If you can't roll for ability scores, it's not D&D.

(Fervently hope there weren't any editions of D&D that didn't include rolling. 4e had rolling right? It's been a while )

Some older editions had rolling ability scores but they did not matter in the vast majority of the cases.

[OldTrees1]

I actually have a system that we've used in games here. The ability scores are only used to determine your modifiers and the modifiers are on a -5 to +5 scale. So for character creation we just do 2d4 and that gives you your scale of 1 to 10 how cool are you.

2d4 => 2-8 with an average of 5 and less of a bell curve than 3 dice.
3d3 => 3-9 with an average of 6 and a 3 dice curve.
3d4-2 => 1-10 with an average of 5.5 and a 3 dice curve.
This may or may not be useful information.

[MoiMagnus]

If you want low variance, "12d6 count the faces" gives:
0 => 12%
1 => 26%
2 => 30%
3 => 20%
4 => 8%
5 => 3%
6 => 1%
7-12 => unlikely (0.2% in total)

You probably want to subtract 1 to the number of face counted to obtain a modifier between -1 and +5. Typical result becomes is +3 / +2 / +1 / +1 / 0 / -1, though half of the rolls don't give a +3.