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  1. - Top - End - #1
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    Greywander's Avatar

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    Default Auxiliary effects for mental stats

    Not that long ago, someone posted this thread about choosing your casting stat. I left a post on that thread going over the idea of each mental stat providing various benefits, so while you can choose which one to use as your main casting stat, they would all still benefit you. The two effects I feel best about are INT adding more spells known/prepared, and CHA giving you an extra spell slot with a spell level equal to your CHA mod. These could come at the cost of reducing the base spells known/prepared and taking away a spell slot, so that these aren't just straight power boosts, but require at least modest scores in these abilities in order to be at the same place as vanilla.

    I didn't really have a good idea for what WIS would do for spellcasting. Here's a list of some of the aspects of spellcasting that could be modified, compiled by another user at the end of that thread:
    Quote Originally Posted by GeneralVryth View Post
    Paladins and Rangers now have Fighting Styles that grant cantrips with Tasha's so cantrips could work. As for balanced you're talking about what's probably the 4th or 5th pick so it's really adding power instead of options.

    Thinking though all the pieces in the spellcasting system you have:
    Spell Slots/Points
    Spells Known/Prepared
    Cantrips Known
    Spell Atk. Mod/Save DC
    Concentration Mod
    Concentration Amount
    Up-casting

    If generally available you have:
    Metamagics Known
    Sorcery Points


    There are a few options there especially if the system is overhauled a little. Cantrips are likely one good option, but just to offer up a different one what if you WIS mod up-cast levels you could apply to your spells per long rest (or a weaker version you can up-cast WIS mod spells 1 level for per long rest).

    You would get CHA giving you raw power, WIS letting you make the most of your power, and INT giving you other ways to use it.
    Perhaps WIS might influence your concentration in some way?

    There's also non-spellcasting stuff; ideally, mental scores would benefit martial characters, too (and right now they don't, aside from skills and saves). "Martial" is fairly broad, though. They could affect your weapon attacks (attack rolls, damage, number of attacks, crit chance, crit bonus) or your defensive abilities (AC, saving throws, HP, damage reduction, healing, resisting forced movement), or several other aspects of the game (initiative, action economy, resources). Many of these might also apply to casters, so some thought into making them more useful for martial characters should be put in. If casters are already getting benefits from these stats, then they don't need to double up.

    On that note, something to be aware of is front-liners will tend to be in the thick of things, and thus making more attacks and taking more hits. Casters, on the other hand, should be staying away from the front line, so when they do get attacked, it's a big deal. An ability that, say, reduces damage taken once per short rest would be more useful to a mage, because they're getting attacked less, while a martial would barely notice the difference. On the other hand, an ability that reduces that damage taken on every hit would see a lot of use by a martial character, but a caster might go multiple rounds without taking a hit, and thus not benefiting. So it probably makes more sense to aim for some kind of bonus that is sustainable rather than something limited by rests. Also, casters will likely have higher mental stats, which is something else to consider.

    With that in mind, here's a couple ideas: Crits add your INT mod to damage, demonstrating your ability to identify and exploit an enemy's weakness. You gain a +1 bonus to a number of saves each round equal to your WIS mod, representing your ability to read your opponent and anticipate their attack. You can reduce damage taken by 1 up to CHA mod times each round, representing your determination to keep fighting, even while injured. Note that by going +1 to WIS mod saves instead of +WIS mod to one save, we make the ability more sustainable. It becomes more useful to someone making a lot of saves and less useful to someone who only occasionally makes one save. Same with the damage reduction; to get the full benefit, you have to be taking multiple hits every round. Though these specific abilities are a bit fiddly, and would be easy to forget to apply.

    Anyway, what sorts of effects would you give mental stats? Got any ideas I haven't mentioned here?

  2. - Top - End - #2
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    Default Re: Auxiliary effects for mental stats

    Give them effects that apply to everyone, not just spellcasters.
    Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
    As You Like It, III:ii:328

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    Default Re: Auxiliary effects for mental stats

    Quote Originally Posted by Chronos View Post
    Give them effects that apply to everyone, not just spellcasters.
    You mean buff casters further?

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    Default Re: Auxiliary effects for mental stats

    I've long been fond of the idea of simply improving the less-used mental skills:

    • Charisma
      • Intimidation: Anyone can attempt to cause the Frightened condition via Intimidation. This should have suitable nerfs to make it worse than doing the same thing with a spell - for example, its duration should be at most letting the target roll to resist every turn.
      • Performance: Spellcasters can make a Performance check to obfuscate the components of a spell as singing (for V) or a physical performance, like dancing, for S and M. Observers must win an opposed Arcana check to recognize the spell as a spell.
    • Intelligence
      • The various Lore skills (everything here except Investigation) can be used to recall information about observed monsters without the DM needing to invent a rules framework for this from whole cloth. Make sure to have Arcana do the least of these, as it already does the most in other contexts. Examples include damage resistances and special attacks.
    • Wisdom
      • Animal Handling gains general rules for communicating basic, simple concepts via body language and tone, without any requirements about the target having a given type or being your mount.
      • Medicine now lets you diagnose the specifics of anything resisted with a Con save, and you can use your Reaction to replace a Touch-range ally's Con save with your Medicine check.

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    Default Re: Auxiliary effects for mental stats

    So you're arguing that giving the wizard extra bonuses for high Int is a greater disparity than giving both the wizard and the barbarian extra bonuses for high Int?
    Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
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    Default Re: Auxiliary effects for mental stats

    Looks like another solution looking for a problem from over here.
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    Default Re: Auxiliary effects for mental stats

    yeah not a fan.

    This only makes wizards more MAD in the sense of benefiting more from multiple stats which.

    look, they don't need it.

    IMO every stat should have some kind of benefit for every character beyond just impacting certain skills. As it stands, WIS, DEX, and CON are all important for the saves. CON and DEX give important bonuses to HP and initiative. CHA and WIS have important skills associated with them.

    The ones out in the cold are literally just INT and STR. INT is pretty much only for lore skills which aren't that impactful, and strength is completely ignorable outside of Heavy Armor/Grappling builds which aren't that good anyway. Notably, even though athletics is really good its the only STR skill so its not hard to just take athletics prof and dump STR.

    Here's what I would do.

    Use more restrictive Carry Capacity
    Use INT for initiative
    Make Martials Cool Again.

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    Default Re: Auxiliary effects for mental stats

    Quote Originally Posted by strangebloke View Post
    yeah not a fan.

    This only makes wizards more MAD in the sense of benefiting more from multiple stats which.

    look, they don't need it.

    IMO every stat should have some kind of benefit for every character beyond just impacting certain skills. As it stands, WIS, DEX, and CON are all important for the saves. CON and DEX give important bonuses to HP and initiative. CHA and WIS have important skills associated with them.

    The ones out in the cold are literally just INT and STR. INT is pretty much only for lore skills which aren't that impactful, and strength is completely ignorable outside of Heavy Armor/Grappling builds which aren't that good anyway. Notably, even though athletics is really good its the only STR skill so its not hard to just take athletics prof and dump STR.

    Here's what I would do.

    Use more restrictive Carry Capacity
    Use INT for initiative
    There's already alternate carrying capacity rules if one wishes for them.

    Investigation and Arcana seem just as important of skills to me as perception/insight and persuasion/deception.

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    Default Re: Auxiliary effects for mental stats

    Quote Originally Posted by Frogreaver View Post
    There's already alternate carrying capacity rules if one wishes for them.

    Investigation and Arcana seem just as important of skills to me as perception/insight and persuasion/deception.
    The alternate carrying capacity rules are really bad. You'd think that they would favor high strength characters, but it's the opposite - armor weighs so much that any benefit you gain from a high strength build is swallowed and then some by the weight of heavy armor. We've had to rule that worn armor weighs half as much as it usually does, and it's still very iffy.

    FWIW we use Int for initiative and it works very well.

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    Default Re: Auxiliary effects for mental stats

    Quote Originally Posted by Frogreaver View Post
    There's already alternate carrying capacity rules if one wishes for them.

    Investigation and Arcana seem just as important of skills to me as perception/insight and persuasion/deception.
    Investigation does come up but subjectively I've seen people argue that the party 'needs' a face. I've rarely seen anyone arguing they 'need' a detective. As with athletics its ultimately just one skill so if you really need to cover it one guy can grab expertise and be pretty darn good while still dumping INT.

    The big thing with the CHA skills is that there's a lot of them.

    As for the variant CC rules, yeah, I've used them, but they're not the best for the reasons Warder outlined. In defense of them though, I will say they're a nerf to medium armor shielded casters, which is a 5e trend that I do find annoying. They're just also a nerf to heavy armor casters and don't do anything to light/no armor casters which is more annoying.
    Make Martials Cool Again.

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    Default Re: Auxiliary effects for mental stats

    The other thing is, some skills, any one party member succeeding is enough. If your friend the wizard can use Arcana to tell you what that magical greeble is and how it works, then you don't need to figure it out yourself.

    To some extent, this can be true of charisma skills, too, that only the party face uses... but there, at least, you can argue that the presence of the low-charisma folks is hampering the face. And it's sometimes true of Perception, except that you can have everyone rolling Perception to determine surprise, and other things time-critical enough that there's no chance for the "party eyes" to alert everyone else. Mostly, the skills that are "one person succeeds for everyone" are all of the Int-based skills. Which means that, instead of "only the wizard needs Int and nobody else does", it turns into... "only the wizard needs Int and nobody else does".
    Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
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    Default Re: Auxiliary effects for mental stats

    Quote Originally Posted by Chronos View Post
    The other thing is, some skills, any one party member succeeding is enough. If your friend the wizard can use Arcana to tell you what that magical greeble is and how it works, then you don't need to figure it out yourself.

    To some extent, this can be true of charisma skills, too, that only the party face uses... but there, at least, you can argue that the presence of the low-charisma folks is hampering the face. And it's sometimes true of Perception, except that you can have everyone rolling Perception to determine surprise, and other things time-critical enough that there's no chance for the "party eyes" to alert everyone else. Mostly, the skills that are "one person succeeds for everyone" are all of the Int-based skills. Which means that, instead of "only the wizard needs Int and nobody else does", it turns into... "only the wizard needs Int and nobody else does".
    That's the same for the normally highly rated sills as well. Only one person needs it.

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    Default Re: Auxiliary effects for mental stats

    Quote Originally Posted by Frogreaver View Post
    You mean buff casters further?
    Yup, that's the danger of making the mental stats matter more and I'd really like mental stats to matter more so you could make, say, a really smart rogue or a charismatic fighter without nerfing yourself into the group. One way to go about this would be to make mental stats matter more for everyone while hitting casters with a big nasty MAD stick.

    Something alone the lines of...

    One Hand Giveth:
    -Tie Int to skills, jut like in 3.*ed. Have a high Int mod give you more skill proficiencies and have dumping an 8 in Int means that you lose one of your proficiencies.
    -Tie Cha to an inspiration/luck system where your starting inspiration bennies are tied to your Cha modifier.
    -For Wis not sure Wis needs any more buffing, dumping your Perception and Wis saves already hurts so most everyone tries to avoid dumping Wis.

    While the Other Hand Taketh Away:
    -Consider returning spell attack rolls to Dex/Str like in 3.*ed.
    -For wizards you could make spells known be tied to Intelligence but spell saving throw DCs be tied to Wisdom. You need brains to learn a lot of spells, but raw willpower to power them through people's defenses.
    -Do similar things for other casters where they need two stats to be the best casters they could be. Perhaps clerics (and druids?) would get more spells known with Wisdom but saving throw DCs be tied to Charisma. Perhaps the number of sorcery points sorcerers get could be tied to Con. With some other classes you could make them more mad by tying casting to one stat and other class features to another stat, kind of like how 3.*ed paladins used wisdom for casting but charisma for other paladin features.

    While you're at it make strength more useful for non-meleers by making an easier to use slot-based initiative system with lots of useful stuff taking up slots (such as certain material components) so that if you dump your strength down to 8 you'll really have to bite the bullet when it comes to useful equipment (to keep bags of holding from being god tier items just have it take too much time to fish stuff out of the bag of holding for it to be too useful in combat).

    The basic idea would be to make there be trade-offs for dumping most any stat for most any character. Of course some stats would still be more useful for some classes than others but there wouldn't be so many no-brainer dump stats and someone with an unorthodox set of stats for their class wouldn't so comprehensively nerf themselves.
    Last edited by Bosh; 2021-10-14 at 09:27 PM.

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    Default Re: Auxiliary effects for mental stats

    An interesting development from another recent thread of mine. The subject was on trying to develop a rock-paper-scissors type of interaction between casters using different casting stats. I came up with something that wouldn't apply to spellcasters specifically, but to any character based on their mental scores. I thought I'd crosspost it here, since it relates to the discussion.
    Quote Originally Posted by Greywander View Post
    I don't think I'm looking for something quite that strong. Making it too one-sided means there's no longer any skill involved, only bringing the correct type to the table that beats your opponent's type. I'm thinking something more along the lines of just gives a slight edge to the one with the stronger type.

    Here's a rough example of something like what I'm thinking, though I have no clue if this is remotely balanced. We can even separate this from being a specific type of caster and instead just make it to do with ability scores (so any character can do these, not just casters).

    Let's say that INT mod times per long rest, you can substitute a d20 roll with either a 15 or a 5 (plus whatever modifiers). This includes rolls you make, attack rolls made against you, or saving throws made against one of your abilities. So INT characters specialize in knowing ahead of time what the result will be, and planning around that.

    Now let's say CHA mod times per long rest, you can reroll any of those same rolls. Keep in mind the INT feature must be used before rolling, while the CHA feature is used after, so using the CHA feature will overwrite the INT result, rendering it useless.

    Finally, let's say WIS mod times per long rest, when those same rolls use multiple dice, you can choose which one gets used. This applies after the CHA feature, again rendering it useless (or worse than useless, if the reroll was a better result for the WIS character). However, the INT feature doesn't feature a second die, or any dice at all (though you could treat it as a single die showing a face value of 5 or 15), so the WIS effect can't be used.

    Again, no clue if this is balanced, but it demonstrates the kind of effect I'm looking for. While these effects aren't limited to casters, casters would have the highest mental stats, and thus the most uses, and these features would likely see the best use with high level spells (or defending yourself against such).
    Quote Originally Posted by Greywander View Post
    Here's a couple examples. First, some non-spell examples that can apply to non-casters.

    You make an attack with a weapon. You use your INT to force the die roll to be a 15, plus modifiers, practically insuring a hit unless the enemy's AC is very high. But sometimes a 15 isn't enough...
    You make an attack with a weapon. You have disadvantage because you are blinded, but use your WIS to choose the better of the two results, overcoming your disadvantage through superior experience.
    You make an attack with a weapon. You roll poorly, so you use your CHA to reroll, getting a better result through sheer determination.

    You run into some ball bearings and make a DEX save. Basically the same as above, but now applying to a saving throw instead of an attack roll.
    You make an Athletics check to climb up a cliff. Halfway up, you need to make another Athletics check, and don't want to fall. Again, same as above, but now applying to an ability check.

    You cast Disintegrate. You use your INT to force a 5 on the saving throw, practically insuring a failure, unless the enemy's save bonuses are very high.
    You cast Disintegrate. The target has advantage on the saving throw because they took the Dodge action, so you use your WIS to choose the worse of the two results.
    You cast Disintegrate. The target rolls high on their save, so you use CHA to force a reroll.

    An enemy mage casts Dimension Door to escape, so you Counterspell. You use your INT to make the Counterspell check a 15 plus modifiers, but the enemy uses CHA to force a reroll, nullifying your 15.
    An enemy mage casts Dimension Door to escape, so you Counterspell. You roll well on the Counterspell check, so the enemy uses CHA to force you to reroll. You use WIS to take your original result.
    (Technically, the way I wrote it out, you shouldn't be able to use these abilities on someone else's ability checks, but I do think it should apply to Counterspell. I'm just not sure how to properly frame the rule to work that way.)

    Basically, it comes down to:
    [You/your target] makes a(n) [ability check/attack roll/saving throw] and [you/your target] uses INT to force the result to be [5/15]. [You/your target] uses CHA to reroll, nullifying the INT effect, so [you/your target] uses WIS to take the original result, nullifying the CHA effect.

    Actually, the more I think about it, the more I like these. INT is kind of in the weakest position, since it needs to be used first. Everyone else can just wait for you to use your INT effect, then nullify it. But INT is pretty reliable when you do use it and it doesn't get nullified. CHA is in a pretty good position, since you can wait to use it until after you get a bad result, but a reroll isn't guarantied to succeed. WIS is interesting, because you generally can't use it most of the time (if the roll doesn't have advantage or disadvantage), but what it does do is let you clutch through those bad rolls more easily, making you more reliable in a tight spot.
    Now, one issue is that even though these benefits would apply to everyone, they would disproportionately benefit casters who invest more in their mental stats than martials do. However, I do quite like these, and they would be pretty useful to martial characters who are able to invest in their mental stats. Perhaps similar bonuses could be created for the physical stats to help balance out the benefits between martials and casters. Perhaps a STR bonus that benefits attack rolls somehow, a DEX bonus that does the same for ability checks, and a CON bonus that works similarly for saving throws (this would also help address DEX being the god stat, and CON being underwhelming). I'm worried that this could get too busy, though.

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    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: Auxiliary effects for mental stats

    I've been pitching that each mental stat should interact with a different aspect of spellcasting since the 3.0 days.

    Int - Spells Known/Prepared
    Wis - Duration, Concentration
    Cha - Spell Save DC, Spell Attack

    Also, gate casting behind an Arcana check. (Or a religion/Nature check, as a feature, for Clerics and Druids, or substituting cha for int, as a class feature, for Sorcerer's/Warlocks) That opens spell casting up to whoever wants to roll a d20, including your high int thief who dropped an expertise in Arcana.
    Real spellcasters get their baseline stuff for their preparation formula, everyone else is rocking raw int in tricks they've learned in these highly magical societies. Rogues can use their handful of tricks *alot*, but they probably won't be so great at it, ultimately, without the additional focus required to generate a save or have their spells endure, certainly not while lacking complementary class abilities.

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