Better alternative than stat-less races

[Hurrashane]

Another option is to do a bit of a thematic sleight-of-hand. Playing an Orc doesn't mean you need to ACTUALLY be stronger than a human, it just means you should FEEL stronger. Building in some explicit abilities around Orcs are Strong, like
"Orcish Strength: Proficiency Bonus/Long Rest do one of the following:
gain advantage on a strength check or save
reroll a damage die
Treat your strength as +2 for the purposes of carrying capacity for 1 hour"

All of which can also help the hypothetical Orc Wizard

So Orc Barbarian and Human Barbarian both have 16 strength, but the Orc gets to occasionally pull out some minor strength-themed benefits to account for Orcs are Strong. So you get to check the "feels like my character is Strong" box without really unbalancing the game.

So... Like how Orcs have powerful build making a 10 strength Orc be able to lift as much as a 20str human?

Or how the Giff has Hippo build making a 10 strength Giff functionally as strong as a 20str (non powerful build) anything else for almost all matters of strength except attack and damage?

But those are the one's already in the game. Having Elves like, be able to get up from prone using only 5ft of movement and not needing to roll an acrobatics check to balance on things would showcase elven agility much better than a +2 to dex ever could.

Though I suppose the trouble with things like that is they often get forgotten about... Though I suppose that'd be more on the players.

[Bosh]

Mountain dwarves are substantially better fighters post-Tasha's, due to the proficiencies they get, I once joked that unlike most Dwarves, a Mountain dwarf fighter is the most dwarf to ever dwarf, because while most Dwarves get one tool for flavor (smith's, brewer's or mason's tools). Mountain dwarf can start with all of them and then some. Before background and class.
Compared to, PHB Mountain dwarf fighter, which has no racial features beyond reduced speed and poison resistance.

"But my table doesn't use tools"- use tools, they are fun and interesting.
--
For my half ability bonus thought, here is the most coherent way I curently envision the numbers:
20, +3
17-19, +2
14 - 16, +1
11- 13, +0
8-10, -1
5-7, -2
2-4, -3
1, - 4

And here is prof bonus but I am still very much mulling it over:
1st, +4
3rd, +5
5th,+ 6
7th, +7
9th, +8
11th, +9
13th, +10
15th, +11
17th, +12
(Optional) 19th, +13

Mountain dwarves are great post-Tasha's they're just (comparatively) very bad for the fighter class since most of the proficiencies that are so nice on other classes are so redundant that it feels like playing a goblin rogue.

The reason its hard to do with ability scores is:

- Ability scores are fungible with point buy. So 'how much does it cost to make X spread with race Y?' is a question with an objective answer across all players
- Classes are mostly SAD, meaning that for a given class, the above gives you a 'cheapest' race to play that class (which in turn means more points to spare to put the less important stats where you want)

Good point about SADness seriously contributing to the problem. If you make D&D more MAD across the board then racial stats become substantially less of a problem.

However the details of how I'd do it would be different from yours, some ideas:
-Make a lot of casters MAD by default by breaking up their spellcasting stat between two different stats (for example wizards could get more spells known if they have high Int but higher save DCs if they have high Wis etc. etc. etc.)
-Make strength stop being a dump-stat for non-melee classes by having a slot-based encumbrance system with TEETH with things like some material components requiring an inventory slot etc. etc. so that it always hurts everyone to dump strength.
-Go back to the 3.*ed system of having Int be tied to skills so that it hurts to dump Int. Also make sure that skills are more useful in combat.
-Maybe tie Charisma to the inspiration system?
-Everyone already needs Con and Wis and Dex saves are nasty enough that even Tanky McTankface feels some pain if he dumps dex all the way down to eight.

[NichG]

Good point about SADness seriously contributing to the problem. If you make D&D more MAD across the board then racial stats become substantially less of a problem.

However the details of how I'd do it would be different from yours, some ideas:
-Make a lot of casters MAD by default by breaking up their spellcasting stat between two different stats (for example wizards could get more spells known if they have high Int but higher save DCs if they have high Wis etc. etc. etc.)
-Make strength stop being a dump-stat for non-melee classes by having a slot-based encumbrance system with TEETH with things like some material components requiring an inventory slot etc. etc. so that it always hurts everyone to dump strength.
-Go back to the 3.*ed system of having Int be tied to skills so that it hurts to dump Int. Also make sure that skills are more useful in combat.
-Maybe tie Charisma to the inspiration system?
-Everyone already needs Con and Wis and Dex saves are nasty enough that even Tanky McTankface feels some pain if he dumps dex all the way down to eight.

Part of what I was going for was something where you could legitimately have 'a strength wizard', 'a dexterity wizard', 'an intelligence wizard', 'a wisdom wizard', 'a charisma wizard', etc be distinct builds that would actually play in different ways and be specialized and potent in different ways. One would be good at throwing around handfuls of dice at things, another would be good at pin-point ray or touch-based stuff and would get more bang for the buck with those casts, another would have a lot more staying power, another would be able to drop massive AoEs right on top of their allies without worrying about friendly fire, another would be good at handing out buffs or persisting effects, etc. At the same time, you could ideally have e.g 'an intelligence fighter' and 'a wisdom fighter' and 'a dexterity fighter' and 'a strength fighter' and so on be distinct things which would play differently.

I think its important that these be components of active action on the part of the character, because 'I'm better at defending against something when the enemy picks the thing I'm strong in to attack' isn't really enough to hang a whole playstyle or build on. You might not want to dump a defensive stat because it sucks when you get hit, but unless you also have some trick to force enemies to attack you on your strong stat, the overall impact is pretty small and won't stand up against the thing you're doing on your round nearly every round.

With the idea that, for example, if you had a wizard guild or thieves guild or warrior's guild or organization of clerics or whatnot in the setting, they'd have no valid reason not to want to recruit orcs and elves and halflings and gnomes and so on, because each individual would be covering different priorities and different bases.

[zlefin]

So, what's the best way to get classes to be more MAD while still sticking to 5e design goals? That seems like an inherently hard thing to do. Making themed subclasses that play into alternate stats more could work; but that's not so much making the classes be MAD as making certain subclasses that work better with unusual stat arrangements.

The idea of having it help active actions is good; it just seems hard to do without adding lots of fiddliness. I wonder if having spells that get boosts from certain stats would work? eg one could have certain 'pushing' type spells that are extra good if you have high str for instance. Fiddliness in a spell is a bit more acceptable than otherwise;

It's hard to find a way to add it to fighting classes though, as those tend to have fewer levers to work with. Though there the subclass method might work better;

[Theodoxus]

So, what's the best way to get classes to be more MAD while still sticking to 5e design goals? That seems like an inherently hard thing to do. Making themed subclasses that play into alternate stats more could work; but that's not so much making the classes be MAD as making certain subclasses that work better with unusual stat arrangements.

Well, for martial classes, let weapon attacks use both Str and Dex for damage (maybe to hit, but that stretches Bounded Accuracy way more than an extra 1 to 5 in damage does. Likewise, add Wisdom to Initiative. Sure, Monks will now go first most of the time, but that's ok. Initiative is a tiny boost in power, but players Love It.

For magical classes, you could grant bonus spells based on Int mod, Spell DCs/Attack rolls based on Wis mod and add Cha mod to non-cantrip damage and extend durations by Cha mod round/minute/hour depending on the spells native duration.

I think those changes, while adding a little bit of complexity (arguably outside of 5E's paradigm) isn't so much as to break the core concepts, at least for a veteran table.

[Xervous]

So, what's the best way to get classes to be more MAD while still sticking to 5e design goals? That seems like an inherently hard thing to do. Making themed subclasses that play into alternate stats more could work; but that's not so much making the classes be MAD as making certain subclasses that work better with unusual stat arrangements.

The idea of having it help active actions is good; it just seems hard to do without adding lots of fiddliness. I wonder if having spells that get boosts from certain stats would work? eg one could have certain 'pushing' type spells that are extra good if you have high str for instance. Fiddliness in a spell is a bit more acceptable than otherwise;

It's hard to find a way to add it to fighting classes though, as those tend to have fewer levers to work with. Though there the subclass method might work better;

Each class has a primary for their usual shtick, a secondary that fuels fancy stuff, and a tertiary that fuels their subclass.

Rogue: DEX is your combat stat. You get additional expertise equal to your INT mod plus other stuff. Swashbuckler gets more good stuff from CHA. There’s now convincing arguments for 6/15 racial ASI combinations for this subclass alone, and only 3/15 racial asi combinations that will have a single whiff stat for a rogue in general.

[Snails]

So, what's the best way to get classes to be more MAD while still sticking to 5e design goals? That seems like an inherently hard thing to do. Making themed subclasses that play into alternate stats more could work; but that's not so much making the classes be MAD as making certain subclasses that work better with unusual stat arrangements.

If you want MADness, it should be built into the chassis.

For primary spell casters, I would make DC always Cha-based. Int or Wis would offer many more spells prepared/known.

For fighter types, I would bake in options like a shield Shove as a bonus action, and other little maneuvers that require a Str-check. As for Dex, there are already significant penalties for dumping Dex.

[Hurrashane]

I feel that making classes more MAD will just make every character of that class more similar. Like how most monks are built almost the exact same every time because they need to be.

Honestly a better way might be to go in the other direction and decouple things from attributes. Have attack and damage based on proficiency bonus, proficiency to AC (full to light armor less to medium & heavy), then leave attributes for carry weight, skills, saves, and some odd class features.

Beefing up skills to give more of them a good use in combat may also work.

[BRC]

I feel that making classes more MAD will just make every character of that class more similar. Like how most monks are built almost the exact same every time because they need to be.

Honestly a better way might be to go in the other direction and decouple things from attributes. Have attack and damage based on proficiency bonus, proficiency to AC (full to light armor less to medium & heavy), then leave attributes for carry weight, skills, saves, and some odd class features.

Beefing up skills to give more of them a good use in combat may also work.

I was going to say "That would make every character feel the same" but thinking about it it kind of feels that way anyway, since everybody wants to pump their primary stat as much as possible regardless. maybe moving us away from the tyranny of your combat effectiveness being derived from your primary stat is a good thing.

[Xervous]

I was going to say "That would make every character feel the same" but thinking about it it kind of feels that way anyway, since everybody wants to pump their primary stat as much as possible regardless.

INT now gives battlemaster more dice for maneuvers, and more maneuvers known. How much would it need to give to prove alluring to you, to Jimmy Somebody, for one character concept vs another? At 0 return on INT nobody invests in it currently. But what if you had... +INT dice, +2x INT at 7th, and +3x INT at 15th? Broken, underpowered, I pulled those numbers out of thin air but I bet there’s a point where people would go “STR... or INT?”

[Hurrashane]

INT now gives battlemaster more dice for maneuvers, and more maneuvers known. How much would it need to give to prove alluring to you, to Jimmy Somebody, for one character concept vs another? At 0 return on INT nobody invests in it currently. But what if you had... +INT dice, +2x INT at 7th, and +3x INT at 15th? Broken, underpowered, I pulled those numbers out of thin air but I bet there’s a point where people would go “STR... or INT?”

Just having different maneuvers calculate saves with different stats would work, or at least having other options for stats. Tripping someone by using your int mod for your save DC? Feint then using a cha based DC? Etc

[Xervous]

Just having different maneuvers calculate saves with different stats would work, or at least having other options for stats. Tripping someone by using your int mod for your save DC? Feint then using a cha based DC? Etc

This just forces the players back into silos “oh I have a STR INT race better only take the INT maneuvers on my fighter”. If the question is quantity vs quality of maneuvers it’s harder to point to which of STR 18/INT 14, STR 14/INT 18 is universally better. The INT guy has 4 more dice that he likes to splurge on skill rolls? The STR guy only wanted enough to carry him through expected combats? Hard to say who is the winner without a campaign’s context.

[NichG]

So, what's the best way to get classes to be more MAD while still sticking to 5e design goals? That seems like an inherently hard thing to do. Making themed subclasses that play into alternate stats more could work; but that's not so much making the classes be MAD as making certain subclasses that work better with unusual stat arrangements.

The idea of having it help active actions is good; it just seems hard to do without adding lots of fiddliness. I wonder if having spells that get boosts from certain stats would work? eg one could have certain 'pushing' type spells that are extra good if you have high str for instance. Fiddliness in a spell is a bit more acceptable than otherwise;

It's hard to find a way to add it to fighting classes though, as those tend to have fewer levers to work with. Though there the subclass method might work better;

I wouldn't use subclasses because again you end up with SAD subclasses. And I guess the particular flavor of MAD I'm going for is sort of like, a character with all 10s should not feel like they're missing something they need, but a character who puts a 20 in different places should feel like they have different options or possibilities that enables for them.

So I was approaching this by thinking about the sorts of factors that underlie 'what constitutes taking action?' in the most class-generic way I could - you have to be in range of what you want to act on, certain targets may be valid and others not, you care about what environmental factors make the action possible/impossible and sensical/nonsensical, environmental factors that synergize with action like pushing someone off a ledge or hitting multiple enemies with a fireball, you care about the knock-on consequences of actions, you care about the rate of success of the action and the intensity of the result, for things with on-going consequences you care about how long those consequences persist, you care about the cost of taking the action and when you can do it (or some other action) again... Then, which of those things can you give someone the opportunity to get more of without making it feel mandatory, and also which of those lend themselves to changing the way you'd try to play that character?

So probably fighting classes need to make more contact with these considerations - ways in which their actions create status conditions with durations, things that influence an area rather than a single point (for example this could just be the area threatened by a weapon, or if you specifically add mechanics for holding ground that let a character move to intercept someone off-turn, it could be that radius of interception), etc. But if you're mostly going to be rushing in and dumping damage on the enemy rather than e.g. holding ground against their charge, those play style would ask for a different pattern of attributes.

I don't know that it would have to be all that fiddly. 'Whenever you do something that covers an extended zone - area of effect spells, threatening an area, guarding terrain, etc, you can choose to expand the zone by a contiguous 5ft square for each point of Wisdom modifier' would be a pretty all-encompassing single rule to know, versus having to know which spells are going to benefit from Strength and which are not and so on.

[ahyangyi]

Just having different maneuvers calculate saves with different stats would work, or at least having other options for stats. Tripping someone by using your int mod for your save DC? Feint then using a cha based DC? Etc

Somehow that was the idea behind the 3.5 feat chains; you needed Int 13 to grab Combat Expertise, and there are many feats that depend on Combat Expertise but had nothing to do "fighting defensively". They are, effectively, a "int mod fighter subclass". Unfortunately it also felt very artificial and nobody liked Combat Expertise anyways.

The ultimate staple example of "a good feat hidden in a terribly long feat chain", Whirlwind Attack, was hid behind gates requiring both Int 13 and Dex 13, but works best with a huge reach weapon. Of course everyone hated that design, but I guess the original intent might just be "we need to give the intelligent fighter some toy to play with, the single stat Power Attack guy can't have all the glory".

4E also have the idea of different weapon types keying on different secondary stats. You use Heavy blade? You main str but must invest in dex. But if you use a Polearm? Then Wisdom instead. Like that. It actually worked for 4e. But that's because it's 4e.

There was also the idea of letting you to use all skills during combat, such as high intimidate being used for the demoralize action. Which, of course, doesn't fix the problem either, since they are universal and still promote hyperspecialization.

The 5E idea of turning all ability scores into saves might be another attempt, but it's pointless since saves are very passive things. We don't build our character concept around such passive things.

Anyway, I do wish that the secondary ability scores feel more like trade-offs. That'll make races giving different secondary ability score feel natural. Ditto for primary ability score, though that's harder to imagine.