| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hello there!
These are my thoughts on ability scores, and a first draft of my house rules on generation using the point buy method and on increases (including racial modifiers and increases every 4 character levels). These house rules are intended for my next campaign, which should end around 10th level.
Discussion
I find that my players usually tend to drop one ability score below 10 during point buy, or two if we're playing with a 15 point buy instead of 20. I think they're doing this in order to find the room to maximize one score for single ability dependent concepts, round out multiple scores for multiple ability dependent concepts, or meet odd-numbered prerequisites like 13 or 15. My players have fun with their characters' strengths, and one character's weakness allows for a different character's strength to shine, but I am worried that the weakness itself is not meaningful or interesting during play.
My players always drop Strength, Intelligence, or Charisma. Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom affect AC, hp, saves, and Perception, and my players when playing a race with a penalty to one of these abilities will go out of their way to spend the points they saved from dropping the former to make sure the latter are not below 10.
Since the decision is made on the level of character concepts and mechanics, the low ability score also ends up clichéd. Every one of my player characters with a low Strength has been a noodle-armed mage or scoundrel, with a low Intelligence has been uninterested in lore as 'book learning,' and with a low Charisma has been antisocial. Clichés have a role when building NPCs, since it makes my world consistent, but I have found that my players find their characters that break these clichés, such as a magus or thug rogue with high Strength, or a charismatic or lore warden fighter, much more memorable.
When presented with a challenge that asks a player to engage with a low score, however, they will either play to their character's strengths—which is what they were going to do anyway—or check out and let another party member who has a higher score handle it. The tools I have to challenge a low score directly, such as poisons and grappling, have to get through a character's defenses which are never their real weaknesses, and become tiring or appear targeted if I overuse them.
I'm not sure if everything above is actually a problem, or a problem I can fix with house rules. The specific problems I am hoping I can fix are the following:
• Dropping an ability score is done to increase another ability score, not because the low ability score itself is interesting. There should be a benefit to dropping if it is intended to be a weakness you can opt into, but the current cost and benefit are too symmetrical.
• Dropping some ability scores is more costly than dropping others. For example, Strength 8, especially for a character who has nothing based on Strength, is not the same as Constitution 8.
• Racial penalties, especially to Dexterity, Constitution, or Wisdom, lead my players to drop a less important ability to offset the penalty. Effectively, they end up dropping a different ability score.
• If a low ability score is meant to be an actual character weakness, it has more to do with player perceptions of weakness than game mechanics. A player might not engage with a climbing obstacle because he has Strength 8, but with enough ranks in Climb, he is effectively the same as a character with Strength 18 and no ranks in Climb.
Generating Ability Scores
Increase the point buy by 5 (a 15-point buy becomes 20, 20-point buy becomes 25, and so on), but players cannot drop ability scores below 10.
The player effectively receives the points they would have received by dropping ability scores.
Racial Ability Score Modifiers
Races that have an increase to two ability scores now grant an increase to one of the two instead. They no longer have a penalty. (For example, an elf character now chooses between +2 Dexterity or +2 Intelligence. They no longer have a -2 penalty to Constitution. Human characters still choose +2 to any one ability score.)
Races with irregular bonuses and penalties, such as orcs and kobolds, need more work.
Small-sized races may need more work. I am considering keeping their -2 penalty to Strength to make them feel different from Medium-sized races.
Ability Score Increases
Your ability score increases from your race and from levelling instead read "the ability score increases by 2, or by 1 if it's already 18 or higher." Instead of every four character levels, you get an ability score increase every even character level (the ones you don't get feats). I hope this house rule improves multiple-ability dependent characters while being a smaller improvement for single-ability dependent characters, and lessens the dependency on ability score magic items.
Optional: Ability Flaws
During character creation, you can choose one ability to be your flaw. That ability is set at 7, and costs 0. Effectively, you can't interact with it through point buy, just like how you can't interact with a score of — when building an undead character. You can increase it as normal through racial bonuses and ability score increases.
A flaw needs to have a sliding scale of benefits. The benefits themselves need more work. My working solution is that a flaw in Strength, Intelligence, or Charisma grants the character one additional trait. A flaw in Dexterity or Wisdom grants two traits. A flaw in Constitution grants three traits. There might be a diminishing return in how valuable traits are, but the important point is that the benefit for a flaw is not a proportional increase to another ability score.
If you're playing with hero points or Mythic Adventures as I am, consider adding that you cannot spend hero points to reroll or mythic surge on a d20 roll based on your flaw. A more adversative solution without hero points or mythic power might be that once per session, the GM can force you to reroll a d20 roll based on your flaw and take the worse result. The important point is that the flaw actually feels like a flaw.
I did something similar to this 3 campaigns ago, except I went with 32 pt buy and no stat dumping below 10, but if a racial reduced it to 8 then that's fine, and it worked pretty well. I also have a house rule that every 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 is +2 Abil Score rather than a +1, and that's because most of my campaigns only reach lvl 13-18 max. My last campaign was an exception though, it was an Evil Gestalt campaign that was planned on purpose to go levels 20+, so I did 25pt buy with stat dumping and +2 abil score increases at 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20, and with a new house rule for that lone campaign: +1 abil score increases at lvl 7, 14, and 20 to any abil score that isn't your primary modifier.
My current campaign is back to regular 25pt buy with +2 abil scores at 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, but I think this one is going to probably end around lvl 12-13ish.
I did something similar to this 3 campaigns ago, except I went with 32 pt buy and no stat dumping below 10, but if a racial reduced it to 8 then that's fine, and it worked pretty well. I also have a house rule that every 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 is +2 Abil Score rather than a +1, and that's because most of my campaigns only reach lvl 13-18 max. My last campaign was an exception though, it was an Evil Gestalt campaign that was planned on purpose to go levels 20+, so I did 25pt buy with stat dumping and +2 abil score increases at 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20, and with a new house rule for that lone campaign: +1 abil score increases at lvl 7, 14, and 20 to any abil score that isn't your primary modifier.
My current campaign is back to regular 25pt buy with +2 abil scores at 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, but I think this one is going to probably end around lvl 12-13ish.
I think ability score increases of 2 instead of 1 work especially well when a player only sees a couple of them in campaigns up to about 12th, and I'm glad you've had good experiences with that house rule. For your gestalt campaign, is there a reason why you gave them additional ability score increases at 7th, 14th, and 20th?
we do point buy (typically 25), no stat above 17 or below 10 before applying racial modifiers. Seems to fix all the issues.
|
Traditionally, focusing on Dex over Con was commonplace since it was much more efficient to not get hit than have a few more hit points, but 3E changed that by making Con integral to Con saves, and death thresholds. I think the mathhammers would still prioritize Dex over Con, but its certainly no longer a "dump" stat as much as it once was.
As far as point-buy, my own experience is a little different. I find players try to hyper-optimize their characters and dump stats arrise from that process. The greater the point-buy, the higher their prime stats get while the dump stat stays the same. Once the point-buy is high enough they can maximize-out their prime stat/s without dumping, that's when they stop doing it. Its a fairly common practice outside of monks or other multi-stat characters.
As a GM, I find it earier to manage the power-curve if players don't have god-like stats at 1st level. So, in my home games, I started dropping the point-buy to 15. Their highest score tends to be a single 16 and they have a few 12s and 14s. Since I have control of the game, I provide challenges that don't require a PC always having max stats to survive. Then when we get to higher levels, their stats aren't so high that an appropriate challenge, by system rules, isn't a cake-walk.
Remember, this is all just a math-race. If they have incredibly high stats, you need to adjust challenges to match. If you reduce those stats to merely above average, they can still improve over time, but it slows the power-curve and keeps classic/traditional enemies challenging for much longer.
YMMV
So, first off, what you're describing as the "problem" is a core assumption of the d20 System, and has been for 20 years now. Consider the iconic 15-point array: 15/14/13/12/10/8. It does pretty much everything you're talking about.
Being worried that, as you say, "the weakness itself is not meaningful or interesting during play" will invariably lead you to targeting. Changing the stat system, as such, will not remove this; the only way to force a low stat to be relevant is to target it. Even if you actually remove weaknesses (which was your 20-point min-10 idea), you're only changing how the weakness is defined.
As for the stats:
- Low Strength characters literally ARE noodle-armed, due to having low carry weight. Strength penalties make you quite ill-suited for physical combat. (My 4-Str gnome sorcerer punches for 1d2-3; by all rights, she should give the target a temporary HP because her punches can't do more than massage.)
- Given what Charisma has always represented, and what skills are governed by Cha, low-Cha characters ARE antisocial.
- As for low Int, it's worse than that. They're incapable of doing anything useful (non-class-wise, anyway) beyond the 1 skill (or 2, if human) they're likely to have.
That said, because the other three stats translate into game mechanics in a direct, universal way, they're not likely to be dumped. (There are exceptions, of course.)
At least it's not as bad as AD&D First Edition, where not playing to cliche caused your level training to become more expensive, take longer, and absolutely require NPC assistance.
----
Now let's consider your fixes.
1. 20 point buy, minimum 10:
16 / 14 / 14 / 10 / 10 / 10
16 / 14 / 13 / 12 / 10 / 10
15 / 14 / 14 / 13 / 10 / 10
15 / 14 / 13 / 13 / 12 / 10
These are the most likely arrays you'll see, I'd imagine. As I said, you're only redefining weakness; players will still avoid playing to their 10s. Perhaps not to the same extent as avoiding playing to an actual minus, but all the same.
2. Racials:
Absotively and posilutely not!
Besides the complication of trying to modify all of the standard racial packages, you're considering arbitrary retention of penalties with no compensation. Compare an elf and a ratfolk, for example. Both have +Dex +Int, but Legolas has -Con while Splinter has -Str. Why should only one of them be forced to retain a stat penalty?
And what of Small races that don't have -Str, such as gathlains?
3. Taking ability 7s in exchange for traits.
I'm not sure you can find three traits (or even three feats!) that would be worth taking this in Con. You're talking about -2 hp/level, -2 Fort saves, a death threshold of just -7, and a possible "feel like a flaw" rule that allows the GM to arbitrarily give you disadvantage on your Fort and/or death saves.
I think ability score increases of 2 instead of 1 work especially well when a player only sees a couple of them in campaigns up to about 12th, and I'm glad you've had good experiences with that house rule. For your gestalt campaign, is there a reason why you gave them additional ability score increases at 7th, 14th, and 20th?I did something similar to this 3 campaigns ago, except I went with 32 pt buy and no stat dumping below 10, but if a racial reduced it to 8 then that's fine, and it worked pretty well. I also have a house rule that every 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 is +2 Abil Score rather than a +1, and that's because most of my campaigns only reach lvl 13-18 max. My last campaign was an exception though, it was an Evil Gestalt campaign that was planned on purpose to go levels 20+, so I did 25pt buy with stat dumping and +2 abil score increases at 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20, and with a new house rule for that lone campaign: +1 abil score increases at lvl 7, 14, and 20 to any abil score that isn't your primary modifier.
My current campaign is back to regular 25pt buy with +2 abil scores at 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, but I think this one is going to probably end around lvl 12-13ish.
Because Gestalts have two classes, and that makes them multi-attribute dependent to say the least. So this +1 is for increasing your 2nd most-needed attribute score, without causing your primary modifier to become overpowered.
TxSam88 and TwlightKnight, you guys helped me consider why the point buy system allows for 17s and 18s. I guess it's a leftover from the "roll 3d6 for ability scores" system, so that point buy has the same maximum as rolling. But if an 18 costs 17 points, in a 15-point buy it signals to the player, "If you want an 18, find 2 more points by dropping another ability to an 8." In a 20-point buy, the player will spend an overwhelming of their points on that 18 if they don't drop other abilities.
If we take wealth for higher-level characters as an example, the game prevents the player from spending disproportionate amounts on a single item. Why not have the same logic for ability scores? If 16 was the highest ability score available, then it would be worth 50% of the points in a 20-point buy. Here are a few sample arrays:
• For a 15-point buy, 16, 14, 10, 10, 10, 10; or, 16, 13, 12, 10, 10, 10.
• For a 20-point buy, 16, 16, 10, 10, 10, 10; or, 16, 15, 13, 10, 10, 10; or, 16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 10.
Traditionally, focusing on Dex over Con was commonplace since it was much more efficient to not get hit than have a few more hit points, but 3E changed that by making Con integral to Con saves, and death thresholds. I think the mathhammers would still prioritize Dex over Con, but its certainly no longer a "dump" stat as much as it once was.
As far as point-buy, my own experience is a little different. I find players try to hyper-optimize their characters and dump stats arrise from that process. The greater the point-buy, the higher their prime stats get while the dump stat stays the same. Once the point-buy is high enough they can maximize-out their prime stat/s without dumping, that's when they stop doing it. Its a fairly common practice outside of monks or other multi-stat characters.
As a GM, I find it earier to manage the power-curve if players don't have god-like stats at 1st level. So, in my home games, I started dropping the point-buy to 15. Their highest score tends to be a single 16 and they have a few 12s and 14s. Since I have control of the game, I provide challenges that don't require a PC always having max stats to survive. Then when we get to higher levels, their stats aren't so high that an appropriate challenge, by system rules, isn't a cake-walk.
Remember, this is all just a math-race. If they have incredibly high stats, you need to adjust challenges to match. If you reduce those stats to merely above average, they can still improve over time, but it slows the power-curve and keeps classic/traditional enemies challenging for much longer.
YMMV
I think the point at which an ability score is "hyper-optimized" vs. just optimized, or "god-like" varies from group to group. When I play or GM in my group, it's likely that 1st-level single-ability dependent characters have at least an 18, if not a 20 after racials. Due to binary results ("You either hit the enemy, or nothing happens; the enemy either fails its saving throw against your colour spray or nothing happens") especially when limited-use class features like spells and rage rounds are at stake, a clean 50% to succeed rarely feels like a 50% during play, so I think we feel challenged instead of frustrated when we fail since we know we've done everything we can to mitigate the odds of failure.
Because Gestalts have two classes, and that makes them multi-attribute dependent to say the least. So this +1 is for increasing your 2nd most-needed attribute score, without causing your primary modifier to become overpowered.
That makes sense, thank you for explaining! But I was more interested in why specifically levels 7th, 14th, and 20th.
As far as Ability Score from a little different point of view. I am playing around with a concept that Sean Conners uses and I have stole from him that I have come to really appreciate. It puts a lot more control on ability development back into the player's hands. Which is where I want it and it gives them options on how to develop their character and not have to think about it just from a long term perspective.
Conner's uses a % system so that at creation you roll six sets of % that are then assigned in order to the ability scores. So lets say you get 44%, 18%, 23%, 96%, 84%, 62%. Those would be assigned to STR 44%, DEX 18%, CON 23%, INT 96%, WIS 84% and CHA 62%.
Now those are put on the right of the actual ability score. At each level up they can allocate 50% points any way they see fit to their character's ability score. So this allows the player to think both short term...example above an instant boost to INT with 4% and WIS with 16% to increase both by 1. Now the example above has 30% to think long term. Every time you hit 100% your ability goes up by 1 point. The % goes to 0% and you essentially start over building it up again for each ability score.
With 50% for 19 levels that gives you 1450% to play with...14.5 points to add to your character essentially and it is something the player gets every level. In the case above with just 20% points he raised his INT and WIS by 1 point at the increase to 2nd leve. I have a general rule that no ability score can be below a 9 prior to Racial modifiers. I like to have well rounded players in the group as I tend to play 20 to 25 point buy campaigns. If a player wants to invest all their points into one ability so be it but I have not seen that happen yet. They actually tend to do a better job of rounding their characters out as they have a bigger pool of ability points to pull from as they progress.
Here is the kicker and something I like about this concept a lot. I am a big proponent of having a buffer when it comes to magic and life restoring magics and sneaky way of impacting a character through poison, disease and even magic. Party's should not be able to simply bring a party member back to life with out some sort of consequence to both the character being brought back and the person doing it. This acts as that mechanism. The use of poison should be subtle at times...that assassins' or vengeful enemy who slowly poisons the character at the local tavern until it is to late and the moment is right. Or those groups traversing a sewer and a week into the adventure several discover they are weakening but never noticed it until their ability score actually dropped on them.
Long Term Poison/Disease effects:
I also like the fact that this is another way to hit the party with damage but it is much more subtle. (Poison/Disease) that have a longer term effect on the player that they don't see coming until it is to late.
Life Restoring Magic:
Every time a PC is brought back they lose a small percentage of those points (3% to 10%) from every score based on the spell used. Also the healer providing the life restoring magic loses % as well but not as much (2% to 8%) depending on the spell.
% Points add on for Ability Scores
Food for thought.
I am in the middle of doing a PF1E revise --- like a 1.25 based on things I want to see changed and this is one of the things I am adding.
Jack
That makes sense, thank you for explaining! But I was more interested in why specifically levels 7th, 14th, and 20th.
Because I wanted a natural progression to lvl 20 for both a primary and secondary modifier. Since this was in addition to already being given five +2's throughout (+10 total, and most-likely put towards primary modifier), I thought +3 was generous enough, but I also didn't want to give a +5 total. Gestalt is pretty high-powered enough already.
As far as Ability Score from a little different point of view. I am playing around with a concept that Sean Conners uses and I have stole from him that I have come to really appreciate. It puts a lot more control on ability development back into the player's hands. Which is where I want it and it gives them options on how to develop their character and not have to think about it just from a long term perspective.
Conner's uses a % system so that at creation you roll six sets of % that are then assigned in order to the ability scores. So lets say you get 44%, 18%, 23%, 96%, 84%, 62%. Those would be assigned to STR 44%, DEX 18%, CON 23%, INT 96%, WIS 84% and CHA 62%. (etc)
That kinda reminds me of how exceptional Strength, and wishing stats above 16, worked in AD&D. I might need to play around with it some. o:
That kinda reminds me of how exceptional Strength, and wishing stats above 16, worked in AD&D. I might need to play around with it some. o:As far as Ability Score from a little different point of view. I am playing around with a concept that Sean Conners uses and I have stole from him that I have come to really appreciate. It puts a lot more control on ability development back into the player's hands. Which is where I want it and it gives them options on how to develop their character and not have to think about it just from a long term perspective.
Conner's uses a % system so that at creation you roll six sets of % that are then assigned in order to the ability scores. So lets say you get 44%, 18%, 23%, 96%, 84%, 62%. Those would be assigned to STR 44%, DEX 18%, CON 23%, INT 96%, WIS 84% and CHA 62%. (etc)
Yep; he even states he got the idea for the old 18/00 on Strength. I think it is a neat idea. One of the things I have been throwing around in my head is when the PCs roll the %'s you note them and the impact on them is not noticed until an ability is reduced or a level up. Now if you think about that...this kind of changes what you can do with say a Vampire...or any life draining encounter. At first the loss is not noticeable (just loss of %) but when that first ability point drops...ok what is going on?! It brings an element of unknown danger into the game. Healer's heal checks, the right knowledge check, can be put into play. Think the story of Dracula and how many times in the actual story the victim was initially portray as looking haggard or didn't feel well...but everything was normal. A few weeks later the person dies from unknown blood loss, sickness, some unknown malady. I can see this as a way to game that experience out in a RP heavy game.
There is a lot more you can do with this as you think about it.
Jack
Generating Ability Scores
Now let's consider your fixes.
1. 20 point buy, minimum 10:
16 / 14 / 14 / 10 / 10 / 10
16 / 14 / 13 / 12 / 10 / 10
15 / 14 / 14 / 13 / 10 / 10
15 / 14 / 13 / 13 / 12 / 10
These are the most likely arrays you'll see, I'd imagine. As I said, you're only redefining weakness; players will still avoid playing to their 10s. Perhaps not to the same extent as avoiding playing to an actual minus, but all the same.
You raise a good point that just limiting the minimum ability score to 10 redefines the lowest point. But I think a minimum of 10 makes the player character average, if not competent, at things outside of their comfort zone. It might also come down to the type of campaign, but I would prefer failure to come from player action or the game world taking the characters seriously, and not from not impairment or disability. A base of 10 reinforces the "10 is the average adult human" aspect of the game world, and becomes the point of comparison for an ability flaw of 7.
Racial Ability Score Modifiers
2. Racials:
Absotively and posilutely not!
Besides the complication of trying to modify all of the standard racial packages, you're considering arbitrary retention of penalties with no compensation. Compare an elf and a ratfolk, for example. Both have +Dex +Int, but Legolas has -Con while Splinter has -Str. Why should only one of them be forced to retain a stat penalty?
And what of Small races that don't have -Str, such as gathlains?
You're right that I shouldn't just give Small-sized races a -2 Strength penalty. This is where I might actually consider keeping the old "+2 to two ability scores, -2 to one ability score" model; the penalty is a neutral physical description of Small size instead of an overarching statement that all dwarves are gruff or all orcs are stupid.
Consider the following:
• Dwarf: +2 Constitution or +2 Wisdom
• Elf: +2 Dexterity or +2 Intelligence
• Half-Elf: +2 any
• Half-Orc: +2 any
• Human: +2 any
• Aasimar: +2 Wisdom or +2 Charisma*
• Catfolk: +2 Dexterity or +2 Charisma
• Dhampir: +2 Dexterity or +2 Charisma*
etc.
* Variant aasimar, dhampir, and tiefling have convenient two-ability packages that are easily translated here.
The only two Small-sized races that don't have a Strength penalty in Pathfinder are monkey goblins and gathlains. The +4/-4 outliers of orcs, goblins, kobolds, and duergar, and the variable bonuses of skinwalkers, don't play well with this house rule. But since most of these are monstrous races that I generally don't play with as player character races, I think the house rule works as a rule of thumb.
Optional: Ability Flaws
3. Taking ability 7s in exchange for traits.
I'm not sure you can find three traits (or even three feats!) that would be worth taking this in Con. You're talking about -2 hp/level, -2 Fort saves, a death threshold of just -7, and a possible "feel like a flaw" rule that allows the GM to arbitrarily give you disadvantage on your Fort and/or death saves.
I think this goes to show that giving the player the same four points during point buy for dropping Strength to 7 and dropping Constitution to 7 is unequal.
For a rational player to begin considering taking a penalty to Constitution, it has to be given a proportionately bigger benefit. I don't think dropping Constitution will happen often regardless of what benefit I put on it, but a bonus feat might make sense. With Toughness or Great Fortitude and favoured class bonuses to hp, a player with a 7 Constitution flaw might still be able to survive until ability score increases start to kick in.
I'm not a fan of on-the-spot arbitrary decisions as a GM that feel like I'm playing adversary or archenemy to the players. That's why I said in my original post that since I'm playing with hero points and Mythic Adventures, the flaw will prevent the player from spending hero points or mythic power on a d20 roll modified by their flaw.