While I know not everyone agrees with abilities in 5e needing a balance change with house rules, it seems to me that most due by reading through different forum posts. So here are my thoughts on the matter.
It seems that most consider the following to be the case:
DEX is the best by increasing AC, initiative, useful skills, useful saves, and boosts to weapons of range, thrown, and finesse (which are also usually light for bonus attack).
CON is great with HP of course and saves. Then there are some other things such as how long you can hold your breath and go without food and water.
STR is good for melee weapons, for heavy armor (AC/movement), skills, and saves. STR becomes great if using variant encumbrance rules and coin weight (movement).
WIS is ok because of skills. It is obviously better if you are a caster requiring this, but that is limited to those specific classes and feats.
CHA and INT are the flaw picks with INT usually being the weakest of the two due to skills like Religion not playing as important of a roll in most DM campaigns. Although I am all for Religion being more morality focused instead of limited to only specific religions. Both are more roll playing focused with some environmental. Very few DM campaigns apply them to combat. Again, spellcaster needing them will go for it.
Now here is my suggestion to balance them, at least more so than what is currently going on.
DEX: Keep it as is since it is already at the top of the list.
STR: Add STR modifier to the variant weight maximum, heavily encumbered weight maximum, and encumbered weight maximum. (No matter if it is positive or negative.) Since STR was already great with variant encumbrance, this gives it a slight 10lb extra swing from those focusing or not focusing on it.
CON: (Use a house rule that when your HP goes from 0 to 1 or more, you gain a level of exhaustion.) With that in mind, when you are knocked down to 0 hit points, roll a d20 constitution saving throw up against a DC of 20 + the amount of levels of exhaustion you are experiencing. (Add constitution modifier and proficiency bonus as normal if applicable.) If you succeed, you gain HP equal to your CON modifier - the amount of levels of exhaustion you are experiencing. If the HP gained this way would be less than 1, then you still fail. (If you succeed this way, you still gain a level of exhaustion due to the house rules.) This gives someone a extremely difficult chance to endure damage and continue fighting, but makes consecutive successes more difficult and brings you closer to death due to exhaustion. Still enough of a boost to DEX level and give a beyond 20 dice roll moment of thrill and success to take a beating and remain standing while being exhausted. (Again, negative modifier wouldn't help here, so gives slight importance to CON focus.)
WIS: Add your WIS modifier to all proficiency bonuses. If this would cause something you are proficient in to be less than what it would be if you weren't proficient in it, then the result will be what it would be if you weren't proficient in it. This is a creature using their wisdom in action in all they do, which would boost its usefulness. (Having a negative modifier wouldn't means your lack of wisdom harms what you are proficient with.)
CHA: (Use a house that you can have more than just 1 inspiration.) At the start of the campaign and after a long rest, you gain inspiration equal to your CHA modifier. (If negative, then you lose that much inspiration if you have any.)
INT: Add your INT modifier to all advantage and disadvantage attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws if it is positive. (Positive modifier adds and negative modifier subtracts from the highest result on advantage or lowest result on disadvantage.)
(Since CHA and INT are also the lowest on the list of abilities, I would also use the house rule of where advantage and disadvantage stacks.)
Personally I feel that this would boost the fun, balance the abilities, and I feel that the game would remain balanced since these are all or at least mostly accessible to monsters and npcs alike. I know opinions are mixed on house rules for abilities anyways, but I am for it an curious about feedback ideas.
Dex - I mean you didn't change anything so no comment
STR - Most people who play D&D don't play with encumbrance so adding bonus/negatives to things that only affect that basically feels like a lot of work for nothing (since a lot of the games STR will be unchanged)
CON - There are only 6 levels of exhaustion, and when you get one (do you get one before the saving throw) it can be the start of a death spiral. Seeing as your making this part of the mechanic of CON, are you going to let players just drop to 0 and not roll? This would not be "fun" by a lot of players standards because 6 good rolls = Death. Kind of counter to how mechanics should work. You are being punished for succeeding. Now all that is false IF they do not gain a level of exhaustion when this feature activates. Also are exhaustion points still lost the same way? 1 per long rest? Going to be having lots of parties just sitting in a tavern for 5 days between simple encounters. Clerics are also punished for doing their job. You get a Nat 20 on your Death Save and become punished for the Crit. One bad set of rolls on the first random encounter table and the Party is back to town for 5 days.
WIS - All? Really ALL? Wisdom is not some cure all that if you have a high wisdom you are magically better at everything you are already good at. A person who is amazing, God-tier, at Throwing rocks can be the most unwise person. IT would also mean if your Wis bonus is negative, and also higher than your proficiency bonus - you are punished for choosing to take proficiency. At level 1 a barbarian with low wisdom would be better to pick Arcana as a proficiency instead of Athletics. He might have a +5 STR, but that -2 Wisdom is going to negate the proficiency bonus on Athletic, so why choose to be proficient.
INT - It is bad enough that you rolled poorly and put that score in INT. INT has a lot of skills, so having a low INT is already bad enough. But now when you get something cool like advantage you are going to have worse result than if you rolled normally? Fighter attacks, rolls a 16 has a +2 So 18. Next attack he gets advantage, higher result was a 16, but he has a -3 INT so roll is a 15, misses. What?
CHA - Why does being charismatic mean I'm more likely to not fall or more likely to hit with a sword (things Inspiration can be used on). Again you punish a Good RP but low charisma score person by taking away something they were given. PCs to not like shiny things being take from them through not fault of their own - "just the rules"
Dex - I mean you didn't change anything so no comment
STR - Most people who play D&D don't play with encumbrance so adding bonus/negatives to things that only affect that basically feels like a lot of work for nothing (since a lot of the games STR will be unchanged)
CON - There are only 6 levels of exhaustion, and when you get one (do you get one before the saving throw) it can be the start of a death spiral. Seeing as your making this part of the mechanic of CON, are you going to let players just drop to 0 and not roll? This would not be "fun" by a lot of players standards because 6 good rolls = Death. Kind of counter to how mechanics should work. You are being punished for succeeding. Now all that is false IF they do not gain a level of exhaustion when this feature activates. Also are exhaustion points still lost the same way? 1 per long rest? Going to be having lots of parties just sitting in a tavern for 5 days between simple encounters. Clerics are also punished for doing their job. You get a Nat 20 on your Death Save and become punished for the Crit. One bad set of rolls on the first random encounter table and the Party is back to town for 5 days.
WIS - All? Really ALL? Wisdom is not some cure all that if you have a high wisdom you are magically better at everything you are already good at. A person who is amazing, God-tier, at Throwing rocks can be the most unwise person. IT would also mean if your Wis bonus is negative, and also higher than your proficiency bonus - you are punished for choosing to take proficiency. At level 1 a barbarian with low wisdom would be better to pick Arcana as a proficiency instead of Athletics. He might have a +5 STR, but that -2 Wisdom is going to negate the proficiency bonus on Athletic, so why choose to be proficient.
INT - It is bad enough that you rolled poorly and put that score in INT. INT has a lot of skills, so having a low INT is already bad enough. But now when you get something cool like advantage you are going to have worse result than if you rolled normally? Fighter attacks, rolls a 16 has a +2 So 18. Next attack he gets advantage, higher result was a 16, but he has a -3 INT so roll is a 15, misses. What?
CHA - Why does being charismatic mean I'm more likely to not fall or more likely to hit with a sword (things Inspiration can be used on). Again you punish a Good RP but low charisma score person by taking away something they were given. PCs to not like shiny things being take from them through not fault of their own - "just the rules"
First off, thank for your thoughts. I need to hash this out with people to fine tune as needed beyond the edits I have already done if needed. I also have thoughts about your thoughts.
DEX: At least keeping it same feels balanced, because doing nothing to it is something. Leave its impact as is.
STR: Would required variant encumbrance and coin weight rules to balance it with the modifier difference. Curious what you opinion is with this applied, since it is a slight change to the variant encumbrance rules and coin weight in favor of making STR having more impact in the game.
CON: The mechanic I mention is to mimic high determination to endure past your limits. This would be best as a choice for game flow and roll playing, as if the character would want to continue or even try. The added exhaustion would take place after gaining the HP, so the added exhaustion wouldn't be applied in the formula (Only exhaustion already attained). Yes the 6 exhaustion would prevent boomeranging and making this mechanic potentially broken if possible. It also would mimic roll playing in that a character can only keep getting up so much before just dying. Also taken a long rest after almost dying or almost dying multiple times sounds like good roll playing as well. (Greater Restoration also removes exhaustion).
WIS: It can negate a proficiency bonus, but not turn it into a negative. Wis can enhance someone in all things, and a lack of it can hinder their full potential in all things. Strong guy can do strong stuff, but add some wisdom and he can do it better. Like how they lift, how they work out, and so on. Maybe they did harmful work outs and it hindered them from doing more.
CHA: Maybe you are so good looking or nice that your enemies don't want to fight back or that it makes you go beyond your limits to not lose your bread and butter. Maybe you are so intimidating that you feel self conscious and miss or your enemies instead feel that way. The impact of this stat is now felt and can add to roll playing, instead of being passed as an unimportant flaw.
INT: Again it is to balance and make the ability have an impact. If it is a flaw, then it is a flaw. A strong idiot fighter could be easily dodged. A smart one could be deadly. Even if you give the idiot fighter advantage, he can still miss through stupidity.
I think for your arguments, maybe a better method of choosing ability scores is needed. Like you get a 15 and 8 to any stats you want, then roll for the rest. Having one flaw could be good, so everyone isn't a superhero. At least it is a real flaw now and you can actually pick abilities more freely to max instead of having INT, WIS, and CHA mostly the weaker flaws since they have less weight.
Again, I enjoyed your feedback and hope to hear more from you. I want these to be challenged in battle, social, and environmental mechanics and roll playing. Thank you again!
Dex - I mean you didn't change anything so no comment
STR - Most people who play D&D don't play with encumbrance so adding bonus/negatives to things that only affect that basically feels like a lot of work for nothing (since a lot of the games STR will be unchanged)
CON - There are only 6 levels of exhaustion, and when you get one (do you get one before the saving throw) it can be the start of a death spiral. Seeing as your making this part of the mechanic of CON, are you going to let players just drop to 0 and not roll? This would not be "fun" by a lot of players standards because 6 good rolls = Death. Kind of counter to how mechanics should work. You are being punished for succeeding. Now all that is false IF they do not gain a level of exhaustion when this feature activates. Also are exhaustion points still lost the same way? 1 per long rest? Going to be having lots of parties just sitting in a tavern for 5 days between simple encounters. Clerics are also punished for doing their job. You get a Nat 20 on your Death Save and become punished for the Crit. One bad set of rolls on the first random encounter table and the Party is back to town for 5 days.
WIS - All? Really ALL? Wisdom is not some cure all that if you have a high wisdom you are magically better at everything you are already good at. A person who is amazing, God-tier, at Throwing rocks can be the most unwise person. IT would also mean if your Wis bonus is negative, and also higher than your proficiency bonus - you are punished for choosing to take proficiency. At level 1 a barbarian with low wisdom would be better to pick Arcana as a proficiency instead of Athletics. He might have a +5 STR, but that -2 Wisdom is going to negate the proficiency bonus on Athletic, so why choose to be proficient.
INT - It is bad enough that you rolled poorly and put that score in INT. INT has a lot of skills, so having a low INT is already bad enough. But now when you get something cool like advantage you are going to have worse result than if you rolled normally? Fighter attacks, rolls a 16 has a +2 So 18. Next attack he gets advantage, higher result was a 16, but he has a -3 INT so roll is a 15, misses. What?
CHA - Why does being charismatic mean I'm more likely to not fall or more likely to hit with a sword (things Inspiration can be used on). Again you punish a Good RP but low charisma score person by taking away something they were given. PCs to not like shiny things being take from them through not fault of their own - "just the rules"
I also am curious of your opinion of exhaustion used as this house rule. Would you think that this house rule should change to a short rest would be needed instead of long rest to make it not as harmful but still harmful? Or do you think that a long rest would remove all levels of exhaustion to make its harm more minimal? Or maybe something like a long rest removes 1 level of exhaustion, but eating a meal during long rest removes another level, and drinking removes another level? (So 3 levels can be removed max during a long rest for resting, eating, and drinking.)
I'm curious because of the barbarian as well with his fury ability. Although this seems to be the only factor to take exhaustion to the next level.
Dex - I mean you didn't change anything so no comment
STR - Most people who play D&D don't play with encumbrance so adding bonus/negatives to things that only affect that basically feels like a lot of work for nothing (since a lot of the games STR will be unchanged)
CON - There are only 6 levels of exhaustion, and when you get one (do you get one before the saving throw) it can be the start of a death spiral. Seeing as your making this part of the mechanic of CON, are you going to let players just drop to 0 and not roll? This would not be "fun" by a lot of players standards because 6 good rolls = Death. Kind of counter to how mechanics should work. You are being punished for succeeding. Now all that is false IF they do not gain a level of exhaustion when this feature activates. Also are exhaustion points still lost the same way? 1 per long rest? Going to be having lots of parties just sitting in a tavern for 5 days between simple encounters. Clerics are also punished for doing their job. You get a Nat 20 on your Death Save and become punished for the Crit. One bad set of rolls on the first random encounter table and the Party is back to town for 5 days.
WIS - All? Really ALL? Wisdom is not some cure all that if you have a high wisdom you are magically better at everything you are already good at. A person who is amazing, God-tier, at Throwing rocks can be the most unwise person. IT would also mean if your Wis bonus is negative, and also higher than your proficiency bonus - you are punished for choosing to take proficiency. At level 1 a barbarian with low wisdom would be better to pick Arcana as a proficiency instead of Athletics. He might have a +5 STR, but that -2 Wisdom is going to negate the proficiency bonus on Athletic, so why choose to be proficient.
INT - It is bad enough that you rolled poorly and put that score in INT. INT has a lot of skills, so having a low INT is already bad enough. But now when you get something cool like advantage you are going to have worse result than if you rolled normally? Fighter attacks, rolls a 16 has a +2 So 18. Next attack he gets advantage, higher result was a 16, but he has a -3 INT so roll is a 15, misses. What?
CHA - Why does being charismatic mean I'm more likely to not fall or more likely to hit with a sword (things Inspiration can be used on). Again you punish a Good RP but low charisma score person by taking away something they were given. PCs to not like shiny things being take from them through not fault of their own - "just the rules"
First off, thank for your thoughts. I need to hash this out with people to fine tune as needed beyond the edits I have already done if needed. I also have thoughts about your thoughts.
DEX: At least keeping it same feels balanced, because doing nothing to it is something. Leave its impact as is.
STR: Would required variant encumbrance and coin weight rules to balance it with the modifier difference. Curious what you opinion is with this applied, since it is a slight change to the variant encumbrance rules and coin weight in favor of making STR having more impact in the game.
CON: The mechanic I mention is to mimic high determination to endure past your limits. This would be best as a choice for game flow and roll playing, as if the character would want to continue or even try. The added exhaustion would take place after gaining the HP, so the added exhaustion wouldn't be applied in the formula (Only exhaustion already attained). Yes the 6 exhaustion would prevent boomeranging and making this mechanic potentially broken if possible. It also would mimic roll playing in that a character can only keep getting up so much before just dying. Also taken a long rest after almost dying or almost dying multiple times sounds like good roll playing as well. (Greater Restoration also removes exhaustion).
WIS: It can negate a proficiency bonus, but not turn it into a negative. Wis can enhance someone in all things, and a lack of it can hinder their full potential in all things. Strong guy can do strong stuff, but add some wisdom and he can do it better. Like how they lift, how they work out, and so on. Maybe they did harmful work outs and it hindered them from doing more.
CHA: Maybe you are so good looking or nice that your enemies don't want to fight back or that it makes you go beyond your limits to not lose your bread and butter. Maybe you are so intimidating that you feel self conscious and miss or your enemies instead feel that way. The impact of this stat is now felt and can add to roll playing, instead of being passed as an unimportant flaw.
INT: Again it is to balance and make the ability have an impact. If it is a flaw, then it is a flaw. A strong idiot fighter could be easily dodged. A smart one could be deadly. Even if you give the idiot fighter advantage, he can still miss through stupidity.
I think for your arguments, maybe a better method of choosing ability scores is needed. Like you get a 15 and 8 to any stats you want, then roll for the rest. Having one flaw could be good, so everyone isn't a superhero. At least it is a real flaw now and you can actually pick abilities more freely to max instead of having INT, WIS, and CHA mostly the weaker flaws since they have less weight.
Again, I enjoyed your feedback and hope to hear more from you. I want these to be challenged in battle, social, and environmental mechanics and roll playing. Thank you again!
Hi! Going to by bypass commenting on DEX and STR - I don't play with the encumbrance so can't really know how that will effect game play.
CON - Okay I do like that it is not automatic, and the player can choose. However I still have issues with the Exhaustion levels. Because in reality, the moment a player gets 5 levels of exhaustion they die. Why? Even if they choose not to stand up anything that gives that PC 1 HP kills them. Unless you go with a completely different mechanic, the way this is set up is bad. Scenario: Fighter gets brought to 0, 5 times, between bouncing up and Cleric heals he now has 5 levels of exhaustion. Unless this PC is able to get to a place and take a long rest, he is dead the moment he hits 0 HP again. Why? because of the first sentence "when your HP goes from 0 to 1 or more, you gain a level of exhaustion." But they can't because their speed is now 0 and they are in the middle of a fight. So fighter fails three death saves = dead. Fighter rolls a Nat 20 on their death save = dead. Fighter is stabilized and therefore gains a HP, after a certain set of hours = dead. Sure exhaustion can be healed by GR, but you are talking about a spell not gotten until 9th level. Also you miss read what I said, if you do not change how exhaustion is removed a PC with 5 levels of Exhaustion needs to take 5 long rests in order to remove them all. There by completely halting adventures and campaigns if someone gets anything more than 2 levels of exhaustion. Not to mention that the moment you are on 3 levels of exhaustion you are basically dead because of the compounding effects. That's my issue with it. One encounter and the entire party hikes back to town, tries to leave town hits random encounter, needs to go back to town. This mechanic has the potential to halt campaigns.
WIS + INT - Here's my issue, the PC is already got a flaw by having a bad score in either of these spots. They are bad at checks requiring these scores. To now punish these players because they either chose to put proficiency in something they already had a good score in, or for playing smart (or bad) and getting adv/dis is only making it so the only stats that matter are WIS, INT, and CHA. A fighter doesn't need Strength when he can just choose WIS as his 20 and apply that bonus to ALL of his proficiency. Not to mention that if you've got a PC that managed to get a 20 at level 1 the are getting a +12 bonus to any roll they are proficient in AND requires WIS. Same will apply to INT based characters and checks when advantage is gained. A history proficient wizard will always pass a history check when they have advantage, because +12 at level 1. Doesn't that seem ridiculous? Where a STR or DEX focused class will be lucky if they can reach that level of bonus at lvl 1 because they need 2 or more good stat rolls, to achieve the same result.
CHA - No I really do find it ridiculous that your CHA dictates anything involving a meta thing such a inspiration.
In all your responses you ignored that these mechanics punish players for having either good rolls, or good RP. That does not make for a fun game when the Barbarian can not properly use reckless attack because he is on average going to have worse rolls than if he just attacked regularly. Advantage is a reward, it is meant to help a player succeed, but if they didn't up their INT score they will actually do worse than if they didn't have advantage at all. That is silly to me, all of these mechanics seem like a tax on the mechanical bonuses players can choose. Want to be good at those things you are proficient in? Its not enough to just have a high primary stat, you need to also have high WIS, or else you might as well place your proficiencies elsewhere. You only get 10 ability score point increases, via level ups, on average. So now they need to actively spread those points over all 6 stats Vs focusing on 1-3. So if a PC rolls poorly on their initial stats, but manages to pull of a "good" stat, They are now going to need to put that good roll into WIS or INT so they can be good at the stuff that is supposed to be a benefit. I do not think this will diversify play or stats. You made is so DEX and STR are not important because if you choose to have a low WIS or INT you are screwed because your "good" skills are now average and your "bad" skills are worse.
Flaws should be there I agree, I have several of my PCs with low scores and those scores do in fact have flaws to them My Barbarian with his 4 in INT, is not going to be doing and INT based checks. They also are going to have a harder time when it comes to INT saving throws. One benefit though is Tasha's hideous laughter can't affect them! My low CHA character, yea they are going to have a hard time convincing people of things or lying to them - that's the drawback from low CHA. Low scores have draw backs. If you want to make skills "equal" in importance you've got the wrong idea, I mean this is not a game where you can max out every score nor should all classes be required to have a all good scores. I think it would be better to flesh out and create more skills on ability scores like STR and CON that don't really have many skills based on them WIS, INT, and CHA already are so skill loaded scores that giving them a secondary downside just makes DEX/STR focused classes worse at those skills and WIS/INT focused classes God level at them. You want PCs to have downsides for having low scores, but in reality you are making it so everyone need superhero scores in order to even be average.
So the way exhaustion works per RAW is one level per long rest. This will absolutely need to change if exhaustion is used with CON or you need a different mechanic that doesn't also apply all those effects. As I wrote above the big reason why exhaustion is not a heavily used mechanic is because after 3 levels its death spiral. At 5 levels the PC can not longer move which more or less means dead. This CON mechanic would simply make this very hard for first level characters. And some of them can already die from a strong wind, they don't need more help. I;d not use the exhaustion levels as the RAW has them and have something more like "Death Counters" something that can lead to death but not cause a death spiral.
If you want to make a game more deadly do back to the old death save rule - the reset on a short or long rest Vs every time you are res'd.
So the way exhaustion works per RAW is one level per long rest. This will absolutely need to change if exhaustion is used with CON or you need a different mechanic that doesn't also apply all those effects. As I wrote above the big reason why exhaustion is not a heavily used mechanic is because after 3 levels its death spiral. At 5 levels the PC can not longer move which more or less means dead. This CON mechanic would simply make this very hard for first level characters. And some of them can already die from a strong wind, they don't need more help. I;d not use the exhaustion levels as the RAW has them and have something more like "Death Counters" something that can lead to death but not cause a death spiral.
If you want to make a game more deadly do back to the old death save rule - the reset on a short or long rest Vs every time you are res'd.
Dex - I mean you didn't change anything so no comment
STR - Most people who play D&D don't play with encumbrance so adding bonus/negatives to things that only affect that basically feels like a lot of work for nothing (since a lot of the games STR will be unchanged)
CON - There are only 6 levels of exhaustion, and when you get one (do you get one before the saving throw) it can be the start of a death spiral. Seeing as your making this part of the mechanic of CON, are you going to let players just drop to 0 and not roll? This would not be "fun" by a lot of players standards because 6 good rolls = Death. Kind of counter to how mechanics should work. You are being punished for succeeding. Now all that is false IF they do not gain a level of exhaustion when this feature activates. Also are exhaustion points still lost the same way? 1 per long rest? Going to be having lots of parties just sitting in a tavern for 5 days between simple encounters. Clerics are also punished for doing their job. You get a Nat 20 on your Death Save and become punished for the Crit. One bad set of rolls on the first random encounter table and the Party is back to town for 5 days.
WIS - All? Really ALL? Wisdom is not some cure all that if you have a high wisdom you are magically better at everything you are already good at. A person who is amazing, God-tier, at Throwing rocks can be the most unwise person. IT would also mean if your Wis bonus is negative, and also higher than your proficiency bonus - you are punished for choosing to take proficiency. At level 1 a barbarian with low wisdom would be better to pick Arcana as a proficiency instead of Athletics. He might have a +5 STR, but that -2 Wisdom is going to negate the proficiency bonus on Athletic, so why choose to be proficient.
INT - It is bad enough that you rolled poorly and put that score in INT. INT has a lot of skills, so having a low INT is already bad enough. But now when you get something cool like advantage you are going to have worse result than if you rolled normally? Fighter attacks, rolls a 16 has a +2 So 18. Next attack he gets advantage, higher result was a 16, but he has a -3 INT so roll is a 15, misses. What?
CHA - Why does being charismatic mean I'm more likely to not fall or more likely to hit with a sword (things Inspiration can be used on). Again you punish a Good RP but low charisma score person by taking away something they were given. PCs to not like shiny things being take from them through not fault of their own - "just the rules"
First off, thank for your thoughts. I need to hash this out with people to fine tune as needed beyond the edits I have already done if needed. I also have thoughts about your thoughts.
DEX: At least keeping it same feels balanced, because doing nothing to it is something. Leave its impact as is.
STR: Would required variant encumbrance and coin weight rules to balance it with the modifier difference. Curious what you opinion is with this applied, since it is a slight change to the variant encumbrance rules and coin weight in favor of making STR having more impact in the game.
CON: The mechanic I mention is to mimic high determination to endure past your limits. This would be best as a choice for game flow and roll playing, as if the character would want to continue or even try. The added exhaustion would take place after gaining the HP, so the added exhaustion wouldn't be applied in the formula (Only exhaustion already attained). Yes the 6 exhaustion would prevent boomeranging and making this mechanic potentially broken if possible. It also would mimic roll playing in that a character can only keep getting up so much before just dying. Also taken a long rest after almost dying or almost dying multiple times sounds like good roll playing as well. (Greater Restoration also removes exhaustion).
WIS: It can negate a proficiency bonus, but not turn it into a negative. Wis can enhance someone in all things, and a lack of it can hinder their full potential in all things. Strong guy can do strong stuff, but add some wisdom and he can do it better. Like how they lift, how they work out, and so on. Maybe they did harmful work outs and it hindered them from doing more.
CHA: Maybe you are so good looking or nice that your enemies don't want to fight back or that it makes you go beyond your limits to not lose your bread and butter. Maybe you are so intimidating that you feel self conscious and miss or your enemies instead feel that way. The impact of this stat is now felt and can add to roll playing, instead of being passed as an unimportant flaw.
INT: Again it is to balance and make the ability have an impact. If it is a flaw, then it is a flaw. A strong idiot fighter could be easily dodged. A smart one could be deadly. Even if you give the idiot fighter advantage, he can still miss through stupidity.
I think for your arguments, maybe a better method of choosing ability scores is needed. Like you get a 15 and 8 to any stats you want, then roll for the rest. Having one flaw could be good, so everyone isn't a superhero. At least it is a real flaw now and you can actually pick abilities more freely to max instead of having INT, WIS, and CHA mostly the weaker flaws since they have less weight.
Again, I enjoyed your feedback and hope to hear more from you. I want these to be challenged in battle, social, and environmental mechanics and roll playing. Thank you again!
Hi! Going to by bypass commenting on DEX and STR - I don't play with the encumbrance so can't really know how that will effect game play.
CON - Okay I do like that it is not automatic, and the player can choose. However I still have issues with the Exhaustion levels. Because in reality, the moment a player gets 5 levels of exhaustion they die. Why? Even if they choose not to stand up anything that gives that PC 1 HP kills them. Unless you go with a completely different mechanic, the way this is set up is bad. Scenario: Fighter gets brought to 0, 5 times, between bouncing up and Cleric heals he now has 5 levels of exhaustion. Unless this PC is able to get to a place and take a long rest, he is dead the moment he hits 0 HP again. Why? because of the first sentence "when your HP goes from 0 to 1 or more, you gain a level of exhaustion." But they can't because their speed is now 0 and they are in the middle of a fight. So fighter fails three death saves = dead. Fighter rolls a Nat 20 on their death save = dead. Fighter is stabilized and therefore gains a HP, after a certain set of hours = dead. Sure exhaustion can be healed by GR, but you are talking about a spell not gotten until 9th level. Also you miss read what I said, if you do not change how exhaustion is removed a PC with 5 levels of Exhaustion needs to take 5 long rests in order to remove them all. There by completely halting adventures and campaigns if someone gets anything more than 2 levels of exhaustion. Not to mention that the moment you are on 3 levels of exhaustion you are basically dead because of the compounding effects. That's my issue with it. One encounter and the entire party hikes back to town, tries to leave town hits random encounter, needs to go back to town. This mechanic has the potential to halt campaigns.
WIS + INT - Here's my issue, the PC is already got a flaw by having a bad score in either of these spots. They are bad at checks requiring these scores. To now punish these players because they either chose to put proficiency in something they already had a good score in, or for playing smart (or bad) and getting adv/dis is only making it so the only stats that matter are WIS, INT, and CHA. A fighter doesn't need Strength when he can just choose WIS as his 20 and apply that bonus to ALL of his proficiency. Not to mention that if you've got a PC that managed to get a 20 at level 1 the are getting a +12 bonus to any roll they are proficient in AND requires WIS. Same will apply to INT based characters and checks when advantage is gained. A history proficient wizard will always pass a history check when they have advantage, because +12 at level 1. Doesn't that seem ridiculous? Where a STR or DEX focused class will be lucky if they can reach that level of bonus at lvl 1 because they need 2 or more good stat rolls, to achieve the same result.
CHA - No I really do find it ridiculous that your CHA dictates anything involving a meta thing such a inspiration.
In all your responses you ignored that these mechanics punish players for having either good rolls, or good RP. That does not make for a fun game when the Barbarian can not properly use reckless attack because he is on average going to have worse rolls than if he just attacked regularly. Advantage is a reward, it is meant to help a player succeed, but if they didn't up their INT score they will actually do worse than if they didn't have advantage at all. That is silly to me, all of these mechanics seem like a tax on the mechanical bonuses players can choose. Want to be good at those things you are proficient in? Its not enough to just have a high primary stat, you need to also have high WIS, or else you might as well place your proficiencies elsewhere. You only get 10 ability score point increases, via level ups, on average. So now they need to actively spread those points over all 6 stats Vs focusing on 1-3. So if a PC rolls poorly on their initial stats, but manages to pull of a "good" stat, They are now going to need to put that good roll into WIS or INT so they can be good at the stuff that is supposed to be a benefit. I do not think this will diversify play or stats. You made is so DEX and STR are not important because if you choose to have a low WIS or INT you are screwed because your "good" skills are now average and your "bad" skills are worse.
Flaws should be there I agree, I have several of my PCs with low scores and those scores do in fact have flaws to them My Barbarian with his 4 in INT, is not going to be doing and INT based checks. They also are going to have a harder time when it comes to INT saving throws. One benefit though is Tasha's hideous laughter can't affect them! My low CHA character, yea they are going to have a hard time convincing people of things or lying to them - that's the drawback from low CHA. Low scores have draw backs. If you want to make skills "equal" in importance you've got the wrong idea, I mean this is not a game where you can max out every score nor should all classes be required to have a all good scores. I think it would be better to flesh out and create more skills on ability scores like STR and CON that don't really have many skills based on them WIS, INT, and CHA already are so skill loaded scores that giving them a secondary downside just makes DEX/STR focused classes worse at those skills and WIS/INT focused classes God level at them. You want PCs to have downsides for having low scores, but in reality you are making it so everyone need superhero scores in order to even be average.
What if on exhaustion it applied still when gaining HP from 0 to 1 or more, remove all exhaustion on long rest, add an additional level of exhaustion to make the total 7 by separating ability check and saving throws to their own levels of exhaustion, and during a short rest a character can spend a number of hit die equal to the level of exhaustion to remove that level of exhaustion. (So level 1 exhaustion costs 1 hit die while level 4 exhaustion costs 4 hit die to remove only the 4th level of exhaustion. Meaning at lvl 20 with 6 lvls of exhaustion, you could remove all but the lvl 1 exhaustion by spending all your hit die. 6+5+4+3+2=20.). This would also give more focus on hit die. With is in place, do you think CON would be more balanced or at least this mechanic?
I get you don't favor negative side affects of abilities, but I see that as how RAW CON and DEX are designed since not focusing on CON means less HP and not focusing on DEX means less AC and initiative. (With encumbrance, not focusing on STR means you lose speed with weight.) I think I also get though that you are saying advantage shouldn't be affected negatively except by disadvantage taking it away and proficiencies shouldn't be weakened.
So what if WIS added its modifier to all your proficient in, but not in excess of the ability modifier originally associated with it and only if the modifier is positive. So if your modifiers are +2StR and +5 WIS, a proficiency in STR check would give you +4 (2 for STR and 2 for WIS.) A negative WIS modifier wouldn't subtract.
Then what if with INT you add its modifier only if positive to all advantage and disadvantage rolls and not in excess of the original ability modifier of that ability in question. Similar to WIS.
I still feel like CHA is good. Like your CHA fuels your inspiration in all things. Almost like a "I can do this" vibe.
Thank you again. I know you might think some of this is ridiculous, but you are helping me at least. WIS was op as I had it and exhaustion can be deadly. Also the negative backlash of some mechanics in WIS and INT.
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While I know not everyone agrees with abilities in 5e needing a balance change with house rules, it seems to me that most due by reading through different forum posts. So here are my thoughts on the matter.
It seems that most consider the following to be the case:
DEX is the best by increasing AC, initiative, useful skills, useful saves, and boosts to weapons of range, thrown, and finesse (which are also usually light for bonus attack).
CON is great with HP of course and saves. Then there are some other things such as how long you can hold your breath and go without food and water.
STR is good for melee weapons, for heavy armor (AC/movement), skills, and saves. STR becomes great if using variant encumbrance rules and coin weight (movement).
WIS is ok because of skills. It is obviously better if you are a caster requiring this, but that is limited to those specific classes and feats.
CHA and INT are the flaw picks with INT usually being the weakest of the two due to skills like Religion not playing as important of a roll in most DM campaigns. Although I am all for Religion being more morality focused instead of limited to only specific religions. Both are more roll playing focused with some environmental. Very few DM campaigns apply them to combat. Again, spellcaster needing them will go for it.
Now here is my suggestion to balance them, at least more so than what is currently going on.
DEX: Keep it as is since it is already at the top of the list.
STR: Add STR modifier to the variant weight maximum, heavily encumbered weight maximum, and encumbered weight maximum. (No matter if it is positive or negative.) Since STR was already great with variant encumbrance, this gives it a slight 10lb extra swing from those focusing or not focusing on it.
CON: (Use a house rule that when your HP goes from 0 to 1 or more, you gain a level of exhaustion.) With that in mind, when you are knocked down to 0 hit points, roll a d20 constitution saving throw up against a DC of 20 + the amount of levels of exhaustion you are experiencing. (Add constitution modifier and proficiency bonus as normal if applicable.) If you succeed, you gain HP equal to your CON modifier - the amount of levels of exhaustion you are experiencing. If the HP gained this way would be less than 1, then you still fail. (If you succeed this way, you still gain a level of exhaustion due to the house rules.) This gives someone a extremely difficult chance to endure damage and continue fighting, but makes consecutive successes more difficult and brings you closer to death due to exhaustion. Still enough of a boost to DEX level and give a beyond 20 dice roll moment of thrill and success to take a beating and remain standing while being exhausted. (Again, negative modifier wouldn't help here, so gives slight importance to CON focus.)
WIS: Add your WIS modifier to all proficiency bonuses. If this would cause something you are proficient in to be less than what it would be if you weren't proficient in it, then the result will be what it would be if you weren't proficient in it. This is a creature using their wisdom in action in all they do, which would boost its usefulness. (Having a negative modifier wouldn't means your lack of wisdom harms what you are proficient with.)
CHA: (Use a house that you can have more than just 1 inspiration.) At the start of the campaign and after a long rest, you gain inspiration equal to your CHA modifier. (If negative, then you lose that much inspiration if you have any.)
INT: Add your INT modifier to all advantage and disadvantage attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws if it is positive. (Positive modifier adds and negative modifier subtracts from the highest result on advantage or lowest result on disadvantage.)
(Since CHA and INT are also the lowest on the list of abilities, I would also use the house rule of where advantage and disadvantage stacks.)
Personally I feel that this would boost the fun, balance the abilities, and I feel that the game would remain balanced since these are all or at least mostly accessible to monsters and npcs alike. I know opinions are mixed on house rules for abilities anyways, but I am for it an curious about feedback ideas.
Thanks in advance!
Yeah, I've got thoughts on this:
Dex - I mean you didn't change anything so no comment
STR - Most people who play D&D don't play with encumbrance so adding bonus/negatives to things that only affect that basically feels like a lot of work for nothing (since a lot of the games STR will be unchanged)
CON - There are only 6 levels of exhaustion, and when you get one (do you get one before the saving throw) it can be the start of a death spiral. Seeing as your making this part of the mechanic of CON, are you going to let players just drop to 0 and not roll? This would not be "fun" by a lot of players standards because 6 good rolls = Death. Kind of counter to how mechanics should work. You are being punished for succeeding. Now all that is false IF they do not gain a level of exhaustion when this feature activates. Also are exhaustion points still lost the same way? 1 per long rest? Going to be having lots of parties just sitting in a tavern for 5 days between simple encounters. Clerics are also punished for doing their job. You get a Nat 20 on your Death Save and become punished for the Crit. One bad set of rolls on the first random encounter table and the Party is back to town for 5 days.
WIS - All? Really ALL? Wisdom is not some cure all that if you have a high wisdom you are magically better at everything you are already good at. A person who is amazing, God-tier, at Throwing rocks can be the most unwise person. IT would also mean if your Wis bonus is negative, and also higher than your proficiency bonus - you are punished for choosing to take proficiency. At level 1 a barbarian with low wisdom would be better to pick Arcana as a proficiency instead of Athletics. He might have a +5 STR, but that -2 Wisdom is going to negate the proficiency bonus on Athletic, so why choose to be proficient.
INT - It is bad enough that you rolled poorly and put that score in INT. INT has a lot of skills, so having a low INT is already bad enough. But now when you get something cool like advantage you are going to have worse result than if you rolled normally? Fighter attacks, rolls a 16 has a +2 So 18. Next attack he gets advantage, higher result was a 16, but he has a -3 INT so roll is a 15, misses. What?
CHA - Why does being charismatic mean I'm more likely to not fall or more likely to hit with a sword (things Inspiration can be used on). Again you punish a Good RP but low charisma score person by taking away something they were given. PCs to not like shiny things being take from them through not fault of their own - "just the rules"
First off, thank for your thoughts. I need to hash this out with people to fine tune as needed beyond the edits I have already done if needed. I also have thoughts about your thoughts.
DEX: At least keeping it same feels balanced, because doing nothing to it is something. Leave its impact as is.
STR: Would required variant encumbrance and coin weight rules to balance it with the modifier difference. Curious what you opinion is with this applied, since it is a slight change to the variant encumbrance rules and coin weight in favor of making STR having more impact in the game.
CON: The mechanic I mention is to mimic high determination to endure past your limits. This would be best as a choice for game flow and roll playing, as if the character would want to continue or even try. The added exhaustion would take place after gaining the HP, so the added exhaustion wouldn't be applied in the formula (Only exhaustion already attained). Yes the 6 exhaustion would prevent boomeranging and making this mechanic potentially broken if possible. It also would mimic roll playing in that a character can only keep getting up so much before just dying. Also taken a long rest after almost dying or almost dying multiple times sounds like good roll playing as well. (Greater Restoration also removes exhaustion).
WIS: It can negate a proficiency bonus, but not turn it into a negative. Wis can enhance someone in all things, and a lack of it can hinder their full potential in all things. Strong guy can do strong stuff, but add some wisdom and he can do it better. Like how they lift, how they work out, and so on. Maybe they did harmful work outs and it hindered them from doing more.
CHA: Maybe you are so good looking or nice that your enemies don't want to fight back or that it makes you go beyond your limits to not lose your bread and butter. Maybe you are so intimidating that you feel self conscious and miss or your enemies instead feel that way. The impact of this stat is now felt and can add to roll playing, instead of being passed as an unimportant flaw.
INT: Again it is to balance and make the ability have an impact. If it is a flaw, then it is a flaw. A strong idiot fighter could be easily dodged. A smart one could be deadly. Even if you give the idiot fighter advantage, he can still miss through stupidity.
I think for your arguments, maybe a better method of choosing ability scores is needed. Like you get a 15 and 8 to any stats you want, then roll for the rest. Having one flaw could be good, so everyone isn't a superhero. At least it is a real flaw now and you can actually pick abilities more freely to max instead of having INT, WIS, and CHA mostly the weaker flaws since they have less weight.
Again, I enjoyed your feedback and hope to hear more from you. I want these to be challenged in battle, social, and environmental mechanics and roll playing. Thank you again!
I also am curious of your opinion of exhaustion used as this house rule. Would you think that this house rule should change to a short rest would be needed instead of long rest to make it not as harmful but still harmful? Or do you think that a long rest would remove all levels of exhaustion to make its harm more minimal? Or maybe something like a long rest removes 1 level of exhaustion, but eating a meal during long rest removes another level, and drinking removes another level? (So 3 levels can be removed max during a long rest for resting, eating, and drinking.)
I'm curious because of the barbarian as well with his fury ability. Although this seems to be the only factor to take exhaustion to the next level.
Hi! Going to by bypass commenting on DEX and STR - I don't play with the encumbrance so can't really know how that will effect game play.
CON - Okay I do like that it is not automatic, and the player can choose. However I still have issues with the Exhaustion levels. Because in reality, the moment a player gets 5 levels of exhaustion they die. Why? Even if they choose not to stand up anything that gives that PC 1 HP kills them. Unless you go with a completely different mechanic, the way this is set up is bad. Scenario: Fighter gets brought to 0, 5 times, between bouncing up and Cleric heals he now has 5 levels of exhaustion. Unless this PC is able to get to a place and take a long rest, he is dead the moment he hits 0 HP again. Why? because of the first sentence "when your HP goes from 0 to 1 or more, you gain a level of exhaustion." But they can't because their speed is now 0 and they are in the middle of a fight. So fighter fails three death saves = dead. Fighter rolls a Nat 20 on their death save = dead. Fighter is stabilized and therefore gains a HP, after a certain set of hours = dead. Sure exhaustion can be healed by GR, but you are talking about a spell not gotten until 9th level. Also you miss read what I said, if you do not change how exhaustion is removed a PC with 5 levels of Exhaustion needs to take 5 long rests in order to remove them all. There by completely halting adventures and campaigns if someone gets anything more than 2 levels of exhaustion. Not to mention that the moment you are on 3 levels of exhaustion you are basically dead because of the compounding effects. That's my issue with it. One encounter and the entire party hikes back to town, tries to leave town hits random encounter, needs to go back to town. This mechanic has the potential to halt campaigns.
WIS + INT - Here's my issue, the PC is already got a flaw by having a bad score in either of these spots. They are bad at checks requiring these scores. To now punish these players because they either chose to put proficiency in something they already had a good score in, or for playing smart (or bad) and getting adv/dis is only making it so the only stats that matter are WIS, INT, and CHA. A fighter doesn't need Strength when he can just choose WIS as his 20 and apply that bonus to ALL of his proficiency. Not to mention that if you've got a PC that managed to get a 20 at level 1 the are getting a +12 bonus to any roll they are proficient in AND requires WIS. Same will apply to INT based characters and checks when advantage is gained. A history proficient wizard will always pass a history check when they have advantage, because +12 at level 1. Doesn't that seem ridiculous? Where a STR or DEX focused class will be lucky if they can reach that level of bonus at lvl 1 because they need 2 or more good stat rolls, to achieve the same result.
CHA - No I really do find it ridiculous that your CHA dictates anything involving a meta thing such a inspiration.
In all your responses you ignored that these mechanics punish players for having either good rolls, or good RP. That does not make for a fun game when the Barbarian can not properly use reckless attack because he is on average going to have worse rolls than if he just attacked regularly. Advantage is a reward, it is meant to help a player succeed, but if they didn't up their INT score they will actually do worse than if they didn't have advantage at all. That is silly to me, all of these mechanics seem like a tax on the mechanical bonuses players can choose. Want to be good at those things you are proficient in? Its not enough to just have a high primary stat, you need to also have high WIS, or else you might as well place your proficiencies elsewhere. You only get 10 ability score point increases, via level ups, on average. So now they need to actively spread those points over all 6 stats Vs focusing on 1-3. So if a PC rolls poorly on their initial stats, but manages to pull of a "good" stat, They are now going to need to put that good roll into WIS or INT so they can be good at the stuff that is supposed to be a benefit. I do not think this will diversify play or stats. You made is so DEX and STR are not important because if you choose to have a low WIS or INT you are screwed because your "good" skills are now average and your "bad" skills are worse.
Flaws should be there I agree, I have several of my PCs with low scores and those scores do in fact have flaws to them My Barbarian with his 4 in INT, is not going to be doing and INT based checks. They also are going to have a harder time when it comes to INT saving throws. One benefit though is Tasha's hideous laughter can't affect them! My low CHA character, yea they are going to have a hard time convincing people of things or lying to them - that's the drawback from low CHA. Low scores have draw backs. If you want to make skills "equal" in importance you've got the wrong idea, I mean this is not a game where you can max out every score nor should all classes be required to have a all good scores. I think it would be better to flesh out and create more skills on ability scores like STR and CON that don't really have many skills based on them WIS, INT, and CHA already are so skill loaded scores that giving them a secondary downside just makes DEX/STR focused classes worse at those skills and WIS/INT focused classes God level at them. You want PCs to have downsides for having low scores, but in reality you are making it so everyone need superhero scores in order to even be average.
So the way exhaustion works per RAW is one level per long rest. This will absolutely need to change if exhaustion is used with CON or you need a different mechanic that doesn't also apply all those effects. As I wrote above the big reason why exhaustion is not a heavily used mechanic is because after 3 levels its death spiral. At 5 levels the PC can not longer move which more or less means dead. This CON mechanic would simply make this very hard for first level characters. And some of them can already die from a strong wind, they don't need more help. I;d not use the exhaustion levels as the RAW has them and have something more like "Death Counters" something that can lead to death but not cause a death spiral.
If you want to make a game more deadly do back to the old death save rule - the reset on a short or long rest Vs every time you are res'd.
What if on exhaustion it applied still when gaining HP from 0 to 1 or more, remove all exhaustion on long rest, add an additional level of exhaustion to make the total 7 by separating ability check and saving throws to their own levels of exhaustion, and during a short rest a character can spend a number of hit die equal to the level of exhaustion to remove that level of exhaustion. (So level 1 exhaustion costs 1 hit die while level 4 exhaustion costs 4 hit die to remove only the 4th level of exhaustion. Meaning at lvl 20 with 6 lvls of exhaustion, you could remove all but the lvl 1 exhaustion by spending all your hit die. 6+5+4+3+2=20.). This would also give more focus on hit die. With is in place, do you think CON would be more balanced or at least this mechanic?
I get you don't favor negative side affects of abilities, but I see that as how RAW CON and DEX are designed since not focusing on CON means less HP and not focusing on DEX means less AC and initiative. (With encumbrance, not focusing on STR means you lose speed with weight.) I think I also get though that you are saying advantage shouldn't be affected negatively except by disadvantage taking it away and proficiencies shouldn't be weakened.
So what if WIS added its modifier to all your proficient in, but not in excess of the ability modifier originally associated with it and only if the modifier is positive. So if your modifiers are +2StR and +5 WIS, a proficiency in STR check would give you +4 (2 for STR and 2 for WIS.) A negative WIS modifier wouldn't subtract.
Then what if with INT you add its modifier only if positive to all advantage and disadvantage rolls and not in excess of the original ability modifier of that ability in question. Similar to WIS.
I still feel like CHA is good. Like your CHA fuels your inspiration in all things. Almost like a "I can do this" vibe.
Thank you again. I know you might think some of this is ridiculous, but you are helping me at least. WIS was op as I had it and exhaustion can be deadly. Also the negative backlash of some mechanics in WIS and INT.