So I hate how Ability Scores define your character physically, but only matter in dice rolls, I want to fix that.
My thoughts are rules for when ability scores are higher/lower than what is considered "normal" in the game world. For example, I play a goliath Barbarian (original I know) with an INT of 8, now that isn't PARTICULARLY low, but I decided that since my score was low and it would fit my roleplay that my barbarian cannot read/write. This both increases my roleplay ability and gives a real weight to the ability scores outside of ability checks and combat. I feel this not only adds an element of realism and significance to the ability scores, but also gives players an easy and accessible way to roleplay their characters. Again using my Barbarian as an example, ,he could either be ashamed or embarrassed that he never learned to read, or, he could not care less, deciding that such bookish abilities aren't relevant to a lifestyle of beating up things bigger than he is.
Along these lines I was thinking that other particularly low scores might provide other disadvantages. Crappy DEX? Maybe you have disadvantage at stealth or at you're just generally clumsy and therefore not great with Finesse weapons, or your ranged attacks only go half range. Low STR? Maybe you can only use light weapons, maybe males that define themselves by their strength consider you weak, or hey, maybe you are just a bit more easily intimidated. I think things like this create a more unique and memorable character, like the time your Paladin with a super low CHA was such a massive ******bag that an entire village decided he would have to stay outside their walls while the rest of the party was allowed to trade or rest in the inn. These are defining moments in campaigns that I think could at least be the focus of a UA. And with some work I'm sure they could swing the other way as well. Super high CON/STR? You auto intimidate creatures less than 1 CR without a die roll, they just look at you and feel fear due to your massive size. Or maybe with some decent CHA you can always get a better deal then your compatriots, 10% off normal prices across the board. And these could lead to interesting dichotomies, maybe your Bard is SUPER Charismatic, but not the brightest, so he always gets the "Oh sweetie..." response from NPCs, getting what he wants, but not taken seriously.
Feel free to contribute your own ideas of how great or terrible stats can help define your character. Tell me why I'm a terrible and sadistic DM for having these rules or how you wish your last DM had thought of this. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
The group I DM has a high-elf wizard with low charisma (he rolled a 4 initially, I let him re-roll and he got a 6 -- note, my game I gave the option of rolling vs standard array, but rolling can re-roll below an 8 1 time) -- he said he was thinking of going one of two ways: (a) very quiet, timid, low self-esteem, introvert; or (b) still quiet, but very rude, not understanding social queues at all and not caring about those trying to explain them to him, very blunt.
He went with option b, and it has been great -- but any time he tries to do something the NPC's (who usually already hate him because of something he did/said) make his life harder. He asked a halfling where "the rest of her" was, and she in turn doubled her prices on goods for him (the party often shops without him now). If they meet with nobles, he often can be insulting (unintentionally from the characters standpoint) and he himself may get dismissed, or ignored. It's really fun, the player doesn't interrupt every interaction so everything isn't about him/him ruining things, he picks his spots really well and the group (including myself) loves it.
---- Something else you might consider -- when doing interactions/encounters you generally as a DM have a DC that the character has to meet to "pass" the encounter. Instead of having them roll, if their "Passive" score is higher you can choose to allow that character to just "pass" the encounter. i.e. our wizard's INT is very high (18), plus he has proficiency in Arcana and History (making them each 16), so on checks requiring those, I sometimes pass him without having a roll, or if he rolls terrible his "passive" knowledge of the subject might still give him somewhat of a boost to his roll (which can also be taken as a penalty if someone has really low scores)
Having a low score is already its own penalty. If you have low Dexterity, you're alreadybad at Dex-related things. Someone shooting a longbow with +3 Dex is going to do twice as much damage as someone with -1 Dex, and hit 20% more often on top of that. That's before taking into account they also have lower initiative, Dexterity saves, and possibly AC. Likewise, rolling 4 points higher on Stealth may not seem like much to you, but someone trying to hide has to beat every enemy's passive Perception or it doesn't work; they need all the help they can get.
Second, you're increasing the complexity of the game for both you and your players. Any rule you add will probably have unintended effects and need to go through some play-testing and fine-tuning, and your players will need to keep track of additional rules that only apply at your table and that aren't in any of their rulebooks.
But mainly, I disagree with the premise that ability scores don't matter outside of rolls. Ability scores matter as much as you want them to matter, just like backgrounds, ideals, personality traits, flaws, and bonds. Nothing forces players to act according to their ideals or flaws, but the game tries to encourage it. And the game also encourages you to think about what your ability scores mean for your character too (PH p.14):
Your Character's Abilities
Take your character’s ability scores and race into account as you flesh out his or her appearance and personality. A very strong character with low Intelligence might think and behave very differently from a very smart character with low Strength.
For example, high Strength usually corresponds with a burly or athletic body, while a character with low Strength might be scrawny or plump.
A character with high Dexterity is probably lithe and slim, while a character with low Dexterity might be either gangly and awkward or heavy and thick-fingered.
A character with high Constitution usually looks healthy, with bright eyes and abundant energy. A character with low Constitution might be sickly or frail.
A character with high Intelligence might be highly inquisitive and studious, while a character with low Intelligence might speak simply or easily forget details.
A character with high Wisdom has good judgment, empathy, and a general awareness of what’s going on. A character with low Wisdom might be absent-minded, foolhardy, or oblivious.
A character with high Charisma exudes confidence, which is usually mixed with a graceful or intimidating presence. A character with a low Charisma might come across as abrasive, inarticulate, or timid.
Encouraging people to roleplay is a social problem. Some people don't enjoy it much and that's OK. If it's important to you, just talk to your players, and see if they'll meet you in the middle. You can reward them mechanically with the Inspiration mechanic (PH p.125), and personally by incorporating more of the kinds of things they find fun.
Having a low score is already its own penalty. If you have low Dexterity, you're alreadybad at Dex-related things. Someone shooting a longbow with +3 Dex is going to do twice as much damage as someone with -1 Dex, and hit 20% more often on top of that. That's before taking into account they also have lower initiative, Dexterity saves, and possibly AC. Likewise, rolling 4 points higher on Stealth may not seem like much to you, but someone trying to hide has to beat every enemy's passive Perception or it doesn't work; they need all the help they can get.
Second, you're increasing the complexity of the game for both you and your players. Any rule you add will probably have unintended effects and need to go through some play-testing and fine-tuning, and your players will need to keep track of additional rules that only apply at your table and that aren't in any of their rulebooks.
But mainly, I disagree with the premise that ability scores don't matter outside of rolls. Ability scores matter as much as you want them to matter, just like backgrounds, ideals, personality traits, flaws, and bonds. Nothing forces players to act according to their ideals or flaws, but the game tries to encourage it. And the game also encourages you to think about what your ability scores mean for your character too (PH p.14):
Your Character's Abilities
Take your character’s ability scores and race into account as you flesh out his or her appearance and personality. A very strong character with low Intelligence might think and behave very differently from a very smart character with low Strength.
For example, high Strength usually corresponds with a burly or athletic body, while a character with low Strength might be scrawny or plump.
A character with high Dexterity is probably lithe and slim, while a character with low Dexterity might be either gangly and awkward or heavy and thick-fingered.
A character with high Constitution usually looks healthy, with bright eyes and abundant energy. A character with low Constitution might be sickly or frail.
A character with high Intelligence might be highly inquisitive and studious, while a character with low Intelligence might speak simply or easily forget details.
A character with high Wisdom has good judgment, empathy, and a general awareness of what’s going on. A character with low Wisdom might be absent-minded, foolhardy, or oblivious.
A character with high Charisma exudes confidence, which is usually mixed with a graceful or intimidating presence. A character with a low Charisma might come across as abrasive, inarticulate, or timid.
Encouraging people to roleplay is a social problem. Some people don't enjoy it much and that's OK. If it's important to you, just talk to your players, and see if they'll meet you in the middle. You can reward them mechanically with the Inspiration mechanic (PH p.125), and personally by incorporating more of the kinds of things they find fun.
>Increasing the complexity, additional rules that apply only at your table and that aren't in any of their rule books.
So you're against homebrew or house rules in general? Yes I'm adding rules and complexity, EVERY DM does this here and there, and it's half the fun. I love that one DM plays with critical hits and more than half max health damage leaving lingering ailments like a missing finger, I also love that another I play with insists we play with encumbrance and spell casting materials and eating rules. It's a different game each time and while it is challenging, none of the rules are that convoluted, and I don't think these are either. This just sounds like a point of "Your fun is wrong".
I can see your point with them already being bad at a stat and that being punishment enough though, but people are only ever really BAD at their dump stat that they don't plan on using anyway. Does your wizard really care that he can only use light weapons? No, his STR score can be low, he won't use it much. I can tell you from experience that my ranger didn't care at all that his CHA was crap, and my barbarian is totally cool with being an idiot. Dump stats are fun, they're a great way to add flavor to your character and this idea is simply amplifying that by making that crappy score part of their character instead of only being relevant once in a while. And you're right, players can play to their characters as much as they like, I just think this would be a fun way to assist them in doing so while also making the game feel more real. No way can your bard use a greataxe with 4 STR, I can't even use a greataxe effectively and I lift. And there's no way a wandering tribesman barbarian can do complex equations because his INT is 6. This keeps the players immersed in their character and the rules of the world around them.
I'm not against house rules or homebrewing magic items, spells, monsters, feats, subclasses, races, etc. The DMG even has guidelines for doing those things. I just think changes to the core rules need to be handled with special care; they're what the rest of the game is built on top of and balanced around. They're what makes the game D&D 5e and not some other game. I also think adding a bunch of extra rules probably won't get people to roleplay more, and making characters worse at the things they're already bad at is risky.
Case in point: Do you really need some rule saying someone with STR < X can't use heavy melee weapons effectively? Someone with 4 STR will already miss a lot and do bad damage. Hell, even when they hit, 1/4 times they'll do 0 damage. And even with proficiency, they'll still miss more than a non-proficient commoner unless they're higher than level 4. So the existing rules handle this well enough. By denying them the opportunity to even try, you miss out on a roleplaying opportunity.
You don't think a dumb barbarian should be able to solve a complex equation? The rules already handle that too. A hard task should be at least DC 20. Someone with less than 10 intelligence can never succeed on a DC 20 Intelligence check, even with advantage.
The thing about dump stats is that the DM can always exploit them. A wizard doesn't mind low strength until they're grabbed by a Roper, the party's surrounded by Shadows or you throw them in a dungeon that requires a lot of athletics checks. A barbarian doesn't mind low intelligence until they're targeted with Phantasmal Force or an Intellect Devourer tries to eat their brain. Low charisma is all well and good until you get possessed by a Ghost or banished to another plane.
I was thinking along the same lines as the OP, but more towards "quirks" that the player chooses that further define/refine raw score of the Attribute. For example, from a previous character years ago: Karlsson had a CON score of 8 because as a youth his health was shattered by a magical disease he contracted. To everyone's surprise, he actually recovered (i.e. didn't die), but he never again regained any semblance of stamina or robustness... but he also never got sick again (immunity to disease). Or Sayr, the aspiring wizard apprentice.. right up until he got kicked in the head by a horse in the stables at the Academy. Knocked out half his brains (INT 8, instead of 16), but also opened (what was left of) his mind to visions and faith. He became a cleric instead, and had advantages (not "Advantage") on divination spells.
I might want to make a STR 14/CON 14 sorcerer who "works out" and is "buff"... but has no stamina (Disadvantage on Endurance/Forced March checks). Or a rogue with 18 DEX who is a "wizard" with tiny devices and thrown weapons... but has big feet and tends to trip over himself (-5' base speed and disadvantage on Stealth). Or maybe a grizzled hermit type who knows the wilds like the back of his hand and doesn't understand people at all (WIS 8, but advantage on Survival checks).
Every time I consider changing the rules of the game, I stop and ask myself if the change will make the game more fun for everyone. If not, I'm not going to bother.
In the case of ability scores, I will not play a character with a score below 10 and I do not expect my players to do so. If they choose to, they can deal with the consequences. If they incorporate low scores into their roleplay that's fine. Adding rules will not make the people already doing something enjoy it more, and it will make the people who are not resent it.
I'm with InquisitiveCoder on this: Low scores are already their own penalty, and a DM can make that important if they want through the existing game mechanics.
On the flip side, I think it should be encouraged for a player to incorporate aspects of their ability scores, low or high, into their roleplay. A character with low Int not being able to (or struggling to) read is a choice a player can make, as is a character with low Str choosing to be unable to pull themselves up onto a ledge, or a low Dex char choosing to trip over their own feet all the time. However, this should be left to the player to play into as and when they choose, not forced onto the player by the DM homebrewing rules to hit them while they are down.
Is a Barbarian being unable to read an equal drawback to having a negative mod AND disadvantage to stealth, though? No, no its not. You've said "I like this roleplay decision for my/a character, so everyone should have mechanical negatives to theirs to make it fair".
Roleplay as many negatives as you want for your characters, ask your players to, but don't write them into a ditch IMO.
These are just so hit or miss and imprecise that it's not worth it. People love to trot out their illiterate Barbarians as if they didn't have several party members around them at all times to do the reading. We don't need more mechanics for roleplaying, we just need to reward it when players do it. This is what inspiration is for, but you can also reward it through various interactions with NPCs or plot points or whatever. Maybe the clumsy dwarf who described himself falling down the dungeon stairs ended up eye-level with a nearly invisible tripwire. Maybe the idiot who took the riddle too literally was actually right about the riddle.
*I'm* not looking to make low scores worse. I'm looking to tweak a low score with a "but [insert something good]", or a high score with "but [insert something bad]", or whatever. Maybe expand it - for those who care - so you can take "Addicted" as an RP Flaw, or you can take "Addicted" as an actual Flaw with mechanical effects... and in compensation, add a tweak to a stat. As in the examples in my post -- my Sorcerer who is addicted to Black Sap (a medicinal relaxant) might "upgrade" the flaw to a Flaw, and then tweak his 8 STR to be "but has a Strong Grip (+2 to avoid being disarmed)" (or something...)
Or he might tweak his 16 CHA with "tongue-tied", disadvantage when interacting with the opposite sex, to tweak his boring average 10 INT to "Book Smart, advantage to recall Lore".
*I'm* not looking to make low scores worse. I'm looking to tweak a low score with a "but [insert something good]", or a high score with "but [insert something bad]", or whatever. Maybe expand it - for those who care - so you can take "Addicted" as an RP Flaw, or you can take "Addicted" as an actual Flaw with mechanical effects... and in compensation, add a tweak to a stat. As in the examples in my post -- my Sorcerer who is addicted to Black Sap (a medicinal relaxant) might "upgrade" the flaw to a Flaw, and then tweak his 8 STR to be "but has a Strong Grip (+2 to avoid being disarmed)" (or something...)
Or he might tweak his 16 CHA with "tongue-tied", disadvantage when interacting with the opposite sex, to tweak his boring average 10 INT to "Book Smart, advantage to recall Lore".
Disadvantage on a skill you're better at in exchange for advantage on a skill you're worse at feels pretty balanced, but two things can immediately disrupt that balance: first, skills have a lot of variance in importance, and second, uncommon-grade magic items exist for strength and intelligence. In this case, if your character put on a headband of intellect, now their checks are incredible - especially if you let them do it to all of the Lore skills, instead of picking only one. Since skills are unbalanced, a more obviously unbalanced trade would be advantage on Athletics and disadvantage on Medicine, then strapping on gauntlets of ogre power.
So, I'd do two things: first, while the flaw half is permanent, the merit relies on relative stats - in this case, it would be written as "you have advantage on History checks while your intelligence modifier is lower than your charisma modifier". Second, instead of letting the PC pick any two skills to assign a merit and a flaw to, pair them yourself up front, so no one can dump-skill something they can count on never using - like Sleight of Hand, which players can usually just choose to avoid rolling by finding other solutions, like mugging the poor sod - in exchange for a skill they're desperate to be good at, like Perception.
Example pairs:
+History, -Insight (understands books better than people)
+Arcana, -Athletics (maximum nerd)
+Nature, -Persuasion (you keep forgetting most people aren't fluent in chipmunk)
+Religion, -Perception (you don't need to see the truth, your deity will show it to you)
That way you gain advantage on one of the Lore skills, but sacrifice a commonly used skill the campaign might force upon you, regardless of playstyle. More powerful is putting one of those on both sides - +Perception/-Stealth is an immediate grab for any Paladin - and more powerful still is swapping the order; +Perception/-Religion would be an autoinclude for the vast majority of builds. If you stick to the kind I listed, nothing should get too crazy, although Arcana is pushing it slightly, since it's more likely than the other three combined to come up in a campaign. That's why I paired it with Athletics, which will 100% guaranteed come up in every campaign.
@Quindraco, totally agree. When I first broached the concept to my players, one immediately jumped to the "of course I'll take a bonus on athletics, for a penalty on CHA!" (battlemaster fighter/rogue).
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So I hate how Ability Scores define your character physically, but only matter in dice rolls, I want to fix that.
My thoughts are rules for when ability scores are higher/lower than what is considered "normal" in the game world. For example, I play a goliath Barbarian (original I know) with an INT of 8, now that isn't PARTICULARLY low, but I decided that since my score was low and it would fit my roleplay that my barbarian cannot read/write. This both increases my roleplay ability and gives a real weight to the ability scores outside of ability checks and combat. I feel this not only adds an element of realism and significance to the ability scores, but also gives players an easy and accessible way to roleplay their characters. Again using my Barbarian as an example, ,he could either be ashamed or embarrassed that he never learned to read, or, he could not care less, deciding that such bookish abilities aren't relevant to a lifestyle of beating up things bigger than he is.
Along these lines I was thinking that other particularly low scores might provide other disadvantages. Crappy DEX? Maybe you have disadvantage at stealth or at you're just generally clumsy and therefore not great with Finesse weapons, or your ranged attacks only go half range. Low STR? Maybe you can only use light weapons, maybe males that define themselves by their strength consider you weak, or hey, maybe you are just a bit more easily intimidated. I think things like this create a more unique and memorable character, like the time your Paladin with a super low CHA was such a massive ******bag that an entire village decided he would have to stay outside their walls while the rest of the party was allowed to trade or rest in the inn. These are defining moments in campaigns that I think could at least be the focus of a UA. And with some work I'm sure they could swing the other way as well. Super high CON/STR? You auto intimidate creatures less than 1 CR without a die roll, they just look at you and feel fear due to your massive size. Or maybe with some decent CHA you can always get a better deal then your compatriots, 10% off normal prices across the board. And these could lead to interesting dichotomies, maybe your Bard is SUPER Charismatic, but not the brightest, so he always gets the "Oh sweetie..." response from NPCs, getting what he wants, but not taken seriously.
Feel free to contribute your own ideas of how great or terrible stats can help define your character. Tell me why I'm a terrible and sadistic DM for having these rules or how you wish your last DM had thought of this. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
The group I DM has a high-elf wizard with low charisma (he rolled a 4 initially, I let him re-roll and he got a 6 -- note, my game I gave the option of rolling vs standard array, but rolling can re-roll below an 8 1 time) -- he said he was thinking of going one of two ways: (a) very quiet, timid, low self-esteem, introvert; or (b) still quiet, but very rude, not understanding social queues at all and not caring about those trying to explain them to him, very blunt.
He went with option b, and it has been great -- but any time he tries to do something the NPC's (who usually already hate him because of something he did/said) make his life harder. He asked a halfling where "the rest of her" was, and she in turn doubled her prices on goods for him (the party often shops without him now). If they meet with nobles, he often can be insulting (unintentionally from the characters standpoint) and he himself may get dismissed, or ignored. It's really fun, the player doesn't interrupt every interaction so everything isn't about him/him ruining things, he picks his spots really well and the group (including myself) loves it.
----
Something else you might consider -- when doing interactions/encounters you generally as a DM have a DC that the character has to meet to "pass" the encounter. Instead of having them roll, if their "Passive" score is higher you can choose to allow that character to just "pass" the encounter. i.e. our wizard's INT is very high (18), plus he has proficiency in Arcana and History (making them each 16), so on checks requiring those, I sometimes pass him without having a roll, or if he rolls terrible his "passive" knowledge of the subject might still give him somewhat of a boost to his roll (which can also be taken as a penalty if someone has really low scores)
How do you get a one-armed goblin out of a tree?
Wave!
I'd advice against this.
Having a low score is already its own penalty. If you have low Dexterity, you're already bad at Dex-related things. Someone shooting a longbow with +3 Dex is going to do twice as much damage as someone with -1 Dex, and hit 20% more often on top of that. That's before taking into account they also have lower initiative, Dexterity saves, and possibly AC. Likewise, rolling 4 points higher on Stealth may not seem like much to you, but someone trying to hide has to beat every enemy's passive Perception or it doesn't work; they need all the help they can get.
Second, you're increasing the complexity of the game for both you and your players. Any rule you add will probably have unintended effects and need to go through some play-testing and fine-tuning, and your players will need to keep track of additional rules that only apply at your table and that aren't in any of their rulebooks.
But mainly, I disagree with the premise that ability scores don't matter outside of rolls. Ability scores matter as much as you want them to matter, just like backgrounds, ideals, personality traits, flaws, and bonds. Nothing forces players to act according to their ideals or flaws, but the game tries to encourage it. And the game also encourages you to think about what your ability scores mean for your character too (PH p.14):
Encouraging people to roleplay is a social problem. Some people don't enjoy it much and that's OK. If it's important to you, just talk to your players, and see if they'll meet you in the middle. You can reward them mechanically with the Inspiration mechanic (PH p.125), and personally by incorporating more of the kinds of things they find fun.
I'm not against house rules or homebrewing magic items, spells, monsters, feats, subclasses, races, etc. The DMG even has guidelines for doing those things. I just think changes to the core rules need to be handled with special care; they're what the rest of the game is built on top of and balanced around. They're what makes the game D&D 5e and not some other game. I also think adding a bunch of extra rules probably won't get people to roleplay more, and making characters worse at the things they're already bad at is risky.
Case in point: Do you really need some rule saying someone with STR < X can't use heavy melee weapons effectively? Someone with 4 STR will already miss a lot and do bad damage. Hell, even when they hit, 1/4 times they'll do 0 damage. And even with proficiency, they'll still miss more than a non-proficient commoner unless they're higher than level 4. So the existing rules handle this well enough. By denying them the opportunity to even try, you miss out on a roleplaying opportunity.
You don't think a dumb barbarian should be able to solve a complex equation? The rules already handle that too. A hard task should be at least DC 20. Someone with less than 10 intelligence can never succeed on a DC 20 Intelligence check, even with advantage.
The thing about dump stats is that the DM can always exploit them. A wizard doesn't mind low strength until they're grabbed by a Roper, the party's surrounded by Shadows or you throw them in a dungeon that requires a lot of athletics checks. A barbarian doesn't mind low intelligence until they're targeted with Phantasmal Force or an Intellect Devourer tries to eat their brain. Low charisma is all well and good until you get possessed by a Ghost or banished to another plane.
I was thinking along the same lines as the OP, but more towards "quirks" that the player chooses that further define/refine raw score of the Attribute. For example, from a previous character years ago: Karlsson had a CON score of 8 because as a youth his health was shattered by a magical disease he contracted. To everyone's surprise, he actually recovered (i.e. didn't die), but he never again regained any semblance of stamina or robustness... but he also never got sick again (immunity to disease). Or Sayr, the aspiring wizard apprentice.. right up until he got kicked in the head by a horse in the stables at the Academy. Knocked out half his brains (INT 8, instead of 16), but also opened (what was left of) his mind to visions and faith. He became a cleric instead, and had advantages (not "Advantage") on divination spells.
I might want to make a STR 14/CON 14 sorcerer who "works out" and is "buff"... but has no stamina (Disadvantage on Endurance/Forced March checks). Or a rogue with 18 DEX who is a "wizard" with tiny devices and thrown weapons... but has big feet and tends to trip over himself (-5' base speed and disadvantage on Stealth). Or maybe a grizzled hermit type who knows the wilds like the back of his hand and doesn't understand people at all (WIS 8, but advantage on Survival checks).
Every time I consider changing the rules of the game, I stop and ask myself if the change will make the game more fun for everyone. If not, I'm not going to bother.
In the case of ability scores, I will not play a character with a score below 10 and I do not expect my players to do so. If they choose to, they can deal with the consequences. If they incorporate low scores into their roleplay that's fine. Adding rules will not make the people already doing something enjoy it more, and it will make the people who are not resent it.
<Insert clever signature here>
I'm with InquisitiveCoder on this: Low scores are already their own penalty, and a DM can make that important if they want through the existing game mechanics.
On the flip side, I think it should be encouraged for a player to incorporate aspects of their ability scores, low or high, into their roleplay. A character with low Int not being able to (or struggling to) read is a choice a player can make, as is a character with low Str choosing to be unable to pull themselves up onto a ledge, or a low Dex char choosing to trip over their own feet all the time. However, this should be left to the player to play into as and when they choose, not forced onto the player by the DM homebrewing rules to hit them while they are down.
Is a Barbarian being unable to read an equal drawback to having a negative mod AND disadvantage to stealth, though? No, no its not. You've said "I like this roleplay decision for my/a character, so everyone should have mechanical negatives to theirs to make it fair".
Roleplay as many negatives as you want for your characters, ask your players to, but don't write them into a ditch IMO.
These are just so hit or miss and imprecise that it's not worth it. People love to trot out their illiterate Barbarians as if they didn't have several party members around them at all times to do the reading. We don't need more mechanics for roleplaying, we just need to reward it when players do it. This is what inspiration is for, but you can also reward it through various interactions with NPCs or plot points or whatever. Maybe the clumsy dwarf who described himself falling down the dungeon stairs ended up eye-level with a nearly invisible tripwire. Maybe the idiot who took the riddle too literally was actually right about the riddle.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
*I'm* not looking to make low scores worse. I'm looking to tweak a low score with a "but [insert something good]", or a high score with "but [insert something bad]", or whatever. Maybe expand it - for those who care - so you can take "Addicted" as an RP Flaw, or you can take "Addicted" as an actual Flaw with mechanical effects... and in compensation, add a tweak to a stat. As in the examples in my post -- my Sorcerer who is addicted to Black Sap (a medicinal relaxant) might "upgrade" the flaw to a Flaw, and then tweak his 8 STR to be "but has a Strong Grip (+2 to avoid being disarmed)" (or something...)
Or he might tweak his 16 CHA with "tongue-tied", disadvantage when interacting with the opposite sex, to tweak his boring average 10 INT to "Book Smart, advantage to recall Lore".
Disadvantage on a skill you're better at in exchange for advantage on a skill you're worse at feels pretty balanced, but two things can immediately disrupt that balance: first, skills have a lot of variance in importance, and second, uncommon-grade magic items exist for strength and intelligence. In this case, if your character put on a headband of intellect, now their checks are incredible - especially if you let them do it to all of the Lore skills, instead of picking only one. Since skills are unbalanced, a more obviously unbalanced trade would be advantage on Athletics and disadvantage on Medicine, then strapping on gauntlets of ogre power.
So, I'd do two things: first, while the flaw half is permanent, the merit relies on relative stats - in this case, it would be written as "you have advantage on History checks while your intelligence modifier is lower than your charisma modifier". Second, instead of letting the PC pick any two skills to assign a merit and a flaw to, pair them yourself up front, so no one can dump-skill something they can count on never using - like Sleight of Hand, which players can usually just choose to avoid rolling by finding other solutions, like mugging the poor sod - in exchange for a skill they're desperate to be good at, like Perception.
Example pairs:
+History, -Insight (understands books better than people)
+Arcana, -Athletics (maximum nerd)
+Nature, -Persuasion (you keep forgetting most people aren't fluent in chipmunk)
+Religion, -Perception (you don't need to see the truth, your deity will show it to you)
That way you gain advantage on one of the Lore skills, but sacrifice a commonly used skill the campaign might force upon you, regardless of playstyle. More powerful is putting one of those on both sides - +Perception/-Stealth is an immediate grab for any Paladin - and more powerful still is swapping the order; +Perception/-Religion would be an autoinclude for the vast majority of builds. If you stick to the kind I listed, nothing should get too crazy, although Arcana is pushing it slightly, since it's more likely than the other three combined to come up in a campaign. That's why I paired it with Athletics, which will 100% guaranteed come up in every campaign.
@Quindraco, totally agree. When I first broached the concept to my players, one immediately jumped to the "of course I'll take a bonus on athletics, for a penalty on CHA!" (battlemaster fighter/rogue).