Getting Rid of Ability Scores in 3e D&D-style systems

[DragonChild]

Note: This is NOT for straight-up 3e. This is musings on how to make this work for a 3e-style system, that has classes similar to Frank's fire mage, marshal, and tome knight.

So I hate ability scores in D&D. I hate how they're used. They're straight jackets. They encourage min/maxing. They punish the characters who want to get things interesting for their class, and reward the players who do the most sterotypical, number-crunching things possible. I never want a 8/14/16/18/8/8 wizard to be considered again, so I want to do away with them.

And frankly, they don't serve much of a purpose in a class-based system. Sure, you want players to have niches, so the wisdom druid is good at nature and the rogue is encouraged to be sneaky. But I don't think that's purely necessary. If the rogue has sneak attack, he'll want to be sneaky. If the person is playing a druid, he probably wants to take nature anyway - and if he doesn't, oh well, we don't need to try to encourage him to. I have no problem with half-orc druids who idolize bears being as good at athletics as the warriors, just like I'm totally fine with illusionist trickster wizards able to sneak along side the rogues.

But this does leave some problems. Namely...

How do you give some variation to armor class, attack bonuses, saves, and hit points, so everything doesn't feel samey?

Each class gets its own HP, BAB, saves, and AC bonuses. They can start at +3, +5, +7, whatever! But they're kind of all over the place. And then you shift some traits around at level 1 that gives you in-class variation (a trait for -hit, +defense, -ac +hp, -saves +attack, whatever. make a whole bunch.) Probably just one trait, really. Every class would need to be designed to use attack rolls, but that's not hard.

How do you handle defaulting to a skill you don't have trained, and variation in skill checks?

Possible solution: Take X skills as best (+5+1/2 level), Y as great (+3+1/2 level), Z as dabbled (+3), W as totally untrained (+0). Maybe even one as worthess (-3)

How do you handle save DCs to produce some variation there?

Well this one is simple. The base save DC can just be 10+1/2 level+X, where X varies from ability, and can be given a special name,and you can fool around a bit here. The illusionist's slow spell can be harder to resist than the stun, which is yet harder to resist than the mind control.

Other thoughts and potential issues?

[Username17]

You know, honestly I think Arneson and Gygax had it right. People want small amounts of variation between characters of the same class. Giving out sets of literally random tiny bonuses and penalties to things is a perfectly viable solution to that. You could mix it up by putting these things on sliders where getting +1 to attack necessarily gave you -1 to defense or some shit - but basically asking people to roll 3d6 a bunch of times and get some random +1s on some random stuff that they might not even care about is probably the best real attribute system we've ever had.

-Username17

[hogarth]

You know, honestly I think Arneson and Gygax had it right. People want small amounts of variation between characters of the same class. Giving out sets of literally random tiny bonuses and penalties to things is a perfectly viable solution to that.

Are you talking about OD&D? Because I can't speak for OD&D, but certainly by the time AD&D rolled around it morphed into "random potentially large bonuses" (e.g. the difference between a level 1 character with 14 Dex and 18 Dex is 4 points of AC on a scale from 2 to 10).

[RobbyPants]

There's the feat approach, where you approximate it by taking feats like Burly or Sneaky or whatever, and you can totally be a burly wizard, but that has it's own issues. Namely, it's just a dulled-down point-buy system where you can spend feats on "ability scores" or other stuff like meta-magic feats or other new options when you charge.

It's not necessarily bad, but it's not much different than setting everyone's ability scores at something average and creating a feat that gives you +4 to one stat, or something. You're basically purchasing two things (ability scores and feats) from a single pool.

[KevinBlaze]

I feel exactly the same way as you Dragonchild. For the game I'm making I was originally going to do completely away with stats and go with a suggestion like Frank gave of tiny random variables, just enough to notice but not throw everything off. Couple this with melding the duh bonuses into classes, so people who are barbarians basically get numbers like they were maxing for str, spellcasters for spellpower stat, etc.

Informal surveying of people gave me the impression that people really like having stats they can fiddle with, in general. For my game and I propose something similar could work for you is to go for a 3 or 4 stat system. Then balance it so that each class could have a reason to not always max 1 or 2 certain stats.

[JonSetanta]

I'd love a d20 3-stat system. Tried to make one myself but had no idea what to do beyond compress STR/CON, DEX/INT, WIS/CHA.

Try using the bonuses as the actual score rather than the score giving bonuses. Some game did this but I can't remember what it's called.


And Frank loves multiple stats. The more the better. That works for MMOs and computer games but IMO not for PnP.

[Josh_Kablack]

How do you give some variation to armor class, attack bonuses, saves, and hit points, so everything doesn't feel samey?

I think you want something like Feng Shui's setup.

Each Archetype (class) has its own attributes. Anything essential to the class is a fixed number - so, for example every Martial Artist starts with a Fu stat of exactly 8, every Old Master starts with a Fortune of exactly 0 and a Body of Exactly 4. And then different archetypes get a few limited options to customize their stats, but these options cannot modify the fixed stats. These vary from "Add 2 to any one primary attribute" to "Add a total of 6 points among your primary attributes. Max for all attributes is 10" to add 3 to one primary attribute, add 2 points to a different primary attibute. Add 2 points to a secondary attribute" to "Pick attribute mods according to transformed animal type from the chart"

Now that setup still uses attributes, so you'd want to dump it for a system that had similar swaps for the numbers derived from attributes. So instead of "add 6 points to ability scores" you'd want something where all wizards got the same number of bonus spells and the max save DCs, but then got to choose things like: Apply a +2 bonus to all saves or to your Armor Class", "Gain a +2 to either initiative and stealth or a +2 to weapon damage and grapple checks"

How do you handle defaulting to a skill you don't have trained, and variation in skill checks?

Skills default to other skills at a penalty based on how close they are. Knowledge: Arcana can sub in for Spellcraft at a small penalty (as both are magic knowledge skills). Athletics can sub in for Open Lock at a moderate penalty (as you're forcing the lock, not finessing it) and Intimidate can sub in for Jump at an absurd penalty (it's all about giving myself the proper motivation!, so I remember what Sarge used to say!).

The penalties need to be set so as to make defaulting harsh enough that PCs still want diverse skills (instead of one absurdly high one they can use for anything), but not so harsh that not having an exact match skill is always an auto-failure.

How do you handle save DCs to produce some variation there?

If you want such variation, you do it by spell tags, not by ability score.

I mean the Bard's 2nd level Suggestion is already at 10+2+Mods compared to the Wizard's 3rd level Suggestion being 10+3+Mods.

There's no real reason you couldn't set things up so that tags other then Spell level came into play there. The generalist Wizard's DC's could all be 15+1/2 level while the Evoker's DC on evocations could be 17+ 1/2 level and only 12+1/2 level on other schools. The Fire Mage could get DCs of 20+ 1/2 level on Fire spells, but not have any non-fire spells at all, and so on and so forth.

Edit: Siggy'ed Franks quote below.

[Username17]

Informal surveying of people gave me the impression that people really like having stats they can fiddle with, in general.

It's important to understand that people's desires are inherently irrational and contradictory and you can't actually accommodate them all. I mean, for fuck's sake people like their attributes to make a "big difference" and they don't like being penalized for arranging their attributes differently. Think about that for a bit. I mean, those two things are the same thing just looked at from opposite directions. And yet, people will tell you that they like one and hate the other in the same sentence. And what's worse, they aren't fucking with you, they genuinely feel this way.

People like random stats because it makes their character unique and makes chargen a minigame full of discovery and accomplishment. But they hate random stats because they don't end up being allowed to play exactly what they want. Basically, if people get the random stats they wanted by chance they are happy. But if other people get the same stats or they fail to get the stats they wanted, they are sad. There is no way to make a game system that caters to people's actual wishes, because what people actually want is to pull an Elennsar - for something to be actually rare and hard and for their own personal attempt to succeed.

Coming or going, you must deny people their fervent wishes, because their genuine desire is retarded and impossible.

-Username17

[hogarth]

It's important to understand that people's desires are inherently irrational and contradictory and you can't actually accommodate them all. I mean, for fuck's sake people like their attributes to make a "big difference" and they don't like being penalized for arranging their attributes differently. Think about that for a bit. I mean, those two things are the same thing just looked at from opposite directions. And yet, people will tell you that they like one and hate the other in the same sentence. And what's worse, they aren't fucking with you, they genuinely feel this way.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[RobbyPants]

It's like some sad sort of gambling addiction.

[TheWorid]

Coming or going, you must deny people their fervent wishes, because their genuine desire is retarded and impossible.

Into my signature you go.

[Ganbare Gincun]

How do you give some variation to armor class, attack bonuses, saves, and hit points, so everything doesn't feel samey?

I think you want something like Feng Shui's setup.

Each Archetype (class) has its own attributes. Anything essential to the class is a fixed number - so, for example every Martial Artist starts with a Fu stat of exactly 8, every Old Master starts with a Fortune of exactly 0 and a Body of Exactly 4. And then different archetypes get a few limited options to customize their stats, but these options cannot modify the fixed stats. These vary from "Add 2 to any one primary attribute" to "Add a total of 6 points among your primary attributes. Max for all attributes is 10" to add 3 to one primary attribute, add 2 points to a different primary attibute. Add 2 points to a secondary attribute" to "Pick attribute mods according to transformed animal type from the chart"

Now that setup still uses attributes, so you'd want to dump it for a system that had similar swaps for the numbers derived from attributes. So instead of "add 6 points to ability scores" you'd want something where all wizards got the same number of bonus spells and the max save DCs, but then got to choose things like: Apply a +2 bonus to all saves or to your Armor Class", "Gain a +2 to either initiative and stealth or a +2 to weapon damage and grapple checks"

Why not have default ability scores in D20 as well? Give each class a "base" ability score setup and then give them a number of ability score points to distribute amongst their scores (with the usual racial caps and modifiers, of course). That would allow MAD characters to actually remain competitive and would placate players that just have to build characters with point buy because of its "fairness".

[DragonChild]

Because I don't want a smart fighter to be any dumber than a smart wizard, if he chooses to spend ALL his points in intelligence skills. If you're the know-everything tactical genius who uses a sword, I don't want you to feel for any reason that you are "dumber" than the wizard who didn't take intelligence skills.

A lot of good ideas here, a lot of stuff I can use. What did people think of some of my possible solutions, as well?

[PhoneLobster]

Funny story time.

See now I decided long ago screw it, I hate attributes.

I decided to remove attributes and do other things for my home brew rules.

Instead doing a whole keyword thing where characters get to be Fast or Strong or Tricky and other characters get bonuses or penalties to hit/interact with those keywords and junk.

Now I've tried many a crazy idea before in home brew rules. And sometimes the ideas fall flat or hit unfortunate opposition or confusion from players.

But the keywords instead of attributes thing was actually accepted FAR more easily than I had expected or even hoped.

It seems like at least with the small groups of players that I use my home brew rules with being "Fast" is all they really want and they do not give a crap about having a Fast ability score of 17 instead of 16.

My latest iteration of this that I'm now working on is to make some of the broader more archetypal keywords into a small set of "standard" traits that a character selects at creation. And that each trait stamps you with an archetypal keyword and a notable ability that will dramatically influence the way you do everything pretty much forever.

So a Fast character walks in and stamps Fast on all their actions/defenses and that isnt just a tag for being hit with anti-Fast attacks it also MEANS something important and beneficial within the initiative/order of action resolution mechanic.

Similarly I'm also having some "bad" traits so you can be a Slow or Weak character or something and have that have basically the same impact.

The idea being that it provides some serious archetypal stuff to mess with since I'm not planning on having solid class or "race" boundaries in my current project.

This way people can say "This character is a Fast Weak gunslinging kungfu psychic blahblahblah". Because the gunslinging kungfu psychic blahblahblah is going to be a customizable mess largely meaningless in nature unless you know the specifics but the Fast and Weak traits are going to be very familiar and useful to the players to know.

[Zinegata]

To be fair, not all people want to have their cake and eat it too.

In fact, if you look at individual people they will probably have a more consistent position - i.e. Jake wants random stats, Pete doesn't want them.

It's when you needlessly lump everyone and begin stereotyping that you end up with a world that is composed entirely of inconsistent people.

So really, either go with stats, or don't. Individual players will decide on their own whether they like it or not. I would simply suggest designing something that you, yourself, will enjoy.

[DragonChild]

To be fair, not all people want to have their cake and eat it too.

Actually, I think a LOT of design decisions suffer this.

Do you want lots of fun options, or do you want things to be fast to learn and play?

Do you want neat customization, or would you rather have strong, flavorful archetypes and better balance?

And so on. So yeah, there's often no "right" decision for a lot of these things.

[Zinegata]

Actually, I think a LOT of design decisions suffer this.

Do you want lots of fun options, or do you want things to be fast to learn and play?

Do you want neat customization, or would you rather have strong, flavorful archetypes and better balance?

And so on. So yeah, there's often no "right" decision for a lot of these things.

Yep. These are what you call "design decisions" .

So if you want to make a stat-less system, go for it. I think the ideas you posted are interesting.

[Ice9]

I was tinkering with something like this for the mental stats. The issue I was trying to solve is (that at least in some groups) people want to play out the mental stuff, not abstract it. So they want to do their own conversations and negotiations, solve their own puzzles, come up with their own tactics, and accumulate their own knowledge. But on the other hand, this makes the mental stats relatively impotent next to the physical ones.

So my idea was to get rid of mental stats as a number entirely, and then have mental perks with specific effects. The smarter / more charismatic your character, the more perks in that category you take. They'd do things like:
* When buying supplies, you can buy an undeclared item. This can later be revealed to be any common item that you could have forseen the use for.
* X/session, you get to claim you "didn't really" say something that was obviously stupid / a faux-pas.

[hogarth]

Funny story time.

See now I decided long ago screw it, I hate attributes.

I decided to remove attributes and do other things for my home brew rules.

Instead doing a whole keyword thing where characters get to be Fast or Strong or Tricky and other characters get bonuses or penalties to hit/interact with those keywords and junk.

Was this a system with classes? I think the conflict starts to come in (for some people) when you have odd interactions between attributes and classes. For instance, if wizards are "supposed" to be smarter than average in my game world, that doesn't mesh well with a system where Strong is just as popular as Smart for wizards. But on the other hand, if you have a system that encourages wizards to be Smart and warriors to be Strong, then you get whining from the folks who want Smart warriors.

[TheFlatline]

I'd love a d20 3-stat system. Tried to make one myself but had no idea what to do beyond compress STR/CON, DEX/INT, WIS/CHA.

Try using the bonuses as the actual score rather than the score giving bonuses. Some game did this but I can't remember what it's called.


And Frank loves multiple stats. The more the better. That works for MMOs and computer games but IMO not for PnP.

Whatever you do, please avoid the tri-stat system. For the love of god, avoid it.

I've yet to see a game touched by those mechanics that didn't suck like a cheap Taiwan ladyboy. Big Eyes, Small Mouth is the least of the offenders, but even then it is disturbingly easy to build a character who has absolutely no capability at all.

The one half of one session I played 10 years ago of Sailor Moon (don't ask, there was a girl in the group who hated D&D and bitched until she could run sailor moon) consisted of me launching my *one* solitary attack, missing because I had to roll an 8 or better on 2D6, and being useless until the next day, which was essentially after the end of the adventure. For the rest of the game I exercised my only other ability: I made peoples' hair ruffle dramatically in the wind (I'm not kidding, I spent 3 hours saying "What else can I do? I make his hair ruffle dramatically in the wind").

[Lago PARANOIA]

I've yet to see a game touched by those mechanics that didn't suck like a cheap Taiwan ladyboy. Big Eyes, Small Mouth is the least of the offenders, but even then it is disturbingly easy to build a character who has absolutely no capability at all.

TheFlatline, is there any chance of us getting an Anatomy of Failed Design: TriStat system from you anytime soon?

[JonSetanta]

There's an abandoned semi-d20 RPG project on my computer that uses the following stats:
• Mind (WIS/CHA)
• Body (STR/CON)
• Speed (INT/DEX)

Can anyone point out the inherent flaws in such a naming convention?
I realize it's similar to tri-stat, but rather than Body/Mind/Soul I separated the Body into different aspects and compressed Mind/Soul together (same thing, w/e)

[TheFlatline]

I've yet to see a game touched by those mechanics that didn't suck like a cheap Taiwan ladyboy. Big Eyes, Small Mouth is the least of the offenders, but even then it is disturbingly easy to build a character who has absolutely no capability at all.

TheFlatline, is there any chance of us getting an Anatomy of Failed Design: TriStat system from you anytime soon?

You mean I'm gonna have to go back and read TriStat again?

I suppose I can. It might take a while, I only own one of the tri-stat books at the moment. Sailor Moon was the most horrendous of the offenders too, which might be difficult to dig up.

It won't be the new edition though that came out 5 years ago, it'll probably be a 2nd edition review.

[Username17]

There's an abandoned semi-d20 RPG project on my computer that uses the following stats:
• Mind (WIS/CHA)
• Body (STR/CON)
• Speed (INT/DEX)

Can anyone point out the inherent flaws in such a naming convention?
I realize it's similar to tri-stat, but rather than Body/Mind/Soul I separated the Body into different aspects and compressed Mind/Soul together (same thing, w/e)

Can you explain why you can't punch harder by punching faster? Energy is Mass times Speed, after all.

But really, when you go into extremely reductionist stat systems, you have to ask yourself why you are doing it. It's not enough to come out with a set of stats that you can consistently explain the function of on short notice - you also have to have that make a good game. And that means that the stats need to encourage diversity and make players feel like they are making meaningful tradeoffs or have relevant and relative bonuses in meaningful areas.

So what you have right there is something where I honestly can't tell you whether running fast is a product of fucking Speed, because that really seems like the kind of thing that might be Body related. What with you doing it with your Body and shit. But even if you made it into something that was actually coherent like "Offensive, Defensive, and Adaptive" I still wouldn't be able to really judge it until you explained what the heck you were attempting to accomplish.

So seriously, why do you want to lay down three stats? What is that for?

-Username17

[TheFlatline]

There's an abandoned semi-d20 RPG project on my computer that uses the following stats:
• Mind (WIS/CHA)
• Body (STR/CON)
• Speed (INT/DEX)

Can anyone point out the inherent flaws in such a naming convention?
I realize it's similar to tri-stat, but rather than Body/Mind/Soul I separated the Body into different aspects and compressed Mind/Soul together (same thing, w/e)

Unless your stats grow as you level up, you're still right back at the beginning where stats just don't mean that much at higher levels, because you're going to have bonuses in a D20 system that blow stat modifications out of the water.

That's my main complaint with stats & modifiers. Spellcasters need one stat to essentially be 19 by 20th level (so they can cast 9th level spells) otherwise that's it. Most monsters are probably "designed" as much as they are against average characters. However, we all know that average characters never occur in D&D. I know people who will roll characters until they have all their stats 15+, and take hours to do it, defending themselves the entire time. Five levels into the game, nobody gives a shit about your stats anymore though. They might buff your attack, they might give you extra skill points, but that's really it. Only casters are still intrinsically hooked to the stat system, and that's only for one stat.

As far as your pseudo tri-stat, I don't mind that there are 3 stats, I just am suggesting that what you *do* with those stats matters. Frankly, I don't, for example, think that NPCs need 6 individual stats. I'd be fine with 2: Physical and mental. The mechanics however need to fit the game your playing. If you're going to have a high-powered combat game, do yourself a favor and make sure it's possible to hit 50% of the time without making your character a drooling idiot.

I do dig the endure, avoid, and realize saves that Kaelik posted above however. It makes *far* more sense.