A change to how ability scores work [3.5, Concept, PEACH]

[Amechra]

Alright, how would the game change with the following:

-Your ability scores are capped by your levels in your classes, and which classes they are. This represents, in a way, that you are yet to unlock your true potential, or some-such nonsense.
-The cap is based off of your class itself; each class has one of the following progressions for each ability score:
{table=head]Class Level|Good Progression|Mediocre Progression|Poor Progression
1|15|13|11
2|16|14|11
3|17|14|11
4|18|15|12
5|18|15|12
6|19|16|12
7|20|16|12
8|21|17|13
9|21|17|13
10|22|18|13
11|23|18|13
12|24|19|14
13|24|19|14
14|25|20|14
15|26|20|14
16|27|21|15
17|27|21|15
18|28|22|15
19|29|22|15
20|30|23|16[/table]
-At first level, increase the cap for three of your ability scores by 1; this is to represent the 10, 10, 10, 11, 11, 11 distribution for averaged ability scores.
-When multiclassing, you only increase your cap in an ability score on a class level where that class would get an increase to their cap.

Note that your ability scores can actually be HIGHER than the cap; however, you just can't access the actual potential for that ability score; you haven't been pressed far enough towards your limits to fully access your true potential. In other words, if your ability score is higher than your cap, your ability score is treated as equal to the cap for all purposes.

Racial ability score adjustments are changed; now, instead of having the race add to your ability score, it instead increases or decreases your cap for that ability score. So an Elf would naturally have a cap 2 points higher than a Human in the same class, for example; this would allow such characters as a burly elf or a genius of a half-orc to exist.

Note that a race with a +2 modifier in an ability score has a cap of 18/19 for any ability scores that are on the "good" progression.

Templates still add straight to your ability scores, without altering your cap at all.

---

Obviously, some other changes would have to be instituted (like changing how Rage works, for example), but in my opinion, this is what I think would change:

-No more Clerics lording over Melee; a Fighter would have a Good Strength progression, while a Cleric would have a Mediocre Strength Progression, meaning that a Human Fighter 7 would have a cap of 20/21, while a Cleric of the same level would have a cap of 16/17, meaning that Divine Power would act more like an equalizer, rather than completely overtaking the poor Fighter.
-You could throw a LOT more ability score increasing stuff into a game, and have it not affect things as much as they would now.

I accept the fact that you probably would have to completely rewrite the Monster manual, which I completely agree with.

Thoughts? Even just something as "that's stupid", with your reasons attached?

[Seerow]

Would you apply the same caps to monsters of the given CR?


If not, this just makes things suck even more for melee. You're effectively lowering their max potential, and not giving anything back. Especially Barbarians.

[Amechra]

Note that I said that the MM would probably have to be rewritten to take this into account.

In other words, yes.

[Yitzi]

It could get very tricky when it comes to SAD classes; giving them good progression for their main ability would mean this wouldn't help at all there (and that's where the real boost is needed anyway), while giving them a lower progression risks making them too weak. I suspect it could be done, but a lot of thought and playtesting would be needed.

[Deepbluediver]

I'm a little confused about the ability advancement and cap interactions. Are you saying that all fighters (for example) start out at Str 15, and no items or spells can push their Str higher than that?

Or are you saying all characters start out at 11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 10 for all stats?

[Strormer]

This is an interesting concept. I'm not sure I like it for a dnd mod, but this could be the basis for a new system. Since you'd already be taking on rewriting the mm I don't see why you couldn't just keep going with this into a full blown homebrewed game. Dnd, imho, already has enough homogenizing influences these days, but this could work for something new.

[Seerow]

I'm a little confused about the ability advancement and cap interactions. Are you saying that all fighters (for example) start out at Str 15, and no items or spells can push their Str higher than that?

Or are you saying all characters start out at 11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 10 for all stats?

I believe he's saying regardless of what your actual strength is, it gets capped at the value on the table. You get to add +1 to max the value of 3 attributes at level 1.


So say you're playing a Fighter, you have Good Strength and Con, Medium Dex and Int, low Wis and Charisma.

You decide to put your bonus point into Strength, Con, and Dex.

Your maximum attributes are:
Strength: 16
Con: 16
Dex: 14
Int: 13
Cha: 11
Wis: 11



At level 20 your maximum attributes are
Strength: 31
Con: 31
Dex: 24
Int: 23
Wis: 16
Cha: 16



But the actual level 20 fighter might only have something like 28 strength, 24 con, 13 int, 16 wis, 8 cha. The cap serves as a way to keep from being boosted into the stratosphere, and keeps casters in line by preventing them from buffing their own strength beyond the Fighter's.

[Deepbluediver]

Ah, ok Seerow, I think I get it now.

Basically, if you're starting at a low level it encourages you to spread your stats out rather than dumping them all in one thing. Or, if you do stack them all into one, that stat will increase slowly but constantly over the next several levels.

[Glimbur]

How does this work with multiclassing? A ranger 2 barbarian 2 fighter 2 is a likely example of three classes that should have similar stats growing in cap at similar rates, so is their max Str 16 or 19?

Throw in prestige classes on top of that concern.

[Seerow]

How does this work with multiclassing? A ranger 2 barbarian 2 fighter 2 is a likely example of three classes that should have similar stats growing in cap at similar rates, so is their max Str 16 or 19?

Throw in prestige classes on top of that concern.

If I'm reading right you get the bonus based on your character level and the current class. So if at level 8 you go from a class that has a bad progression (13 in the attribute) to a class that has a good progression, you don't gain anything, because from 8 to 9, the good progression gets nothing. But if going from level 9 to 10, you gain +1, because the good progression gains +1 at that level.

Well let's just look at Str Dex and Con. Say Fighter and Barb are good Str/Con, medium Dex. Ranger is good Str/Dex, medium Con. Say he put his +1 into each of them.


Organized as Str/Dex/Con:

Fighter 1-16/14/16
Fighter 2-17/15/17
Ranger 3-18/16/17 (str and dex both good so went up. Con medium so didnt increase)
Ranger 4-19/17/18 (both medium and high gain this level, so all go up)
Barb 5-19/17/18 (no change, 5 doesn't increase any)
Barb 6-20/18/19 (both high and medium get increased at this level, so all increase)


vs a Single Classed Fighter 6 would have 20/17/20.



Overall (assuming I understood it correctly) it seems like a lot of extra complication, on top of needing to figure out which progressions apply to each class, on top of needing to rebalance every monster ever... it looks like a lot of work for relatively little benefit.

[Amechra]

Oops, I meant to have that written out to work like how you handle increases to saves from classes; a good progression gives you a boost on the same levels that your BAB would increase if you were taking a class with a 3/4 progression, a mediocre progression gives you an increase every even level, and a poor progression gives you a boost every 4th level.

Hope that helps; can someone help me word that in a way that isn't so awkward?