Breaking Down and Building Up: Ability Scores

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 Having tested this method out with my last post on Spell Schools, lets see how breaking down and rebuilding can work on something more central like Ability Scores.


A Brief Overview

    Ability Scores have been in Dungeons and Dragons since the very beginning, and have been somewhat constant throughout it. Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma are the six basic stats and they have endured. But, they have been a constant source of friction as well.

    Originally, Strength, Intelligence, and Wisdom were all Prime Requisites, the things you needed to choose one of the three basic classes (Fighter, Magic-User, or Cleric respectively). The other three were bonus stats that affected your HP, AC, and Number of Followers. These divisions were clear and fairly straightforward, except for the fact that Ability Scores were described as being actual attributes of your character. 

    Even a brief thought about this will reveal issues with how the scores are not used as much as they probably should be with that description. Should a 3 Strength Wizard be able to carry as much as an 18 Strength Fighter? And what is the difference between intelligence and wisdom and how do you adjudicate most scenarios affected by mental ability? Which of the three mental stats covers a characters Willpower? Does Charisma include physical appearance?

    Many different people put forward different answers, and things have only gotten muddier as editions have moved forward and Ability Scores have become more central. This is not a problem that can be ignored in systems that make use of a universal resolution system affected by ability scores. So, lets see if we can't fix things up a bit.


Breaking Things Down

    In order to break ability scores apart, I am going to make a list of the things they get used for. Their roles. It is not going to be an exhaustive list, and it is going to be focused on Old-School style play. This means that many things an ability could be used for (insightfulness for example) likely aren't going to make it. Maybe these scores will work in other systems or for other roles, maybe they won't. That isn't one of the guiding principles here. So, without further ado:

  • Combat
    • Attacking
      • Melee Attacks
      • Ranged Attacks
    • AC / Defending
    • Initiative / Reaction Time
  • Magic
    • Casting ability
      • Arcane
      • Divine
    • Resistance
  • Social
    • Followers
    • Appearance
    • Reactions
  • HP / Health
  • Toxin resistance
  • Perception
  • Willpower / Mental Fortitude
  • Mental Ability / Smartness
    • Logic / Brute Force
    • Patterns / Creativity
  • Encumbrance / Carrying Capacity
  • Lifting Ability
  • Agility / Speed
  • Balance
  • Hand-eye Coordination
  • Luck
  • Knowledge

Building Things Up

    Having gone through the stats and various methods in which they are used, I will say that Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution are actually fairly solid. They are all fairly well distinguished and don't get in each other's ways all that much. The rest, however, is a bit of a mess and I actually think some of these uses could be dropped without much issue. Still, as I looked through my list and pondered on how to rebuild it, I came across two ways to really do so. One, involves having eight ability scores instead of six. It would look something like:
  • Melee Attacks
  • Encumbrance / Carrying Capacity
  • Lifting Ability

  • Ranged Attacks
  • AC / Defense
  • Balance
  • Agility

  • HP / Health
  • Toxin Resistance

  • Initiative / Reaction Time
  • Hand-eye coordination

  • Casting Ability
  • Logic / Brute Force
  • Knowledge

  • Perception
  • Patterns / Creativity

  • Willpower / Mental Fortitude
  • Magic Resistance

  • Followers
  • Reactions
  • Luck

    This set of ability scores would likely be fairly functional, basically splitting up Dexterity and this new Reaction score and more cleanly dividing up the three mental scores into four. While I think that this is likely not a great system (6 scores seem more manageable to me), it does raise the interesting idea of having one score for every Spell School, with different schools offering different bonuses for their preferred ability (what would a Strength school look like? Which school would it be?). 

    For a six score breakdown, here is what I came up with:

  • Melee Attacks
  • Carrying Capacity / Encumbrance
  • Lifting Ability

  • HP / Health

  • Ranged Attacks
  • AC / Defense
  • Agility
  • Hand-eye Coordination

  • Followers
  • Reactions
  • Luck

  • Magical Ability
  • Willpower

  • Initiative / Reaction Time
  • Perception

    I am sure this breakdown might raise some eyebrows. Probably the most controversial thing I have done with this is fold all spellcasting into a single ability score. For some people, the idea that Clerics and Magic-Users would use the same ability score for their casting abilities is heresy, but I do have some solid reasoning for it. The primary reason Intelligence or Wisdom were even made was to enforce the difference between Arcane and Divine spellcasting, with everything else tacked on later. Here, we can just have a spellcasting ability and use the other space to sensibly lay out other mental abilities. Further, the other abilities cover ranges of things. There are multiple areas of Strength that can be varied, but are covered under on ability. Climbing, Balance, Archery, and Lockpicking are all fairly disparate but they all fall under Dexterity. Having a Spellcasting ability to represent everyone's various magical abilities and resistance to them would fit under that paradigm and it ensures that it isn't a dump stat for those non-spellcasters (unless they want really bad magical saves). 

    The other major change I am doing here is ditching Mental Ability as a role covered with Ability Scores. The intelligence of your character is more of a roleplaying concern, and honestly most people end up playing an average intelligence character even if their Intelligence score says something else. Playing a "Smart" or "Dumb" character is something that takes extra work, and standard 3d6 makes characters like that come up too often for most people. Willpower is a bit of an exception, but considering it is mostly used as a form of Magical Resistance anyway, it fits under the unified spellcasting ability.

    The final major change with this system is the other new stat which will cover both Perceptiveness and Reaction Time. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone when I say that Dexterity is a very powerful stat, having picked up more and more practical effects with every edition of D&D. So, by splitting off the semi-powerful Initiative role from it, I weaken Dexterity while also helping this new ability score not be a dump stat. As for the Perception role, it is one of the things that comes up so, so regularly in D&D. Searching for treasure, noticing hidden monsters, finding traps before they get activated, and so much more. The fact that OD&D did not have any great system for adjudicating those very obvious and common occurrences is one of its few flaws. So, I am giving it an ability score which is paired with Initiative. 

    Here is my attempt at naming the rebuilt ability scores:

  • Strength
  • Dexterity
  • Constitution
  • Charisma
  • Arcane
  • Acuity
    If I have done my job properly, they should very easily map onto any Old-School style games and not have a lot of quibbles about what actions fall under which stats. However, I will freely admit that I have likely crippled this system's ability to function under a d20 system since there aren't any proper mental scores to map mental checks onto. Oh well. Let me know your thoughts below, I am quite curious what you all think about my reworked ability scores!

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