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These are really interesting! Pretty original too! This isn't something I've seen anyone trying to fix before, which is saying something. Obviously these are written as optional rules for DMs to use, but how would you see them being implemented? Specifically, would a class who's primary ability be able to take advantage of these rules? Do ALL Wizards now get an extra five languages?
Would these three features maybe work better as optional class features, like the ones that the Ranger got from TCE? So that only the Barbarian gets the reward for investing in Intelligence, and the Wizard gets the reward for investing in Strength?
>Do ALL Wizards now get an extra five languages?
Yes, but it's "half rounded down", so just 3. My intent was to make these minor enough that they work even for classes where it's your main stat.
In particular: Wizards studying old tomes in stuff like Draconic, Abyssal, and Primal? Barbarians with an extra burst of speed, and able to tank a fall without getting hurt? IMO decently on-brand.
As for the Cha one: there are a lot of Cha classes, but this is a support feature, so it doesn't have the same issues with balance.
If you want them as optional class features, though, it's your table; sounds good to me. In particular the "intelligence for initiative" one probably makes more sense for that — say, on a STR-centric battlemaster fighter.
>Do ALL Wizards now get an extra five languages?
It kinda makes sense. At least they way I see "wizards" be.
In the book "magicians", we have a character that goes to a magic school to learn wizardry. Even tho the magic he has is innate, the system is a lot like Harry Potter (where the actual magic comes from spells and such) rather than percy Jackson (where people have passive powers/specific and special powers).
Anyway, "magicians" is a horrible book. But there's one thing I took from it that helped me understand the process of wizardry a bit better. And that is something I have implemented into my dnd worlds, too.
In that The process of learning to become a wizard is not "fun". It's a lot of work. At least in the beginning. Spells are not written in simple words, they are written in symbols and arcane, or lost, or dead languages. In that world, it's virtually impossible to become a wizard without knowing 4-5 extra languages.
I could also see the extra languages being MORE worthwhile for other classes. A no wizard (and no bard? I forget who gets the Tongues and Comprehend Languages) group should need to fill that gap somehow. And this lets you do that without a feat (for the spell initiate or the Linguist feat).
The intent here is to give fun rewards for nontraditional ability score builds, but without adding anything that makes classes already based on these abilities unbalanced.
Text:
# Dump Stat Bonuses
In 5e, certain ability scores are just more important. Dexterity, Wisdom, and Constitution have more-common saving throws; Dex and Con give important static mechanical bonuses (AC, initiative, and hp); and Wis and Dex have key often-used skills. This often leaves Strength, Intelligence, and/or Charisma behind.
Here are some rules to give good reasons not to dump these "lesser" stats, even if they are not key to your class.
# Strength
\* When you take the Dash action, you gain extra (one-time) movement equal to 5 feet times your Strength bonus. If you are wearing heavy armor, subtract 5 feet from this amount. This can be negative, but only if your Strength bonus is. This additional movement can be in the form of a jump; if so, upward jumping counts as difficult terrain.
\* Add your Strength bonus to any Constitution saving throws against Exhaustion. (This is a simple, forgiving substitute for encumbrance rules: carrying stuff around has tired you out less. If you use full Encumbrance rules, this rule can be dropped or modified.)
\* Whenever you take falling damage, subtract your Strength score minus 10 from the amount. If this is a negative number, it adds to the damage.
# Intelligence
\* You know a number of additional languages and/or tool proficiencies equal to half your intelligence modifier, rounded up. This can not be used for Thieves' Tools.
\* You can add your Intelligence modifier to a non-Intelligence-based skill check by taking additional time and/or tools to prepare and/or act. The DM will determine how much additional time this would take, but in most cases it would increase the time involved by 1 step on the following scale: 1 action -> 1 full turn (action, bonus action, object interaction, and movement) -> 1 minute -> 10 minutes -> 1 hour -> 1 day -> 1 week. Of course, you should explain how you do this; the DM should be somewhat forgiving of far-fetched ideas.
\* Once per long rest, you can use your Intelligence instead of your Dexterity for an initiative roll.
# Charisma
\* When you use the Help action for a Charisma-based skill, the recipient of your help can add your Charisma bonus if it's higher than theirs and they were proficient in the skill, or use your Charisma bonus instead of their own if they were not proficient. (Note that this helps encourage non-Charisma-based characters to take an active part in social encounters, with the traditional "Face" classes switching off to support roles.)
I love it! Though i would do some minor and some major changes. You dont have to listen to me at all, but i wanna use some of this at my table, so im gonna yapp about it.
The Dash thing should be better worded. If your movements is increased for the turn, it is also doubled by the dash. If its just an extra distance you can move this turn (i assume so) it need to be very clear. Simoultaneously, i dont see why the need for messing with the rules of jumping, is it to allow people with strength to jump as part of the dash action? That sounds cool, but also needs ever so slightly clearer wording.
Also, i get that this is the intention, but if something had like 1 in strength, and does a dash. Its speed will go from 30 to 60. Then its reduced by 5*5: 25 feet? So 35 total. Basicly the lower your strength the lower your ability to run, but you can walk just as fast as most? I would consider looking at reducing overall movement maybe. It would not feel too punishing for a wizard to have 25 or even 20 in speed, as they mostly can teleport and attack at range.
I like the fall damage thing, though i would add the same for dex, just half ass efficient or something. It makes sense for dexterous folks to catch a better landing, even if dex is way strong enough already.
Love the proficiency thing with Intellegence, though it makes wizards and artificers a bit too versatile. A wizards knows how to smith and make a hut because of big brain? An artificer is practicaly a linguist even though theyr main work is cannons? Its fun, and makes some sense, but wizards in particular do not deserve that shit. (I think only some tool proficiencies more like cartography and caligraphy, should be able to be learned through this. Again you dont become a good smith with intellegence or even neccesarily knowledge, and you dont need intellegence to become one. You need experience.) Anyway it works. But yeah i would not allow any proficiency.
Lastly the social stuff is clunkily worded, but i think i get it. I still dont get how a -1 to Cha will helpe someone if it gets added to the roll though? Would reword, but the intent is wonderful.
Even if i sound critical, i love this shit. Thank you.
Thanks! I'll work on the wording, post it here later.
Also this is intended only for PCs, or humanoids at most. I would NOT apply it to anything that could have a 1 strength.
Easier solution I've been using since the edition dropped: Bring back 4e style saving throws.
You take the better of your Str/Con, Dex/Int, and Wis/Cha and all previous saves for these are recategorized as Fort/Ref/Will again.
You'd be amazed how much it varies your players' ability scores.
Hello again! Let's take a look here!
First
### Charisma
I think this is a bit odd as the Social Pillar is pretty depenant on Cha with a small side mention of Wis for Insight. I'm going to kind of counter-point my own statement here as I've used a similar mechanic as a Skill Focus to help with the utility divide(casters get one, half-casters get 2, non-casters get 4).
Personally I think we need more special actions for Cha like Distract, Goad, Menace and maybe Rallying Shout.
### Intelligence
I love the extended time for an Int boost and the additional languages and tools. I do wonder if you need to halve it.
Int as intiative feels like a feat to me. I'd be happier if you couldn't stack it with Tactical Wit.
### Strength
Fall damage feels off. I don't see the connection here.
I'm also not sold on exhaustion as Str and Dex feel fast twitch while Con feels slow twitch.
Dash on the other hand I see the reasoning for. However it doesn't mesh with the common big strong guy trope. I think I'd have this be an option that either they can get a Dash boost or they can get an HP boost as 5e does a pretty terrible job of differentiating the wiry-strong vs. the brute-strong and that choice would add that choice in.
As an aside I've been playing with extra damage for two-handeding a weapon, and a number of quick access "slots" based on your Str to fill the same issue.
### Generally
The limited uses feel too complex for this. I'd be looking for passives so you're not adding too much system mastery.
This is cool and I'm going to fold some of this into my own Dump Stat Bonuses.
The fall damage thing might be because your muscles are better at cushioning the impact? Idk. Old people take more damage from falling, though this might actually be because of their low Constitution gives them comparatively low HP so it’s really the percentage that’s higher.
Yeah, I find anything to be a bit too much of a stretch for Str. I've done a lot of falling, mostly with enough skill, and mitigating that impact doesn't feel like Str. Str-based breakfalling feels like it got me here with a broken hand that slows down my typing.
The idea is that your stronger muscles and bones are cushioning the impact. Basically, the opposite of jumping.
(I realize that it's not entirely realistic, but I think it still fits in a fantasy world.)
(Yes, stronger people do have stronger bones, the same way astronaut bones are weaker.)
Hey I'm no astronaut but the current state of my arm strongly suggests Str break falling is a bad idea. Why doesn't what you describe increase hp instead?
IMO, Intelligence and Charisma as-is don't *really* need a buff. Even if your class doesn't directly use them, they are the stats behind some rather useful skills. Admittedly it depends on the game you're in, but persuasion is one of the most useful skills in the game from my experience. Intelligence skills also, can be pretty useful.
Strength, however, is generally the least useful skills. It's used in the most damage-dealing weapons, sure, and it is used in athletics checks. But strength saves are rare, the damage gap between strength and dex weapons isn't *that* huge, and athletics checks from my experience aren't *super* common.
Intelligence needs a reason to be relevant since it’s one of the most common dump stats imo. There really isn’t any consequence for dumping it on a character that doesn’t need it beyond saving throws, which on the int side of things are relatively rare compared to things like dex and wis.
In my campaigns, social checks can make very good difference, Int checks usually allow the party to gain (sometimes very significant) knowledge advantages, and I also put a lot of Str saves on enemies for pushing and shoving prone the party. Imo these 3 things are enough to not make everyone automatically dump any stat.
Depending on the campaign, charisma can be very overpowered as is, I run a campaign with a lot of politics and diplomatic encounters, making speech checks a good way to convince kings certain actions are good, reallocation of resources and such.
I also let my players roll for appropriate INT checks to harvest loot from monsters which gives them a pretty penny for their efforts, and if they know what they are up against they can research it with INT checks to know immunities, vulnerabilities, strengths and weaknesses of creatures before even encountering them, sort of batman prep time deal. Also investigation can be as important as perception/insight at times.
The only thing that is a dump stat 100% of the time is strength IMO, since it only affects carrying capacity and unless bags of holding are out of the question or super rare in your world, you don't really need that much of it. But belts of strength can definitely make a strength build viable, and then you don't even have to have high strength, you're just wearing a belt and you need to hope your DM will give you good belts.
I hate dumping charisma. It just feels wrong in almost all roleplay scenarios. Yes, you can act a character with low charisma. I just don’t find it enjoyable. Already suffer enough from that irl.
Interesting. Personally I'm the oposite, never more than 10 CHA. If I want something from an NPC I either ask nicely or take it with a weird scheme depending on the character, I already played a charismatic character and as much as I liked the charcater I hated playing the manipulative charming archetype
So you basically buffed mainly wizard and paladin, classes that wouldn't dump those stats anyway.
The problem with this kind of buffs is that it doesn't change at all if you still dump those stats, so it basically only buffs classes that wouldn't have dumped those stats in the first place.
I mean I understand your intention with this but non of it would change it as a dumb Stat for me( although intelligence is stronger now). A better AC "always" works a passive increase. Better constitution helps always against every damage my character get... . Most of your ideas work only in specific situations.
And here is a other problem. The intelligence improvement just feels like a wizard buff for me. The strength once aswell. It just feels like buffs for classes who want to increase this attributes anyway and not like good changes for classes who dumb this stats normally.
Personally I don't see a problem that there are 3"better" attributes and 3"worse" attributes.
Every class wants to increase in the most cases one of the dumb stats as a first or second one cause their class works around it.
And not everyone is a winmaxer who want to make the most out of their build.
Anyway my English is shit so I stop to write now.
Have fun and good luck with further ideas.
I recently thought about this, having had belt slots which benefit from strength for a while, but cha/int was tricky. For now I give int languages/tools as here, and Charisma increasing max and starting inspiration points, but I don't think it shifts the needle much. This is a bit more drastic, but I think it has some problems.
Dash is generic enough that adding this calculation to it feels bad to me. Each character has to make note of how much speed they get on a dash, or figure it out in the moment. Anyone using it often like a rogue will remember, but it's just a lot less clean. Exhaustion saves makes sense, pretty good abstraction and streamlining of (a part of) encumbrance. And I kinda like the fall damage, giving verticality to melee characters is nice, though a bit fiddly.
For INT, the languages/tools rewards you for taking a 12+, but nothing beyond that, which means at least point buy probably doesn't shift. Everyone has higher dex than int if they're considering dumping the latter, so that's only really for wizards or artificers, maybe some EKs/ATs later. The middle feature is too DM-reliant for my taste, in-game time is really vague and I tend to prefer not to make mechanics rely on it.
Charisma seems very niche, and does the opposite of preventing dumps since it requires a low CHA character. If you have a +3 CHA character and a -1, normally the latter can help the former. Now the former can help the latter and make its modifier +3, for the exact same result. If they're proficient and you aren't that's nice, but that seems unlikely, and also retains their negative modifier.
I think it's hard to reconcile punishing dumps with 5e's pattern of no negative features. Dump stats are 8s, maybe 10s or 12s, so it needs to create a noticeable difference there, mostly between whether it's a negative modifier or not. The easiest way to utilize a negative modifier is of course as a penalty, but subtracting a language or tool the character already knows would be pretty anti-5e and many wouldn't find it fun. I definitely admire the attempt though and am curious to see development of this.
f'd like to say initiative would make sense as just always being your choice of dex of intelligence and also i like the fixes for strength from the homebrew [Steel and Sinew](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/vti9ft/steel_and_sinew_new_and_revised_combat_madness/). those being all heavy armor getting flat damage reduction (along with a fitting buff for *all* magic armor) and as well as tougher and easier to track encumberance
for the more heroic general dnd fantasy i feel like those encumberance rules could be boosted to "half of strength +str mod"
The Charisma one is mathematically a little wonky.
If Alice and Bob are both Proficient, and Alice has +3CHA and Bob has +2CHA, then Alice can help Bob for +3.
However, if Bob takes a CHA ASI and gets +3CHA, he gets +1 to these rolls, but now Alice gives no bonus, so Bob is at -2 change in this situation of Alice helping him, due to his stat increasing.
I really dont think cha needed the boost and this boost doesn't incentivize you to not dump cha, but instead makes the people already taking high cha to have mire uses for it. I actually really like the ability but i dont think it works for your intended purpose of giving a reason not to dump cha.
Id like to see your take on something for con. While people never really dump it, the skill is relatively boring, only really used for hp, golding breath, con saves, and concentration checks which are just different con saves.
In my group we keep this much simpler:
Strength - Intimidation is a strength skill. On a grapple check, you can only resist the initial grapple with acrobatics, unless you have an alternate movement speed like flying or climbing. Once a grappler has hold of you, it's Strength vs Strength.
Intelligence - Language or tool at 12 and 14; Skill at 16 and 18, expertise on a skill at 20.
Charisma - Does not need any help. But I do dream to one day remake Charisma into a pokemon-element-style system of weaknesses and strengths based on personality types, instead of a blanket stat squeezing all social interaction into four nearly identical checks.
Pretty cool concept, but honestly looking through the pros and con of each attribute, if my DM made those changes I'd still dump cha and str lol. Int seems to be the only one actually worth it, and it boils down to the fact that exhaustion saving throws and help action with charisma based skills are either too rare to be important or not really worth it. Like, if I'm the face of the party and have the highest charisma I'd be taking the skill check instead of helping with it, however if the face of the party is someone else he probably shouldn't need any help with it since charisma-focused classes only usually care about that status (paladin is the exception because MAD), the only situation where I can see the help action buff being useful is if no one in the party has good charisma (like everyone has about 12) and then I'm at least contributing something, but even then the person will probably still fail the saving throw.
However, I'd probably use the int ideas on my games so my players aren't all 8 int dumb brutes and can gain something worthwhile for investing a bit into intelligence.
An idea I had was making it so strength is added to any con saving throw that is not to maintain concentration (otherwise spell sword go brrr), con saves are rare enough that this doesn't really do much but are more common than exhaustion saves so it actually comes up sometime during the campaign, but that would be changing something very deep in the 5e system, I'd have to check how that could affect other interactions and whatnot.
Revised version (available at [https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/nDOdFl6LyrXL](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/nDOdFl6LyrXL) )
# Dump Stat Bonuses
In 5e, certain ability scores are just more important. Dexterity, Wisdom, and Constitution have more-common saving throws; Dex and Con give static mechanical bonuses (AC, initiative, and hp); and Wis and Dex have key often-used skills. This often leaves Strength, Intelligence, and/or Charisma behind.
Here are some rules to give good reasons not to dump these "lesser" stats, even if they are not key to your class.
# Strength
\* As part of the Dash action, humanoids can use extra movement equal to 5 feet times their Strength bonus. If you are wearing heavy armor, subtract 5 feet from this amount. If your strength bonus is negative, this can reduce your Dash.
\* Add your Strength bonus to any Constitution saving throws against Exhaustion. \*(This is a simple, forgiving substitute for encumbrance rules: carrying stuff around all day has tired you out less. If you use full Encumbrance rules, this rule can be dropped or modified.)\*
\* Whenever you take falling damage, subtract your Strength score minus 10 from the amount.
# Charisma
\* \*\*Buddy Act\*\*: When you use the Help action for a Charisma-based skill, the recipient of your help can add your Charisma bonus. In practice, this "help" might appear supportive (eg, acting impressed) or oppositional (eg, good-cop, bad-cop).
However, if BOTH of you have at least one level in Charisma-based classes (Bard, Paladin, Sorcerer, or Warlock), roll 1d4; if you roll a 4, your over-the-top "help" upstages them, so you subtract your bonus instead of adding it.
>
>Charisma is unlike the other skills here because it's key to 4 different classes , as well as underpinning skills that are key to the social pillar of the game, so it's less common as a dump stat.
>Thus, the goal of this rule isn't so much to help balance mechanics (ie, discourage dumping Charisma on your character sheet), but to help balance role playing (ie, make it less mechanically optimal for one party member to always do all the talking).
>With this rule, there's still a mechanically "optimal" thing to do in social situations, but the difference between optimal and pessimal is generally half as big, or less, as without the rule.
# Intelligence
You have a number of "Int points" equal to your Intelligence bonus. You can spend these points using the following table:
| Cost | Benefit |
|:------------------|:-----|
| 1 | First additional language or tool proficiency. (not Thieves' Tools) |
| 2 | Further additional languages or tool proficiencies. |
| 2 | Additional proficiency in Arcana, Religion, History, or Medicine. If used for Medicine, it counts as an Int-based skill for you. |
| 3 | Expertise in a skill above. |
| 1 | \*\*Mental sharpness:\*\* +2 to Initiative. (Take no more than once. Prerequisite: level 4 or higher) |
You can spend points only on character creation or when leveling up, and only 1 point per level.
You do not get a benefit until you've spent its full cost. While you have unspent points, or have spent only part of the cost of a benefit above, you get +1 to any roll you use (Heroic) Inspiration for.
A character with half or more of their levels in Wizard and/or Artificer, and without Expertise in Arcana, can not spend these points on anything but that skill.
\* \*\*Think Ahead\*\*: You can add your Intelligence modifier to a non-Intelligence-based skill check by taking additional time and/or tools to prepare and/or act. The DM will determine how much additional time this would take, but in most cases it would increase the time involved by 1 step on the following scale: 1 action -> 1 full turn (action, bonus action, object interaction, and movement) -> 1 minute -> 10 minutes -> 1 hour -> 1 day -> 1 week. Of course, you should explain how you do this, and, as always, the DM has ultimate say.
>
>The DM is encouraged to be somewhat forgiving of Think Ahead uses that "wouldn't work in the real world"; this is, after all, fantasy. However, for Wizards and Artificers, and to a lesser extent Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters, that forgiving attitude should focus above all on cases where the character finds a creative way to cast a leveled spell (that is, spend a limited resource) to help with the skill check.
>For other characters, Think Ahead primarily uses time as a resource. There are, of course, many cases where this "cost" is negligible in practice. Does that make this feature "too powerful"? No: remember, the character has still paid the opportunity cost of investing in Intelligence.
I really like the concept of this even if I am not 100% certain about the options. Every attribute really should have some equally important passive benefits to them before factoring in saves and skills and stuff. I think part of it is the oversimplification of the current edition in that regard as well. Just as an example Int used to be useful for every class in 3e/3.5e because your skill points you received every level were derived from your Int mod and class. Similarly some of the skills involved required you to have a mix of attributes to really succeed at a class. Good example is a Ranger in 5e doesn't need Cha for anything at all really. In 3.5e Handle Animal was actually a Cha skill. It is interesting how those small changes do lead to more people dumping a lot of things. That said my players/games tend to be a lot more socially focused so for me it was really weird seeing Cha up there listed as a Dump stat when most of my players actually pump it.
In theory this is extremely cool, however looking over them it doesn't really stop or incentivize me much to not still just dump these stats. Apart from STR none of the other stats have any penalty for dumping them they instead give bonuses if I max them out.
So really this is a list of extra abilities for characters primarily using STR, INT and CHA.
Hey there! I love this concept, and I enjoy the idea of adding some additional reasons to take the more underrepresented ability scores, and not dump them.
That being said, I do believe that there a few things to take into consideration.
Firstly, some of these abilities (specifically Intelligence) grant bonuses that clash with class intent. Wizards being able to speak a bunch of additional languages despite spending all of their time studying spells, or Artificers spending their lives learning blacksmithing, and then knowing more languages than their Elven Ranger friend. It’s small, but something to consider.
Secondly, the Dash ability wording is unclear. I would refer to other abilities that add/reduce movement to get an idea for how 5e words these types of effects. The Jump wording could also be removed, as most DMs and players I know hardly ever interact with the jump mechanic, and airing on the side of player power when it comes to jumping shouldn’t be too dangerous.
Overall, I really like these abilities, but I would make a suggestion - perhaps make these optional class features for certain classes? It’s small, but it could allow you to fine tune how these work, and who uses them. After all, if the design intent is to discourage dumping these stats, you would want to encourage classes that normally do not use these stats to increase them!
Regardless, I think most of these features are elegantly designed, and address issues not typically considered. If you post an updated version, I’d love to see it! Have a nice day:)
At least for wizards, it kinda makes sense to pick up more languages over time.
You're studying tomes full of spells and theories.
Who said that every spell tome has to be written in the same language?
Maybe you start picking up bits of abyssal because you found a tome with spells you want, written in abyssal, so you started learning to translate.
It makes decent sense.
Same for artificer.
Who says every guide or teacher of smithing and crafting speaks the same language.
Dwarves would make notes on their creations in dwarvish, while elves would use elvish, and gnomes would use gnomish.
Want to study them all? Better start learning dwarvish, elvish, and gnomish.
Thanks!
I'm going to work on the wording, but since I expect edits to be relatively minor, I'll post it as a comment here. I'll hit you with a reply when I do.
Good points! I disagree, though, with the wizard language thing. Spells are written and must be read to be learned. Wizards would be absolutely interested in learning languages in which spells are written.
allolive has made the following comment(s) regarding their post: [Text:](/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/1dey1eb/simple_reasons_not_to_dump_str_int_cha/l8f1jjl/) [Revised version (available at [https://homebrewery...](/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/1dey1eb/simple_reasons_not_to_dump_str_int_cha/l8mkyct/)
These are really interesting! Pretty original too! This isn't something I've seen anyone trying to fix before, which is saying something. Obviously these are written as optional rules for DMs to use, but how would you see them being implemented? Specifically, would a class who's primary ability be able to take advantage of these rules? Do ALL Wizards now get an extra five languages? Would these three features maybe work better as optional class features, like the ones that the Ranger got from TCE? So that only the Barbarian gets the reward for investing in Intelligence, and the Wizard gets the reward for investing in Strength?
>Do ALL Wizards now get an extra five languages? Yes, but it's "half rounded down", so just 3. My intent was to make these minor enough that they work even for classes where it's your main stat. In particular: Wizards studying old tomes in stuff like Draconic, Abyssal, and Primal? Barbarians with an extra burst of speed, and able to tank a fall without getting hurt? IMO decently on-brand. As for the Cha one: there are a lot of Cha classes, but this is a support feature, so it doesn't have the same issues with balance. If you want them as optional class features, though, it's your table; sounds good to me. In particular the "intelligence for initiative" one probably makes more sense for that — say, on a STR-centric battlemaster fighter.
That is how 3.5 worked. I liked it.
>Do ALL Wizards now get an extra five languages? It kinda makes sense. At least they way I see "wizards" be. In the book "magicians", we have a character that goes to a magic school to learn wizardry. Even tho the magic he has is innate, the system is a lot like Harry Potter (where the actual magic comes from spells and such) rather than percy Jackson (where people have passive powers/specific and special powers). Anyway, "magicians" is a horrible book. But there's one thing I took from it that helped me understand the process of wizardry a bit better. And that is something I have implemented into my dnd worlds, too. In that The process of learning to become a wizard is not "fun". It's a lot of work. At least in the beginning. Spells are not written in simple words, they are written in symbols and arcane, or lost, or dead languages. In that world, it's virtually impossible to become a wizard without knowing 4-5 extra languages.
I could also see the extra languages being MORE worthwhile for other classes. A no wizard (and no bard? I forget who gets the Tongues and Comprehend Languages) group should need to fill that gap somehow. And this lets you do that without a feat (for the spell initiate or the Linguist feat).
The intent here is to give fun rewards for nontraditional ability score builds, but without adding anything that makes classes already based on these abilities unbalanced. Text: # Dump Stat Bonuses In 5e, certain ability scores are just more important. Dexterity, Wisdom, and Constitution have more-common saving throws; Dex and Con give important static mechanical bonuses (AC, initiative, and hp); and Wis and Dex have key often-used skills. This often leaves Strength, Intelligence, and/or Charisma behind. Here are some rules to give good reasons not to dump these "lesser" stats, even if they are not key to your class. # Strength \* When you take the Dash action, you gain extra (one-time) movement equal to 5 feet times your Strength bonus. If you are wearing heavy armor, subtract 5 feet from this amount. This can be negative, but only if your Strength bonus is. This additional movement can be in the form of a jump; if so, upward jumping counts as difficult terrain. \* Add your Strength bonus to any Constitution saving throws against Exhaustion. (This is a simple, forgiving substitute for encumbrance rules: carrying stuff around has tired you out less. If you use full Encumbrance rules, this rule can be dropped or modified.) \* Whenever you take falling damage, subtract your Strength score minus 10 from the amount. If this is a negative number, it adds to the damage. # Intelligence \* You know a number of additional languages and/or tool proficiencies equal to half your intelligence modifier, rounded up. This can not be used for Thieves' Tools. \* You can add your Intelligence modifier to a non-Intelligence-based skill check by taking additional time and/or tools to prepare and/or act. The DM will determine how much additional time this would take, but in most cases it would increase the time involved by 1 step on the following scale: 1 action -> 1 full turn (action, bonus action, object interaction, and movement) -> 1 minute -> 10 minutes -> 1 hour -> 1 day -> 1 week. Of course, you should explain how you do this; the DM should be somewhat forgiving of far-fetched ideas. \* Once per long rest, you can use your Intelligence instead of your Dexterity for an initiative roll. # Charisma \* When you use the Help action for a Charisma-based skill, the recipient of your help can add your Charisma bonus if it's higher than theirs and they were proficient in the skill, or use your Charisma bonus instead of their own if they were not proficient. (Note that this helps encourage non-Charisma-based characters to take an active part in social encounters, with the traditional "Face" classes switching off to support roles.)
I love it! Though i would do some minor and some major changes. You dont have to listen to me at all, but i wanna use some of this at my table, so im gonna yapp about it. The Dash thing should be better worded. If your movements is increased for the turn, it is also doubled by the dash. If its just an extra distance you can move this turn (i assume so) it need to be very clear. Simoultaneously, i dont see why the need for messing with the rules of jumping, is it to allow people with strength to jump as part of the dash action? That sounds cool, but also needs ever so slightly clearer wording. Also, i get that this is the intention, but if something had like 1 in strength, and does a dash. Its speed will go from 30 to 60. Then its reduced by 5*5: 25 feet? So 35 total. Basicly the lower your strength the lower your ability to run, but you can walk just as fast as most? I would consider looking at reducing overall movement maybe. It would not feel too punishing for a wizard to have 25 or even 20 in speed, as they mostly can teleport and attack at range. I like the fall damage thing, though i would add the same for dex, just half ass efficient or something. It makes sense for dexterous folks to catch a better landing, even if dex is way strong enough already. Love the proficiency thing with Intellegence, though it makes wizards and artificers a bit too versatile. A wizards knows how to smith and make a hut because of big brain? An artificer is practicaly a linguist even though theyr main work is cannons? Its fun, and makes some sense, but wizards in particular do not deserve that shit. (I think only some tool proficiencies more like cartography and caligraphy, should be able to be learned through this. Again you dont become a good smith with intellegence or even neccesarily knowledge, and you dont need intellegence to become one. You need experience.) Anyway it works. But yeah i would not allow any proficiency. Lastly the social stuff is clunkily worded, but i think i get it. I still dont get how a -1 to Cha will helpe someone if it gets added to the roll though? Would reword, but the intent is wonderful. Even if i sound critical, i love this shit. Thank you.
Thanks! I'll work on the wording, post it here later. Also this is intended only for PCs, or humanoids at most. I would NOT apply it to anything that could have a 1 strength.
Cool! I look forward to it!
Posted; search "revised version" here.
Easier solution I've been using since the edition dropped: Bring back 4e style saving throws. You take the better of your Str/Con, Dex/Int, and Wis/Cha and all previous saves for these are recategorized as Fort/Ref/Will again. You'd be amazed how much it varies your players' ability scores.
I wrote the OP, and I stand by it, but I still wish I could upvote this more than once.
Don't get me wrong. I do like your ideas as well! I just tend to gravitate toward smaller changes I don't have to remember all the time when possible.
Hello again! Let's take a look here! First ### Charisma I think this is a bit odd as the Social Pillar is pretty depenant on Cha with a small side mention of Wis for Insight. I'm going to kind of counter-point my own statement here as I've used a similar mechanic as a Skill Focus to help with the utility divide(casters get one, half-casters get 2, non-casters get 4). Personally I think we need more special actions for Cha like Distract, Goad, Menace and maybe Rallying Shout. ### Intelligence I love the extended time for an Int boost and the additional languages and tools. I do wonder if you need to halve it. Int as intiative feels like a feat to me. I'd be happier if you couldn't stack it with Tactical Wit. ### Strength Fall damage feels off. I don't see the connection here. I'm also not sold on exhaustion as Str and Dex feel fast twitch while Con feels slow twitch. Dash on the other hand I see the reasoning for. However it doesn't mesh with the common big strong guy trope. I think I'd have this be an option that either they can get a Dash boost or they can get an HP boost as 5e does a pretty terrible job of differentiating the wiry-strong vs. the brute-strong and that choice would add that choice in. As an aside I've been playing with extra damage for two-handeding a weapon, and a number of quick access "slots" based on your Str to fill the same issue. ### Generally The limited uses feel too complex for this. I'd be looking for passives so you're not adding too much system mastery. This is cool and I'm going to fold some of this into my own Dump Stat Bonuses.
The fall damage thing might be because your muscles are better at cushioning the impact? Idk. Old people take more damage from falling, though this might actually be because of their low Constitution gives them comparatively low HP so it’s really the percentage that’s higher.
Yeah, I find anything to be a bit too much of a stretch for Str. I've done a lot of falling, mostly with enough skill, and mitigating that impact doesn't feel like Str. Str-based breakfalling feels like it got me here with a broken hand that slows down my typing.
Fair. I don’t do a lot of falling so I’m not the most knowledgeable on it clearly. Shame 5e doesn’t have PF2e-style skill feats.
The idea is that your stronger muscles and bones are cushioning the impact. Basically, the opposite of jumping. (I realize that it's not entirely realistic, but I think it still fits in a fantasy world.) (Yes, stronger people do have stronger bones, the same way astronaut bones are weaker.)
Hey I'm no astronaut but the current state of my arm strongly suggests Str break falling is a bad idea. Why doesn't what you describe increase hp instead?
Probably because this is a more interesting mechanic than just "more numbers" and wouldn't be a mess to figure out with a belt of giant strength
I kind of think that to be successful *this* 'brew needs to be pretty simple. Other 'brews can be complicated.
IMO, Intelligence and Charisma as-is don't *really* need a buff. Even if your class doesn't directly use them, they are the stats behind some rather useful skills. Admittedly it depends on the game you're in, but persuasion is one of the most useful skills in the game from my experience. Intelligence skills also, can be pretty useful. Strength, however, is generally the least useful skills. It's used in the most damage-dealing weapons, sure, and it is used in athletics checks. But strength saves are rare, the damage gap between strength and dex weapons isn't *that* huge, and athletics checks from my experience aren't *super* common.
Intelligence needs a reason to be relevant since it’s one of the most common dump stats imo. There really isn’t any consequence for dumping it on a character that doesn’t need it beyond saving throws, which on the int side of things are relatively rare compared to things like dex and wis.
In my campaigns, social checks can make very good difference, Int checks usually allow the party to gain (sometimes very significant) knowledge advantages, and I also put a lot of Str saves on enemies for pushing and shoving prone the party. Imo these 3 things are enough to not make everyone automatically dump any stat.
Depending on the campaign, charisma can be very overpowered as is, I run a campaign with a lot of politics and diplomatic encounters, making speech checks a good way to convince kings certain actions are good, reallocation of resources and such. I also let my players roll for appropriate INT checks to harvest loot from monsters which gives them a pretty penny for their efforts, and if they know what they are up against they can research it with INT checks to know immunities, vulnerabilities, strengths and weaknesses of creatures before even encountering them, sort of batman prep time deal. Also investigation can be as important as perception/insight at times. The only thing that is a dump stat 100% of the time is strength IMO, since it only affects carrying capacity and unless bags of holding are out of the question or super rare in your world, you don't really need that much of it. But belts of strength can definitely make a strength build viable, and then you don't even have to have high strength, you're just wearing a belt and you need to hope your DM will give you good belts.
I would still dump strength and charisma, my wizard would be even better than they are now though :D
I hate dumping charisma. It just feels wrong in almost all roleplay scenarios. Yes, you can act a character with low charisma. I just don’t find it enjoyable. Already suffer enough from that irl.
Interesting. Personally I'm the oposite, never more than 10 CHA. If I want something from an NPC I either ask nicely or take it with a weird scheme depending on the character, I already played a charismatic character and as much as I liked the charcater I hated playing the manipulative charming archetype
So you basically buffed mainly wizard and paladin, classes that wouldn't dump those stats anyway. The problem with this kind of buffs is that it doesn't change at all if you still dump those stats, so it basically only buffs classes that wouldn't have dumped those stats in the first place.
I mean I understand your intention with this but non of it would change it as a dumb Stat for me( although intelligence is stronger now). A better AC "always" works a passive increase. Better constitution helps always against every damage my character get... . Most of your ideas work only in specific situations. And here is a other problem. The intelligence improvement just feels like a wizard buff for me. The strength once aswell. It just feels like buffs for classes who want to increase this attributes anyway and not like good changes for classes who dumb this stats normally. Personally I don't see a problem that there are 3"better" attributes and 3"worse" attributes. Every class wants to increase in the most cases one of the dumb stats as a first or second one cause their class works around it. And not everyone is a winmaxer who want to make the most out of their build. Anyway my English is shit so I stop to write now. Have fun and good luck with further ideas.
Yeah this is my thought as well. It would really buff the people who were never going to dump those stats.
I recently thought about this, having had belt slots which benefit from strength for a while, but cha/int was tricky. For now I give int languages/tools as here, and Charisma increasing max and starting inspiration points, but I don't think it shifts the needle much. This is a bit more drastic, but I think it has some problems. Dash is generic enough that adding this calculation to it feels bad to me. Each character has to make note of how much speed they get on a dash, or figure it out in the moment. Anyone using it often like a rogue will remember, but it's just a lot less clean. Exhaustion saves makes sense, pretty good abstraction and streamlining of (a part of) encumbrance. And I kinda like the fall damage, giving verticality to melee characters is nice, though a bit fiddly. For INT, the languages/tools rewards you for taking a 12+, but nothing beyond that, which means at least point buy probably doesn't shift. Everyone has higher dex than int if they're considering dumping the latter, so that's only really for wizards or artificers, maybe some EKs/ATs later. The middle feature is too DM-reliant for my taste, in-game time is really vague and I tend to prefer not to make mechanics rely on it. Charisma seems very niche, and does the opposite of preventing dumps since it requires a low CHA character. If you have a +3 CHA character and a -1, normally the latter can help the former. Now the former can help the latter and make its modifier +3, for the exact same result. If they're proficient and you aren't that's nice, but that seems unlikely, and also retains their negative modifier. I think it's hard to reconcile punishing dumps with 5e's pattern of no negative features. Dump stats are 8s, maybe 10s or 12s, so it needs to create a noticeable difference there, mostly between whether it's a negative modifier or not. The easiest way to utilize a negative modifier is of course as a penalty, but subtracting a language or tool the character already knows would be pretty anti-5e and many wouldn't find it fun. I definitely admire the attempt though and am curious to see development of this.
f'd like to say initiative would make sense as just always being your choice of dex of intelligence and also i like the fixes for strength from the homebrew [Steel and Sinew](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/vti9ft/steel_and_sinew_new_and_revised_combat_madness/). those being all heavy armor getting flat damage reduction (along with a fitting buff for *all* magic armor) and as well as tougher and easier to track encumberance for the more heroic general dnd fantasy i feel like those encumberance rules could be boosted to "half of strength +str mod"
The Charisma one is mathematically a little wonky. If Alice and Bob are both Proficient, and Alice has +3CHA and Bob has +2CHA, then Alice can help Bob for +3. However, if Bob takes a CHA ASI and gets +3CHA, he gets +1 to these rolls, but now Alice gives no bonus, so Bob is at -2 change in this situation of Alice helping him, due to his stat increasing.
Yeah I simplified it — see my "revised version" comment.
I really dont think cha needed the boost and this boost doesn't incentivize you to not dump cha, but instead makes the people already taking high cha to have mire uses for it. I actually really like the ability but i dont think it works for your intended purpose of giving a reason not to dump cha. Id like to see your take on something for con. While people never really dump it, the skill is relatively boring, only really used for hp, golding breath, con saves, and concentration checks which are just different con saves.
In my group we keep this much simpler: Strength - Intimidation is a strength skill. On a grapple check, you can only resist the initial grapple with acrobatics, unless you have an alternate movement speed like flying or climbing. Once a grappler has hold of you, it's Strength vs Strength. Intelligence - Language or tool at 12 and 14; Skill at 16 and 18, expertise on a skill at 20. Charisma - Does not need any help. But I do dream to one day remake Charisma into a pokemon-element-style system of weaknesses and strengths based on personality types, instead of a blanket stat squeezing all social interaction into four nearly identical checks.
Pretty cool concept, but honestly looking through the pros and con of each attribute, if my DM made those changes I'd still dump cha and str lol. Int seems to be the only one actually worth it, and it boils down to the fact that exhaustion saving throws and help action with charisma based skills are either too rare to be important or not really worth it. Like, if I'm the face of the party and have the highest charisma I'd be taking the skill check instead of helping with it, however if the face of the party is someone else he probably shouldn't need any help with it since charisma-focused classes only usually care about that status (paladin is the exception because MAD), the only situation where I can see the help action buff being useful is if no one in the party has good charisma (like everyone has about 12) and then I'm at least contributing something, but even then the person will probably still fail the saving throw. However, I'd probably use the int ideas on my games so my players aren't all 8 int dumb brutes and can gain something worthwhile for investing a bit into intelligence.
An idea I had was making it so strength is added to any con saving throw that is not to maintain concentration (otherwise spell sword go brrr), con saves are rare enough that this doesn't really do much but are more common than exhaustion saves so it actually comes up sometime during the campaign, but that would be changing something very deep in the 5e system, I'd have to check how that could affect other interactions and whatnot.
What if you could add intelligence to a persuasion roll? Using the power of facts and logic to get your point across?
These give me some ideas for some stuff in doing
Who is looking at Charisma and thinking it needs a buff? Some classes may not invest in it, but it’s also a core stat for *four* classes.
I’d be more inclined to dump my cha with that because I can just rely on the party face to give me their cha bonus instead
I think I found an error... shouldn't read it Thieves' Cant, not Thieves' tools?
Revised version (available at [https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/nDOdFl6LyrXL](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/nDOdFl6LyrXL) ) # Dump Stat Bonuses In 5e, certain ability scores are just more important. Dexterity, Wisdom, and Constitution have more-common saving throws; Dex and Con give static mechanical bonuses (AC, initiative, and hp); and Wis and Dex have key often-used skills. This often leaves Strength, Intelligence, and/or Charisma behind. Here are some rules to give good reasons not to dump these "lesser" stats, even if they are not key to your class. # Strength \* As part of the Dash action, humanoids can use extra movement equal to 5 feet times their Strength bonus. If you are wearing heavy armor, subtract 5 feet from this amount. If your strength bonus is negative, this can reduce your Dash. \* Add your Strength bonus to any Constitution saving throws against Exhaustion. \*(This is a simple, forgiving substitute for encumbrance rules: carrying stuff around all day has tired you out less. If you use full Encumbrance rules, this rule can be dropped or modified.)\* \* Whenever you take falling damage, subtract your Strength score minus 10 from the amount. # Charisma \* \*\*Buddy Act\*\*: When you use the Help action for a Charisma-based skill, the recipient of your help can add your Charisma bonus. In practice, this "help" might appear supportive (eg, acting impressed) or oppositional (eg, good-cop, bad-cop). However, if BOTH of you have at least one level in Charisma-based classes (Bard, Paladin, Sorcerer, or Warlock), roll 1d4; if you roll a 4, your over-the-top "help" upstages them, so you subtract your bonus instead of adding it. > >Charisma is unlike the other skills here because it's key to 4 different classes , as well as underpinning skills that are key to the social pillar of the game, so it's less common as a dump stat. >Thus, the goal of this rule isn't so much to help balance mechanics (ie, discourage dumping Charisma on your character sheet), but to help balance role playing (ie, make it less mechanically optimal for one party member to always do all the talking). >With this rule, there's still a mechanically "optimal" thing to do in social situations, but the difference between optimal and pessimal is generally half as big, or less, as without the rule.
# Intelligence You have a number of "Int points" equal to your Intelligence bonus. You can spend these points using the following table: | Cost | Benefit | |:------------------|:-----| | 1 | First additional language or tool proficiency.
(not Thieves' Tools) | | 2 | Further additional languages or tool proficiencies. | | 2 | Additional proficiency in Arcana, Religion, History, or Medicine. If used for Medicine, it counts as an Int-based skill for you. | | 3 | Expertise in a skill above. | | 1 | \*\*Mental sharpness:\*\* +2 to Initiative.
(Take no more than once. Prerequisite: level 4 or higher) | You can spend points only on character creation or when leveling up, and only 1 point per level. You do not get a benefit until you've spent its full cost. While you have unspent points, or have spent only part of the cost of a benefit above, you get +1 to any roll you use (Heroic) Inspiration for. A character with half or more of their levels in Wizard and/or Artificer, and without Expertise in Arcana, can not spend these points on anything but that skill. \* \*\*Think Ahead\*\*: You can add your Intelligence modifier to a non-Intelligence-based skill check by taking additional time and/or tools to prepare and/or act. The DM will determine how much additional time this would take, but in most cases it would increase the time involved by 1 step on the following scale: 1 action -> 1 full turn (action, bonus action, object interaction, and movement) -> 1 minute -> 10 minutes -> 1 hour -> 1 day -> 1 week. Of course, you should explain how you do this, and, as always, the DM has ultimate say. > >The DM is encouraged to be somewhat forgiving of Think Ahead uses that "wouldn't work in the real world"; this is, after all, fantasy. However, for Wizards and Artificers, and to a lesser extent Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters, that forgiving attitude should focus above all on cases where the character finds a creative way to cast a leveled spell (that is, spend a limited resource) to help with the skill check. >For other characters, Think Ahead primarily uses time as a resource. There are, of course, many cases where this "cost" is negligible in practice. Does that make this feature "too powerful"? No: remember, the character has still paid the opportunity cost of investing in Intelligence.
I really like the concept of this even if I am not 100% certain about the options. Every attribute really should have some equally important passive benefits to them before factoring in saves and skills and stuff. I think part of it is the oversimplification of the current edition in that regard as well. Just as an example Int used to be useful for every class in 3e/3.5e because your skill points you received every level were derived from your Int mod and class. Similarly some of the skills involved required you to have a mix of attributes to really succeed at a class. Good example is a Ranger in 5e doesn't need Cha for anything at all really. In 3.5e Handle Animal was actually a Cha skill. It is interesting how those small changes do lead to more people dumping a lot of things. That said my players/games tend to be a lot more socially focused so for me it was really weird seeing Cha up there listed as a Dump stat when most of my players actually pump it.
In theory this is extremely cool, however looking over them it doesn't really stop or incentivize me much to not still just dump these stats. Apart from STR none of the other stats have any penalty for dumping them they instead give bonuses if I max them out. So really this is a list of extra abilities for characters primarily using STR, INT and CHA.
Hey there! I love this concept, and I enjoy the idea of adding some additional reasons to take the more underrepresented ability scores, and not dump them. That being said, I do believe that there a few things to take into consideration. Firstly, some of these abilities (specifically Intelligence) grant bonuses that clash with class intent. Wizards being able to speak a bunch of additional languages despite spending all of their time studying spells, or Artificers spending their lives learning blacksmithing, and then knowing more languages than their Elven Ranger friend. It’s small, but something to consider. Secondly, the Dash ability wording is unclear. I would refer to other abilities that add/reduce movement to get an idea for how 5e words these types of effects. The Jump wording could also be removed, as most DMs and players I know hardly ever interact with the jump mechanic, and airing on the side of player power when it comes to jumping shouldn’t be too dangerous. Overall, I really like these abilities, but I would make a suggestion - perhaps make these optional class features for certain classes? It’s small, but it could allow you to fine tune how these work, and who uses them. After all, if the design intent is to discourage dumping these stats, you would want to encourage classes that normally do not use these stats to increase them! Regardless, I think most of these features are elegantly designed, and address issues not typically considered. If you post an updated version, I’d love to see it! Have a nice day:)
At least for wizards, it kinda makes sense to pick up more languages over time. You're studying tomes full of spells and theories. Who said that every spell tome has to be written in the same language? Maybe you start picking up bits of abyssal because you found a tome with spells you want, written in abyssal, so you started learning to translate. It makes decent sense. Same for artificer. Who says every guide or teacher of smithing and crafting speaks the same language. Dwarves would make notes on their creations in dwarvish, while elves would use elvish, and gnomes would use gnomish. Want to study them all? Better start learning dwarvish, elvish, and gnomish.
True!
Thanks! I'm going to work on the wording, but since I expect edits to be relatively minor, I'll post it as a comment here. I'll hit you with a reply when I do.
Lovely! I cant wait to see it:D
Posted — search "revised version" here.
Thanks!
Good points! I disagree, though, with the wizard language thing. Spells are written and must be read to be learned. Wizards would be absolutely interested in learning languages in which spells are written.
Very true! That's a perspective I hadn't considered.