Dumping Practices

The problem of the dump stat

I call this a problem like it is a bad thing. It’s not.

The incontrovertible fact is that the game invariably tests the physical attributes in a much more prominent fashion, leaving plenty of leeway for the other three statistics to go from being treated as middling number dumping grounds to being gulag of the single digit. I don’t see this as a failing but as a feature. Trying to over-systemize the use of Charisma, Intelligence or Wisdom at the table to a degree that’s anywhere near to the consistent focus granted to the physical stats would result in clunky awkwardness.

The game’s nature by itself ensures that the mental attributes are to act more as holdbacks than enablers, to be superseded by player input at each and every given opportunity, of which a good game ought to have plenty. For the application of the players’ Wisdom, Charisma and Intelligence is where the game at its most pure really is played, the hampering stats only serving for cutting the corners of impractical instances – This is only right to my mind and not a trend I wish to see in any way diminished.

What do I want, then? Simply: for the player to pine for high stats across the board. To raise the bar for the perfect character and for less monochrome characters to be viable.

Charisma is for Bards, Constitution is for everyone

Since time immemorial, the trend went thus: if you had the good fortune to get three or more good stats, it served to be a martial archetype, where all three physical stats would tend to be engaged often and plentifully. If you got two middling-to-good stats, you aimed for a mixed caster, like a Cleric or Druid, that you’d be able to swing your higher numbers in melee and disguise your mediocrity with some casting. And, if you got one or no high numbers to speak of, you went with a pure caster, the spellcasting itself only necessitating a middling attribute and magic either covering or, in certain cases, completely obviating the other shortcomings. I want to make the stat attribution facet of the game a conclusion less foregone.

I appreciate that, in a skill system like 5th Edition’s, the mental attributes associate their modifier with a much greater number of skills, but these are either of marginal use to the average dungeon delver, not directly associated with life-or-death situations or – and this right here was the tipping point – their benefits usually extend to the collective party, not the individual character.

We all know DnD is a cooperative team game, but lets ponder incentives: once the party has the smooth talker to CHA-forceps the local becrowned quest dispenser or the high WIS native is there to spot all the maiming-but-never-quite-death-dealing contraptions littering the dungeon, where does that leave the characters with the _second_ highest totals in Charisma, Intelligence or Wisdom? If a player picks a fighter, having him be as mentally thick as a cinder block is usually not an issue, due to the nature of the collective benefits afforded by the mental attributes, you just double down on clinging to “the path of what I was going to do anyway”, letting the WIS-primary class shoulder the burden of trap detection, the CHA-primary do the hireling recruitment and the INT-primary decipher riddles. Since the niche is neatly filled and you never were going to compare with the specialists anyway, you’re left with very little to show for your invesment, why do it at all? 

Please note that even the relative traction of the above scenarios all hinges on the rather generous assumption that your table uses the mental stats in the above mentioned-but-not-prescribed way. They may be worth even less in a more old-school running. This is where granting more individualized incentives comes in.

I want to break these molds of “any investment in a mental attribute beside it being the party's highest brings only marginal reward” and “having two characters in a party with the same high mental attribute results in diminished returns”, which certainly does not affect any of the physical attributes, since they all give some individualized benefit or penalty even if they’re not what a given character’s class is primarily about and they all contribute directly to the character’s survival.

As design constraints go, this’ll mean affording a little extra value to the mental stats without upsetting the class balance. It’ll need to be simple. It’ll also be important for the changes to have no impact on monster capabilities (who, in 5th edition, have actual stat blocks).

Wisdom & Intelligence

Where does one’s Wisdom end and one’s Intelligence begin? I’ll leave that for the academics; for the matter at hand I’ll say that both are required to learn, either from processing events as-lived or for extrapolating from the experiences of third parties through direct observation or otherwise.

I intend for both of these stats to contribute to a single percentage, not unlike the “prime” stats of urDnD, with each modifier point corresponding to a percentage point of greater or, if negative, lessened experience gain.

Here I snagged on the impracticality of having a player constantly adding 3% or subtracting 2% from all their gains. Very inelegant and user-unfriendly. The solution? Apply the final percentual tally once to the Xp total required to attain the next level, then accumulate Xp as normal.

Charisma

I haven’t at this point made up my mind on the use of Reaction Rolls, but if I do end up using them, they’ll be made on the traditional 2d6 and affected by half this stat’s modifier, rounded down, to account for 5E’s largesse with modifiers.

Beyond this, I’m a bit loathe to load down the talky part of the game with rolls where it should all be as squicky and direct as possible.

I’ve also gotten aboard with the somewhat romantic notion of Charisma as luck or divine favour. Now, crunchwise, this might be difficult to translate.

Tentatively, I’m going to use it as a randomization device or tie-breaker, by which if a trap, hazard or unintelligent creature requires a roll from the referee to specify targetting for a special attack or to determine which of roughly equidistant victims it strikes, the referee can ask for the afflicted parties to roll their contested Charisma; this is not to usurp the dictates of logic (such as ambushers or a trap targetting the pointsman) rather applying only to instances requiring a tie-break, in lieu of the more traditional randomization.