Post by waysoftheearth on Apr 28, 2009 5:04:12 GMT -6
One of the great things about the D&D game design is how it's all about trade-offs.
As a player you have to choose between the benefits of demi-humans versus the limitless advancement of Humans. You have to choose between the benefits of a fighter or a magic user or a cleric. You can choose to wear heavy armour for protection, but sacrificing stealth by doing so, and so on. There are so many interesting trade-offs.
Except when it comes to ability scores. It has always niggled me that in this one area key area of the game there is no real trade-off.
High ability scores grant various combat bonuses and other dice modifiers, not to mention more hit-points. They open race and class options. They increase demi-human level limits. They give an experience point bonus. And there's absolutely no downside!
It's easy to imagine how the power gamer psychology could evolve from this set up.
So, I was thinking about how I could remedy this "perceived imperfection". One idea I have been kicking around is to turn all the experience point bonuses into penalties (and vis versa)
This way a high ability score becomes a trade-off -- with an upside (dice modifiers, level limits etc) and a downside (XP penalty). Perhaps this way players won't be lusting after characters with too many high ability scores -- since non-essential high ability score would actually be a burden on advancement.
What do people think?
As a player you have to choose between the benefits of demi-humans versus the limitless advancement of Humans. You have to choose between the benefits of a fighter or a magic user or a cleric. You can choose to wear heavy armour for protection, but sacrificing stealth by doing so, and so on. There are so many interesting trade-offs.
Except when it comes to ability scores. It has always niggled me that in this one area key area of the game there is no real trade-off.
High ability scores grant various combat bonuses and other dice modifiers, not to mention more hit-points. They open race and class options. They increase demi-human level limits. They give an experience point bonus. And there's absolutely no downside!
It's easy to imagine how the power gamer psychology could evolve from this set up.
So, I was thinking about how I could remedy this "perceived imperfection". One idea I have been kicking around is to turn all the experience point bonuses into penalties (and vis versa)
This way a high ability score becomes a trade-off -- with an upside (dice modifiers, level limits etc) and a downside (XP penalty). Perhaps this way players won't be lusting after characters with too many high ability scores -- since non-essential high ability score would actually be a burden on advancement.
What do people think?
