I started this here; dread continuity.
Let’s talk stats and skills. I don’t love how 5e overloads dexterity and shortchanges some other stats (strength, intelligence). I started houseruling this while playtesting, but didn’t stick with it. But I’ve been vacationing for a week and am ready to tinker.
My idea here doesn’t really pan out: after writing it out I realized it’s just a long winded way to merge int and wis, str and con, which while nice isn’t the point (and is a surprisingly huge Christmas present to casters).
Still, her it is.
Strength weapon damage, hp
(*)Constitution save vs polymorph, petrification, poison, …
Might lifting things, grapple, push, …
Dexterity AC
(*)Reflex save vs ray, blast, fall, grapple…
Cunning pick locks, pockets, traps, …
(*)Perception save vs surprise, initiative, …
Stealth hide, sneak
Wisdom number of languages
Arcana lore, wizard spells, warlock spells
Faith lore, cleric spells, paladin spells, monk abilities
History lore
Nature lore, druid spells, ranger spells
(*)Sanity save vs mind-affecting spell
Charisma Hench loyalty
Deceit lie
Intimidation scare; lead
Persuasion befriend
So here’s the idea.
You generate a character out of the bonuses to the four stats (strength, dexterity, wisdom, charisma), say something like +2, +1, +0, -1.
This is not so strange; OD&D had a similar scheme where strength, intelligence and wisdom were only used for bonus XP for the respective classes; everyone had minor benefits from dexterity, constitution and charisma. Or not so minor, for charisma. Fine.
The “subattributes” or skills don’t vary far from the governing main stat; specifically, they are proficiencies.
They don’t include weapon proficiencies; those use the existing scheme.
It would be a bit cool to impose some order/balance here, like maybe each time you get a stat improvement, you pick a skill and add a “focus bonus” of +1 to it; you may only pick a given skill once and after 1+(1/2 the available, round up) skills are focused, clear all focuses and increase the base stat.
The problem here is granularity. This is neat and all, but I don’t feel it improves on 5e.
Still, here it is, make of it what you will.
Lackhand 