Ability Scores are Obsolete and Stupid

As I said last post, I've simplified the fourth edition character sheet a bit. Its only a small change, but it saves you a bit of headache, and makes character creation take a little less time (okay, DnD char-gen will always be a time-consuming nightmare, but this helps a bit).

Basically, since the beginning of third edition there has been no reason for ability scores to exist in their traditional form. Except for very few cases, the only thing you use is your ability bonus (your ability score -10 /2); the score itself is just a clunky and totally unnecessary detour before arriving at the bonus, an artifact of first and second edition that no longer makes sense.

So, just get rid of them. Ability Scores and Ability Bonuses are now the same thing. Instead of 10 being the baseline for abilities, its 0. For instance, I usually used to have my players start all their ability scores at 8, and then give them 28 points to distribute (with every point increase above 14 in one stat costing double). Nowadays, I tell them to start at -1, and give them 14 points to distribute with the cost doubling after 2. Each racial and leveling bonus adds +1 to the ability stat, rather than the default +2.

The only place where this doesn't work is when you're determining your starting hit points in fourth edition (not a problem if you're playing third). There are two solutions to this.

• Double your CON score and add 10 when using it to determine starting hit points.

or the much more elegant

• Just replace Constitution with a set number for this purpose (I use 15). Its not like the variance in starting hp matters after the first few levels anyway.

Like I said, it's not an amazing revolutionary change that fixes everything. But I do like it better than the default.

The Players Roll All the Dice

Finally back to this blog. I've done some editing on the earlier monster entries, and finally added the lore and descriptions for the Mummy entry (check it out; I'm quite proud of it).

More importantly though, I've been trying out some new houserules with my group that turned out to be a great success. Allow me to share them with you.


Let the Players Roll All the Dice

This is really extraordinarily simple; I'm surprised it hasn't been popularized before. One of the most annoying things about playing D&D is the sheer number of things determined by the Dungeon Master's die rolls. Every time something happens to the PC, its up to the DM's dice. If you're attacked by a monster, you just sit there and wait for the DM to determine if you get hit or not. If you're using a passive Perception skill, you just stare at the number on your character sheet and hope that its higher than whatever the DM rolls.

With this houserule, every die roll that involves conflict between a PC and an NPC is rolled by the player. The character sheet no longer has any static values (well, aside from hit points). The monster stat blocks no longer have any d20 modifiers. If the paladin is getting stabbed by an orc, the player rolls 1d20 and adds his armor bonus in hopes of beating the orc's static attack value. When his paladin counterattacks, the player is still rolling the dice, making an attack roll against the orc's static AC as per usual.

Its super easy. Just tell your players to subtract 10 from all their defenses and passive skill values (in fact, you can just cross out "passive perception" and "passive insight" on the sheet entirely), and draw a little + sign in front of the remainder. On the DM's side of things, add 10 to the attack and skill bonuses of all the monsters and remove the +. In most battles, the Dungeon Master will not roll a single d20.

I've found that doing things this way makes the players feel more engaged in the combat. It also makes them feel more in control of their characters' safety, even if the dice are still random.


Sometime in the next few posts, I'll share another new houserule of mine, this one related to simplifying the frankly bloated character creation process.