4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

Does anyone else dislike the ability score increases in 4e? Each tier has its own progression by level, which I find nonintuitive compared to just saying “once every four levels”.

I was thinking of changing it to this:

Every 2nd level except 10th and 20th, choose an ability score to increase by one. You can’t increase the same ability score twice in a row. At 10th and 20th level, increase each of your ability scores by 1.

This seems much more elegant. The disadvantages are that it’s a little more powerful (as you get one of your increases two levels early), and you have to keep track of what your last increase was.

I was also thinking of getting rid of the levels where you increase every single ability score. So it would read as:

Every 2nd level, choose an ability score to increase by one. You can’t increase the same ability score twice in a row.

Any thoughts on how I could revise this so that you don’t need to keep track of your last increase? Or, indeed, thoughts on whether I should be doing this?

It’s not complicated. +2 on 4ths and 8ths, +6 on thresholds. And just ignore last increase thing. Easier to amputate than to replace.

I’m well aware of how it works. I just don’t like it.

Ignoring the last increase makes it possible to boost one stat every time. Then you’d have a +15 to that stat by the end. I’m looking for a good way to prevent that. Maybe the “stat bonuses” could be their own type, with some sort of cap? Ugh, that’s just adding another rule. Hmm…

I don’t think it’s a big deal, since they have that massive page sized chart on leveling.  Since you need to refer to the chart anyway to know how many of what type of power to get, it is easy to look over and see what, if any, stat increases there are.

I like that there are so many more.  That way not everyone is trying to start with straight 18’s.  You can actually have a character with lower stats and watch them “grow up” through out their career.

I don’t think it is aiming for any mathematically pleasing progression. It is to fill gaps in the level progression benefits with the +1 to two stats. You always get a feat and the stat boost on the levels when you don’t get the power. The idea is to keep things interesting so that every level offers something new and exciting, which is ok by me. I hated the “dead” levels in 3.x.

The +1 to all stats is to kind of signal that the characer has reached a major milestone, which also sits well with me. The paragon path starts with a bigger boost and so does the epic path, with all the new benefits and an overall boost to stats.

We just have to remember that 3.5 did things differently, but the new way might be better once you try it out for some time. If it is not, you can always change it.

The +1 to all stats is to kind of signal that the characer has reached a major milestone, which also sits well with me.

Yeah, I enjoyed that as well.  Paragon level means more that way.  otherwise you might as well say “you get one stat boost every level, but can’t put more than 3 boosts in any one stat.”

(2 stat boosts a 4th, 2 at 8th, and 6 at 11th = 10 boosts in 10 levelings)

I don’t think it’s a big deal, since they have that massive page sized chart on leveling.  Since you need to refer to the chart anyway to know how many of what type of power to get, it is easy to look over and see what, if any, stat increases there are.

Heh… I was actually hoping to eliminate the need for a huge chart, one piece at a time. This just seemed like the easiest piece to start on.

I like that there are so many more.  That way not everyone is trying to start with straight 18’s.  You can actually have a character with lower stats and watch them “grow up” through out their career.

Actually, you start off with generally higher stats in 4e; the point buy is just designed to reward flatter arrays instead of wild strengths and weaknesses. I’m also not sure about how every character can improve in every way; I sort of like the idea that a dumb fighter can choose to remain just as dumb through to the highest levels.

I don’t think it is aiming for any mathematically pleasing progression. It is to fill gaps in the level progression benefits with the +1 to two stats. You always get a feat and the stat boost on the levels when you don’t get the power. The idea is to keep things interesting so that every level offers something new and exciting, which is ok by me.

Good point. I think I’ll try something that avoids that, in any case.

I am thinking of, for my first 4E campaign, giving the PCs a stat increase of their choice every level.  Of course, that would make things a little bit different from what most people would consider a self-respecting campaign.

Ah, I’m making this too hard. I’ll just reuse the old “every 4 levels” rule, with two stat increases instead of one, and eliminating the across-the-board stat increases, so that Moron McGee can keep his low intelligence well into Epic. There are no dead levels created by this (in fact, removing ability increases entirely wouldn’t create dead levels), level 11 becomes a little less loaded, and balance isn’t impaired (slight decrease in power, but it shouldn’t be noticeable).

Haha! I shall vanquish this monstrous chart yet!

Maybe you could have one stat increase every two levels.  Perhaps throw in a rule saying you can’t increase the same stat twice in a row, if you want to clip the wings of power gamers who would like to add 10 to their favorite stat.

Er… that was exactly my idea in the first post. Although I like it better in theory, the trouble is that you’d have always have to keep track of what you increased two levels ago. This way, you just add it and go.

Maybe I could use a lower point-buy, and just plain use more stat increases? 4e tends to reward characters with multiple high stats more than 3e anyways. This would shift balance much more significantly (much weaker at low levels), so I’d probably need some compensation. That might be good for a future rule.