Ability Score Insanity
In 0e and Basic, ability scores range from 1-18, and have (depending on edition) a modifier range of -1 to +1, to -2 to +2, or -3 to +3. This modifier only alters a few things, which are easily written down or remembered. Strength modifies opening doors and melee attack and damage rolls. Constitution modifies HP and Poison saves. Dexterity modifies armor class and ranged attack rolls, etc.
AD&D notes this simple and easily remembered mechanic, and chucks it out the window. And I can't for the life of me understand why. I can (somewhat) understand the use of the 1-25 range for ability scores, but not the needlessly complex way ability scores work. Of particular note is the Strength ability score, because it behaves in a way none of the others do.
AD&D notes this simple and easily remembered mechanic, and chucks it out the window. And I can't for the life of me understand why. I can (somewhat) understand the use of the 1-25 range for ability scores, but not the needlessly complex way ability scores work. Of particular note is the Strength ability score, because it behaves in a way none of the others do.
A Rundown on Strength
Perusing my AD&D 2e PHB, I see that it has hit probability adjustment (attack rolls), damage adjustment, weight allowance (encumbrance), max press, open doors, and bend bars/lift gates as mechanical aspects of the game that strength modifies. All of this stuff has to be made to fit on a character sheet, and there's enough discrete things that you're unlikely to have memorized it, so that'll necessitate looking up the chart every time Strength gets modified somehow.
Hit probability and damage adjustment do not use the same number. At 18 Strength, hit probability is +1 and damage adjust is +2. Just bizarre stuff. Because these two numbers are different and progress at different rates, it'll be somewhat difficult to remember them off the cuff (though, admittedly, there's very little need to memorize anything other than your own score unless you're trying to figure out an enemy's hit/damage potential).
Weight allowance is more or less going to be a similar function of strength in various RPGs, and I don't feel the need to comment more on it aside from say that it's the least interesting way to account for encumbrance.
Max press is a mostly unnecessary number that feels somewhat arbitrary. I'm not even certain of how useful such a number would be in a dungeon delving game, since what you can lift over your head isn't likely to come up very often. If a fellow PC needs to climb onto your shoulders so they can see over a wall, you aren't lifting them. A player trapped under fallen rubble (or some other heavy thing) might need a strong person to lift said object so that they can be dragged free, but it's unlikely that you'd need to know whether or not your PC can lift said rubble over their head. Currently, my only idea for this is carrying your gear over your head (or balanced on your head) while wading armpit deep in water either in order to ford a shallow river afoot, or to traverse water underground.
Perhaps I'm just having a failure of imagination, but it seems to me that the max press score is unhelpful, really. It's just another thing to write down that may one time be relevant in a specific circumstance that will never come up again. As an aside, the "max press" is an overhead press, not a bench press as my old group told me (a claim not unique to them).
Open doors is fairly straightforward, until it reaches 18/91-99 Strength and adds extra information like the chance to open locked, barred, or magically held doors. I'm not against having a chance to open more difficult doors, but wouldn't it have made more sense to have a penalty for opening those kinds of doors? I'd imagine a locked door is easier to get into than a barred door (I've kicked in a door or two in my time), and a magically sealed door seems like a much more serious obstacle for a non-magical type character than a barred door. So, stuck doors would use the standard progression, locked doors would be say, -2, barred doors would be -6, and magically held doors -10. This would mean that a human with 10 Strength would have a 4 in 20 chance to open a locked door through brute force (a bit low in my opinion), and be unable to open barred doors or magically held doors through muscle alone. As it stands now, you have to have 18/91-99 Strength to have a meager 3 in 20 chance to open locked, barred, or held doors. Seems silly.
Bend bars/lift gates is a statistic meant to simulate great feats of strength, but bizarrely uses percentile dice to accomplish this. Non-fighters (I'll come back to this) with 18 Strength have a flat 16% chance to succeed, and it will never improve without magic. DMs are arbiters of the rules, and it would probably be fair to improve a PC's chances of accomplishing these feats of strength if they have pry bars or other tools... but then, I'm not really sure what the point of this statistic is if the players use tools and sense to overcome the challenge rather than brute strength. As well, if max press is a thing, wouldn't gates have an "effective weight" that can be compared to the PC's max press to determine whether or not they can lift it?
I'm not wholly opposed to a "mythic feat of strength" type deal for martial characters, but I don't think it should be part of the raw Strength score everyone gets in D&D. Additionally, there's the issue that it doesn't work the same way the rest of the Strength subsystem mechanics do.
Exceptional Complexity
Unlike the other ability scores, Strength has a sub-ability score that only "warriors" (an ill-defined catch-all term for Fighters, Rangers, and Paladins, multi-class Fighter/Whatevers, and later Barbarians and Gladiators) can benefit from. This "exceptional strength" acts as an additional 5 ability score points that settle in between non-warrior 18 and 19 like some kind of parasite.
I can understand wanting to make warrior-types more effective at their shtick, but putting it here in the Strength ability score means that there's an additional roll for determining Strength, and it complicates raising ability scores on the rare occasion that it happens. Yes, even an 18/01-50 is better than a straight 18 (by +1 damage, the only metric that actually matters), but it seems so damn pointless to have this here rather than give Fighters an "exceptional strength" ability at 1st level that ensures that they always have +1 or +2 to damage over and above anyone else with the same Strength score. Hit probability can be protected by giving Fighters the best damn attack bonus/THAC0 in the game.
It's also incredibly unlikely that a PC will roll 18/00 and get the coveted +3 to-hit, +6 to damage. Depending on ability score generation, they have to snag an 18, and then snag a 00 on 2d10. Those are rough odds. That +6 bothers me too, since it's a very, very large increase to base damage with every weapon, and magic items are going to further enhance this. A Fighter with 18/00 Strength is going to do 8.5 damage on average (7 minimum!) with just a dagger, and using a two-handed sword provides an average of 11.5 damage.
I'm not against subsystems or rules compartmentalization, but I think that AD&D went too far in this direction. There's too much to keep track of when simpler, more concise rules would have been better. The approach taken for Fighter/warrior role protection emphasizes the importance of ability scores over everything, which only means that the warrior-types (like Paladin and Ranger) are going to excel to the detriment of the Fighter. Specialization thus becomes their only refuge from the stronger abilities of the Paladin and Ranger, a refuge my old group stripped from them by allowing any warrior class to do it because it was more "fun".
I don't know if other groups resorted to that, but it made the Fighter a poor second to any other warrior class or multi-class Fighter. Since I'm drifting off topic now, I think I'll say some final words about Strength.
Advancing Strength, and a Conclusion
I wanted to address how advancing ability scores works generally in AD&D. Wishes at a certain point (starting with 16 I believe), only advance ability scores by a 10th of a point per application, so for a non-fighter to get 19 Strength, they'd need to have a natural 18, and then get 10 applications of wish. They wouldn't get the warrior classes' exceptional Strength, just a regular 18 with a decimal point. This is a RAW reading, though. Some DMs, I'm told, allow exceptional strength, but I personally wouldn't due to it being a benefit that the warrior classes are supposed to receive.
For warrior classes, each decimal point does improve their exceptional strength %. However, it's unclear whether or not a character with 18/00 Strength only needs a single application of wish or needs the full 10.
The fly in the ointment is that manuals such as the Manual of Gainful Exercise directly raises an ability score by a point; in this case, Strength. So, now the DM has to make a ruling: Can a non-warrior go from 18 to 19, skipping past the exceptional strength bits, or are they going to force the player to take decimal increments? Or are they going to count the five exceptional strength scores as valid ability score points between 18 and 19, but without the warrior benefits?
And what about the warriors anyhow? Do they go straight to 19 whether they have an 18/01 or an 18/00?
This hasn't even touched the insanity of having rolled an 18, playing a race with a Strength adjustment (like a half-orc) or the adjustments for age. Do they improve the score by a decimal, like a wish? Do they improve the score directly, like a manual? Do they do nothing at first level because of racial maximums? What about warriors and exceptional strength?
There's too much going on with the Strength ability score, and that'll become more apparent as this series goes on and addresses the other ability scores. When I've gotten through all six, I'll compare an OSR character sheet to an AD&D 2e one. It'll clearly demonstrate my ultimate point to all this. Until then, here's to hoping I post more regularly than I have of late.
For warrior classes, each decimal point does improve their exceptional strength %. However, it's unclear whether or not a character with 18/00 Strength only needs a single application of wish or needs the full 10.
The fly in the ointment is that manuals such as the Manual of Gainful Exercise directly raises an ability score by a point; in this case, Strength. So, now the DM has to make a ruling: Can a non-warrior go from 18 to 19, skipping past the exceptional strength bits, or are they going to force the player to take decimal increments? Or are they going to count the five exceptional strength scores as valid ability score points between 18 and 19, but without the warrior benefits?
And what about the warriors anyhow? Do they go straight to 19 whether they have an 18/01 or an 18/00?
This hasn't even touched the insanity of having rolled an 18, playing a race with a Strength adjustment (like a half-orc) or the adjustments for age. Do they improve the score by a decimal, like a wish? Do they improve the score directly, like a manual? Do they do nothing at first level because of racial maximums? What about warriors and exceptional strength?
There's too much going on with the Strength ability score, and that'll become more apparent as this series goes on and addresses the other ability scores. When I've gotten through all six, I'll compare an OSR character sheet to an AD&D 2e one. It'll clearly demonstrate my ultimate point to all this. Until then, here's to hoping I post more regularly than I have of late.
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