Why is Constitution a Stat in D&D?
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- Опубліковано 28 лис 2024
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Merging Str and Con might be a good idea. Then everyone will want it and everyone will feel having it low. Plus, high strength characters are archetypically tough, and low strength characters are archetypically frail. Easy, done.
There was a choice a long time ago to provide a simplified but not too simplified model of physical characteristics. Physical strength is of no value in reality when facing infection, system shock etc. The ability of a body to keep living is not about how much force can be projected through the muscular-skeletric system onto external objects.
Combining STR and CON is basically what the DC20 system did. So its not really new idea and many "not really DnD clones" are doing that already.
@@YellowCable now lets talk about the physics problem making low str high dex martials hit like a truck.
@YellowCable I think just the normal system of damage resistance does that better than the flat CON modifier does
@@Ed_man_talking9
Maybe dex should be a skill instead of a primary attribute, similar to Athletics
Or maybe skills should be _the main thing_ and attributes should be assimilated into the category wholesale
In my home game, I add BOTH the CON and STR mods to hitpoints. This makes STR-based fighters much beefier, and makes combats take longer than 3 rounds, which makes it much more tactical and less alpha-strikey.
Let me answer this question with another question: Why do the majority of Spells use Concentration?
I mean because most of the spells are continued effects
@@Silas_Kow I suppose you've got a point then. Fair enough.
As Silas pointed out, spells that maintain their value turn over turn have significant resources and action economy advantage over many other options.
But also, both to call back to previous Editions where spells could be interrupted, and to try and encourage more tactical play by having the party protect the Spellcaster's concentration, Concentration works to encourage tactical play and to "balance" the risk reward of powerful spells.
@@TyphosTheD So the balance is based around the use of "Counterspell" and other such things that interrupt your Spells. Got it.
Also a huge problem can arise by stacking effects if you dont impose limitationa, like 3e/3.5 casters could stack something like 5 to 10 buff spells or control effect.
I have to disagree with the relevance of constitution for casters. Here's my reasons:
Constitution saving throws are THE most important save for casters. Nearly all of the best spells are concentration spells and loosing concentration is terrible, cause it costs you an important resource and basically takes a turn or more away from you.
The health from constitution is way more relevant to casters, cause it makes up a much bigger percentage of the casters health, than for most martials. With the most extreme examples, where each point of constitution basically increases your HP by 25% from the base for wizard and sorcerer while it only increases it by like 14% for a barbarian.
Not being hit cause you are a caster is also something you can't 100% rely on. Just because you are in the backline doesn't mean you will not get targeted. Quite the opposite some intelligent enemies might target you more. Even tho yes, casters do have more defensive options (tho martials got a few good ones with 5.5 now too). Also some casters might be up closer like for example a cleric wanting to make use of spirit guardians and some martials might be in the backline, like those using ranged weapons, which you even adressed in the video.
For the same reason you, as a caster, want to have either dex or str for AC aswell. So you can't just rely on a single stat as implied here, unless the dm is generous in not having the enemies target you that often.
All that being said. I do think merging str and con can work pretty well probably. It would need to be examined well, since melee actually got a lot stronger in 5.5 now, so str characters might run away a little in power and saving throw proficiencies for classes need a look at since you always have a good save (con, dex, wis) and a weak save (str, int cha) atm and this would cause a little bit of a mixup in that regard.
Should concentration be a constitution check to begin with? I always sorta felt like it's just a constitution check cause they both start with con
If concentration checks were based on a strength, strength would be less of a dump stat for casters.
@@SephonDK You know what's silly? Int being a dumpstat for the majority of casters.
What about melee got stronger in 5.5? Martial characters got weaker, because they nerfed the great weapon master and sharpshooter feats. You used to be able to take a penalty to your attack roll in exchange for more damage if you hit. Now, you can't do that anymore. So it's even harder to do damage as a martial, including the melee builds.
@@danritts2960 Ok so martials being weaker is strictly wrong. They are much more powerful than before in nearly all regards. A lot of them got more defensive and out of combat options. In damage they are also strictly better. Do the math yourself if you don't believe me. Tho do it correctly and include things like hit chances. Great Weapon Master you mentioned here now is a half feat, so gives a stat boost on top of what it did and it also still increases your damage. It doesn't increase the damage if you hit as much, but it doesn't reduce your accuracy now. At the higher levels I am very sure that equals more damage. At which levels it breaks even I am not sure and would depend on the character anyways. Tho I'd assume it to not be that late, as the -5 to hit reduces your hit chance from probably around 60% to 35% So nearly halfs your damage. Advantage shifts that more in your favour, but it will still have an impact.
In general melee got better through features you get. Weapon Mastery being one that is shared amongst most martials and I think benefits melee characters more than ranged ones. Two-Weapon fighting in general is also noteworthy as not being bad anymore. One example of where melee got a lot stronger would be the Berseker Barbarian, who is just crazy good on the low to mid levels now. Another good example would be the Monk, who got changed so much, that it's not bad anymore (in a more optimized context. Out side of that I don't think it was ever bad.)
Now are martials as good as caster now? I don't think so. Casters still have way more impact on winning a fight, if played correctly. Tho I do think that martials now fill the single target damage role much better and are not outperformed by casters anymore, with the exceptions on some spells that slipped through and cause balance problems.
I don't have time to go through every class here and give examples. If you want something like that I suggest looking up Treantmonks temple or similar youtube channels. That channel is often a pretty good resource to look at, even if it's mostly through an optimizing lense, which is not how most tables play I think.
You touch on the issue that casters are SAD (single ability dependent) and so can/do invest well in Constitution, but suggesting a Might stat means revisiting that point. With this change, casters would regularly have a +2 or +3 modifier in Might - the optimal mage is now physically buff, which is pretty strange.
I mean I think it's already weird that Casters are so easily able to invest in Constitution regardless which means that they'd be physically durable either way. Like a spellcaster with just a 14 in Con is already notably more durable than a normal person which while maybe not ripped, still means they're pretty physically built.
I do regret neglecting to mention Concentration Checks as a number of other comments have pointed out, I obviously was more focused on how it affected the martial classes, but it is also kind of ironic that one of the other most common use cases for Con Checks is done by the Casters and not the Tanks which just seems totally backwards.
Honestly What I'd probably do is not have Might be used for Concentration checks to begin with. If it was changed to say Wisdom for example, then I think that would work out well because the Casters that use Wisdom are Clerics, Rangers, and Druids. Clerics as the primary healing class tends to get a bit of favoritism anyways, Rangers certainly could use the help, and Druids often don't really mess with physical stats anyways thanks to wildshape so it doesn't really make a difference.
Then for all the other Int and Charisma based casters (With Charisma casters arguably being the most problematic), if you wanna improve your concentration checks, you would have to invest in Wisdom instead and continue to neglect your physical stats. So I think that that mostly works out at least as an ad-hoc solution to this rather ad-hoc change to the game.
@@BlazeMakesGames Thats a projection on your part. Con just means you're hardy and resilient, NOT physically "built". This is essentially the Gym Bro fallacy. Muscles do not equal fit. Case in point.... you have strength training to build muscle mass. But theres also Cardio. Cardio is gives you endurance. Track runners are usually pretty skinny, with the majority of their extra muscles in their legs. Not good for lifting, because the muscles being conditioned are different from the ones used for handling excessive weight, and even then not trained for bursting. A sprinter on the other hand has massive thighs and calves, conditioned to generate large amounts of force, but usually lack staying power.
Remember Rule#1 from Zombie Land. "Cardio"
@@freelancerthe2561this
Constitution is a separate stat from STR for a similar reason INT is separate from Wisdom
Good on the mage. It's as they say: sane body, sane mind
The combined stat name for con and str should be physique
The problem there is a lot of things normally attributed to dexterity, are also sort of physical.
Agility, flexibility, coordination, speed. You would hardly say that an olympic gymnast has "poor physique". "Might" sounds better to me for the big, strong, tough guy archetype with a lot of str+con. "A mighty warrior!"
hell if dex is used for both offence and defence why not STR?
@@Ed_man_talking9 is used for defence, is called "Heavy armor"
@@danielv4793unless you use mithral armor
I was thinking Vitality.
Throw in Int mod granting skills and that patches stats.
I think combining strength and con is the best option. Mostly because I’ve tested with it.
**But** I think it should be a feature of strength classes. A wizard being strong imo is kinda silly to force, and doing so would ironically take away from a lot of the few things strength characters can do.
As for strength items… you could make it so your ability modifier is the modifier that score would have for might-based attacks if your current modifier isn’t higher. E.g “Your might modifier for might-based attacks becomes a +9, if it isn’5 already higher, while you weat this belt/for the duration of this potion.”
One issue i see with merging strength and con is it make spellcasters better martials than martials
So 1 concentration checks need constitution so casters that like casting concentration spells who already focused their spellcasting trait + constitution will now focus spellcasting trait + might
That might sound fine except this makes your spellcaster tempted to play as caster martials. Because unless your class lets you use your spellcasting trait for your weapon attacks you have to rely on strength or dex. Meaning you in theory need to focus on spellcasting trait + con + str/dex
Now we are reducing this to might + your spellcasting trait. Which means any caster who got a 20 at lvl 1 from rolling stat plus background can focus down feats that give them might and be godly in both concentration and martial fighting even if they had no plans to build that way before. Now yes doing this means they are not focusing on dex and ac but that is very easy to replace with a number of spells on offer.
"Now yes doing this means they are not focusing on dex and ac but that is very easy to replace with a number of spells on offer."
Are there that many spells that boost AC? There's like.. mage armor and shield, the former which is 13 + Dex, and the latter which isn't readily available at lower levels. At higher levels you'd need class features to make you better at 'martial fighting' anyways. It's a buff, yeah, but it's not like ye olde wizard can pick up a weapon and start fighting like a fighter or barbarian like you're making it sound.
Your immune system and how well you hold your liquor
Ah yes, the topic that led me to you in the first place.
As the video was going on and I was trying to think about what ways Constitution could be used the more it came to me “this could just be done by Strength” leading to the same “combine them” conclusion. I’m sure there are ways of making it work and it’d be neat to see how. But it would probably be the ideal solution and it would just need to have difficult calculations based on what the Might is being used for. The results would probably be worth the trouble of rebalancing if Wizards put in the effort. There’s no sense in having a stat that nobody wants but everyone needs.
It would’ve been a great idea to give to Sorcerer, I never understood why the class whose magic came from their genetics casted from Charisma, that always felt really arbitrary like they needed to find some other use for Charisma for some reason. Do you have to convince the opponent that your powers are cool in order for them to work? At least Constitution would’ve made sense with them basically sourcing their magic from themselves. Shame they didn’t go through with it.
Yeah a Con based Sorcerer has some really interesting implications as well. For one obviously they'd basically be the tankiest full caster just inherently, even with the d6 hit die. Hell it might be a good argument to give them just a d4 hit die since they'll make up the difference with just raw Con.
But some interesting knock-on effects would be things like now it'd be a lot easier for martial classes to multiclass into a spellcasting class without having to invest in a mental stat. It'd be a lot easier for a fighter to dip a few levels into Sorcerer and use Con than it would for them to have to put points into Charisma. And that would also presumably open the door to numerous constitution based feats and abilities that grant you spellcasting abilities like the numerous mental feats do already, which again would be more accessible to martial characters.
It could really shake things up but to be fair it would also mean a lot to consider and potentially rebalance which is likely why they didn't just do it all of a sudden without a complete system rework.
I believe that Sorcerers use Charisma for the idea that they can convince themselves of their own inner power. Like a Wizard uses their understanding of the arcane to produce effects from spells. Druids, Warlocks, Clerics, and Paladins draw their power from connections to greater powers, Paladins and Warlocks convincing their being to grant their desired cast while Clerics and Druids use their understanding of their greater being to perform the cast. Sorcerers use their inner belief in their internal magic to produce magic. Bards similarly use their guile to influence the arcane to perform.
@@BlazeMakesGames
but then why even pick charisma based Sorcerer at all?
@MousaThe14
"Do you have to convince the opponent that your powers are cool in order for them to work?"
by that logic warlocks shouldn't become stronger with higher charisma because what are you doing convincing you enemies your strong?
@@MousaThe14 Sorcerers convince themselves of their own magic powers.
Con is a stat because D&D provides a simplified model of physical and mental characteristics, with constitution representing the ability of a character to withstand infection, survive systemic shock, poisons, potentially debilitating strikes etc. There is no other stat in the game that expresses this, so it was needed for both immersion and gameplay. Seems obvious but this is why. it is possible that it is not balanced correctly, but this is another story.
And from the logic (IRL), Con is the expression of the force you can sustain over the time and strength the amount of force you apply
For example: A runner (yes, dexterity is not the stat for speed, just for balance, reflex and flexibility)
A short distance runner need strength in his legs to run more distance in least time, you dont need more endurance if you can do in less time the distance
A long distance runner need more Constitution, he need sustain a good rhythm of running to reach the goal, if you can endure the speed you go, you will lose no matter if you are the faster runner
Sorry if my english is horrible
@@YellowCable not really, D&D has Constitution (and all the other stats) because D&D always had Constitution from 1974 onwards. The six stats is part of the branding, part of what makes D&D what it is. And because it's always been there, rules are being made based on it being part of the game rather than actually designing things that make sense.
Imo at this point in time i ask myself if having attribute themselves are even essential mecchanics in dnd/pf
The are all just abstractions, so there's no real "right answer" to that
Con saves are important for spell casters trying to maintain spell effects.
The Sorcerer’s Con save proficiency is sneaky good.
And what does one's ability to remain focused have to do with their resistance to disease?
Yeah they’re a bit diametrically opposite for any definition of Con.
Maybe fortitude to withstand disease and fortitude to withstand pain?
@@itap8880 It's because, in universe, when a caster takes a hit, they'll feel some kind of pain. How durable they are affects how much of their 'forward' conscious is occupied by that pain. If it's too much, it'll displace the thoughts that the spell requires, thus no longer being able to maintain the spell.
You're not the first to think of combining Strength and Constitution into a single stat. 10 years ago, I got involved in the making of the homebrew system and setting "Disney Villains Victorious". We used the D&D stats by other names, with one exception: we combined Strength and Constitution into a single stat called "Robustness". Our reasoning for this was not dissimilar from what you've said here: mechanically, combining the offensive Strength and defensive Constitution into Robustness made them fairly balanced them against Agility, which could be used for both attack and defense in physical combat (and also damage, though I don't remember the exact order we made these decisions). On the thematic side, well......at the end of the day, in the source material (and arguably in fiction in general) the vast majority of strong characters are also tough in equal measure and vice versa. The latter argument might not apply to your homebrew system if you're trying to be realistic or simulationist, but since we weren't going for either, that didn't matter.
I don't know how you make an entire video about how Constitution isn't important without talking about how Constitution is used to maintain concentration on spells. For this reason, I disagree that martial characters care more about Con than casters. Often casters as the ones that are boosting Con with Resilient Constitution (a feat you didn't mention increases Con) to boost their concentration. If anything, Constitution is a way of nerfing casters since, as characters without medium or heavy armor training, they need to invest in both Con and Dex for decent defenses in addition to their spellcasting stat whereas a martial character only needs to focus on Con and their primary stat. A wizard with a 16 Con has nearly twice as much HP as a 10 Con Wizard and if you've ever played a low Con caster, you know that you're not gonna be casting very many spells if you're unconscious.
Additionally, Con offers a good way to nerf spellcaster's ability to multiclass. If you need to invest points into Wisdom and Charisma to meet the multiclassing requirements, then you're gonna suffer from having less Con for HP. Whereas you can multiclass a Barbarian and Rogue together (classes with different primary stats) and not suffer a big penalty since finesse weapons can be used with strength. All in all, I think Con is a really important stat and would seriously deteriorate the game's balance if removed.
As a DM, I like asking players to add their con mod to death saves, which don't come often, but make having a high bonus seem extra valuable in their eyes. Also, casters do relay heavily on a high con for one simple reason casters seldom have to worry about: concentration checks. If you're smart with your tactics and map designs as DM, casters should never be allowed to be safe on the back lines, ranged attacks from enemies are our great equalizer.
I don't think I'd get rid of Constitution but rather give it more to do. To take a note from older editions I'd have massive damage (more than half your health in an attack) invoke a Constitution save to not be stunned or die, a mechanic called system shock in older editions. I'd also look at making more of the current saves call for it instead of things like Strength or Dexterity. The biggest issue, though, is that it doesn't fit in a 'Might' role. Constitution is best broken down as your stamina, a measure of your ability to endure. Strength is more physicality, how well you can apply what strength you have. A marathon runner isn't going to be as strong as your average body builder, and your body builder isn't going to be able to stick out a marathon like your runner. The two stats need to be approached with this in mind.
Isn't constitution used for concentration? Isn't that enough?
@@nihili4196 That's just it, his argument is that Constitution is so underused that he feels it doesn't have a place anymore. Sure, it's used for hit points and concentration saves... and maybe the rare saving throw. But that's it. My argument isn't to get rid of it like he suggests but to dip into the well of older editions to bolster it for more than what it's used for now.
@@nihili4196 It's a bandaid solution to the irrelevance of this stat.
@@nihili4196 Only casters care about concentration, so not so much.
Concentration checks have left the chat
It makes more sense for concentration to use a mental stat. Unfortunately, all mental stats are someone's spellcasting stat.
@@itap8880 it should absolutely be wisdom, the stat that helps you resist mental statuses and whatnot, but it is what it is, and constitution is fine
@@jake120007 the issue here is making Wis even more relevant than it already is...
@@Itomon no argument there
In 3/3.5 casters needed constitution for the concentration skill so they could withstand being attacked and still cast their spells. In original d&d it was a bonus saving throw as well as how many times you could be resurrected, if anything it actually had more to do with spiritual toughness rather than physical.
2nd edition had placed System Shock and %chance resurrection to the stat.
A good idea for 5e could be damage reduction.
Constitution can be another name for durability.
yeah a number of games use Constitution or some equivalent like Toughness as a form of Damage Reduction often on top of Armor. I think that's at least a lot more interesting of a system. But it still often doesn't solve the issue of that stat usually not having any real skills or other meaningful features associated with it.
@BlazeMakesGames agreed I noticed Dark Souls when you increase an attribute has a strong chance of affecting a number of other bonuses to your roster of Defense
Totally agree with you on every point! As a matter of fact, I am developing my own game, which started as a 5e overhaul, and at some point I've also got rid of Constitution, effectively combining it with Strength. There is a lot more nuance to that, then just deleting a stat, as you've said, and you've correctly identified the most of the problems! I'd just say, that, from experience, fixing pointbuy was the easiest part.
Also, while we are on the topic of deleting attributes, I'd advise you to do the same with Wisdom, but this time divide it between the Int and Cha: everything that is tied to being observant and wise goes to Int, everything that ties to social skills goes to Cha.
I think everybody would have liked to see more skills that use CON and STR, but combining them is straight up yet another buff to spellcasters, so i dont see how it helps much.
Here is reason: atm spellcasters need to have high mental stat sure, but they need high con and decent dex as this 2 give them resilience to survive, to get AC from DEX things like mage armor and concetration saves from CON.
With change to might, getting heavy armor proficency by starting fighter or other means, now you can get both platemail access and highest possible starting HP with just 1 stat.
So you may think that it buffs martials but i would argue it buffs spellcasters just as much. O fear it's not one of the solutions at all.
Weapon masteries where real change for the best, to help breach the gap but i would say they are not enough, giving martials even more battlefield control and out of combat utility (including with more STR and CON skills) i think is much wiser way to breach caster martial divide
5e24 Overhaul: D&D, not C&C - getting rid of Con and Charisma v3 (can be found on Homebrewery).
Considering what was said in the video, and also trying to further streamline 5e, I propose a conversion that gets rid not only of Constitution but also Charisma.
= = =
As a general rule: anything that would use *Constitution* becomes Strength; and *Charisma* becomes Intelligence.
= = =
*Ability Scores:*
- Standard Array. Use the following four scores for your ability scores: 15, 13, 12, 8.
- Point Cost. You have 18 points to spend on your ability scores.
*Hit Points.* Use your Strength to determine your Hit Points total and regained Hit Points during a Short Rest
*Concentration.* A Concentration check is d20 + your Intelligence modifier + your Wisdom modifier.
= = =
Optional Tweaks
= = =
*Charisma Spellcasting is a player choice.* The general rule makes all Charisma spellcasters use Intelligence instead (yes, bards are nerds again). Optionally, the player chooses which of Intelligence or Wisdon they use as replacement for Charisma spellcasting (choose when you select the class).
*Medicine is an Intelligence based Lore Skill.* This small tweak helps to flesh out Intelligence, as well as the Study action that can now use Medicine checks.
*Investigation is removed as a Skill.* Any previous Investigation checks or proficiency is now a Lore skill instead: Arcana, History, Nature, Religion, or Medicine. This should help flesh out each Lore skill individually, as well as the Study action.
Why charisma?
@@DistortedSemance no particular reason but to mantain a symmetry (2 body 2 mind stats) since its incorporated in Int and still works the same in the game
Seems interesting, tho I would think that the more popular idea in terms of mental stats would be to combine Int and Wisdom instead of Charisma. Int and Wis have always been kind of a nebulous distinction for a while with the best descriptions usually being that one is "book smarts" vs "street smarts" but they could easily be combined to make Int more generally useful while Charisma I think much more distinctly represents a different set of skills from raw knowledge.
Plus out of the mental stats, Charisma is definitely the "Dexterity" of the group in terms of how useful it is compared to the other stats. There's lots of really powerful class abilities that are based on Charisma (Paladins, Sorcerers, Warlocks) and it has some really strong skills that you will use constantly associated with it. Meanwhile Wisdom has fewer skills and Intelligence has fewer classes (and there's barely any Int based saving throws). So I think it makes more sense to combine Int and Wis and leave Charisma as its own stat.
Also I'm pretty sure this is what DC20 does and I have been meaning to check that out at some point to see what's up with it cause it sounds pretty cool.
@Itomon I think it's worth examining what it means about the range of representable characters when you propose collapsing stats into each other.
On one hand, fusing STR and CON means that every character that is strong is also healthy. While it's probably possible to be healthy, but not strong, and vice versa, most fictional characters that are one are also the other, so the system can still represent typical fantasy protagonists well. On the other hand, fusing INT and CHA means that every character that is knowledgeable is now also charming and charismatic (because social skills rely on CHA, which is now handled by your proposed fused stat.) Unlike STR and CON, having characters that are intelligent but unlikeable (the "genius curnudgeon"), or unintelligent but lovable (the "dumbass with a heart of gold"), are both incredibly common tropes that are now impossible to represent.
@@DistortedSemance Only if you see it that way. These abilities are abstractions and since they are not the usual 6, they don't (necessarily) represent the same thing as before.
This "new int" is just a mind stats that governs how much your character is versed into that, but if they are persuasive or not, learned or not, this is defined by your skill proficiencies. You can have a Bookworm archetype with high Int in this new system that is also shy and introspective, so no social skills learned. What the system do, though, is assume that people with a vast repertoire have a better chance at improvising those than a character with low Int (so the Bookworm has a better chance to pretend to be sociable, even if not trained as such)
Again, abilities are abstractions. Fusing Int and Cha requires a new take on what those things represent in a person, which is not better than having them separatedly - logically, the more separated they are spread, the more accurate they feel, so this fusion's bad side is losing this accuracy/complexity for the sake of a more generic system (and its still just a homebrew, totally optional)
I don't think that Constitution is going away in D&D. It an artifact in the game lest over from older editions that only made sense when most people still rolled their stats. Constitution being a stat in D&D is a tradition, one of the things that you think of when you think of D&D is the 6 stats. Even Though it's an artifact than don't made that much sense anymore, it's not something that hurt the game.
I don't agree that it's a problem for the martial/caster divide. If the older edition wizards had a 1d4 dit dice, just make it 1d4 again, remove concentration from constitution to Wisdom and scale back most OP spells. I think that if you made a new systems you would try to go with fewer stats, but D&D just have some tropes that make D&D D&D, the stats, the classes, levels, spell slots, the d20 ect. and I don't think that will change them - at least not anytime soon.
P.S. You forgot option 3: If you want Constitution to work it used to, determine stats like people used to do it, roll the stats in order with no option to rearrange.
This video could not have come out at a better time, we're currently building our own TRPG and we do the thing you suggested, though we were inspired by Fabula Ultima. Something that game also does is merge Int and Wis into Insight, saving the confusion of what task to go to which.
Its not like this is a new concept. If you scrap Constitution and merge it into strength you might as well do it for wisdom and intelligence as well. And go with a 4 stat system, like so many games systems that have come before. The reason why DND doesn't do this is because the power of constitution and the general toughness it grants your character, is extremely powerful. Con saves are often debilitating save or such effects this alone makes it one of the best stats in the game, everyone needs Con. If you merged con and strength into one stat then everyone in a fantasy game would but fit and athletic to some degree. no more toothpick wizards because you don't dumb con because concentration checks are too important. Descriptions matter as well. a Character with 20 Str and 14 con says something about the character thats completely different than 14 Str and 20 Con. This is probably why the 6 stat system has lasted so long, no 4 stat or 9 stat system has ever compared.
What's that about 9 stat systems?
@@ZarHakkar The World of Darkness games have 9 stats. Though the physical ones remain the exact same as what D&D has: Strength, Dexterity, Stamina. They just then differentiate more between "social" and "mental" stats, using three of each category.
Arguably some considerable redundancy is created by this (looking at you, Manipulation/Charisma, and also Intelligence/Wits), which goes to show that more isn't always automatically better I guess.
Honestly I’m glad when I clicked on the video and listened I came to the same conclusion. Just merge them. It also removes the need to min/max martials to be truly useful. It would open up the ability to play with your martials into something unique. I love playing martial characters but always struggled with the thought of “Man this type of barbarian would be fun! But I have 4 different ability scores to improve.. or I could go totem barb and be an absolute powerhouse.
Draw Steel, the upcoming RPG from MCDM, does exactly this: there's a characteristic called Might that acts as an analog for both Strength and Constitution ability scores. They initially had two (Might & Endurance), but I'm pleasuring they decided they could use Might in place of Endurance in pretty much every instance, so they removed the second characteristic, and nobody missed it.
When I was designing a (very unfinished) ttrpg game I had that same idea, the Strength equivalent stat of Physique increased your HP as well as allowed you to wear heavier armor and boost the effectiveness of melee weapons. So yeah, I think it's a great idea lol
D&D has a glarong problem with stats: there is a clear difference between the name of the stat, it's meaning in real life, and its effects in the game. A lot of other issues with stats stems directly from this. Why are dextrous characters more likely to take initiative? What has wisdom to do with randomly spotting hidden doors?
Dexterity seems to tie both agility and speed of reaction. Wisdom is the one stat that everybody knows is misnamed.
It's an interesting idea, but I think the problem with the martial/caster divide goes much deeper.
Even if a martial maxes out their strength completely, that basically seems to make them only as strong as an Olympic athlete or special forces soldier. You can see this with things like carrying capacity and jump distance. That might sound good, until you realize that casters are basically living cannons. I've seen fireballs destroy entire encounters in one turn. The same with spells like sleep and hypnotic pattern. No matter how good a martial is they're still only hitting one enemy with each attack.
I think it would help to make your movement, jump height and distance, and carrying capacity based on your class instead of just your strength. Perhaps as you level up you can jump further, carry more, and move faster. This could create an issue, since monks already get movement, but I just don't think it makes sense that a fighter who spends all his time doing physical training has the same movement speed as a wizard who soends all his time with his face buried in his spellbook.
We should also look to anime for inspiration. Anime characters will do things like strike the ground and shatter it, hitting every enemy within that area. This could be an ability that martials get to do AoE damage and create difficult terrain, while knocking enemies prone. Martials should be capable of feats of incredible strength, instead of being ordinary humans who lift weights.
There's an image in the new phb in the fighter class section, page 93, you showed it in your video. A fighter uses their shield to protect their party member from a dragon's breath weapon. This is a super cool picture, and would be amazing to do on the battlefield. But you can't. Even if you take the shield master feat and the protection fighting style, no martial can shield his teammate from an AoE attack. But they should have that ability. The artist has a better idea of what martials should be able to do than Wizards of the Coast.
That's my take on the martial/caster divide. Either nerf spells into the ground, both in terms of what they can do and the number of spell slots casters have, or buff martials to the level of anime characters.
The source of the power disparity is that martials operate on limited simulationism and can directly target only the weakest means of affecting their agency that is damage. Casters can rewrite the game flow at the narrative and meta levels, bypassing or restructuring challenges and conflicts before the possibility for damage ever comes up. A lot of individual spells are completely overpowered compared to the abilities of other classes.
I mean, this is what 4e did with martial classes thematically, even if mechanically they were now casters. It had that exact effect you point to, of pushing them into higher power territory that put them somewhat on par with casters. (to be fair, casters also ate some major nerfs in terms of power in 4e, but I felt it was worth it.)
yeah this is more of what I get into with my prior videos on the subject like my one talking about Spell Slots or the first one I made on the problem in general. As others have mentioned 4e tried to solve this but I feel like they failed to get people on board because they made them play exactly like spellcasters with effectively spell slots being used for more powerful sword swings and things like that which just feels wrong on so many levels.
But yeah, Martials absolutely need to be given much more "anime" -esque abilities for lack of a better term. At level 5 a wizard is already able to do things like cast fireball and teleport. Meanwhile a Fighter can stab someone twice. You should be able to do things like perform a whirlwind attack that hits everyone around you just to be able to compete, and you shouldn't have to wait until like level 10 or higher to pull off feats like that. Cause like yeah there *are* some really strong martial abilities that some classes get but they're often locked behind absurdly high levels while wizards still get access to some of their most iconic stuff extremely quickly. If the idea of a Fighter is that they can attack a lot more quickly than most people then why do they not get their third attack until level 11! And their Fourth isn't till level 20!!
@BlazeMakesGames I guess another option would be to make casters actually squishy. I think I could accept them being powerful if they actually had to rely on martials to protect them. But they'd need to take away the shield spell, and get rid of shield of faith and heavy armor for the clerics. Mage armor, plus a mere 14 dexterity, plus shield puts a wizard at 20 AC at level 1.
As a Barbarian enjoyer, I'm really, really curious about how this goes in practice. Please do run that homebrew campaign/one-shot to test this around, I'd love a follow-up vid!
Merging STR and CON is a valid design, and occurs frequently in a lot of 3 stat RPGs. You can also take the route of ICRPG, and remove finesse melee weapons, make CON the stat that provides a bonus to AC, and create a recovery action, which allows for the recovery of a small amount of HP with an action and a successful CON check. It's also good to keep in mind that there were no "builds" in D&D before 3e at the earliest. Stats were random, so you couldn't really design a character around a certain array of stats. You just rolled, and if CON was good, that was gravy (though hardly earth shattering, especially in 2e and earlier, as stats mattered much less to the mechanics). I say try it out, and report back.
I give Damage Reduction depending on the STR Modifier, makes strong characters tougher in battle outside just barbarian.
If you merge Str and Con then how do you differentiate between bodybuilders and marathoners?
That the fun part - You don't
@@1986Hikaru I would disagree. To me that would be a giant leap forward to making characters more generic. I would find that significantly less fun.
I feel like part of the problem though is that the game doesn't support the "Marathoners" style of build very well to begin with so even in its current state playing such a character doesn't really get you much. Like yeah it technically reduces build diversity somewhat but the only builds I would be removing are ones that the game barely pays any mind to.
Now if Constitution was tied to some kind of actual Stamina mechanic or resource that could be used to like perform feats of prowess, then we might be getting somewhere and I think that could be a lot better for supporting that kind of character and allowing for Martials to do some cool abilities. But I mean at that point we're talking about a full system rework.
@@BlazeMakesGames A stamina mechanic would be redundent because you can just use Constitution checks.
Do you need to? In fantasy, big tough guys like Conan can also take a beating and perform feats of both endurance and strength. Strong but sickly isn't really a concept that exists in fantasy.
If this is an issue with Martial vs Magic characters, you would also want to support dex based characters as well. A house rule called Martial Endurance could allow athletic based, non-magic casting characters to have their constitution stat mirror their dexterity or strength for bonuses.
I mean Dex based characters in D&D already get tons of goodies just on their own. AC, Initiative, The best Saving throw, Skills, etc. I think it makes sense to have the downside of Dexterity be that you are squishier while Strength based characters are Tankier.
Is Dexterity overpowered? Yes, but actually no.
Dexterity (and to a lesser extent Constitution) is "overpowered" not because it does too many things on its own, but because most other stats are poorly designed. Skill checks aside, Dexterity and Constitution are the only stats that have consistent effects across classes that are not dependent on specific class features. Armor class, initiative, HP, common saving throws.
Why would you invest in Intelligence? Because you're a Wizard or Artificer, and only because the class says that you have to do that to get your Spellcasting Modifier up. Same with Charisma, and even Wisdom to an extent (Wisdom still has a good saving throw value though).
A stat system I really like is the one in the Pillars of Eternity. Very similar to D&D, with 6 main stats. Might, Constitution, Dexterity, Perception, Inteliigence and Resolve. But here's a key difference; the stats are consistent across classes.
Might - Damage and healing modifier. For everything, including weapon attacks, spells and consumables
Constitution - HP modifier, though as a % not a flat value. Having higher base HP means Constitution gives larger bonuses at the same values
Dexterity - Action Speed (realtime) / initiative (turn based)
Perception - Accuracy & Spell DC. For everything. Also, Interrupt value (realtime)
Intelligence - Modifies the size of AoE and ability+consumable durations
Resolve - Deflection (AKA Armor Class) and Interrupt resistance (realtime)
There are also 3 saving throws: Fortitude (Might + Con), Reflex (Dex + Per) and Will (Int + Res)
These things do not change if you're playing different classes, so every stat has some importance to every character because they are broken up in such a way that you can never really source your important abilities to a single or a couple of stat. Any investment comes with a tradeoff, which is how it should be.
13:06
We can alway tie Hit Die to creature size rather than Class.
Everyone gets a D8 now suddenly the Barbarian who invested in Con is actually a Tank because everyone else has significantly less HP compared to him.
Additionally NPC and Enemies would also follow this rule and everything has less HP as a result.
This means Creatures with High Con are actually notable.
Because being muscular is not the same thing as being healthy, tough, hardy, and having a lot of endurance. I like the distinction, especially when fighting off toxins or using endurance. Con is fine as is. It's extremely useful for everyone by adding to your survivability. It doesn't need more skills.
It will of course work fine to combine strength and Con. It's a simplification.
There's definitely an argument to be made in regards to build diversity. Being able to separate out your stats means you can focus more on strength and less on con and be more of a glass cannon, and focusing more on con means you can focus more on being a tank and less on dps.
But for the former, the classes that want to focus on strength the most, Barbarian and Fighter, already are going to be decently durable even with a Con of 10. Barbarian has rages that give them damage resistance and Fighter has Heavy Armor Prof. Not to mention that they have the biggest hit die which as I talked about is a bigger factor on your health than your Con anyways.
The only way to *actually* play a Glass Cannon is really to focus more on Dex a la Monk or Rogue for example. They don't get heavier armor profs and they focus more on dodging and such which makes a lot more sense for a glass cannon build anyways. So it's not like We'd be removing that playstyle completely.
And while you can focus on Con to try and be tanky, I feel like if you're gonna build your entire character around one stat, you should probably have like at least a couple skills and abilities and whatnot to play off of. The game just doesn't really support actually focusing on Constitution and if you do then you're stuck with a character that has even less usefulness out of combat than a Barbarian.
Did you not watch the video?
Seems great to combine with the suggestions to add a 7th stat like Sanity/Confidence, esp when the DM uses a lot of abilities that increase and decrease it, so it's a bit of a resource by itself. I've even seen some that let you spend it for bonuses on attacks like you would Inspiration, but the flip side is you must roll under it for Death Saves
Shadow of the Demon Lord already merged Constitution and Strength as a stat, and Shadow of the Weird Wizard has completely divorced HP growth through stats completely in favor of having preset HP increases based on the 3 Paths (Classes) you choose during character development.
Cannot recommend enough that 5E players give Shadow of the Demon Lord/Weird Wizard a shot if they want a 5E experience in a better built system.
Designing my RPG system atm, and I did exactly that. A Body stat is entirely sufficient to run a game, without differentiating between STR and CON. I also untangled Perception from weird WIS, and made it a stat that governs ranged combat. Agility handles everything from prehensility to dextrous movement and speed. Mind and Charisma complete the mundane stat spread in my system. Since magic should be something rare and special IMO, an optional Soul stat covers all those supernatural shenanigans in a fantasy setting. If different spellcasting stats float your boat, one can tinker around with different magic flavors and the five original stats. So far I’m pretty happy with my super versatile stat system. 😉
On the topic of Con and the martial caster divide, why is Con responsible for concentration checks? This basically makes Con the second most important stat for any caster while working counter to the 'squishy caster' fantasy.
If we used Int instead, it would make the stat a lot more relevant. If we used unique secondary stats for every class, like wis for wizards or int for druids for example, it would make casters dependent on more different stats and encourage them to be more squishy.
Please understand before reading this: you were likely not there when this was happening, so you don't know the full situation.
I am in a westmarch that once considered banning or nerfing Soul Catching Glooves because a character below level 10 managed to get them after earning the gold from the discord potluck event, winning the gold needed to craft the legendary item without materials. As a result, of that combined with a Belt of Giant Strength on a Monk, the character was able to solo content his level. Perhaps for melee characters, introduce a homebrew rule where they could regain health on a hit with melee weapons or unarmed strikes equal to their Constitution score? This could give Martials more staying power for staying in melee, and three of the four Martial classes are able to make 2 or more attacks in a single turn, so that could be 40+ health they get back with maximum Constitution.
I have my own homebrew system that's only 5 stats, combining Strength and Constitution into Might... Might, Quick, Think, Sense, Charm... my system does make a lot of other changes though, like Sense governs shooting weapons to take away from Dex being way too useful. Think governs arcane magic, Sense is nature magic, and charm is divine magic... stuff like that.
Caster and dex classes equally will invest in Migth for the same reason they invest in Con
This is only a buff for those classes, now they can make all the str martials do and be better
Giving str more uses like making Manuvers a general thing and bind them to str, buffing heavy armor (giving HA user more CA even if you invest full in Dex with a ligth armor) and nerf Dex with things like dont add in damage rolls (i dont understand why add dex in your weapons is a thing, if you want cut with a blade you need more str even if the blade is agile and make for skillful user) or make roll with other stats or withs skills a rule (example: in a chase you roll athletics or in a ambush you roll perception)
Con is from definition a PASSIVE thing, literally is your inmune system and endure to enviroment, and from a logical perspective is not making sense that str and endure of a creature are the same, is not the same a short distance runner and a long distance runner, the first need MORE SPEED to do less time and the second need the endurance for sustain their speed
The martial caster different is a great problem that can be solved by nerfing directly caster and spells or giving *EQUALLY GOOD* skills to martials, but that need a lot of rework, but a change of stat system practically need make from 0 the system because that is the base of how you interact with the world in game
Sorry if i write some thing wrong, english is not my first or second language
Maybe you should just play a different ttrpg? I mean, it's not like there aren't options.
To elaborate, here's two examples that go in completely different directions:
First, Tides of Numanera. Fantastic concept and I absolutely love the lore, not gonna lie about that. The game's ability scores (or pools) are boiled down to just three - Might, Speed, and Intellect. It does make some things easier, and makes a lot of the basic rolls for interacting with the environment or npcs very straightforward and simple. But it honestly loses some of the charm dnd has, because of that, because it's s broad.
Next, is Shadowrun. Pretty much the inspiration for Cyberpunk 2077, but gods did they leave out a lot. Shadowrun is not quite as old as dnd is but its old, and it's in 5th edition now. It goes in the opposite direction, and has a lot of ability scores, but they're organized into three categories, like Numanera's: Body, Agility, Reaction, Strength, Willpower, Logic, Intuition, Charisma, Edge, Essence, Initiative, Magic, and Resonance. The fundamental difference with Shadowrun is it's a game about solving puzzles, *not* dungeon delving.
@Tiniuc
to be fair most ttrpg's just have like 3 or even just one race, that being human or mostly human.
@chongwillson972 Tides of Numanera has everyone play as human. Shadowrun has a variety of different standard fantasy races, but they all have the potential to have wildly exaggerated modifications making them very different from their original race.
I remember reading the Numanera lore for a bit and it's really fascinating tho I'll admit I remember almost nothing about the game mechanics lol. And I have played an edition or two of Shadowrun in the past myself. I am a big fan of Dice Pool systems and I think the way character creation is handled in that game is really interesting with the priority system tho I feel like it gets a bit crazy with the dice counts at times and it can get pretty insanely crunchy especially during combat. But yeah it does split up the stats in ways that make a lot of sense, I feel like a ton of modern RPGs basically take D&D's dexterity and split it into two stats to help balance things out to solve the issues I raised about it being so OP in D&D itself.
Constitution more like consti-poo-tion, am I right fellas
nailed it
Constipation
I talked about this over om ENWorld and didn't get much traction from it. My idea to "fix" it was add Com score to HP, remove Con mod to HP, max HD HP. I havent had a character in my games with below a 12 Con, only 2 that had 16, and dozens that had 14.
GURPS has a dedicated HP stat. The Fantasy Trip (basically proto-GURPS) has your hit points scale with STR. In a system where STR also gatekeeps the equipment you can use, DEX affects your initiative and ability to succeed at most things and INT determines what proficiencies, feats and spells you have access to and start with, why wouldn't you just play a barbarian or amazon with good STR and DEX with just enough INT to use equipment, when a mage needs to somehow balance all 3 to some degree to be effective AND not die before they can grow stronger?
Oh, and casting spells costs HP. Until you're INT is high enough to upgrade your staff spell to take some of that burden, you're making yourself more vulnerable every time you do the things that make you special.
Strength should be necessary to move more in a turn (faster). STR mod = movement speed+ probably isnt ideal, but at least something like unlocking stronger dashes through it might work. A maxed out, legendary warrior should not have the problem stated in the regarding melee vs ranged.
Constitution should provide something you can tap into to show your character can do more in a single battle, and over a long day, both physical and magical. Obviously this is already in HP and fatigue rules, but this falls under a "tax", putting off a negative. In a system that allows for it, being able to use "once per encounter" and "once per day" actions more would be powerful and the player would feel like they are getting something every time they are spending toward that stat. Alternatively, rather than whole additional uses of abilities, maybe they can spend these CON derived points to greatly improve them.
As for physical/magic divide, that is always going to be tough. One idea is that magic enhancements like letting you breath underwater would scale better based on target's CON (or STR, DEX).
yeah I've always thought it was weird how Speed is like completely unrelated to your stats in D&D when how fast a character is is often a basic character trait in most stories. The only thing that affects your speed being your class and like a single feat is a bit odd (and of course casters have access to spells that enhance speed as early as level 1)
Course part of the problem is that the obvious stat to make modify your speed would be Dexterity and the last thing Dexterity needs is *another* thing on the long list of stuff it does. Strength modifying your speed is somewhat interesting tho and maybe worth investigating more.
But yeah I do think that if I went the opposite route and worked on giving Constitution more things to do, the best option is to turn it into like a resource for pulling off feats of prowess. Some kind of Stamina mechanic where the size of your pool is based on your Constitution and you can spend it to do things like make your weapons deal more damage or activate special abilities and whatnot. After all Constitution is described in the book as what allows you to push your body beyond its natural limits. Yet there's no actual mechanics for doing anything like that normally. But if I could do things like say spend a point of Stamina to push someone back an extra 10 feet off of an attack I think there's something there.
But as I mentioned at that point I may as well just make my own new system from scratch with that idea instead of trying to jury rig 5e into something completely different
I'm assuming you already know but just in case you don't, DC20 did remove the Con stat from their game. I haven't seen the rules, but since you're interested in game design you should take a look. Now, here's a couple things I thought about that merger as an idea:
1 - Str actually gives more AC than dex: At starting equipment, medium/heavy armor users start with 16/18 AC while dex characters typically start with 14. Str characters can max out their AC way earlier because all it takes is gold while dex characters need to max out their dex, not to mention full plate is better than 20 dex + studded leather, throw in a shield with full plate and you're way ahead on AC. Shields in particular are a great source of AC that's usually reserved for str, and a +1 shield is uncommon and stacks with a +1 armor. All of this is important because...
2 - You might actually be buffing casters with that merger. Casters need con for concentration checks, not just hp. With that merger, you're also giving them AC with the same stat because of the first point explained, so it's like for them you're merging dex and con and buffing melee damage (str weapons are better but not that it matters for casters). Clerics and druids in particular would win big with that merger. Melee bards and warlocks would also love that while everyone else could just be a dwarf to get proficiency with medium armor and win big too. A more thorough comparison between the rest of the martials would be needed but right off the bat I think this merger is good for casters, as you're just making them even less MAD.
3 - This merger would also diminish build varieties. With con as is, two characters of the same class could have different hp totals, plus you could at least make experimental builds with less con. I know these are usually not optimal but a lot of players don't go for optimal anyway, so at taking that away from them should at least be a consideration.
For the barbarian example your assumption that a barb would invest in Dex is misguided. The barbs general role in combat is to be a damage sponge that diverts attention away from the weakest members. In fact a barbarian wants to be hit more than not to be able to sustain rage in the off chance you cannot get a hit on your turn (reckless attack for instance). The point of unarmored defense isn’t to try and get max 20 ac, it’s to be a compensation to have a generaly high ac without reliance on armor. For example a lv 5 barb may have put stats to have +5 STR +2 DEX and +4 CON. This gives an ac of 16 which is generally good for a front liners. Once the barb maxes CON though the only thing you can do is max DEX or take feats. You essentially want a good ac but not the best ac because your massive hit point pool plus damage resistance account for the need to be hit a lot. That’s why con is a main stat for barbarians.
With that you can choose to invest in damage than defense so you might be able to ignore Dex entirely.
Bro goes through all of this to suggest a solution that has been in GURPS for decades.
Other RPGs doing something better than 5e? Unheard of
I mean lets be real I'm basically trying to find reasons for people to try other systems lol
@brunop.8745 5e 2024 all the way. Best TTRPG out there. You know a TTRPG is the best when it doesn't have to mention it's competition but it's competition has to mention it all the time. 😂
@@007ohboy5e is a great system, if you ignore the rules.
@@BlazeMakesGames I fucking wish D&D players would give other games a chance
I think CON is unecessary, you could move the entirity of CON to STR and the game works fine. Finally people won't dump STR at least.
For saves just move CON saves to DEX or WIS maybe PC's choice. Every previous CON save is now STR save (they already shared similar saves).
For starting ability scores just use point buy with 23 points instead (average would be 22.5 for 5 scores) and it works.
i'd merge Strength and Constitution, as well as Intelligence and Wisdom. the other idea is to remove the competition between Feats and ASIs and give both. i'd call them Might and Wits Respectively.
@AdorkableDaughterofNyx
what about charisma?
@@chongwillson972 charisma stays intact. it is already more powerful than intelligence, i can say most wisdom saves versus charm and fear become charisma saves and Cleric, Druid, Monk, and Ranger become Wits classes. but perception, insight, animal handling, and survival become wits skills
i can't give too much power to charisma for one reason, hexblade synergy, there is nothing that officially comes close to that in mechanical power. even in 2024. best 1 level dip in the game.
Constitution should be divorced from health, and have be used as the class stat for Monk, Sorcerer, Barbarian.
I made a simple system to mess around with my friends and I fused Dexterity, Stength & Constitution into a single stat: Conditioning.
Worked well! But inteligence was a lot better than it is in D&D
I went the opposite way. Instead of reducing the number of attributes, I increased it to 12.
I think constitution should be used in most crafting checks and i've heard of people running CON based Sorcerers.
3:51 those are not "legacy" the only stuff that's considered legacy is what has been reprinted and altered in newer books.
We broke Dexterity up into an offensive and defensive attributes, more similar to Strength and Constitution.
Yeah a lot of other games I’ve noticed do something like that, usually Dexterity and Agility with one governing like move speed and dodging and the other for attacking
@ I’ve also seen what you suggested. Either seem reasonable depending on the rest of the system.
Con is for us that want to be masters of the cup at the inn. More booze than any other PC or NPC before you pass out. As a side, I feal that survival should have been Con based just to have at least one skill for Con.
Also I think Vitality could be a good option for the stat name.
Check out DC20, they combine Strength and Con for Might, and also Intelligence and Wisdom, because who knows what the difference is anyways?
Your combat/spellcasting is also just based on your highest stat, because you're an Adventurer, you know how to leverage your innate talents.
Intelligence based Fighters are doable, but they won't have the health of a Might based one.
Just like Agility based Bards, but they won't be as convincing as a Charisma based one.
tbh, I don´t see the problem with the strength boositng items applying to con. it´s not a permanent buff. you use your base line stats for HP gain during level up. having a natural "might" of 19, and a modified "might" of 29 would still net you the same HP values as if you didn´t have that bonus, as D&D has no mechanic for retroatctive Health gain. i mean, that´s how it works for Con boosting itmes rn(the ones which put your con to a certain level, not the ones that enhance it permanently), they only buff your saving throws and nothing else, which is why those are kinda bad.
What? That is absolutely not correct. Any change to your Constitution Bonus affects your Health accordingly, temporary or otherwise. If the change is reverted your max HP just goes back down again. So if you had 10 Con at level 5 and you put on the Amulet of Health your HP would go up by 20 accordingly thanks to your new Con Bonus. You can confirm this with the old Free Rules under the description for Constitution under making Ability Checks or you can just roll up a quick character on D&D Beyond, give them the Amulet of Health and watch their HP change.
Gotta watch out when combining strength and constitution because of certain magic users. Paladins might become more useful all around, but now Clerics who lean on the physical side will just be better than Paladins in many cases. Similarly, other magic classes like Warlock, Druid, and even Sorcerer can all fill absolutely every role in the party at once rather than being really good at a few roles and alright at others
CON is a lot like Endurance in Dark Souls, it is just to good not to max out
'Might' sounds cool
This was covered in 1e and 2e. Only martials could get more than +2 hit points per level. It is WOTC fault they changed that rule!
Few things I did to help fix the martial caster divide. One of which does involve con. (Mostly commenting for the math gods to be kind to you in the promotion of this content) 1) Spellcasters don't gain a big bonus to their hp from Con (as in they don't get more then a 1 even if they have a 20 they only get 1 hp from Con making it far better for Martials and the arcane casters (wizards, sorcerers) get D4 of HP). What this means, is a magic user will NEVER ever rival a Martial for toughness. (They also are not allowed to wear armor if they want to cast spells.) So at best they have an AC 18 with a maxed dex of 20, and mage armor up. But how many mages have a dex of 20.
If you think that combining STR and CON is a good idea, I advice you to check DC20 system. It is one of the many DnD "not really clones" that tries to combat some of the issues of the newest edition. Combining STR and CON is one of them... and it literally is called "Might"
Oh lol convergent thought I guess. Yeah I have heard of DC20 in passing a couple times but I haven't paid any mind to it yet so I definitely need to check it out eventually.
Have you seen nimble 5e? You might be a fan.
Somehow, Palpatine has returned
Constitution is a Stat because the stat is not simply a measure of how buff you are?
Constitution is a Primary stat for Mages for a reason and Combining Strength and Con would mean that all the casters in your world are hitting the Gym as often as they are hitting the Library
RIght, people can be mentally tough, able to withstand things like psychic attacks and torture. You don't have to be strong to be tough.
@scottwoods9071 Not to mention that just because you are super strong doesnt mean poison won't take you down (Alexander the Great)
Thats why every TTRPG that isn’t a retro clone or Pathfinder has abandoned Constitution as a statistic. Thank god we don’t have to play D&D and have a whole ton of games to run and play!
I think strength needs the same treatment of rework simply due to how dexterity shits all over it.
Edit: Okay so in my opinion making strength and constitution a fused stat is a horrible idea because you'll just grant casters to an easily accessible means of boosting their own martial abilities.
The honestly best or easiest way to fix Constitution is to make certain classes gain more from it. Issue is mutliclassing fucks this over so good luck.
Im getting strong vibes from this video that you havent played anything older than 3e, but most likely nothing older than 5e. Which isnt a bad thing, it just means youre missing half the picture of why Con currently makes no sense:
Constitution was NEVER meant to be a proactive ability score to build around. WotC struggles to properly balance con as a stat because 5e wants every ability score to be proactive in the manner you describe, but Con just doesnt work that way. The whole point of Con is that it was just meant to be referenced for saving throws and hit point modifiers, especially for stuff like poison which was much more of a thing back in the day. Con iirc also referenced your "system shock" % chance to die from sudden physical trauma like petrification. But since 5e homogenizes everything, Con is basically pointless IF the rule system's goal is that every ability score NEEDS to be proactive and have a class that wants it for proactive class feature implementation.
Incidentally, there's already a published 5e hack - Nimble - that combines Strength and Con, and for the most part this change has been well-received. It works for 5e and PF systems where the point is to game the hell out of character builds. IMO this is a better solution than to design a bunch of extra classes or subclasses that proactively use Con, especially considering that there already enough balancing issues as it is.
Counter argument....
None of this actually matters 👍
damn, you got me
This is a hilarious idea! Soon all casters will be buff and ripped. Why not just make HP scale with STR? That would really make them cry, wouldn't it?
This video misses because it does not address concentration saves for casters. This is huge since it makes Con the best or second best stat for casters. Optimized casters will typically have a higher Con than an equivalently optimized martial.
The stereotypical “squishy wizard” is decidedly suboptimal to the point of being borderline non-viable. Anyone seriously playing a caster invests heavily in defense.
The non-physical stats are far more problematic, a player can only apply his own aptitude to a character irrespective of the characters statistics. a player with low "charisma" will struggle to play a charisma character effectively. how does one do a 20 intelligence(genius) level wizard justice if the player is "average" like most folk
I think a bigger part of the problem is community perception on how high a stat should be. I don't believe 5e is balanced around players min maxing characters to hit those 20s in stats. Player who design characters to have a 20 in their main stat by level 4 or 8. I think that way of playing is part of the problem.
Constitution as a core stat is so weird. It is the only stat that has zero offensive capability. It is purely defensive and passive.
I disagree with combining str and con. I don't want to have to roleplay as a strong character to have high hit points. I want my weak but hard-to-kill character
Is that Gruul from MtG?
In older editions con saves were necessary to maintain concentration on spells. But no, let’s make one stat for each class and everything else is just auto-done without rolls and simplify the whole thing down into nothingness
concentration checks are still required, and are still con based, this guy just never mentioned it for some reason even though it is literally the most common saving throw in the game
heck if a wizard hits you with magic missile that is an instant 4 con saves in a single turn
@@jake120007 why are you assuming a 2nd level magic missile?
@@kubomagico8853 who cares, the point stands, not like second level spells are rare
@@jake120007 I agreed to your comment
I am just pointing at you spreading misinformation
@KingBuilder525
what are you even talking about?
you need con saves to maintain concentration on spells.
who told you otherwise?
yeah definitely look up Nimble 5e lol
STR = Modifies the amount of damage your character can deal with an attack (DMG) while CON = Modifies the amount of damage you can take from an attack (HP); it's pretty straightforward. More hit points are universally useful and supremely important for character survivability but also under that blanket utility of staying alive: CON came into play anytime a SAVING THROW VS. DEATH was required also when disease, poison, paralyze, petrification or polymorph was employed against the character. Your thinking on this subject seems completely backward to me.
I agree with some stuff you’re saying. Dnd 5e is inherently flawed in that they try to hard to keep your players alive by allowing them to get so many hit points per level. It’s bad to the point that mundane defenses like everything affected by your constitution score feels unnecessary. Also, I hate when DM’s let their players start at a higher level. It completely removes the feeling of vulnerability you experience at low levels where you can’t just magic everything away. Survival shouldn’t be guaranteed. Makes a very boring game.
yeah I'm a big fan of systems that keep the health numbers low. Wrath and Glory is one of my favorite systems right now and your health barely goes into the double digits lol.
And to be fair, I understand D&D having lots of health. It's by no means meant to be a terrifying system where death is around every corner. But yeah there's definitely some holes in the design I'm not a fan of
how
Con is arguably more important for casters that martials, what are you even on about
I mean that is kind of terribly ironic isn't it? I would also change out concentration checks work if I were to really fully implement this to rebalance that
Why are people still playing DND when its design decisions are chained to 50 years of lgacy?
Martials SHOULD be weaker. You are swinging a sword not manipilating the fundamental forces of reality.
That said everyone on the team has a role amd martials can fight harder for longer.
the problem is that D&D is a *game*. And ideally in a game everyone should feel like they're contributing to fights and roleplay scenarios. If not to equal amounts then at least to comparable amounts.
And Martial characters are worse at both with nothing really given to them in return. Spellcasters are both more effective in fights thanks to how powerful AoE spells are, and because they have invested in mental stats also have better skills for solving puzzles and interacting with NPCs. So the spellcasters end up being the best at both worlds with the Martial characters being just the people who stand in the way while they cast spells. But even then Martial characters when you really break it down, often aren't even more tanky than spellcasters thanks to defensive magic like shield, absorb elements, and especially Silvery Barbs. And as I mentioned in this video, because they need to spend points investing in an entire extra stat that barely does anything to actually make themselves tankier, Martials just end up being even weaker at the end of the day.
So like sure I guess you can make the argument that "Well they don't have access to magic so of course they suck!" But if Martial characters are going to be designed so badly compared to spellcasters, then why even bother including them in the game at all?
I have to dislike the video, saying CON isn't useful for casters is just wild.
Also saying CON is only usefull as extra HP when CON saves are extremely common is just wrong
Personally, this vid treats the game with too much focus on mechanics.
DC20
Exactly. This is what I thought seeing proposition to mix CON and STR.
Con is a stat to make Martials weaker.
Martials need it buffed to survive and most saves targeted by Martials is Con.
Meanwhile Casters target everything.