Month: November 2024

Well, I hashed out a scheme to spread the bonuses for high ratings around the abilities tied to each characteristic and then decided to scrap it. Yes, it did what I wanted it to do–decrease the effect of high characteristic scores in play–yet it turned out to be more work than I wanted during chargen. Tossed it aside/

Now, I’m back to using the bonuses–based on B/X, so up to +3–on only some of the associated abilities. The bonus won’t apply to anyability I think is more of a skill than innate. That means weapon damage isn’t modified by a Strength bonus, for example, as learning to wield a weapoon most efficiently is the key to increasing damage, for my purposes.

Chargen also takes an approach to where it’s quite difficult to garner a rating of 17 or 18, so the top bonus available should be rather rare. This helps keep play focused on player choices with little reliance on characteristic bonuses to provide advantages. I find that to be keeping with the general approach to play I want, avoiding any of the slide into superhero fantasy that befell the industry years ago. (I think that actually began during 1e days and exploded with 3e.)