Paring Down 5th Edition

I play and enjoy 5e, but it really needs paring down of its unnecessary complexity and constraints. So this is the first in a series that explains some houserules I'm working on, and what I intend to accomplish with them

Many of these ideas are lifted from various OSR blogs and systems, but one of the goals here is to maintain the "heroic fantasy" power level of vanilla 5e, instead of the grittier feel many OSR games go for. Also I want to keep the player-facing rules pretty similar, so someone could potentially rock up to my table with a vanilla 5e pre-gen ranger and not have to translate their sheet before getting to play.

Ability Score Generation

Note that what I refer to here as "ability score" here corresponds to what vanilla 5e calls "ability bonus". It just reads a lot better that way.

Random Method

1. Roll two six-sided dice and ignore the highest result (i.e. "2d6 with disadvantage"). Subtract 2 from the remaining die and record it as your Strength score. Repeat this process for the other five ability scores, in order (Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha).
2. If your highest score is +1, you may re-roll scores of your choice until you attain a result that's +2 or higher.
3. You may swap any two scores.
4. Do not adjust scores up or down for your choice of race. Instead, choose one ability score that would be adjusted under vanilla 5e. Humans may choose any one ability score. Reroll that score, keeping the original score if it's higher.

e.g. Becky is rolling Lucretia, a dragonborn fighter. She rolls the following die pairs:
⚂⚃, ⚂⚄, ⚄⚀, ⚀⚅, ⚂⚁, ⚃⚀
for the following ability scores.

Str +1, Dex +1, Con -1, Int -1, Wis +1, Cha +2
She is not entitled to step 2. For step 3, she decides to swap her Con and Cha scores and hopes that step 4 will be kind to her. For step 4, she notes vanilla 5e gives dragonborn +2 Str and +1 Cha. She chooses to reroll her Str, getting ⚅⚁.

At the end of it all, Lucretia's scores are:

Str +2, Dex +1, Con +2, Int -1, Wis +1, Cha -1

Tweaking the Odds

Ignoring racial adjustment, getting an 18 on any one roll of "4d6 drop the lowest" is a 1/54 chance. Getting the equivalent +4 here is 1/36. You could tweak these odds in all sorts of ways:

• High-Powered. Roll 2d4, keep the lowest
• Low-Powered. Roll 2d8 keep the lowest, subtract 4
• Ummmmmm? Roll 3d6, keep the median die, subtract 2

 
Semi-Randomly Assigned Array

 Alternately, the GM may allow the following method, which semi-randomly allots the same set of ability scores to every PC:

1. You have six bonuses, +3, +2, +1, +1, +0, +0. You may assign the +3 to any ability score.
2. Randomly select a remaining ability score (e.g. by pulling out of a hat, or rolling d10, subtracting 5 if needed). Assign it +2.
3. Assign +1 to a remaining score of your choice.
4. Randomly select a remaining score (e.g. roll d6, subtracting 3 if needed). Assign it +1.
5. Assign +2 to the remaining two scores.
6. Do not adjust or reroll any scores for race.

Alternately the GM may just allow players to assign stats in whatever order they choose.

Design Notes

I only like traditional 3-18 ability scores for roll-under systems (Whitehack, Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells). The rest of the time it's this unnecessary step in character generation. It confuses new players when it's the bonus, not the score, that gets used most of the time. This is made worse by the few rules that do refer to the score, e.g. long-jump rules.

This approach is inspired by the playtest of Knave, which is an excellent classless system for classic D&D or OSR material in development by Ben Milton here. The main differences are one fewer die is rolled making it easier to roll high, some limited customisation after rolling is allowed, and this system adjusts the scores down to account for 5e's proficiency bonus.

The proficiency bonus may end up nixed from this set of houserules -- while it's a good unifying mechanic and certainly an improvement over 3.5's mess of different scales, there's a good chance it'll end up unnecessary here. If that happens, this post will be revised to remove the admittedly clunky "-2" bit. The only reason 2d4's not presented as the default is that they're a pain to roll, and one of my nonessential goals is to stick to just d20 and d6 for all player-made rolls.

I've also grown to hate racial adjustments to ability scores except in the most extreme cases (e.g. playing a giant). They unnecessarily constrain race/class combinations, unless the player is dead set on playing against type. I've seen anecdotes from various DMs who ran the D&D Next playtest (where for a while, racial adjustments were +1 at most) about how they loved the variety of character concepts they were getting at their table. Now that diversity's measurably died back.

The "reroll" idea is borrowed from this Coins and Scrolls post, spoiler alert, racial abilities will be handled in not-dissimilar way. I basically agree with the reasoning there -- elves as a population can be more nimble than humans, dwarves more hardy, but individual PCs can be whatever the player wants without getting too nerfed.

edit: here's a couple of quick charts showing the likelihood of rolling various scores. Note these include the +2 proficiency bonus at 1st level, as "to-hit" and "total bonus for trained skills" generally matter more for determining an appropriate power level for a campaign.

Effect of die-keeping method

Effect of die size