Buckle up as we’re on the road to writing our own Fantasy Heartbreaker and I’m going to kill some of D&D’s most sacred cows!

Attributes & Checks

Dungeons & Dragons ostensibly has a clear division between Attribute Checks and Saving Throws. Attribute Checks are pro-active, something that are used on the player’s initiative to take some action. Saving Throws are reactive, a response to something in the world such as a trap or an enemies attack. This is a division I happen to quite like. It makes it clear what should be rolled and when. Unfortunately not all of D&D’s mechanics actually follow this division.

Constitution

I can’t think of a single situation in the last fifteen years of running D&D, where I’ve had a player make a pro-active constitution check. Every Con roll I’ve ever requested has been as a response to poison, a trap or an enemy attack. If the standard convention of the division of pro-active vs reactive rolls is to be followed, Constitution should be made into a Saving Throw rather than an Attribute. Maybe we’ll call it something like…Fortitude.

Wisdom

Wisdom as an Attribute has never made a lot of sense to me. It makes a lot of assumptions about religion and the act of having faith making someone wise. Additionally, in modern versions of D&D Wisdom governs skill checks for things like Animal Handling, Medicine, and Survival. These skills always made so much more sense as Intelligence checks. Then there’s Perception checks…

Perception

I hate Perception checks in D&D. I’m not against them in principle, but Perception checks make so little sense as a Wisdom check and GM’s so often default to perception checks for anything involving what the player “sees”. Searching for clues? Perception check. Searching for traps? Perception check! Discovering if players notice some enemy movement? PERCEPTION CHECK!

Investigation and Research checks exist and they are governed by Intelligence, not Wisdom! So, ignoring all those use cases for Perception that really shouldn’t be under the purview of Perception in the first place… leaves Perception checks that are used as a reaction to something…Much like Constitution, Perception checks make far more sense as a Saving Throw. Let’s call it “Notice”.

Faith

So if Animal Handling, Medicine and Survival are relegated to Intelligence checks, and Perception checks are made into a Saving Throw, what remaining uses are there for Wisdom? It’s the Primary Attribute for faith casters, and Castles & Crusades’ SIEGE engine uses a character’s Wisdom Bonus as part of the formula for determining the Target Number enemies need to beat on Saving Throws when reacting to that character’s Divine Spells. When an enemy rolls to Save against a Divine spell, the target number is determine as follows: 15 + Casting Character’s Level + Casting Character’s Wisdom Bonus. That’s still critically important in my opinion, but doesn’t fall into the pro-active vs reactive divide.

Let’s create a third category of stats: Casting Abilities. In that category we’ll have two stats: Arcane and Faith. Both are rolled at character creation the same way as attributes, but they are used exclusively for modifying the Target Number of enemy Saving Throws.

Saving Throws

I know this is probably going to come as a bit of a shock, but I really truly believe that D&D 3E nailed Saving Throws. Fortitude, Reflex and Will saves cover just about everything and serve to simplify B/X’s Saving Throws rather considerably. Goodbye to Death/Poison, Wands, Paralysis/Petrify, Breath Attacks, and Spells/Rods/Staves Saving Throws!

So where does that leave us?

It leaves us with four Attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Charisma.

It leaves us with two Casting Abilities: Arcane and Faith.

It leaves us with four Saving Throws: Fortitude, Notice, Reflex, and Will.

I couldn’t be happier. Next time, we remove Attribute Bonuses from Races/Ancestries!