Ability Score Improvements

ASI with no balance issues whatsoever

It is my uncontroversial opinion that as a character gains levels, that character should improve. This is already the case in AD&D for saving throws, attack rolls, proficiencies, and spells, but it excludes Ability Scores and the values derived from them. PCs can become better combatants mechanically, but they never become stronger or more agile. They can improve in the mysteries of their religion or the finer points of etiquette, but never become wiser or more charismatic.

But, do they need to? In modern D&D, the ability score is the number from which you derive all other modifiers, so of course it must improve. This is not the case for early D&D, wherein the scores were descriptive markers, something that let you know what kind of class you should play based on the gated prime requisites. Any bonuses for high scores provided only moderate benefits, if any at all. Do characters really need to improve their base stats when increasing Dexterity from 13 to 14 does absolutely nothing?

Well, yes. I think so. Even if a game like AD&D doesn’t have a mechanical need for Ability Score Improvements, or ASI, it certainly has a psychological one. These are improvements to numbers created by the player, rather than the tabled stats that they’ve been handed, and therefore provides a stronger sense of advancement when the player gets to make ‘their’ numbers better, especially since those values are the most prominent and primary entries on their sheets. Of course, it can have mechanical impact, too. If the DM is making good use of ability checks, a single point to any score is a 5% increase toward success. If the DM has been creative with house rules and put some bite into the ability score bonuses, there’s even more of a reason to allow ASI.

However, if you’re running any version strictly by the book, then the answer is no.  As a result, searching for options to implement ASI within TSR’s published rules unearths very little. There’s the option for adjusting scores during generation found in OD&D and B/X, the age adjustment table in AD&D, wishes (with a ruleset that shows how much Gary’s players were abusing wishes), and magical items. Aside from chargen options, these are all DM-granted improvements.

The only time you see active improvements chosen by the players themselves is in Unearthed Arcana, where the Cavalier class can invest into scores in a similar manner to the Exceptional Strength feature for Warriors. Given my distaste for that edge-case percentile barnacle, I’ll reject that as an improvement mechanic and keep it far away from the other ability scores.

Get out of here, you weirdo.

 

I even went to the Player’s Option books to see what crazy ideas the TSR crew might have been cooking up in the heady days of ’95, but there are no ASI rules found there. However, they did add sub-ability scores in the effort to make the game that much more cluttered.

So we’ll have to house rule it. There are a couple of options.

You could implement structured improvements with a basic +1 bonus at specific levels, such as is done in modern D&D. Players pick two scores and bump them every four levels, or whatever schedule you think best, perhaps even based on class. This is reliable and easy, though these bumps are all but guaranteed to get dumped into prime requisites. PCs under this improvement method will suffer from a curse of sameness as they all invest into the ‘good’ abilities that their class (or your game) needs. Mythlands does a good write-up on this.

You could instead make the players roll for it. At scheduled levels, the player can roll a d20 against one or two scores in the manner of an ability check, but this time attempting to roll at or above their score. If they succeed, the score goes up by one. If you wanted to make the increase of bad scores easier and high scores more difficult, you could use 3d6 against the ability, which also has the added benefit of aligning with the dice used to originally create the score. With either option, this pulls back on the power creep and incentivizes players to improve poor scores rather than hyperfocus on minmaxing their elf.

Of the choice between static and random, I’m clearly a fan of the latter. Still, the auto-improvement (even with a chance of failure) isn’t great. PCs in AD&D should not and do not ‘ding’ upon level up. Therefore, let’s add in a feature of standard leveling: training.

 

When leveling a PC, the DM is already provided roleplay tools (mandated in 1e, optional in 2e) to ensure that both time and treasure are spent in pursuit of improvement in their class. This can be extended to ASI. If a players wants to increase their poor stats, they need to find and pay for a teacher, perform a task or quest, or generally come up with some good description for the way in which they’re investing time into that ability score. In the same way that high level characters require high level trainers, the effort to boost Charisma from good to great means that PCs will be hunting for the most charming person they can find and shelling out precious resources to do so. Another lever is thereby granted to the DM in the pursuit of keeping players engaged and PCs poor, while the players themselves are given agency in the upgrade of their characters.

ASIs are not a slippery slope to overpowered or boring PCs. They’re an improvement path that can reward roleplay while giving players a chance to build up their most personal scores. As evidenced by Gary’s very reactionary rules regarding the use of wishes to increase ability scores, it’s clear that players have wanted to increase these scores since the earliest days of the game. I’m with them on this one.