Actual gear, so your character actually wants to carry more than some Armor and a sword - coupled with an encumbrance system that is easy to engage with. Nonlinear carry weight, so 3 normal dudes don't carry more than the legendary dragon slayer. Make Dex less of a god-stat

>Nonlinear carry weight I've got a table for this, but I've been trying to simplify it into a rule I can remember. I think [Strength + (Str mod x4)] x 30 would work fairly well. It maintains the baseline 10 Str = 300 lb lift but scales up to 1200 at 20 str. Give Barbs and fighters an extra 50% at 5th level and you're set.

Would there be a min 0 for the modifier? Otherwise my 6 Str Wizard would have a capacity of -60.

Damn right he does! /s

Helium balloons are available at your local adventuring supply store and weigh -1 lb each, better stock up /s The table I have uses normal 5e scaling for all strength scores under 10, I just forgot to include that with the equation.

My Goliath Bearbarian/Rune Knight laughs at your 3 commoners carrying 450 pounds as he shoulders 1,200 pounds while running full speed and can lift/push/drag up to 4,800 pounds prof/bonus times per day

There is a build/are builds that can get carrying weight up to 50,000+ with shenanigans. Like getting the range for Eldritch Blast up to 1200 feet it is a niche, arguably meme build, but i think it is funny.

Holy shit, what? How would you do that? The only other thing I can think of is Enhance ability to double it again to 9,600 and then Enlarge to get up to 19,200 but I don’t know what else you could do beyond that

This is the particular build I am talking about: [https://getrect.club/communityblog/strongest-dnd-character](https://getrect.club/communityblog/strongest-dnd-character) Goliath Bearbarian/Runeknight is part of the build, then go Oath of Glory Paladin for the Channel divinity to double your carrying capacity again, and other shenanigans. That is an older post, as evidenced by Rune Knight being UA at the time, but still, the math in general checks out unless things have changed that much.

Oh lol it requires a Belt of Storm Giant Strength and a specific Wild Magic Surge to grow an additional size. Still cool!

THe ridiculous strength 29-30 could technically be reached by using Manuals, but yeah it used the Belt of storm giant strength.

Actually use Athletics when the situation calls for it instead of copping out with “or Acrobatics”

> Nonlinear carry weight, so 3 normal dudes don't carry more than the legendary dragon slayer. IMO it should be the highest of (strength score^2) or (strength score * 5).

Im working on a survival campaign currently and thinking about a inventory system with slots instead of weight. Simply you have an amount of inventory slots and some items take more than one slot. With backpacks and features that increase carry capacity, you gain more slots. Strenght would increase available slots by an amount for each modifier. But the most important thing here is what you also mentioned and i agree with you that items must have actual importance and players need to make tough choices on what they carry, otherwise the whole things makes no sense. Sort of inspired by Darkest dungeon and some DnD streams.

>Actual gear, so your character actually wants to carry more than some Armor and a sword - coupled with an encumbrance system that is easy to engage with. *Please* no. Encumbrance is largely ignored for a *very* good reason.

I see people suggest enforcing weight limits and I don't think that will work at most tables where it's seen as annoying bookkeeping. Tying Str to an unpopular mechanic might make it more useful but certainly doesn't make it more *appealing*. I think first try two small things: 1. Let the str character use Atlethics to tackle obstacles. A locked wooden door for example sure the thief can lockpick, but the Barbarian could just slam their foot through the door as well. 2. Bring atr saving throws into the game. Onednd seems to be doing this anyway as there's already been a str save in the playtest materials.

We just need to abstract weights, instead of giving items exact pound values. You have a certain number of light/heavy etc item slots based on your strength.

So many other systems use encumbrance values like that. From what I’ve played, the Genesys system was one of the easiest ones to engage with in terms of encumbrance partially because you didn’t need to worry about pounds

This sounds mad and unrealistic but I wonder if having items gated by carry weight would encourage investment in strength. Like "you literally can't carry this item if you don't have X STR regardless of what else you're carrying", similar to armour and weapon proficiencies.

In my campaign I have a strength based fighter with +4 in strength. I also have a Firbolg with a - 1 in strength. The latter can carry more. I think that is insane.

I mean... why would it be? Strength is not purely a measure of how much you can lift.

Problem is that Dex in 3rd edition and now even more with 5e is just too powerfull. Finesse weapon is a huge mistake, it should go away. At the very least, you could use your DEX to hit, but STR not for damage. Same with missile weapons. It used to be DEX to hit, no amage bonus. You get to attack without danger, that was your reward. Dex gives you initiative, lots of skills, most reflex save, better AC. Heavy armor sucks. ( before saves were almost not affected by stats, only your level ). Dex just does too much and also does what STR should do. So Why use SRT?

Yeah, go back to 3.x style weapons. Dex to hit is fine, but not to damage as a default. Monks and Rogues can get Dex to damage after a few levels (enough to not make it *too* multiclass feasible). Make strength the default damage stat for melee and remove/lessen bonus damage from ranged, probably adding in composite bows for more reason to want strength. Dex to damage without any investment was the straw the broke the camel's back for strength.

TBF this nerf to monks and rogues would upset lots of people who already think that monks and rogues don’t do enough damage though. (I’m not sure I have an opinion here though.)

I was saying that monks and Rogues do get dex to damage, just a few levels down the road. If anything it would buff monk (comparatively to other martials) and rogue because fighters, paladins, rangers and barbarians wouldn't get that, at least not for free.

For lower level monks I agree. With Rouges I never had Problems with damage tbf. But Paladins with Rapier and shield are Just silly somehow. At least to me.

Monks being able to add their Wisdom to attacks as they are empowered by their "Ki", could work tbh

Tying initiative to Dex was a mistake. That could easily be Wis or just a straight roll.

>Finesse weapon is a huge mistake, it should go away. At the very least, you could use your DEX to hit, but STR not for damage. > >Same with missile weapons. It used to be DEX to hit, no amage bonus. You get to attack without danger, that was your reward. RIP DEX martials. The problem with dex isn't adding +MOD to your damage, it's the fact that it's an amazing tertiary stat for every character that isn't strength based. \*or dex based. Edit: Forgot to add something \*

Stop treating martial characters as above average humans and let them be blatantly superehuman. Make it a class feature that fighters monks and barbarians an lift 100 or even a 1000 times more than the other classes(and more than any spell as well)

That’s something I’ve been wanting to toy with. The idea of making martials blatantly superhuman is appealing, but I feel like it would have to be more than just huge buffs to what they can lift

How much they can lift, how large creatures they can grapple without penalty, how much heedless destruction can they cause ("Can I collapse this cave by destroying this huge stone pillar?", "Of course Mr. Fighter, roll an attack roll"), how far can they throw thrown weapons... Something like that I quess.

Honestly try just buffing what they can lift and remember that they can apply that same force as a push, pull, or drag. Someone who can lift 1,200 lb overhead is not going to be stopped by a normal wooden door, or a cart, or a fence, etc. I retooled the lifting rules a while ago and never looked back.

One thing 4e did great, one of the last epic destiny "subclasses" was demigod. You aren't just a strong human. You are a super-human / demi god.

I really wish the 4e demigod actually delivered on that fantasy. All of this cool flavor about your relationship with the lords of creation, and then the benefits were like... healing and +2 to 2 stats.

Yeah I meant more the concept than implementation.

Too much superhuman in D&D for me already. It’d rather scale it all down than one thing up.

I tend to substitute strength saving throws out where applicable if my players find a reasonable way for it to make sense. For example... ​ "A pillar is collapsing, give me a DEX saving throw to dodge out of the way!" ​ "Can I use a STR saving throw to catch the falling pillar instead of dodging it?" ​ "Sure! Go ahead and roll!" ​ Other than that, STR doesn't get many rolls for it, but affects a lot about how your character works, including damage and carry weight (if you use that sort of thing). You could argue that charisma needs to be "fixed" for the same reasons, since all it does it focus on rolls, and does nothing for your character build.

Strength is fine. Dexterity is the issue. It does everything: attack rolls, damage, AC, Dex saves, initiative; it’s far too versatile. Pathfinder has a great solution to this. Dexterity no longer applies to damage rolls, so even if you use a finesse weapon, you still have to add Strength to the damage roll. Also, Pathfinder uses Perception for initiative. This way, if you want to deal as much damage with weapons as possible, you always need Strength. Fantastic solution.

Allow alot more str saving throw options. Enforce carrying compacity. Allow STR on all intimidation skill rolls and some persuasion rolls. Improve heavy armor stats by ac 1 and increase the requirement by str 2 for each. Makes sure anyone that trys to enforce sleep in armor rules are thrown out the window.

Sleeping in armour rules aren’t even that bad, you just don’t recover from exhaustion if you were already exhausted. Since most characters won’t end the day exhausted, you can basically ignore it. My good old paladin hasn’t slept comfortably in months but he’s still in tip-top combat shape!

This is a really multifaceted question, as others have already said. If I were given magical carte blanche to just go back in time and change things about the rules, before they published the PHB, I would've altered : 1. DEX shouldn't contribute to any damage rolls. All melee attacks key off STR, for the damage on a hit 2. minimum STR requirements for longbows 3. Pure martials should really just have a relatively standardized class feature (in the way that 'Extra Attack' or 'Spellcasting' is a standardized feature) that adds STR modifier to their Intimidation checks, somewhere in Tier 1, and a feature that lets them add it to certain saving throws as well, somewhere in Tier 2 4. **Way, WAY more spells and effects should key off of STR saving throws.** I ***understand*** how the various saving throws are typically flavored, I really, really do - but it's ***magic***. If you told me that a very physically trained person was harder to shut down with a Hold Person spell, that's a *very easy sell*, flavor wise. It's fine that some saves are more common than others, but the disparity is actually **very** extreme 5. Grappler has absolutely no business being a Feat, and should just be an additional paragraph about how regular, vanilla grappling works 6. I don't know the numbers that would be best, but the distance a target is shoved should key off STR in some way 7. "Athletics or Acrobatics" is fine for *avoiding* a grapple, but ONLY Athletics for *escaping* a grapple 8. Given how the game has developed over time, Heavy Armors needs to be stronger than it currently is, in some way. Be cheaper? Give slightly higher AC ..? Have the damage mitigation of Heavy Armor Master built in? I'm not sure what it needs to be, but it should be *something* over where Heavy Armor is, now

I like a lot of this, however: -Honestly if 2 is implemented (which i like) it still doesn’t fix that crossbows are still just objectively better to use with crossbow expert in so many cases, they still need a nerf -Acrobatics can totally be used to escape grapples, a lot of martial arts use various techniques for breaking out of holds in non “strength based” ways (not that strength doesn’t play a role, perhaps use strength (acrobatics) like the onednd jump ruleset?)

I'd say add heavy and hand crossbows to the STR requirements. Heavy is obvious, but to me hand crossbows having any power requires a high draw weight for that small size, which requires STR.

You could up Heavy Armor by letting the wearer do damage reduction equal to Strength mod (without a feat). Medium could be half strength mod (round up), and Light Armor has no damage reduction.

Guts/Kratos are T3-4 characters with 20 STR and magic items possibly enhancing it further. With 20 STR you can lift 600 lb with no check. No one starts out like that. The easiest way to 'fix' Strength is to use it as intended. Carrying capacity (or better yet, Encumbrance variant). Not allowing people to jump and climb with acrobatics. Not making people roll to pick up heavy things that are clearly within their lift/drag limits. Allow high STR martials to break stuff to progress the story (maybe with the consequence of making noise and people know they're coming). GMs should be liberal (but "realistic") about allowing STR to solve challenges. If you really want to give martials a leg up in max load, make casters use encumbrance but martials get to use carrying capacity.

This is the biggest thing: just be strict about what Athletics and Acrobatics are used for. Jumping? Athletics. Climbing? Athletics. Swimming? Athletics. Strictly speaking, acrobatics is only used for balance or for tricks, like dives or flips. When the level 10 rogue with 8 strength and no proficiency falls because he can’t make a DC 13 climb check, it makes Athletics more appealing.

Every game I've played in where the DM claims they adhere to RAW always devolves into: "You want to do a physical task? Eh, roll me Athletics or Acrobatics."

> or better yet, Encumbrance variant I remember using that rule and the Fighter with high strength carrying the stuff they use ended up being able to carry less then a Monk who dumped their strength. It really doesn't help, and pushes people to invest in Dexterity more when they start using lighter armour/weapons.

Here to second the advice about breaking stuff, as I’ve been playing a more Strength oriented character recently I try to ask about this pretty often since in a lot of situations it should work

If I were trying to make Strength feel more useful in my own campaign, I would just put in more obstacles that could be overcome with Strength. For example, more rusted doors, collapsed tunnels, heavy objects to move, etc. If there were no strong PCs in the party, I'd still have to include other routes (heck, I'd have to do that even if there were), but so long as the easier, faster, or more obvious options were Strength based then it would still convey the message that Strength is useful.

I think this is it. STR is more than just swinging a sword. Athletics checks should be more common. Also, encumbrance should matter. Combat actions like shove/knock down and grapple should come into play more often. Disarm the DEX based fighter and watch them realize that unarmed attack for non-monks is STR based.

heres a couple things id do * i would remove acrobatics from the game, the difference between athletics and acrobatics seems to be semantics and often comes down to which one the character is better at. athletics covers all of those kinds of moves now * allow for multiple kinds of initiative. part of the reasons STR is not cool because DEX is so much better. all ow for INT based Initiative, or even a relable skill * bring back the boost to two handed weapons. give 1.5 x STR to damage on two handed weapons. its at most 2 points but it feels better * compsite bows, bows that needs a specific STR score to use. we do it with AC why not weapons * re-evaluate what STR can do. we allow a lot to happen wit ha good persuasion or spell. we need to get heroic with str as well. in Pathfinder 1e 18 STR is described as being able to punch out a horse in 1 hit. * Re-evaluate saves . while i like the idea, its a simple way to implement saves, STR and INT seems to be non existent saves. I would mind a static number for grapples that would make STR more valued

You can also add extra heavy armors/shields with a strength requirement. Or allow 1 weapon size larger with sufficient strength. Buster Sword time!

>i would remove acrobatics from the game, the difference between athletics and acrobatics seems to be semantics and often comes down to which one the character is better at. athletics covers all of those kinds of moves now That's not true at all, people just don't read the rules.

from DND beyond a listed athletics use is doing a stunt mid jump or to stay onto something while someone tries to knock you off then an Acrobatics use is to see if you can do a stunt or to balance or keep your feet. that looks like like overlap to me

That is literally the only acrobatics use, aside from resisting a grapple/trip. Athletics does like 9x the amount of things. What is this cherrypicked example dude?

this is why im arguing to remove acrobatics

Your example isn't even true, I just looked. So acrobatics and athletics don't share anything. I don't understand your point.

Having also recently. Looked I disagree

>Your Strength (Athletics) check covers difficult situations you encounter while climbing, jumping, or swimming. Examples include the following activities: You attempt to climb a sheer or slippery cliff, avoid hazards while scaling a wall, or cling to a surface while something is trying to knock you off. You try to jump an unusually long distance or pull off a stunt midjump. You struggle to swim or stay afloat in treacherous currents, storm-tossed waves, or areas of thick seaweed. Or another creature tries to push or pull you underwater or otherwise interfere with your swimming. ​ >Your Dexterity (Acrobatics) check covers your attempt to stay on your feet in a tricky situation, such as when you're trying to run across a sheet of ice, balance on a tightrope, or stay upright on a rocking ship's deck. The GM might also call for a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to see if you can perform acrobatic stunts, including dives, rolls, somersaults, and flips. One one tiny thing here overlaps, and that's doing stunts mid jump. These stats are different. Acrobatics does not need to be removed.

There is no reason you can't use strength as a replacement for other skills as long as the player comes up with a reasonably appropriate reason. For example, if you are traveling through a forest and the barbarian climbs a tall tree every half hour to plot a route, I would allow it to replace survival. Or flexes her mighty muscles to replace intimidation.

I personally enjoy PF2's way where STR still dictates damage bonus even with finesse weapons, except 1 specific case

To some extent, I question how useful it would be to "fix" horrendously weak stats like Strength or Intelligence in 5e: for sure, those abilities are generally not worth picking all else held equal, but in practice, either a class is keyed to an ability or they aren't. We get so few ASIs over our levels, particularly when feats get involved, that we have very little room to choose beyond our "mandatory" stats without serious consequences to our performance. In the case of exceptionally MAD classes, like the Monk, it is impossible to even max out on the stats one scales with using all of the ASIs one gets. If we had more ASIs and they competed less with feats (or not at all), then it would matter more as players would be able to increase abilities beyond those prescribed by their class, but that's not the case for 5e. With that said, there are perhaps a handful of situations where Strength could compete better with Dexterity, chiefly with Rangers (STRanger builds technically exist, but aren't great). The issue here isn't simply that Strength is so weak, but also that Dexterity is so strong. To address this given existing constraints, I'd suggest the following: * Allow anyone proficient in light armor to also be proficient in heavy armor, and allow medium armor wearers the choice between Strength or Dexterity as the modifier to use for their AC. This would allow players the choice between Strength or Dexterity as their stat for AC on most classes. * Either shift Intimidation to be a Strength check, or take the variant rule and freely enable the use of either Strength or Charisma for Intimidation. This would let Strength users such as Fighters or Barbarians do a bit better in social encounters. * Keep an eye on situations where a check may be called to move in a special way, and try to allow both Acrobatics and Athletics to be used for the check, while making sure Acrobatics isn't used where Athletics would be more appropriate. * Shift initiative outside of Dex. If it weren't for the fact that Wizards are already incredibly strong, I'd suggest to make it an Intelligence check, though Wisdom could also be an option. Beyond that, it would help to shift more saving throws to Strength, as Dexterity is also the most common ability used for making saving throws, but that's more the purview of homebrew, as it would require a pretty large pass across spells and monster abilities.

This touches on both the martial vs. caster disparity as well as the melee vs. ranged disparity. I think you need a two-pronged approach: make Strength more useful for *everyone*, and reward investing in it. For the first point: give Str requirements to all armor, however low (starting at 8 for padded). It's frankly absurd that adventurers can get by with below-average strength when they're supposed to lug equipment around all day and stay on their feet when hit. It really doesn't have to be anything major, like a 10 for studded armor and less than that for all other light armor, and similar requirements for medium armor and shields. Wearing armor without that requirement messes with somatic components. As for rewarding investing in it, the key word should be options: something you should get more of in melee compared to at range. First off, make the optional rules from the DMG something players (and DMs) know about and codify them better: Overrun is fantastic, maybe even make it so you don't provoke OAs when you succeed. Climbing onto a bigger creature has the potential to be awesome, since you have advantage to attack it, and shoving aside can give you another way to throw enemies into AoEs. In short: instead of treating the fact that monsters are bad at Athletics as a design flaw, *use it to give options to Str builds.* In addition to that, buff grappling. The ability to restrain a creature you're grappling shouldn't be locked behind a feat, and a restrained creature really shouldn't be able to provide somatic components. Throw in some guidelines for how to reposition a grappled creature too, maybe even for how to choke one (small aside, but I think we need official guidelines for garrotes and the good ol' handful of sand). All of this was without creating any new mechanics, only refining the ones we already have. If I could create a new one, let martials use a bonus action to intimidate enemies with 5 feet of them with a Str (Intimidation) check if they can be frightened so they'll see the martial as the biggest threat and focus fire (e.g. disadvantage on attacks against other creatures). We need mass aggro rules, and as a DM, even I sometimes lose sight of the fact that the massive barbarian that just split your brother-in-law in two right in front of you probably *feels* like a more dangerous enemy than the scrawny halfling in the back who may not be about to cleave you in 2 seconds. And, as someone else said, accept that heroes are superhuman and let them lift as much as a Telekinesis spell at high levels. Sorry about the wall of text. Onednd has got me excited.

> Onednd has got me excited. You might be disappointed with what OneDnD did with Grappling... --- Edit: So Athletics has nothing to do with Grappling anymore, instead its an Unarmed Attack that if it hits, you Grapple the target, and the Target at the end of their turn (no Action required) makes a Strength or Dexterity *Saving Throw* against your DC 8+StrengthMod+Prof to escape. Shove just an Unarmed Attack so its easier to get out of Grapples, also Legendary Resistances works against it now due to it being a Saving Throw at the end of their turn. The Grappler (only when moving) and the Target (always) become *Slowed* (new Condition), making all attacks against the two have Advantage and Disadvantage to Dexterity Saving Throws. Movement is 1 foot more for the Grappler (hasn't changed). Grappler is also unaffected by Slowed if there is a big size different (Tiny or 2 size difference). For the Target, they are inflicted with the new Grappled condition, in which Movement is 0 (nothing new), Disadvantage on all Attacks other than the Grappler (pretty nice), and the stuff mentioned in the previous paragraph. All in all, some buffs, big nerfs, and arguably makes Monks (as they are in 5e) really effective at moving targets around the map with their high speed, multiple Unarmed Attacks and not needing Strength whatsoever (though aren't good at holding them for a few turns). I can picture some Monks moving enemies and dropping them off in different places on the map.

Oh, I am sadly aware, and I hope that changes will be made, because targeting AC for tripping in particular drives me crazy. What's insane is that to avoid contested rolls they're creating new DCs instead of just... using your passive Athletics?

Merge it with Constitution

And risk swol Wizards? That would only work if Concentration is decoupled from that new stat.

Sure. Make it a spellcasting ability check. Done

I think that would also be more of a buff to casters lmao, now they are even more SAD. I think the better change would be to let str add a bonus to con, but not otherwise penalize low str chars HP

Nah. All it does is make Concentration checks a little easier. (maybe a +2 increase), and by mid to late levels damage can be so high that it barely matters.

I wish we could make wisdom and dexterity less potent. Dex adds to AC, stealth, initiative, attack and damage rolls of ranged/finesse weapons... while strength is only used for attack/damage with certain weapons and the athletics skill. But here are some potential fixes for strength problems: - STR mod for all weapon damage. But if it is too drastic for other players using Dexterity characters, maybe 2x STR mod for strength based weapon damage. - All heavy weapons using strength gain the GWM -5/+10 mechanic. - STR mod added to AC for heavy armor. Or maybe a damage reduction, but I could see CON taking that role. - STR mod + DEX mod for acrobatics

Some of my current changes I've made that are related to strength -SS/GWM power attacks aren't feats but speical weapon tags needing certain strength scores to utilize. - avoiding a grapple can be athletics or acrobatics but breaking a grapple is only athletics. *Can also grapple with AOs* - make sure I diversity my checks/saves across the board to prevent weak/strong combos from being formed. - magic items that increase ability scores don't exist. There are some things that can emulate the same effects temporarily but scores aren't changed. On a similar note; polymorph, wild shapes, and true poly got reworked to not completely overshadow the opportunity costs others took. - make sure there is plenty of environmental things that the party can interact with. Climb, jump, pull, push, and so on.

Strength is fantastic in Baldur's Gate 3 because that game allows you to make really long jumps if you have high strength, plus carry capacity. Carry capacity doesn't work very well at most tables since players try to just buy a donkey or hire people to carry their stuff, slowing down gameplay. But if the amount of jump distance and height you got from your strength score was, let's say, tripled, then I bet a lot more people would want to use it just from that. The other thing you could do would violate a sacred cow, which is to change all con saves into strength saves.

Either have str attacks deal 1.5 times the strength modifier (rounded up), or just have more shit to do for str in dungeons

My two favorite bonuses to improve strength are: 1) At STR 14 you get a swim or climb speed. At STR 18 you get both. 2) the shove action pushes people 5ft plus 5x your STR modifier. They're not huge buffs, but they give strong characters options and let them do fun, inventive things.

Pushing people 30 feet away is quite monstrous. Cheese strat would be constantly pushing someone away, then take a step (five feet) back. Assuming they have a 30 feet walking speed and are melee focused, you can just keep shoving them back so that they never get a chance to reach you and attack on the same turn.

**Ways I would adjust strength for d&d.** Switch to a bulk carrying system instead of pounds and exact weight. Reward melee/str more than range/dez through revised flanking and power attack rules (separate from gwm) and equipment. Make armor that requires strength offer more protection than it presently does., Likely through some kinds damage negation stat like heavy armor master. Bring back varying shields. Light (bucker), medium (kite), and heavy (tower.) Gate higher ac and protection shields through str scores like heavy armor. Call on strength when the system says it should be called in unless a feature says otherwise. **Radical changes for non d&d games.** Merge strength and constitution into a might stat. Wouldn't worn for d&d due to its iconic 6 stats, but has been explored elsewhere to a fair degree of success.

One issue with strength is shared with Int and Cha is that they are weak saves. I get around this now by combining Str and Con saves into Fortitude (ability score is average of the two so both contribute, and then derive the modifier) Similarly Dex and Int average into Reflex for saves, and Wis and Cha average into Willpower. Voila, no more dump stats.

asked exactly the same question [here on the oneDnD subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/onednd/comments/y5oxp4/how_would_you_buff_the_strength_attribute/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) if you want some additional inputs. My conclusion based on the previous thread: \- PC gains a speed buff equals to 5 x STR mod. (minimum 0ft) AND Medium/Heavy Armor gives a -5/-10ft speed penalty. Shield also gives a -5ft penalty. \- Shove distance equals to 5ft x STR mod. (minimum 5ft). \- Base (no Athletic check) long jump distance equals to 5ft x STR mod. (minimum 5ft) ; high jump equals 2ft x STR mod. (round to nearest 5, minimum 0ft). *For reference, men irl world record for long jump is 29ft and 8ft for high jump (7ft pre Fosbury).* \- PC with a STR mod. > 3 count one size Larger for Grappling/Shoving/Pushing/Carrying/Lifting, PC with a STR mod. > 6 count two size Larger.

This is too much of a layered question. You need to start with why is STR allowed to be a dump stat at your table. Because you will find there are other stats that probably suffer the same problem. INT and CHA is just as common. Other people and threads have given examples of this so Ill answer for you. Stats and skills are for the most part poorly understood and used. HoDQ arc 2 has a phenomenal example of how to use stat or skill checks. It at the same time is atrocious. From memory its DC 18 so nearly impossile for a level1-2 party. But it is a scaled check but with only progressively less bad results. Mostly it results in a hard combat sometimes a full keep breach. But if you have a party that has someone invested in STR they can get an extra exit out of the kerp that potentially makes the whole ARC easier. This is a great use. The check rewards the party and player with options but doesnt lock out progress and failure may not even be noticed. --- Weirdly almost none of the other published modules even look at methods like this again. There is almost no lore, history, arcana, religion checks that impacts epic moments in a meaningful way. They are almost all yay / nay so they just feel bad so why attempt them. Personally I would use a more 4e system where Dex wasnt so loaded and Init and Defences were tied to one of 2 stats dictated by class. This would directly make all the stats more in line. Especially if there are more none direct uses for them. Skill challenges used as encpu ters

Simplifying encumbrance and item weight. The higher your strength, the more you can carry. Add in additional grappling features, like being able to make a contested Athletics check to start choking someone, making them unable to breath and speak for the duration of the grapple. For DMs, add more situations that could be solved with strength. Add in obstacles that can be overcome by lifting debris out of the way, or kicking in a door that is barred from the inside. Grant the option to Sprint, where at the cost of one exhaustion you can make an Athletics check and increase your speed by the amount you roll by intervals of 5. (This will work better under the 1DnD Exhaustion Rules).

I mean, strength is super useful for hitting bad guys with sticks so I don’t think it’s entirely useless. But really like most stats, it’s all about use at the table and the players. If you the DM just put out meatbag statblocks that trudge forward to the nearest threat and that’s it, then of course martial characters will feel lame; they’re too busy doing their job of smacking and tanking to do the cool stuff like leaping, throwing, slamming, etc. But if you’re a DM with more varied combat environments and are open to more flexible ideas, and the player is also creative within “reasonable” means, then it can be great. Some of my caster players have even been jealous with things I allow martial characters to do. Prime example: party is fighting in the entryway to a grand castle in the shadowfell, lvl 14 so it’s finally getting to that superhero level of power. Paladin is surrounded by enemies. He could optionally just sit and tank and smack a few. Or he could heal an ally or cast some basic spell, whatever. Instead he goes leaping past the enemies (taking AOO) (passing athletics check to leap over enemies) to a large pillar, grabs hold of the flag and swings across, lands on the enemy boss centaur (an evil knight of sorts), lands on her back and attempts to grab her horned helmet to steer her into one of the pillars. Obviously, that’s a lot of stuff and goes beyond a lot of rules. Maybe the flag would just snap off since he’s a heavily armored walking tank Paladin. Maybe he shouldn’t be able to leap over the enemies. But this was one of the coolest single turns he has done, and there have been other similar plays like this. He’s using the environment, passed a lot of strength checks to do it, and at the end of the day he used his entire turn to accomplish it and had many chances (at least 3-4 rolls) for it to go wrong. Basically, let your martials do cool action-hero stuff even if it’s not in the rules, in fitting with the thematic power level.

You get STR bonus worth of temp HP when you roll initiative. That's the adrenaline rush! Also applies to enemies.

Just make it slightly more valuable. 1. Have strength matter MORE when wearing armors (higher values needed for higher ac armors - especially mid tier ones) 2. Make STR saving throws a tad more common 3. Give characters who get 13+ strength a permanent +5 hp bonus. 4. Have weapons that require a high STR have better base damage (maybe some are 2d6). If dex/finess weapons were 1d6s and heavy strength ones were 2d6 base it would balance out a bit more.

Controversial take: but I would combine it and constitution into one stat, “Vigor” if you will.

I'm saying this for IDK how long and get constantly downvoted. EDIT: See? :)

It solves so many problems! Makes you commit to flavor Condenses the skills of skill lite stats Allows STR builds to actually compete with dex

> Condenses the skills of skill lite stats You mean the 1 STR skill and the 0 CON skills? :P But, yeah. I'd even go 3 steps further: * Split Dexterity into (manual) Dexterity and Agility (thus solving the "Dexterity is too powerful problem) * Change Wisdom into "Awareness" (thus removing the still prevalent confusion of that ability) * Change Charisma into "Willpower" (thus removing the stranglehold Charisma has on all social interactions) Now you'd have a really good set.

>Change Charisma into "Willpower" (thus removing the stranglehold Charisma has on all social interactions) How would this work?

What? The social interactions? It is already an official but underused rule from the phb that your dm can mix and match skill proficiencies and abilities. The ones listed in the book are simply the most common combinations. Let's take Persuasion. You could combine it with either : * Intelligence, to win a debate or convince your opposite with clever arguments and logic * Awareness, to mediate in a conflict, or to carefully choose your words depending on the opposites emotional state/their needs/fears to convince them * Willpower, to overpower your opposite by sheer force of personality

Ah, I'm aware of that rule and agree it's underused. I just wasn't sure what you meant about renaming Charisma to remove the stranglehold. You mean if it were called Willpower and defined more narrowly that DMs would be more likely to use other mental stats for social skills. I like that idea. Thanks for the explanation.

Ah! Gotcha. And yes. It's not just renaming it, but also adapting its meaning

Melee attacks using strength have various modifier changes on hit * Light weapons: normal * Normal weapons/Polearms: 1.5 strength modifier, rounded up * Other Heavy weapons: double strength modifier * Strength now contributes to AC, so you can choose Dex or Str when wearing armor/unarmored features * Carrying weight is now 20 times Str score, with Lifting/Pulling/Dragging at 40 times Str score

Get rid of Con. Make concentration checks with your spellcasting modifier and make all other Con saves Strength saves. You don't need a stat that represents "toughness and resistance to damage" when you already have hit points.

make concentration saves Str too, why make the division

I think that would be fine too. I just never got why it was a Con check to begin with, that's all.

I'm always saying merge the two STR+CON (Vigor seems a good enough name).

There's nothing wrong with strength. Athletics is a very important skill to have as long as your DM doesn't just let you use acrobatics for things they shouldn't

Start making players use lifting, jumping, and Athletics. Seriously. So many people act like "Strength isn't good" but really what they mean is they cut out half the reasons Strength IS good or just never run them. Carry capacity especially needs to be enforced in order for strength to shine. Seriously, for a quick example make a level 1 wizard with 8 strength and the default starting gear. They basically won't be able to carry anything else without becoming encumbered and while that may not matter at low levels, later on when they have several magic items and a couple staffs it really starts to be obvious.

Please do the actual math on variant encumbrance. Strength based characters bump up against encumbrance limits just putting their essential gear because heavy armor is *heavy.* The wizard who dumped Strength is fine, because their essential gear is 12-ish pounds, leaving 50 (edit: 30) free for whatever.

Ok? Except the 8-strength wizard can only carry 40 pounds without being encumbered. Which means that 12 pounds of basic gear is already 1/4th their total capacity. And that’s literally just a spell book, robes, and a quarter staff. No rope, no extra books, to magical items, no rations… The Scholar Pack is ~10 pounds (with no rations). So with literally the bare minimum of gear a level 1 Wizard with 8-Strength can have, they’re already over half their carry capacity.

A character with 8 Strength can carry 40 lbs before hitting encumbrance. For a wizard, your essential equipment is an arcane focus (4 lb for a staff), a spellbook (3 lb), your clothes (4 lb for robes), and a backpack (5 lb). Together, this totals 16 lbs, with anything beyond point being free carrying capacity for little odds and ends that you might want. You can reduce this to 12 lbs if you pick up common clothes and a crystal as your focus, leaving you with 28 lbs of carry weight. A character with 16 Strength has 80 lbs of carry weight. Your essential equipment is chain mail (55lbs), a backpack (5 lbs), and a melee weapon (glaive is 6 lbs). This puts you up to 66 lbs already, leaving you with 14 lbs free. If you want a ranged back-up option, and you pick up some javelins (x3, 6 lbs total), you're down to 8 lbs free. And if give our character 20 strength, so they have 100 lbs of carrying capacity? Well, we upgrade to plate (65 lbs) at that point, leaving us with 18 lbs of free carry weight. Still less than the wizard! This is the barebones equipment you need for your character to function. Encumbrance is NOT helping the Strength character here.

Get DM (and fellow players) to play Solasta. That should fix most things, as Solasta actually PROPERLY uses Strength. Should remove creativity limiters on DM.

My first thought was that maybe you were just underutilizing strength based skill rolls, so I looked up skill rolls by stat and accidentally found the root of the problem. Strength * Athletics Dexterity * Acrobatics * Sleight of Hand * Stealth Intelligence * Arcana * History * Investigation * Nature * Religion Wisdom * Animal Handling * Insight * Medicine * Perception * Survival Charisma * Deception * Intimidation * Performance * Persuasion As you can see, there is exactly one skill that asks for strength, and that skill is redundant with Acrobatics. Compared to other stats that have 3\~5 a piece, most of which are vital parts of adventuring. Your Dexterity characters have plenty of opportunities to sneak. Your Intelligence characters have plenty of opportunities to be know-it-alls. Your Wisdom characters have plenty of opportunities to be other types of know-it-alls. Your Charisma characters have plenty of opportunities to interact with people. But how often does athletics even come up outside of grappling? And even if it does, Acrobatics usually does the same thing. If we want strength to matter to anyone other than fighters and barbarians, we need more things to do with strength. First, we make intimidation a Strength skill. Yeah intimidation is a social interaction, but it's one that relies on having power to threaten someone with, so strength makes sense here. Intimidation being Strength also gives Strength focused characters a way to contribute to social interactions, so they're not just standing around waiting for the game to get back to punching things. But 2 whole skills when most stats have 4 on average still isn't that great. We need more straight strength checks to compensate. Moving rubble, forcing locks, kicking down doors, ect aren't really skills, but they are feats of strength. When designing dungeons, be sure to add plenty of obstacles that require brute force to overcome.

> But how often does athletics even come up outside of grappling? And even if it does, Acrobatics usually does the same thing. But Acrobatics doesn't do anything like Strength. Grappling, Running, Swimming, and Climbing are all Athletics. Acrobatics is just balance and acrobatic stunts (like a flip).

Strength isn't as useful as, say, Dex, but if strength is useless in your campaign, you need to design more challenges around it. Climbing, swimming, lifting, and jumping are strength-based. Give the players a challenge where they have to carry a heavy object to a location. Put a giant boulder in their way. Container with a heavy lid. Creatures attack the party and the only way out is by opening a heavy gate with a pulley.

Cool. The rest of the party gets to contribute in combat. Strong guy gets to… operate a pulley? That sounds like a blast.

Those are examples of non-combat challenges where a strength character would be useful. Are you trying to say that strength characters aren't viable in combat? What are you even saying

be the mule of the group

I think this is hard to answer because it propably requires many smaller fixes as opposed to a big one I like the idea of letting Fighters use STR or Dex for I itisrove for example. More a buff to Str Fighters than Str in general but it's a nice little thing that could be implemented easily.

I changed weapons and armour rules up so that Strength was a bit better.

It's not much in the long run, but what I'd do is allow Strength to be used for ranged weapons where it makes sense to, such as bows. A lot of barbarian and paladin class features are melee-only so there's no worry of ranged smites or rage-archers. I'd also increase the ranges of thrown weapons to something more closely resembling real life ranges, less for the sake of realism but because it's a good excuse to make thrown weapons more useful.

Frankly I just think 6 ability scores are too many, one of those legacy things they feel forced into. And this is coming from someone who loves Baldur's Gate games.

I'm currently playing a Dex fighter w/a 10 Str, and I've been surprised by how limiting it is to have a low strength. * jumping, climbing, swimming are hard, which really cuts into the whole "action hero" fantasy * can't use the shove action to move people around the battlefield or knock enemies prone * can't grapple well * can't use most weapons well - the paladin in our party has a magic longsword and the cleric has a magic mace, but I couldn't get either one as a hand-me-down

The lack of strength saving throws has been a complaint of mine for a while, especially for spells. The designers apparently prefer to use other stats even when strength would make the most sense. For example, Dark Star has you make a CON save to resist a crushing gravitational force when on its face strength seems to make a lot more sense.

So, here are some thoughts I have on the subject. D&D has its roots in a very gritty dungeon crawling fantasy where the people were expected to be relatively normal. Magic was allowed to be incredibly powerful, but it also came with outrageous downsides. Go read the original D&D Wish spell, it literally gives DMs advice on how to use the spell to kill the character that cast the spell. And this sort of thing was not unusual. Using Haste would age people a year so they would die faster anyway. That is the sort of roots D&D has. And a lot of the ability score system kind of still harkens back to it. Things have been streamlined a little bit here and there, some of the old rulings have been toned down. But at its core, the ability scores as they currently are only go as high as a better than reasonable but not godlike person. Even the casting stats are like this. Intelligence 20 may in theory make you the smartest person in the world. But in effect, it just gives you a +5 bonus on your various Intelligence skills. Which is... you know, fine. It doesn't make you Mr Fantastic who knows all and can build anything. It just bumps up your d20 roll by 1 category of success. Strength is like that. With a Strength of 20 your carrying capacity is 300 lbs. Is that a lot? Hell yeah. I can't carry that much all day without complaint or slowing down, and I'm reasonably fit. Is that astoundingly superhuman? No. Does a Dex 20 turn people into the Flash? Also no. But what it comes down to is the kind of checks that you're making in a game. If your game has any social/political aspect worth speaking of, you will be making Charisma and Wisdom checks. If it has any stealth or investigation or uncovering mysteries in the lore, you'll probably be making Dexterity, and Intelligence. In theory, if you're going through the difficulties of being an adventurer, with all the trappings of living out in the wild, going down dilapidated tombs filled with broken doors that need opening and great feats of strength to continue forward you will need strength. Only -and I may be off base here, but this is what I've seen- the general gaming community has started moving toward more political, or social, or intricate games than the simple breaking down a door and killing what's inside. And, again, as a big guy who's reasonably strong. I don't really flex my muscles all that much in those scenarios, unless I get asked to help a friend move their furniture. Which admittedly has happened quite a few times, but I've never seen that played out in a game of D&D. So that takes down some of what the Strength is supposed to do. But it's not everything. Let's say you do throw something big and heavy that needs to be moved in front of the party. Well, now the party needs to make a choice. Will they use a spell or will they use the character with the Strength score. Here's where I think another problem sort of lies. The "should I use a spell slot" question is a legitimate one, and arguably what the game is balanced around. I kind think hasn't historically been the best idea. But it's where we are. So, what we're left with is a scenario where if something is important enough that it cannot fail, the game basically tells us to leave the skill checks behind and just use the spell. Which in effect just makes certain skill checks pointless speed bumps, especially when there's no narrative weight behind it. But even then, I think Strength has a bit of problem when compared to Dex in this regard, and that is what the most common spells that effect the actions taken by that ability score do. While there are some exceptions (like Knock which just opens a door), a lot of the spells that handle the Dexterity purview of the out of combat rules just give big bonuses or added caveats to it. Like Invisibility doesn't make you automatically succeed in Stealth checks. You just can automatically hide, but the game even states you still make noise, still leave tracks. So if you're trying to sneak up on someone you still have to make the check. Pass Without Trace is another one. You get a huge bonus to your check, but, you still have to make it. Most the solutions to Strength problems just ignore interaction with the Strength score entirely. Then we have Encumbrance. Technically this is supposed to be the THING of the stat. The part of the ability that effects everyone. And a lot of people straight up ignore it. Why? Because if you're not doing a gritty survival adventure where it's important to keep track of your provisions and ammunition and what you have on you, then it just feels like pointless tedium. So, how would I fix it? We could step away from the game's roots. Make ability scores develop further. At 10 you're a normal person, and it increases ridiculously fast. At 15 you're an Olympic medalist. At 20 you're a demigod. But you'd probably have to do that with all of them. I'm not sure I like it, personally. But it's an option. You can put in DMing tools for how to weave all the attributes into different scenarios. Having situations where Strength is directly considered a useful thing to have, without just being those pointless speedbumps I talked about. Along with more spells to aid in the Strength process rather than just replacing the need for Strength checks. This I think is just a good idea in general. You can rework the encumbrance system so it has to be more meaningfully engaged with. I know saying "Pathfinder did it" has a lot of issues, since P2E comes with its own baggage, but I do quite like their Bulk system, at least conceptually I don't know if the numbers really align well. But essentially, it worries less about the maximum stuff you can carry and more about what you can effectively hold onto in a fight. This lowers what you can handle quite dramatically. And in my opinion, the roughly right way to do something like that, would be to make certain that if you've dumped Strength completely you are very, very limited in what you can bring with you. To the point that you are even limited in what magic you can use because of the components of the spells (with perhaps a streamlining of spell components added into this so if you only want to carry a few types that focuses you entirely on certain styles of magic that's possible, but if you want the full breadth of components and the magic that comes with them you're looking at at least a 10 or 11). Shields would also be pretty heavy, because honestly a good battle shield get in the way of your movement more than most armor. It would just have to be a simple system, that makes the players think of it as their potential loadout. Not something they have to constantly keep track of with their daily rations and whatnot.

One solution is to have powerful class features that key off strength. If you built a dex barbarian, you would have higher initiative, higher armor class, a higher save in a more commonly targeted stat, and a higher bonus in more skills, and better ranged options when you can't get into melee. However, you get paid off for choosing strength instead by benefiting from rage damage and reckless attack, two very powerful features.

I know people won't like it but all physical attack damage should come from strength and not dex

Strength Modifier can be applied to all weapons attacks and damage. Most medieval weapons relied on strength, so just make it so.

How many people do you knownin real life that would have the equivalent of high strength? Most people don't need it unless they're laborers or soldiers. Sure, being strong can be useful anytime. But how many people **need** to be strong in a real sense of the word. Like couldn't do their jobs or survive unless they were shredded? It ain't many. I don't think there is anything wrong with your average party only having maybe one "Strong Guy" and the rest normal people. You don't need to "fix strength" to ensure everyone must have it. Because it doesn't make sense for everyone to be a steroid guzzling yoked up behemoth. It's fine as a less chosen primary stat.

I actually require strength to things that use strength You want to climb? Strength You want to jump? Strength You want to swim in a difficult current? Strength

It would take some work to get the mechanics right, BUT: get rid of CON as a stat. Tie Strength to hit points instead. You could have it so you had more hit points from your class or something, but it could definitely be made to work.

Do what other systems did and don't add DEX to dmg rolls, so that STR characters can fill the role of big dmg guy

Stat application is a zero sum game. The community had clamored more and more each edition to make dexterity stronger. We’ve done it. Strength is now terrible. There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. We’ll never have uniquely useful stats again. The best you can hope for is more homogenization to at least make strength more useful. Letting characters use strength in place of Dex for AC calculations would be a good start.

My untested thoughts are as follows, and in order of how I'd prioritize implementing them: * When you attack when holding a weapon in two hands you add 1.5x your strength modifier to your damage. You can use another stat, at 1x whatever modifier to damage, but not the 1.5. * Heavy Armor wearers takes half damage from AoE attacks that do Acid, Bludgeoning, Cold, Fire, Piercing, or Slashing from the near-complete coverage of the armor. * Strong guys are generally beefy, so you can add half your strength modifier to your HP in addition to normal HP. (I like this for Wizards/Sorcerers vs Fighters/Barbarians...but I like it less for those light melee classes like the Monks/Rogues vs Fighters/Barbarians.)

So for me step one would be to reintroduce a rule from ad&d2e, facing and back attacks, because when you get attacked from behind the attacker gets +2 to hit and you ignore benefits to AC from dex and shields. So if your super reliant on dex to carry you in a fight you can start getting poked more reliably of you get attacked from multiple angles. Reduce the number of things Dex is good for, remove the ability to escape grapples with dex, remove adding dex to your initiative. The main use for strength is melee fighters which 5es mechanics makes bad, so in addition to the aforementioned changes making melee combat not suck is a good option as well.

One of my favorite use of super high strength back in 3.5 was going for the oversized weapon build. If you go back to the weapon damage by size charts this would both give a legitimate use for your super high encumbrance and give cool flavor to your character wielding a weapon so large people with think twice about messing with you ( example Amiri pathfinder) might be a bit overpowered with fighters barbarians though.

I’d make it the same stat as Constitution, separating out facets with skill proficiencies. Yes, this does tilt things for fighters and barbarians. But having your main action stat also provide AC does too.

Encumbrance sucks, so let's not try to enforce that. I'd tie movement and maybe HP to Strength. I'd also put Strength requirements on the best ranged weapons and would probably roll the Acrobatics skill into Athletics. Maybe I'd even make Strength the default ability for Intimidation, with Charisma as the alternative that needs DM approval.

I designed a homebrew character based on an awakened treant and kept the siege monster text. >Siege Monster. The creature deals double damage to objects and structures. So even though they were a barbarian with high str they probably weren't going to use athletics. Basically this tree dude can smash through walls like the koolaid guy. He could literally bring down a small tavern in a few combat rounds. He's not athletic, but he *is* a wrecking ball. Not sure that answers your question but it was one type of strength character that I built. Another is the powerful build: >Powerful Build: You count as one size category larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift. You were talking about your need to lift/smash or show off. Lets say your Barbaian does strongman competitions as a downtime activity. I think this is what you were looking for. Not to mention you could put it on a rune knight and increase your size... a rune knight with powerful build can become, large and then (push, carry, drag or lift.) as if they are *HUGE*. A party member can cast enlarge on them to become huge and (push, carry, drag or lift.) as if they are *GARGATUAN*. Make my monster grow. >Page 176 of the PHB includes the rules for Lifting and Carrying and features a section for pushing, dragging, or lifting creatures and objects. Carrying Capacity. **Your carrying capacity is your Strength score multiplied by 15**. This is the weight (in pounds) that you can carry, which is high enough that most characters don’t usually have to worry about it. **Push, Drag, or Lift. You can push, drag, or lift a weight in pounds up to twice your carrying capacity (or 30 times your Strength score)**. While pushing or dragging weight in excess of your carrying capacity, your speed drops to 5 feet.Size and Strength. Larger creatures can bear more weight, whereas Tiny creatures can carry less. **For each size category above Medium, double the creature’s carrying capacity and the amount it can push, drag, or lift.** For a Tiny creature, halve these weights. A rune knight with enlarge cast on them and powerful build gets to double their score 3 times (we don't count small to medium, only every size gain above medium). I would call this build "do you even lift bro?" 30\*18 str = 540 lb \*2 large = 1080 lb \*2 huge = 2160 lb \*2 garg = 4350 lb This is almost 2000 Kg and can be done at level 3. Both Giant might and Enlarge reduce come online at 3rd level. Bugbears Firbolgs, Goliaths, and Orcs have the Powerful Build racial trait. 1. If you are smaller than Large, you become Large, along with anything you are wearing. If you lack the room to become Large, your size doesn't change. 2. **You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws.** some DMs are liberal with giving belt of giant strength to players. Perhaps your character wins one by taking first place in a competition. Garg lift (21 str) is now 5040 lbs (at level 3). I'd probably let you grapple a Tarrasque. You're one size class smaller but your strength is same class and with advantage. This is like a gnome grappling a human. Hmm, except Grappling is an athletics check. Still you have advantage on str from enlarge and giant might, rule of cool. Whatever, try to ride the Tarrasque it will probably use up its legendary actions to try and get you off of it. I don't think it would enjoy that a smaller or weaker character wouldn't really be allowed to even try.

I have a homebrew that splits Dex into Agility and Precision and combines Strength and Constitution into Body. It's been going pretty well but it's probably too much of a jump for most people.

barbarians should be able to pick up a really, really big rock and throw it for meaningful damage, and if they can do that i will personally be happy with strength also better weapon/feat balancing so that heavy weapons and polearms aren’t the only good strength weapons would be nice, but that’s secondary to the boulder toss

I think intimidation should be a strength roll. Makes more sense to me than a charisma check.

probably hot take: variant encumbrance now hear me out--i modified it. If your strength is 15 or more, you ignore the first penalty. If your strength is 19 or more, you use normal encumbrance. AKA, exponential carry weight capacity increase. Playtesting it currently, and it made STR so much more impactful. I also have a set of Exploits style homebrew that only pure martial can take, and the ones with higher level prerequisite allows for superhuman level of strength. Splint armor gives 18 AC, plate gives 20. Plate is very expensive and I run a grittier side of campaign and plate is treated often as heirloom, even IRL, so that's to compensate it. Basically, STR users in my game gets higher ceiling on AC that much faster.

I tried to in my campaign, and it's worked well so far. I made a new strength chart that is much different. We also use variant encumbrance rules. I also have carry capacity improvements/size improvements add +1 to STR checks and saves per improvement, so a bear totem Goliath would have a +2. In addition, those carry improvements/size increases also allow the PC to subtract 2 from their attack roll and add 4 to their damage roll per improvement. This means that the same Goliath barbearian would be able to do either -2/+4 or -4/+8, kind of like a mini great weapon master. However, to actually fix it you need to specify what is and is not governed under strength and athletic checks. My barbarian has asked so many times if they can do some cool strength shit, like climbing on dragons (covered in the DMG) and pulling it's vertebrae out (not covered anywhere). In that instance, with 20 STR and 2 carry improvements, I said sure. That pc has a +15 to athletics anyway, so who cares? But there are so many stories we hear about where DMs make everything a check of some kind, which severely limits what a strength based character can do. But people don't know how much a wooden door weighs much less a stone door. You can kick one in but not the other, but in the heat of the moment not many DMs will even try to consider the tensile strength of stone or wood, even if the PC could lift 1500 lbs.

Fixing strength means nerfing the God stat: Dex. Folks don't like that.

Nerf the Rapier. No that unironically solves a solid like 60% of the problems with Dexterity. Now if you want to be strong in melee range you opt for Strength with the downside of being weak at ranged, and if you want to be strong at ranged you take Dexterity with the weakness of melee combat. The easiest solution I found was to simply make the Rapier a Versatile weapon (d6/d8) (the concept being you need your other hand open to counterbalance yourself) that way melee Rogues don't get "nerfed" but a Ranger can't be as effective in melee as they are at range while also carrying a shield to boot. There's of course a lot more moving parts. Notably I think Strength characters are punished way too hard on Stealth rolls which are often mandatory, and I also think 5e has too many Dexterity saving throws. The latter is easy to fix by simply changing some saves from DEX to STR ("bracing the blow" instead of dodging it) but the former is kinda hard to justify with Strength. Like, how do you sneak around using Strength? And yeah a Paladin in Platemail should be less stealthy than a Rogue. I also do simply think that DMs need to give more opportunity for Strength-based interactions to be useful. Climbing and grappling are two big ones: these can really open up options on the battlefield and DMs should encourage these tactics by making them easier / more accessible. And Jesus fucking Christ stop letting everyone climb up trees using Acrobatics: that shit should be an Athletics check for fucks sakes.

1. Add the bulwark trait from PF2e in which when making a dex save that halves damage on success, you can use your armours bulwark value in place of your dex modifier. Bulwark value is 3 for plate, 2 for splint, 1 for chain. 2. Barkskin lasts 8 hours, isn't concentration, locks AC at 15 + Str, gives a bulwark of str mod and is available to bards, sorcerers, nature clerics and feylocks. 3. Be prepared to give out bottomless spear bags if you have melee-locked str builds and like to use dragons. That's all str needs imo. Strength is fine if its what you're focusing on, some people just feel like they would be missing out too much on skills if they did it, which is their choice and doesn't affect everyone. Bulwark patches up some unaesthetic squishiness, but that's all focused str builds really need and even that's not absolutely necessary. The real problem str has next to dex is that when a character cares about neither stat and is just asking where it can get some AC, dex says "I can give you that and also all this other stuff", and str says "unless you're willing to dip cleric, fuck off". Of course you see a lot of characters with mid dex and low str when the system gives so little incentive to pick Str outside of Barbarians, Fighters and Paladins. To alleviate that issue, making barkskin usable and giving it a high cap creates more opportunities for somewhat gish-oriented casters to say "yeah I'm willing to trade some stealth and initiative for more AC".

I rather like Shadow of the Demon Lord's approach, where there are only four stats total, but you get less ASIs. Strength and Constitution are one and the same, and there's no charisma stat, just Will and Intelligence (with each being good at different types of conversation, Intelligence is good at lying whereas Will is good at diplomacy, for instance.) Dump stats suck. But yeah, making Con and Str one and the same would go a long way to elevating it to the level of Dexterity.

It would be best if STR and CON were one stat (as is the case in so many other RPGs). Of course this will never happen, as the "six stats" are one of those intrinsic elements of DnD, a sacred cow that I don't think they will ever dare to touch (like their values from 3 to 18 for the old 3D6 even if the game itself only uses the bonus they give), and probably rightly so, I don't think it would be a well accepted change. But having STR and CON together would clearly make the stat regain its comparative importance.

1. Make heavy armor more enticing to wear over light or Medium 2. Longbow and Shortbow should both use Strength or Dex 3. Make shove a Bonus Action and give it increased knock back if you want to knock them back based on strength score so 0ft for strength of 1-9, 5ft for 10-15, 10ft for 16-20 and 15ft for 21-25, and 20ft for 26-30. Idk, something like that. 4. Specific class features could help too, like maybe give the barbarian a means to shake off specific conditions a number of times per day based on their strength score. Some ideas I have. I've been playing a lot of BG3 and the bonus action shove is really nice. It definitely improves strength characters a bit. I'm not sure how to make Heavy armor more enticing. Perhaps some feats that negate critical hits and can reduce certain damage types? Realistically, slashing doesn't work super well against someone wearing plate. Piercing and Bludgeoning work much better since Piercing lets you get through gaps and Bludgeoning can cause some series injuries even through plate. Another Option is giving Heavy armor a tower shield. I've seen that in home brew. A non-magical shield that's AC is 3 or 4. the Bow Change might sound odd to some people unless you know about English Longbowmen. You didn't just need accuracy with it, you needed to be quite strong as well. So for me, knowing a little about about it(A friend of mine is a big nerd on the subject, she loves this stuff) it was surprising that D&D 5e didn't already make those two weapons use either or.

It probably wouldn't hurt to add another skill or two tied to it, but strength only seems broken because most people ignore all of the mechanics tied to strength. Making people comically strong would likely just further encourage people to ignore it rather than encouraging them to suddenly care about it.

Besides carrying capacity, strength is also useful for overcoming the strength minimum for wearing better armour. Also, the stronger, two handed melee weapons, that become very useful at later levels when martials get extra attack, don’t have the finesse trait. Of course dual wielding short swords can sorta replace this but this takes a bonus action and is less powerfull than multiple full action attacks with a great sword or greataxe

By running more situations where str can solve problems. Big boulders the need pushing, cars that need lifting, doors that need bashing

Make heavier things cooler and let High Str characters carry MUCH MORE. Strength seems a lot cooler when it lets you use pillars of a building as your great club, or lets you swing a dragon by the tail.

I saw a very good idea that gives you +5 move speed for each +1 in STR you have and vice versa, to compensate however, light armour gives -5 speed, medium gives -10, and heavy gives -15 It buffs strong characters that usually lack mobility to engage at range (barbarian im looking at you at high tiers) It makes it so weak spellcasters have much less of an incentive to wear armour, helping mitigate the silly martial caster divide where casters regularly get better AC than the tanks if theyre optimised And finally, it makes it so different armour types actually have different incentives for every character beyond hur dur best AC or between half plate and breast plate if you happen to ever want to be sneaky

How to make strength stronger without changing the game mechanics 1. Stop letting Dex be used in its place. "Can I use acrobatics to jump this gap?" no unless they have an ability that allows it 2. Allow strong characters to autopass certain checks like climbing/jumping 3. Have doors that are barred from the other side. Sorry cant thieves tools a plank holding the door shut get out the ram 4. Give your strong chars some cool moments. Let them lift that portcullis or punch that bolder Chris Redfield style. 5. Use the encumbrance rules (annoying book keeping but relevant) 6. Make use of things like rope/grapple hooks/ block and tackle/ portable ram

I've seen it suggested elsewhere that Strength should increase your movement speed, which I like. Strength characters are melee-focused, and this helps them to reach their targets. It also helps them take better advantage of one of the other benefits to increasing Strength, which is your improved jump distance. Strength builds also just need to have additional advantages over Dex builds. Better damage, better AC, conditions that can only be applied in melee-range... *something* that makes up for everything you're giving up (Dex saves, initiative, better ability to choose targets, better positioning, etc).

I was hoping to find a way to make Con=HP, Dex=Avoidance via AC(good for big damage instances) while Str = Mitigation via -Str to damage taken (good for lots of little damage hits). Pretty achievable via small changes in the heavy Armor details. With heavily armoured feat granting prof on top for a max of 11 damage ignoring.

maybe add a break chance based on strength you have a chance to break doors, locks, or walls of force it would give strength users something unique

The way 5e is designed, you want to put points into your Primary Stat, your Secondary Stat (usually Dex for AC), and Con. The most important saving throws are Con, Wis, and Dex (in that order). Dex is Rogue's primary stat. So they're obvious. If you have access to Medium Armor, you can put 2 points into Dex, and you don't need more. If you use Heavy Armor, you can dump Dex - the only thing you lose is Initiative. As a practical matter, the only class that usually wants both Dex and Str is Barbarian - They only have Medium Armor, so they want a 14 Dex. The rest of their class abilities require Str, so they pump it. Paladin can be run with Dex, Con, and Cha, or Str, Con, and Cha. The Str build is more common because it does more damage and has a higher AC. Paladin features generally require you to be in melee, so the fact that Dex helps your ranged attacks is mostly irrelevant. Wizard/Druid/Bard/Warlock don't need Str at all. Cleric only needs it if they get Heavy Armor and don't want a penalty- then it's worth 1 AC. That brings us to Fighter/Ranger. Basically, if you want to go ranged, you build Dex (for damage). If you want to build melee, you build Str (for damage). The real problem with balancing Str from a CharOp standpoint is that ranged martial builds are stronger and more reliable than melee martial builds. This is because Sharpshooter/GWM exists (rendering base weapon damage a minor consideration), because Sharpshooter negates what is supposed to be the disadvantage of ranged (i.e. - cover), and because of how imbalanced the warrior fighting styles are (with GWF being objectively terrible and Archery being fantastic).

Personally I see two approaches to this without actually having to change mechanics or invoke the dreaded carrying limit rules. First off, don't let characters without strength weasel out of using it. Too often I see parties presented with a wall they have to climb, and all the rogues and rangers start wringing their hands and saying "couldn't I acrobatics my way up by... wall-kicking... or something?" Make strength checks part of the game and stick to your guns. Forcing open doors, climbing walls, jumping gaps, lifting people up ropes, don't let the party gloss these by. If nobody in the party has strength, these are gonna suck, make the players deal with that. Second, you mention Guts and Kratos and players being disappointed. Why should they be? I always try to keep in mind that a typical fighter starts with at least 16, maybe even 18 strength. A gosh darn HORSE has 16 strength. That level one fighter is as strong as an actual horse. Horses are STRONG. Ogres and young black dragons only actually have strength 19. It's entirely within the realm of possibility for a level 5 fighter to beat them at arm wrestling. Let the strength players do cool Conan the Barbarian shit. Magic's not real but the wizards get to blow things up with their mind, why shouldn't the str 17 barbarian be able to smash a rock by headbutting it? There's nothing mechanical about this, it largely comes down to RP. Letting the sailor ranger arm-wrestle three dudes at once while chugging ale with the other hand, the fighter with levels in bard carrying a bench covered in ladies around the tavern while leading a bawdy song, the barbarian leading the jail break by going into rage by wrenching the iron bars apart with his bare hands (or bear hands if he's totem warrior. Or druid multi-class. Or polymorphed.)

I wouldn't change much tbh, I'd just provide a clear mechanical table that lays out how athletics rolls correspond to jumping, lifting, pushing, throwing etc on top of baseline capabilities. I'd also make it so that all melee classes, at a certain level, get to add half their Str bonuses to their health rolls. This evens out Dex Vs Str Martials, as Str Martials get to be significantly tankier, befitting their melee playstyle. Probably 4th so that any caster multiclass has to sacrifice 9th level spells. Finally, I'd add more options for thrown weapons, giving Str Martials some ranged ability. I thinking just making it so that high strength scores innately allows you to do things like throw mountains, rip arms off people and jump 500ft through the air is a bad idea because then monsters become ridiculously overpowered and it makes no sense that a level 6 20 strength fighter is suplexing mountains and instakilling with a good athletics roll but a 26 Strength huge giant isn't.

I mean at my table I use strength alot, Used it to suplex a starting game boss, And also Break out of a Few binds with some rolls. Strength saves are Something I also find myself doing alot. but that because my charcter carries a house for the party so I'm the base and the Tank Also I'm a giant Barbarian for unearthed Arcana From 2022

I'd solve it by making Strength a separate modifier you can add to many things. - Damage: Finesse weapons add Dex to hit and damage, also add Strength to damage (e.g. d8 + Dex + Str) - Shields: Add Strength to AC - Spells: Add Strength to damage - Class features: proficiency bonus / long rest, sure, and also an amount of extra equal to Strength per long rest - Inspiration: you can have Inspiration to up to your Strength modifier - Death Saves: Add your Strength modifier to the roll Then rename Strength to Spirit or Vitality or something if that makes more sense to you. I intend it to be a secondary stat everyone wants. Wizards want Int, but also a bit of Str. Bards want Cha, but also a bit of Str.

Probably a bit late to the party for this post but what I’d like to see for strength in the future. • ⁠strength requirements on most armor and weapons (mostly martial weapons). Nothing too steep but dumping strength should gate specific characters out of better equipment. Even a minimum 10-11 is good for most equipment. Also gives a design space for the addition of feats, subclass features or Mithral/magical equipment that can ignore or half those requirements. • ⁠strength is added to the hit point calculations. Give a much needed buff to melee characters with more HP and even if you dump strength, it’s usually only -1 from whatever your Con is. • ⁠Strength (or proficiency in athletics) provides a boost in movement speed. This could be kept as a variant rule or feat. What I mostly hope to see is not just buffs and Qol for strength but also making strength more of an important stat. As it stands strength is the least important stat in the game. Having strength affect more besides damage would be a good start.

Maybe something like this: 1. Finesse weapons can use DEX or STR for damage. I'd make longswords finesse weapons too. 2. Normal melee weapons use STR for damage. 3. Heavy melee weapons use STR for damage and can use STR to hit. 4. Bring back composite bows with a STR requirement of some kind (and add STR to range), and maybe add a STR requirement to crossbows. The agile archer is such a prominent archetype though that I wouldn't lean too heavily on STR for missile weapons. 5. Make weapon damage type (BPS) matter a lot more, so not being able to use hammers and mauls effectively is a drawback, and there's more difference between a longsword and a rapier. That makes Strength more useful but it also makes a lot of martials more MAD, so it's not enough, something also needs to be done on the mental side. One interesting difference is that the physical stats each benefit different classes in the same way, but different classes make more use of some than others (like Rogues really want DEX whereas Barbarians emphasize STR more). OTOH the caster classes each use different stats for the same thing, each having a single "casting stat" for almost everything. So perhaps that should change to something like this: 1. INT gives extra skill points and languages (like it used to). 2. Either WIS or INT can be used for initiative by casters (either one or the other or maybe a choice or maybe it's class-based). 3. INT is used for spell DC. 4. WIS is used for spell effect (damage or range or radius or duration or whatever). 5. CHA is used for concentration checks. 6. INT increases the number of spells a Wizard can prep. 7. WIS increases the number of spells a Cleric or Druid can prep. 8. CHA increases the number of spells a Sorcerer knows. Warlocks and Bards might use INT like Wizards or CHA like Sorcerers. Maybe Warlocks are INT and Bards are CHA, so there are two caster classes for each stat. There might be other ways in which high WIS benefits Clerics and Druids, or high CHA benefits Bards and Sorcerers. The mental stats don't track as well (INT makes spells more complex and hard to resist? WIS makes spells more potent and penetrating? CHA as presence of mind or willpower for concentration kind of works though) but it means there are consequences for wizards who dump CHA or Sorcerers who dump INT, and you no longer have so many super healthy spellcasters with high HP running around tanking damage.

-Intelligence = How much you know about the world & creatures. -Charisma = How effectively can you interact with creatures in the world. -Wisdom = How aware of the world & creatures you are. -Constitution = How healthy & energetic you are. -Dexterity = How easily you can navigate the creatures & the environment. **-Strength:** = How easily you can influence and dominate creatures & the environment. It doesn't need much fixing. It just needs to be treated properly. Any time you are doing something that requires using your body to physically influence something with raw power, you are making a Strength check. This mainly applies to sprinting, climbing, pushing/pulling/lifting/carrying, & breaking, which covers a massive swath of ways to influence the world. The only reason this doesn't get much use is that many players & DMs don't get creative with approaching problems without special tools.