Ability Score Damage

Are ability scores inviolate factors or are they as vulnerable as Hit Points in your campaign? 

The weight and complexity of rules tied to ability scores should factor in with the game utility of ability score damage. In a game where modifiers are consistent and few in number and don’t impact many aspects of the game ability score damage could be a useful means of having characters face harm and disability that isn’t as immediately lethal as HP loss (can be). If ability score modifiers (and not the direct scores themselves) have an impact on many points in the game with a variance between ability score direct ability damage is a nightmare of book-keeping.

Here’s an example by comparison of two different Strength Ability Tables

Score	Melee Attack	Open Doors	1-H wpn Dng	2H-wpn DMG	Carry
3	-3	1 in 10	-3	-4	200
4-5	-2	1 in 8	-2	-3	400
6-7	-1	1 in 6	-1	-2	600
8	0	1 in 6	0	-1	800
9-10	0	2 in 6	0	0	1000
11-12	0	2 in 6	0	0	1200
13-14	0	2 in 6	0	+1	1400
15	0	3 in 6	0	+1	1600
16	+1	3 in 6	+1	+2	2000
17	+2	3 in 6	+1	+3	2400
18	+3	4 in 6	+2	+4	3000
19	+4	5 in 6	+3	+5	4000

Score	Modifier
3-4	-2
5-8	-1
9-12	0
13-16	+1
17-20	+2
21+	+3

Which one do you imagine would require less paperwork to track ability score damage? Not real hard is it? I’d stay away from direct ability score damage to strength as a DM if I was playing a campaign with such modifiers, the second table makes it more appealing. The second table makes ability damage more appealing because there is less paperwork and less frequent paperwork. Sure some folks would complain that there is no difference between a 17 and an 18… until they have a character with an 18 take a point of ability score damage and still keep the same bonuses.

How long character could languish with ability score damage should also be a factor in using it in game. Is it permanent? Well don’t be too shy about applying it, except of course you are seriously pissing-off players by changing their characters on them. Is it something that fades quickly, why are we bothering again? If ability damage is quickly recovered changing scores and adjusting modifiers is just an exercise in transient paperwork, far better to apply a condition like “Weak: weapon damages are halved” if it passes in 10 minutes. (The same should apply to bonuses).

A consideration for ability score “damage” is the negative attribute. By example:Strength could have Weakness, Charisma could have Ennui.  The negative attribute can be a tally against which normal scores can endure and no penalty is really suffered until a threshold is achieved (Weakness piles on with no penalty until it beats the Strength score and after that the difference causes a -1 penalty) or the negative attribute can be applied as a direct penalty to all actions from the get go (Each point of Ennui is a penalty applied to actions involving Charisma). The direct penalty is easy book keeping but can really piled on oddly… for example if Weakness exceeds STR  you are immobilized , this means a STR 18 character can stay on his feet while weaker and far more feeble then as STR 3 character will ever be. The tally  method is moderately simple bookkeeping but it creates the issue where it is relatively meaningless against high score characters unless it piles on quickly and stays for a while.

As I mentioned above durability of ability score damage has a serious impact on the game that should be considered. If it’s brief and transient ability score damage should be a conditional modifiers to situational impact on a related subset of an ability Such as: Weakness: ½ weapon damage, or Clumsy: drop anything on hand on a roll of 1 in 6. 

The more durable ability score damage is the smaller quantities it should be applied in and at lower frequency. If an unusual monster like Shadows cause 1d4 STR damage and the damage takes weeks to recover that will be what makes shadows fearsome and memorable, a lot of other things in the game shouldn’t cause STR damage. Let’s say you replace the book-keeping nightmare of Level based Energy Drain with 2pts of CON per it will make the threat far less meaningful if the Constitution can be easily regained by spell or simple rest (that could be a good thing) as opposed to reclaiming lost levels (maybe the damage is removed if an when a new level is reached).

Ability score damage also has the effect of making levels less significant. Let’s face it levels and gaining them are a big part of what the game is about. Ability scores are not tied to level in most old-school games so a high level character is just as vulnerable as a low level character (if saves to resist the damage are not involved). This change in significance of levels can have an effect on play that can reign in the difference of levels or make players of high level characters feel cheated by the meaningless of hard won levels.

To use or not use ability score damage in a campaign is a complicated matter that a DM should evaluate with caution: Are characters going to be changed forever or are you just wasting everyone’s time with mostly useless paperwork? Your mileage will vary, just take a few of the points above into consideration before you take the plunge.