Stat generation

The method of stat generation (as well as the traditional range) in D&D and D&D-derived games has always struck me as a little bit odd.  This is particularly true with slightly newer rules-sets (although by "newer" I still mean going back to the B/X rules at least.  By this I mean that the 3-18 range, when the scores don't mean very much and the modifiers do, has always struck me as very unusual, and frankly even pretty clunky.  On the other hand, it's a little bit hard to roll up a range of -3 to +3 or -4 to +4 r even -5 to +5 for some d20 games because no dice really have that range.  For FANTASY HACK, the range is -4 to +4 before adjusting for race.  You can get pretty close with a d8-4; you'll drop the very lowest number in the range for -3 to +4, but that's probably just fine.  I'll have to also change the way hit points are done: 10 + STR, I think.  And I'll have to rewrite the ability damage rules, and make sure that nothing with regards to ability damage is suddenly more powerful than I meant it to be.

I think with Ability damage, getting to -5 is the same as bottoming out at 0 in the D&D paradigm.

Anyway, I'm just noodling with this right now.  I've lived with the slightly uncomfortable more traditional stat range, in part because it's so traditional.  And it's not exactly like this change, if I do go ahead and make it, which I may or may not, is exactly earth-shattering; I've thought of alternatives like it long before I even adopted m20 at all, and I've seen others noodle with the same concept.  However, given the premise and point of m20, the more I think about it, the more I think that if I can make minor modifications that make the design more elegant, then I should.

Of course, it would be even more elegant, if the range was simply 1-8.  For that, I'd have to redo all of the DCs for everything, including AC, up by +4 to +5, of course, but that may not be a bad idea.

Hmm... more thought.