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Jan 16, 2013 -- 6:44PM, Jenks wrote:

Jan 16, 2013 -- 5:17PM, TheOneWhoCallCrow wrote:

Jan 16, 2013 -- 5:08PM, PinkRose wrote:

Jan 16, 2013 -- 8:33AM, Garthanos wrote:

Jan 16, 2013 -- 8:30AM, TheOneWhoCallCrow wrote:

Con Fighter: Oh a fireball trap? Watch me as I blow the flames off my chest hair. 

Now if he could blow out the flames entirely ..... hehehe.

That would be too magical.
Fighters don't get nice things, remember?

I didn't know blowing out the candle on a birthday is magical. No matter why I get a free Wish. :D

Great? Now birthday cake can let Fighters cast wish? Why play a Wizard? -_^

Ritual magic should be accessable to everyone :p

The perceived problem with CON seems to stem from the fact that CON is the only ability score that is entirely internal. That is, you cannot use your CON to cause an external effect on the environment. You can attack and move things with STR, dodge attacks or play guitar with DEX, influence others with CHA, and use your knowledge, reasoning and intuition to make informed decisions and relate them to others with INT and WIS. With CON, you are just tougher. You can't make others take less damage or be less susceptible to poison with CON. You can't make someone recover from a cold faster from being healthy. 

Your CON score is a personal affair. It takes more damage to drop you and kill you, you are stronger against poison and disease, you can run longer without tiring and hold your breath longer, and so on. But you can't attack with CON, react to danger with CON, sense the unseen with CON, etc.

The only thing I can think of that would be an outward effect of CON (outside of arbitrary magic systems based around it for balance's sake) is it could make you more attractive (to those who find physically fit members of your race and gender attractive). But this still would not involve a CON check. You wouldn't roll to see how fit you are at the moment. You wouldn't roll to see how attractive someone finds your build.

But I don't think any of this is really a problem. In a world full of poisonous creatures and assassins, strange diseases, reasons to run and hold your breath, and people and things trying to hit you with sharp objects, CON is valuable. If you want to make it more valuable--say on an even level with other scores, where using it as a dump stat is a penalty--there is an easy solution: make monsters, traps, poison, diseases and other hazards deal more damage. Give every class the same hit die and HP per level *, have CON give you bonus hit points (because you're tougher), and add your CON mod to the amount of hit points you heal when you spend hit dice (because you recover from fatigue and wounds faster). 

* I say this because having more hit points based on picking a class that engages in more physical activity and combat doesn't really make much sense. If the grueling training and physical activity makes you tougher, it should increase your CON instead of bypassing it and going straight to hit points. If your expertise and experience in combat is supposed to make you more skilled at avoiding damage and turning potentially fatal blows aside, this should be reflected in your AC. If it's about fatigue and staying in combat longer before dropping partially due to exhaustion, there should be a fatigue mechanic involving a CON check. You can give the fighter a +1 bonus to CON to represent his training, but if he uses it as a dump stat, then he shouldn't be tougher than a wizard who puts a 14 in CON.