But think about the NADs!

[Merk]

Let's talk attribute dependency. Note: I'm not suggesting anything actually be implemented into 3.5 -- I'm just talking about attribute dependency in general. I'm beginning to like NAD (No Attribute Dependency) as a design concept. In 3.5, an example of NAD design would be the Warlock (at least relative to other classes, like Monks).

To elaborate on why I like NADness, I'll first talk about why I dislike HADness (Heavy Attribute Dependence). Heavy Attribute Dependence is when the value of an ability score influences the capability of a given character to a disproportionate degree. Most classes in the game are fairly HAD, but Casters are especially HAD because you're obscenely rewarded for keeping your casting stat high. Auto-attacking characters are usually HAD on Strength (Str affects your to-hit, in other words, the difference between contributing and not contributing). Martial adepts are probably less HAD than Fighters or Wizards: Their maneuvers and stances don't vary with any stat, their damage is relatively stat-independent, and they may have touch attacks, area attacks, or take 11s to mitigate a lower general to-hit.

Now, as to why I dislike HAD: It makes certain decisions mandatory, at least from a metagame perspective. A Wizard has to be all INT all the time -- well, that's okay, Wizards are in fluff smart people. But everyone, regardless of class, has to have a good CON score. No exceptions. If you have a frail character concept (Raistlin, etc.), you die too quickly. There's no concept space for a 10 STR, 12 CON, 16 INT Fighter (in Core, at least), because your 20 STR Fighter cousin deals 5 more damage per hit than you, which is forgivable, but hits with 5 numbers to spare over you. That means he's contributing 25% more often than you do. (I realize this isn't exactly true / in all cases, but the point stands.)

You can reduce HAD (or introduce NAD) by normalizing quantities. Examples of this:


Warlock is already an example. Their invocations known and power doesn't scale with a stat (unless you want Charisma for DCs, but that's optional), their Eldritch Blast is a touch attack so it hits many enemies even with mediocre Dex. Beyond that, they don't have any real dependency until you start specializing any given build.
jiriku's new Magician (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209772) class is fairly NAD, not depending on a stat for bonus spells. Theoretically you can do just fine with INT 16 and not picking spells that allow saves.
A more radical change would be to rule that attack rolls have fixed bonuses by level. For example, at level 1, you might have an attack bonus of BAB + 6 (you could get this with STR 20 and Weapon Focus), and this would scale with level. However, nothing outside of situational modifiers change it: no STR bonus, no WF, no enhancement bonuses. A more complicated way to do it would be to vary this flat bonus by class (Fighters get +7, Rogues get +5, Wizards get +0) or whatever.

As a side note, I'm sure someone out there has better or more established terminology than I do -- these'll do until someone corrects me.

What are your opinions on this as a design perspective? Do you think attribute dependency restricts concepts? Do you think that reduced attribute dependency is unrealistic?

[TheCountAlucard]

Err, you're aware what "nad" means, right? :smallconfused:

[Daftendirekt]

Err, you're aware what "nad" means, right? :smallconfused:

Non-armor defense!

[Merk]

Err, you're aware what "nad" means, right? :smallconfused:

Based on a quick google search...


National Association of the Deaf
National Advertisting Division
Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide

[TheCountAlucard]

It's also a euphemism for one's private parts, which in turn makes the thread title hilarious, now doesn't it? :smallamused:

[erikun]

For D&D 4th edition, NADs stands for Non-AC Defenses.

More to the point, Wildshape Ranger would be rather NAD (by your terminology) as might the Rogue, since high skill ranks would be more important to skill checks than high ability scores. I think that Artificer doesn't use INT for all that much, and can get by with low/no useful stats. Druid works as well as Wildshape Ranger, although is far better with a significant WIS score.


It's also a euphemism for testicles, which in turn makes the thread title hilarious, now doesn't it? :smallamused:
I'm pretty sure the humor is intentional.

[TheCountAlucard]

I'm pretty sure the humor is intentional.I should hope not; that'd be really juvenile. :smalltongue:

[The Glyphstone]

Hence the over 9000 jokes around 4E's release about Strikers targeting people's NaDs for bonus damage.:smallwink:

[TheCountAlucard]

Hence the over 9000 jokes around 4E's release about Strikers targeting people's NaDs for bonus damage.:smallwink:Really, really juvenile. :smalltongue: Not saying it can't be funny, though.

[Traab]

It would be pretty cool if stats werent all that important for classes. That would let players rp all sorts of interesting concepts, like a brute force wizard with 20 str, who doesnt bother casting knock, he just punches the door down. :smalltongue: Or the super scholar barbarian warrior with 25 int who knows more than most sages and can spout off ancient philosophy in between great cleaving your skull in twain.

It would allow for more flavor specifications of your character if the rules were rewritten and said, "Ok, every time a wizard levels up he gets x hp, gets this much of a bonus, and every y levels he gets a new spell level." independent of stats, which could be used for more minor things like better describing your characters appearance and personality, and maybe only effected certain secondary skills. Like a high int/wis rogue would be smart enough to catch a trap that a rogue who went more for charisma to make himself a handsome rogue might miss. Or higher con/str influences musculature, and has some boosts to saves versus various conditions, but not enough that suddenly everyone spams max con so they can be effect immune or some such thing.

[Alleran]

It would be pretty cool if stats werent all that important for classes. That would let players rp all sorts of interesting concepts, like a brute force wizard with 20 str, who doesnt bother casting knock, he just punches the door down.
Illumian + Aeshkrau. Keys your spellcasting to STR anyway, so you can pump it as much as you want and then go around punching doors off their hinges.


Or the super scholar barbarian warrior with 25 int who knows more than most sages and can spout off ancient philosophy in between great cleaving your skull in twain.
Slightly more difficult, but off the top of my head you can multiclass the barbarian into Swashbuckler for Insightful Strike.

[Zaq]

On some level, though, stats do have to be worth SOMETHING. If you want a statless system (well, ok, a system that doesn't use STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS/CHA), that's great, but if you take away what STR means while keeping STR in the game . . . well, why have it at all?

I do approve of making stats slightly less mandatory, but I'm not sure how successful you'd end up being.

[Traab]

Illumian + Aeshkrau. Keys your spellcasting to STR anyway, so you can pump it as much as you want and then go around punching doors off their hinges.


Slightly more difficult, but off the top of my head you can multiclass the barbarian into Swashbuckler for Insightful Strike.

Yeah, there are work arounds for anything if you look hard enough, that wasnt my point and you know it. The point is you shouldnt have to look for loop holes and prestige classes or whatever. It would be much better if you could play any character with whatever stat setup you wanted without destroying it by not choosing a primary stat that most classes currently have.


but if you take away what STR means while keeping STR in the game . . . well, why have it at all?

If you handle it like I suggested, making stats have some sort of bonus to various secondary skills, then they would still be valuable, without being cripplingly vital. For example, take a wizard. If he chooses to make a muscle bound wizard for whatever reason, he is now capable of doing the various bits of heavy lifting without the use of a spell. Pushing open heavy doors, carrying lots of loot, whatever. Int/wis would effect his knowledge checks, possibly spot checks, and other such things, though game balance will be an issue, dont want to make them some sort of overpowered boost. There are similar things each of the other primary stats could offer him and all would be equally useful in different circumstances, meaning no matter what you choose to assign stat points to, you wont be gimping your character.

And as I said, the primary use for them would be rp flavor. Think of it as drawing a picture of your character with stats instead of physical descriptions. A character with an equal split of str and cha would be a muscular handsome character, a high int might be a glasses wearing, skinny fellow, so on and so forth.

[Merk]

On some level, though, stats do have to be worth SOMETHING. If you want a statless system (well, ok, a system that doesn't use STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS/CHA), that's great, but if you take away what STR means while keeping STR in the game . . . well, why have it at all?

I do approve of making stats slightly less mandatory, but I'm not sure how successful you'd end up being.

Some examples of the direction I'd want to go in:

STR does not play in to-hit, but does increase damage.
CON doesn't add hp every level, but figures into your HP once and your Fort save, and serves as prerequisites for worthwhile Con-based feats.
Use 4e's "Better of Two Stats to a Save"

[Morph Bark]

Some examples of the direction I'd want to go in:

STR does not play in to-hit, but does increase damage.
CON doesn't add hp every level, but figures into your HP once and your Fort save, and serves as prerequisites for worthwhile Con-based feats.
Use 4e's "Better of Two Stats to a Save"


Do that and remove bonus spells/power points and you got it about right. Would you keep DEX as playing in to-hit for ranged weapons though?

[Mando Knight]

Really, really juvenile. :smalltongue: Not saying it can't be funny, though.

Also fairly accurate: they tend to be lower than the target's AC, so a power that targets them will be more likely to hit.

[Merk]

Do that and remove bonus spells/power points and you got it about right. Would you keep DEX as playing in to-hit for ranged weapons though?

Intended, and probably not, though I'd consider allowing ranged/finesse weapons to get DEX to damage instead.

[Jallorn]

Your solution is called Mutants and Masterminds.

Ok, yeah, you're looking for something that can work with existing 3.5, but MnM might still be a good place to look for ideas.

[Draz74]

In my own homebrew, I kept doing this more and more until I removed ability scores from the game entirely ... and I can't say I miss 'em. They're really a legacy from days when you were encouraged to let the dice determine what sort of character you were going to play for you. Which can be fun, but that playstyle has pretty much been on its deathbed ever since you were allowed to choose which numbers to assign to which ability scores (rather than going strictly in order).

So I still have Brawn, Dexterity, Glibness, Leadership, and Knowledge (which sort of correspond to Strength, Dexterity, Charisma, Wisdom, and Intelligence) as skills, but unless you take a special ability that adds a (small) synergy bonus based on one of these, they'll never affect your Fortitude, Reflex, Willpower, attack accuracy, spell DCs, and so forth.

[Fayd]

When my DM created his own system, he got around the NAD problem by having almost everything key off of one of two attributes. To hit, for example, keys off of your STR or DEX (with the exception of two handed weapons, which only use STR and most ranged attacks, which only use DEX). Spellcasting works off of a mana pool, but the number of bonus points you have is keyed off of either your INT or WIS (chosen at character creation) and your Power is determined by your WIS or CHA (again, chosen at character creation, and you can't use WIS for both). Health is still determined by CON, but in my last campaign, our mage had a negative CON mod nearly the entire run and outlived my martial artist and a barbarian.

While not exactly what you're talking about, it does allow for a much more varied build.

[Yora]

In older editions of D&D, character creation started with rolling your ability scores and then you had to think about what profession would be a good choice to persue with those strengths and weaknesses.
However, even though rolling ist still the standard method in 3.5/PF, point buy character generation seems to be a lot more common. And because of this people decide their class before assigning ability scores. Which leads to the result that certain classes really only allow for certain sets of ability scores. And when every rogue is running around with 12 Str and 17 Dex, you could calculate the bonuses to attack, damage, and AC just into the class and make abilities completely redundant.

So I agree. When class determines abilities, abbilities are redundant.
Which is why I have come to like PF point buy. The way it's set up, it's a lot more difficult to get an ideal array. You either end up with several odd scores, or you waste a lot of points. Either way, you have to end up with a non-optimal ability score array.

[leakingpen]

Personally, I liked that. I preferred rolling my scores down the line, looking at the scores, and determining what to be based on that. It meant that you had to play different things on occasion, get a wide breadth of experience.

[JaronK]

But everyone, regardless of class, has to have a good CON score. No exceptions.

*cough*Necropolitan*cough*

JaronK

[Greenish]

But everyone, regardless of class, has to have a good CON score.Everyone who wants to have a successful career as an adventurer. Makes sense to me.


If you have a frail character concept (Raistlin, etc.), you die too quickly.If you didn't die so quickly, you wouldn't really be frail, I should think.

[GoatBoy]

Illumian + Aeshkrau. Keys your spellcasting to STR anyway, so you can pump it as much as you want and then go around punching doors off their hinges.

Keys your bonus spells per day off of STR, but doesn't do anything for save DC's, and you still need an INT score of 10+spell level to cast given spells.

Illumian sigils can make you less dependant on casting stats, but don't eliminate them completely.

Interestingly enough, Archivists use Int for save DC's and minimum casting score, but use Wis for bonus spells, so Illumians are great for these. Spirit Shamans and Favored Souls, however, use Wis for minimum casting and bonus spells, and Cha for save DC's, making Illumians less viable since you will eventually need a 19 in Wisdom.

[Midnight_v]

*cough*Necropolitan*cough*

JaronK

+1.

Also...


What are your opinions on this as a design perspective? Do you think attribute dependency restricts concepts? Do you think that reduced attribute dependency is unrealistic?


There's no concept space for a 10 STR, 12 CON, 16 INT Fighter (in Core, at least), because your 20 STR Fighter cousin deals 5 more damage per hit than you, which is forgivable, but hits with 5 numbers to spare over you.
In core... note that your example "the warlock" doesn't exist in core. So the further you expand your options by moving away from core the better off you'll be.
You conceptual fighter is a Warblade with weapon finsesse, as you have Sooo many points left over after ignoring the other 3 stats.

So you put the remaining points in Dex, and Wisdom or charisma (though then that opens up a Swordsage or a Crusader respectivly).

For that matter it could also be a fighter archer. Now I don't find that the idea, limits concepts, perse, but may have an effect on versimilitude, if you want someone who is physically strong to hit less hard that someone who is physically weak. You may not be using the correct comparison, what is that fighter using for damage? Is he a swashbuckler perhaps? There's a reason that such things like "bears hit harder" make sense and resonate with people.

As for Con. . .
I've heard a lot of talk recently about how "Con" is a point tax on a character. I suspect that its a matter of perspective. Con actuall is a BONUS that allows you to be variable tougher at no cost virtual cost to you because everyone is levied the same exact tax.
At base though. Classes have hp based on what the role they were designed for should have comparitively.
A wizard with a +4 con mod is still only breaking even with a Barbarian with a +0 con,. Gaining 6.5 each time they level.
So the problem is that it should be recognized as a benifit more than a "Tax", if at base you hp is going 12~18.5~25 at level 3 you're doing pretty well compared to most monsters.

[Greenish]

As for Con. . .
I've heard a lot of talk recently about how "Con" is a point tax on a character. I suspect that its a matter of perspective. Con actuall is a BONUS that allows you to be variable tougher at no cost virtual cost to you because everyone is levied the same exact tax.
At base though. Classes have hp based on what the role they were designed for should have comparitively.
A wizard with a +4 con mod is still only breaking even with a Barbarian with a +0 con,. Gaining 6.5 each time they level.
So the problem is that it should be recognized as a benifit more than a "Tax", if at base you hp is going 12~18.5~25 at level 3 you're doing pretty well compared to most monsters.But you don't understand! Having Con as a stat means that if you want to play a frail character, your character is going to be frail! The shock, the horror!

[Stubbazubba]

Err, you're aware what "nad" means, right? :smallconfused:

The Ninja Assassin Drow aspect of NENAD?

Ability Scores need to represent something with more pervasive effects than Skill Ranks. In my mind, Ability Scores represent your innate capability, and Skill Ranks represent experience. Ability Scores ought to be broad and shallow modifiers, while Skill Ranks are narrower, but higher, modifiers.

While you could make things like Strength or Dexterity into Skills, it just doesn't make sense that you would become infinitely nimble while remaining a very poor acrobat. Conversely, if you were to reduce everything to Ability checks, your experience in combat would make you an equally better jumper, swimmer, climber, etc. That's equally breaking of verisimilitude. Olympic-level swimmers are not also Olympic-level fencers.

Now, eliminating Abilities and rolling their effects into class mechanics is an interesting idea. That said, you could also take half of the Skills with you; Open Lock, Disable Device, Hide, Move Silently, and Sleight of Hand are the schtick of the Rogue, so all of those could be represented by two new class-based progression mechanics; Base Stealth Bonus and Base, uh, Finger Bonus, or something.

In fact, a good class-and-level based fantasy RPG could hit a mid-point between Abilities and Skills with a mechanic called Proficiencies, a group of 8-12 "Base [X] Bonuses" which would reflect similarly-themed actions. Classes would have these progressions pre-determined. Feats would then modify the rolls. Character creation would be very simple. (If you wanted to make a classless version, all you would have to do is assign points to the different tracks (i.e. Strong progression would cost 5, Normal 3, Weak 1, or something similar), and then buy your starting progression.)

This would simultaneously represent innate ability and your level of experience, while creating predictable ranges of proficiency based on level, which makes designing encounters easier than pure point-buy systems. Hm, fascinating. Multiclassing, if allowed, would throw it off, but it could be re-worked to make sense. HP could be flat +X per level based on class, or rolled as normal, with nothing added. I'm not gonna lie, the simplicity is attractive...

[Welknair]

My personal opinion is that all stats should still play their roles, but there should also be readily available material to allow all of those interesting character concepts to be viable.

[EnnPeeCee]

What about if abilities remain as they are, but at half their current modifier?

1-3 = -2
4-7 = -1
8-12 = +0
13-16 = +1
17-20 = +2
and so on.

Things are still keyed on what they were before, just to a lesser extent.

[Draz74]

I feel like this post was partially intending to object to the design strategy I posted earlier ... so if I'm off-base and it wasn't aimed at me at all, I apologize for the confusing context.


Ability Scores need to represent something with more pervasive effects than Skill Ranks. In my mind, Ability Scores represent your innate capability, and Skill Ranks represent experience. Ability Scores ought to be broad and shallow modifiers, while Skill Ranks are narrower, but higher, modifiers.
I agree that this is how Ability Scores are supposed to work. But as I made more and more house rules, I found that Ability Scores ended up having minimal effects on the game, and I also couldn't come up with a set of ability scores that both made sense and were well-balanced among themselves. (Although I subsequently discovered Old School Hack, and prefer its ability score set to most others.)


While you could make things like Strength or Dexterity into Skills, it just doesn't make sense that you would become infinitely nimble while remaining a very poor acrobat.
Sure it does. I hypothesize there is no statistical correlation between Swiss watchmakers, or brain surgeons, and circus acrobats.

Perhaps you are mistaking the actual meaning of the word "dexterity" (as D&D tends to make people do). I'll address that under your later point:


two new class-based progression mechanics; Base Stealth Bonus and Base, uh, Finger Bonus, or something.
Try Base Dexterity Bonus. Dexterity actually means "fine motor control." As in, stuff that usually refers to your hands and fingers. (I suppose toes, tails, or tongues could occasionally be dexterous agents, but ... rarely.)

[Midnight_v]

But you don't understand! Having Con as a stat means that if you want to play a frail character, your character is going to be frail! The shock, the horror!

... thats... Thats sarcasm right? I've met people who have said exactly what you're saying but completely serious.
I think the scenario in which you play the toughest wizard in the west is just as valid as playing raistlin. So one some level what the op is saying doesn't make a lot of sense.
I'm mostly going off his example, but ther are pretty much allowances to do whatever it is you want to do. Generally costs you a feat but you're char is going out of the way or has some special training or something to that effect to get "Sad" or "Nad" or whatever. So to me, contrary to what seems to be the popular trend right not, having a CON score in game isn't somekind of a draw back really. Mostly cause people have actuall hd depending on class. You don't HAVE to be a str based melee beast, you don't HAVE to be a super frail wizard. You can, but you don't have to be... having options is what makes 3.5 loved by so many... lol and hated by so many apparently. :smallsmile:

[Morph Bark]

The Ninja Assassin Drow aspect of NENAD?

What does the NE stand for?

[Stubbazubba]

Neutral Evil.

The term comes from an old column on character design (http://www.rpg.net/columns/list-column.phtml?colname=building) on RPG.net

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

At first this would be really cool.

But after reading it I'm a HAD guy. In fact, the problem is that stats do not matter enough

Who cares if your wizard gains another +2 to int when he already has fantastic cosmic power? However if that poor fighter's str value actually mattered maybe it could (in a balanced, imaginary dnd) actually help against those casters. Alas poor str matters not.

Con? Save or dies don't care about hp.

Dex? Too bad for celerity and tire tortoises.

Wis for perception skills? invisible fog + regular fog

Int for skill points? Hahaha you didn't think being a skill monkey does something casters can't emulate with low level spells!?!?

Cha for diplomancy? Dominate is so much easier.


Yes riding the poor noncasters of their stats will make everything better. What's next manditory VO

[The Glyphstone]

This thread is suffering from EADs. Excessive Abbreviation Dependency

[Greenish]

What's next manditory VOIf you spelled it out you could have left out more than the last letter. As in "What's next, mandatory vow of p".

[Stubbazubba]

Sure it does. I hypothesize there is no statistical correlation between Swiss watchmakers, or brain surgeons, and circus acrobats.

Of course not; one's Craft (INT), one's Heal (WIS), and one's Balance/Tumble (DEX). :)

But, yes, D&D's got its terms messed up; when they say Dexterity, they mean Agility, and the skills it applies to, at least in 3.5, proves this, the exception being your Ranged Attack Bonus (which makes more sense for bows, but not for guns). But, in a genre dominated by D&D's mistakes, it would probably be a mistake to call anything except Agility "Dexterity." Furthermore, what I said was becoming nimble, not dexterous. Nimbleness refers to ease of movement, speed, or agility, which swiss watchmakers or brain surgeons probably do lack in. Using the term nimbleness, however, brings to mind gymnasts, dancers, perhaps sprinters, and I would believe that you would find some statistical correlations between them and acrobats.

I think Ability Scores restricting character concept is intentional; in a party-based game, different people need to be good at one or two schticks, not blandly equivalent in all things. By scaling your ability to contribute to Ability Scores, you encourage certain mechanical specializations which, in theory, synergize with other party members' strengths, making the party more powerful because of its component members, as opposed to linearly increasing in power with quantity regardless of quality. While this can be achieved in a free-style point buy game, it takes a much greater amount of player cooperation and communication in character generation. Maybe that's exactly what you want. But D&D kind of builds those roles into the class designs. Now, whether or not games, be it D&D or otherwise, achieve this goal of party synergy, is highly debatable, but is a problem of class design and balance, not Ability Scores themselves. With that in mind, alternate character concepts can be served by alternate classes, as has been pointed out here.

If you increased the modularity of classes, you could take different aspects of different classes to create your own unique classes without designing a whole new class from the ground up. It's an idea similar to Gestalt classes, but you'd have to balance the selection of elements, somehow.

Edit: Yes, of course Tier 1 classes tend to break the whole party-based game idea, because of poor class implementation.

[Merk]

Ok, yeah, you're looking for something that can work with existing 3.5, but MnM might still be a good place to look for ideas.
I've heard good things about this system. I'll have to look into it.


So I still have Brawn, Dexterity, Glibness, Leadership, and Knowledge (which sort of correspond to Strength, Dexterity, Charisma, Wisdom, and Intelligence) as skills, but unless you take a special ability that adds a (small) synergy bonus based on one of these, they'll never affect your Fortitude, Reflex, Willpower, attack accuracy, spell DCs, and so forth.
That's an interesting approach. I've read up on some of the CRE8 stuff on Competitor, but I don't think any of this has been spelled out yet.


When my DM created his own system, he got around the NAD problem by having almost everything key off of one of two attributes. To hit, for example, keys off of your STR or DEX (with the exception of two handed weapons, which only use STR and most ranged attacks, which only use DEX). Spellcasting works off of a mana pool, but the number of bonus points you have is keyed off of either your INT or WIS (chosen at character creation) and your Power is determined by your WIS or CHA (again, chosen at character creation, and you can't use WIS for both). Health is still determined by CON, but in my last campaign, our mage had a negative CON mod nearly the entire run and outlived my martial artist and a barbarian.
This is also good -- you keep attribute dependency but increase the variability of viable builds.


Which is why I have come to like PF point buy. The way it's set up, it's a lot more difficult to get an ideal array. You either end up with several odd scores, or you waste a lot of points. Either way, you have to end up with a non-optimal ability score array.
YMMV, but for me PF point buy isn't radically different from 3.5 point buy. I do like all the scores starting at 10, though.


*cough*Necropolitan*cough*
Point. >_>


I've heard a lot of talk recently about how "Con" is a point tax on a character. I suspect that its a matter of perspective. Con actuall is a BONUS that allows you to be variable tougher at no cost virtual cost to you because everyone is levied the same exact tax.
Your point on noncore material stands, of course. Let me see if I understand this correctly: Having average CON is fine, and good CON for extra HP is a bonus on top of that. That's true enough assuming that average CON gives you enough survivability.


But you don't understand! Having Con as a stat means that if you want to play a frail character, your character is going to be frail! The shock, the horror!
I don't object to that, really. What I object to is the magnitude of the effect of scores. Sure, logically it makes sense that someone with CON 16 is more durable and resilient than that person's friend with CON 9. But the actual in-game advantage of that doesn't need to be as large as it is.


In fact, a good class-and-level based fantasy RPG could hit a mid-point between Abilities and Skills with a mechanic called Proficiencies, a group of 8-12 "Base [X] Bonuses" which would reflect similarly-themed actions. Classes would have these progressions pre-determined. Feats would then modify the rolls. Character creation would be very simple. (If you wanted to make a classless version, all you would have to do is assign points to the different tracks (i.e. Strong progression would cost 5, Normal 3, Weak 1, or something similar), and then buy your starting progression.)
This. This is interesting stuff, and I will need to consider this carefully.


What about if abilities remain as they are, but at half their current modifier?
This is a good direct approach that doesn't involve too much change.


In fact, the problem is that stats do not matter enough
I do see your point, though to me that says more about the advantages of magic and the fact that mundanes do not have good options.


If you increased the modularity of classes, you could take different aspects of different classes to create your own unique classes without designing a whole new class from the ground up. It's an idea similar to Gestalt classes, but you'd have to balance the selection of elements, somehow.
I think this would be my favorite approach.

[Draz74]

That's an interesting approach. I've read up on some of the CRE8 stuff on Competitor, but I don't think any of this has been spelled out yet.

Oooh, I have a reader!

Yeah, some of this hasn't been stuff I've had time to spell out yet. Like formulas for attack accuracy and spell DCs.

Parts of it are on there already, though -- if only by omission. Note that the Character Creation instructions say nothing about ability scores, and the Synergy Bonus rules mention that the only "default" synergy bonuses are Brawn to attack Impact and Armor Value.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

I love how the OP completely ignored when I /threa

[Merk]

I love how the OP completely ignored when I /threa
Sorry, I had a lot of posts to reply to and likely only partially answered your post. What specifically did I not address?

[Surrealistik]

Err, you're aware what "nad" means, right? :smallconfused:

In 4e, this is where you want to kick the monsters.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

Sorry, I had a lot of posts to reply to and likely only partially answered your post. What specifically did I not address?the entire thing? Here I'll show you:


At first this would be really cool.

But after reading it I'm a HAD guy. In fact, the problem is that stats do not matter enough

Who cares if your wizard gains another +2 to int when he already has fantastic cosmic power? However if that poor fighter's str value actually mattered maybe it could (in a balanced, imaginary dnd) actually help against those casters. Alas poor str matters not.

Con? Save or dies don't care about hp.

Dex? Too bad for celerity and tire tortoises.

Wis for perception skills? invisible fog + regular fog

Int for skill points? Hahaha you didn't think being a skill monkey does something casters can't emulate with low level spells!?!?

Cha for diplomancy? Dominate is so much easier.


Yes riding the poor noncasters of their stats will make everything better. What's next manditory VO

you have to fix the system before you can clearly see that base stats are ver