Rewriting Reality Part 2: The Abilities

[Ziegander]

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http://www.rkaneproductions.com/artwork/magic/Essence%20Flare.jpg
Image credit: Richard Kane Ferguson, ©Wizards of the Coast
d20 Reality. Where Fantasy is what you make it.

In the last thread we discussed the very basics of the d20 game and a lot of interesting ideas were thrown into a blender and set to puree. While many of those ideas will have to sit on a back burner for a while, some of them we can put to use right now or in the very immediate future. As these threads continue to move forward I will chronicle all of the favorable mechanics we have struck upon in our quest to help give us all a better idea of the progress we are making. At the moment, here is our "changelog:"


The core mechanic is left unchanged, but automatic success/failure is more uniformly used by all d20 rolls. Degrees of success/failure will also be used throughout the system for less binary results.
Modifiers are being reduced (for the time being) to Circumstance, Competence, Enhancement, Inherent, and Item.
Ability modifiers cap at +5 though "superpowers" can be accessed by scores that would normally have a higher modifier. This helps keep the RNG reigned in tight.

Good changes all, I think. Though a lot of discussion was had about modifiers in the last thread, little was said of the Ability Scores in particular which will be the focus this time around. There is a LOT to talk about here and plenty of ideas both good and bad out there, I'm sure.

The Abilities
The big six have gone unchanged, correct me if I'm wrong, since the original release of D&D back in the 70's. But if that's the case, then there's always been problems. Specifically, in D&D 3.5, there was precious little balance between the Abilities, leading characters to desire certain Abilities only because their class features made them, not for any rules attached to that Ability itself. It may be time after all these years to explore a new set of Abilities for the game, or maybe we can simply revise what each score means mechanically. Let's get back to the d20SRD and follow the Basics, Races, and Description link to the "The Abilities" link and see what it has to say.


Strength (Str)
Strength measures your character’s muscle and physical power. This ability is especially important for fighters, barbarians, paladins, rangers, and monks because it helps them prevail in combat. Strength also limits the amount of equipment your character can carry.

You apply your character’s Strength modifier to:


Melee attack rolls.
Damage rolls when using a melee weapon or a thrown weapon (including a sling). (Exceptions: Off-hand attacks receive only one-half the character’s Strength bonus, while two-handed attacks receive one and a half times the Strength bonus. A Strength penalty, but not a bonus, applies to attacks made with a bow that is not a composite bow.)
Climb, Jump, and Swim checks. These are the skills that have Strength as their key ability.
Strength checks (for breaking down doors and the like).



Right off the bat, when I read that Strength is added to melee attack rolls I'm left wondering what Strength has to do with accuracy. But also, why not simplify things as say that, barring exceptions like Crossbows, Strength just adds to all weapon damage, because the stronger you are the more pull you get out of a bow. Adding to athletic skills makes a reasonable amount of sense as does the simple checks bit.

Something that isn't mentioned here, that I would actually like to see get more attention, is that Strength also determines a character's carrying capacity. I think, instead of armor making a character sluggish and slow, encumbrance should do that, so a strong character is rewarded with greater mobility under heavier burdens than other characters.


Dexterity (Dex)
Dexterity measures hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, and balance. This ability is the most important one for rogues, but it’s also high on the list for characters who typically wear light or medium armor (rangers and barbarians) or no armor at all (monks, wizards, and sorcerers), and for anyone who wants to be a skilled archer.

You apply your character’s Dexterity modifier to:


Ranged attack rolls, including those for attacks made with bows, crossbows, throwing axes, and other ranged weapons.
Armor Class (AC), provided that the character can react to the attack.
Reflex saving throws, for avoiding fireballs and other attacks that you can escape by moving quickly.
Balance, Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock, Ride, Sleight of Hand, Tumble, and Use Rope checks. These are the skills that have Dexterity as their key ability.



It's been noted many times that having Dexterity cover all of hand-eye coordination, ability, balance, and overall reflexes is a lot of area to cover. Perhaps too much area. The accuracy with ranged attacks makes perfect sense for Dexterity, but I would be inclined to make Dexterity important for accurate melee attacks as well. Traditionally Dexterity is merely a measure of hand-eye coordination and one's ability to be precise. To me, that just doesn't translate to avoiding attacks, so I'd rather move the bonus to AC and Reflex saves away from Dexterity. Splitting Dexterity into Dexterity and Agility seems preferable to me, allowing Agility to add to AC and Reflexes, and then splitting the skills between the two of them as well. Dexterity would get Balance, Open Lock, Ride, Sleight of Hand, and Use Rope while Agility would get Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, and Tumble.

Something that isn't noted here is that Dexterity also adds to Initiative checks, an important aspect of combat encounters that determines order of action and can be a decisive factor in determining victory or defeat. If Dex were split into two attributes I would either leave this with Dexterity, or move it away entirely, outsourcing it to Wisdom (see below).


Constitution (Con)
Constitution represents your character’s health and stamina. A Constitution bonus increases a character’s hit points, so the ability is important for all classes.

You apply your character’s Constitution modifier to:


Each roll of a Hit Die (though a penalty can never drop a result below 1—that is, a character always gains at least 1 hit point each time he or she advances in level).
Fortitude saving throws, for resisting poison and similar threats.
Concentration checks. Concentration is a skill, important to spellcasters, that has Constitution as its key ability.

If a character’s Constitution score changes enough to alter his or her Constitution modifier, the character’s hit points also increase or decrease accordingly.

Hit Dice are one of the dodgier mechanics of d20 as it stands, but you can see the intention here and it makes sense. A Constitution bonus is supposed to make you able to withstand more and more blows. Other than this, the score does very little, but adding to Fortitude saves is one of the important ones once we get to spells and monster abilities.

Constitution has always been a strange sort of ability in that it's boring and does little, but what it does is so important that no character can afford to dump it. It would be my hope that we can make each of our scores important enough that no one would want to dump any of them, that each has enticing benefits for characters of all stripes.

A thought I had about Constitution, if we split Dexterity into Dex/Agl, would be to have it be a derived stat equal to [(Str + Dex + Agl)/3], rounded to the nearest whole number. It would still determine a character's overall toughness and fortitude, and it would pair with a derived mental stat determined in a similar way only using Int + Wis + Cha. Just a thought.


Intelligence (Int)
Intelligence determines how well your character learns and reasons. This ability is important for wizards because it affects how many spells they can cast, how hard their spells are to resist, and how powerful their spells can be. It’s also important for any character who wants to have a wide assortment of skills.

You apply your character’s Intelligence modifier to:


The number of languages your character knows at the start of the game.
The number of skill points gained each level. (But your character always gets at least 1 skill point per level.)
Appraise, Craft, Decipher Script, Disable Device, Forgery, Knowledge, Search, and Spellcraft checks. These are the skills that have Intelligence as their key ability.

A wizard gains bonus spells based on her Intelligence score. The minimum Intelligence score needed to cast a wizard spell is 10 + the spell’s level.

An animal has an Intelligence score of 1 or 2. A creature of humanlike intelligence has a score of at least 3.

Intelligence is important to some characters, in the early levels of the game, because it grants extra skill points and adds to many useful skills. However, since skills drop steeply off in utility and potency as the game's levels progress, the impact of this Ability is lost to many characters.

Of course, it is king for Int-based characters such as the Wizard who use it to determine the power and scale of just about every action they perform. There's a large disconnect here, and with each of the three mental Abilities in their own way, between how useful this score is to characters in general and how useful it is to specific classes. I would like to do something about that, but I am at a loss for exactly what.


Wisdom (Wis)
Wisdom describes a character’s willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition. While Intelligence represents one’s ability to analyze information, Wisdom represents being in tune with and aware of one’s surroundings. Wisdom is the most important ability for clerics and druids, and it is also important for paladins and rangers. If you want your character to have acute senses, put a high score in Wisdom. Every creature has a Wisdom score.

You apply your character’s Wisdom modifier to:


Will saving throws (for negating the effect of charm person and other spells).
Heal, Listen, Profession, Sense Motive, Spot, and Survival checks. These are the skills that have Wisdom as their key ability.

Clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers get bonus spells based on their Wisdom scores. The minimum Wisdom score needed to cast a cleric, druid, paladin, or ranger spell is 10 + the spell’s level.

Again, Wisdom adds to many useful skills and also modifies the vitally important Will save, so vital that dumping Wisdom is almost as detrimental to a character as Constitution (perhaps even more so in the highest levels of gameplay).

Like with Intelligence, Wisdom does very little to characters in general, and if Constitution was set aside as a derived physical value, then Willpower would be the derived mental value, stripping that honor from Wisdom and leaving it with any less to offer characters.


Charisma (Cha)
Charisma measures a character’s force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness. This ability represents actual strength of personality, not merely how one is perceived by others in a social setting. Charisma is most important for paladins, sorcerers, and bards. It is also important for clerics, since it affects their ability to turn undead. Every creature has a Charisma score.

You apply your character’s Charisma modifier to:


Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Gather Information, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Perform, and Use Magic Device checks. These are the skills that have Charisma as their key ability.
Checks that represent attempts to influence others.
Turning checks for clerics and paladins attempting to turn zombies, vampires, and other undead.

Sorcerers and bards get bonus spells based on their Charisma scores. The minimum Charisma score needed to cast a sorcerer or bard spell is 10 + the spell’s level.

To an even higher degree than it's counterparts Intelligence and Wisdom, Charisma offers so very little to characters outside of its bonuses to some useful skills (sometimes incredibly useful, in the case of Use Magic Device). Charisma has been called by many The Dumpstat™ because it fails to offer any benefits enticing enough to characters in general and doesn't modify any necessary offensive or defensive traits.

The physical Abilities do much more for a character than add to a few skills. Should the mental Abilities do more than add to skills? Should they add to more and/or more important skills than their physical counterparts? How should we go about dealing with the mental scores to put them on a more equal footing with the physical scores or should we bother doing so at all?

To continue with the discussion we were having in the previous thread, d20 does a very bad job at simulating a quadratic form of character advancement (unless you are a spellcaster), and specifically at catering to "superhuman" tiers of gameplay. What sorts of things do you expect a superhuman character to be capable of doing at scores beyond +5? How should we implement our idea of superhuman scores granting access to superhuman capabilities? There was talk of having some of it determined by class and some of it left available to all characters.

Skill list proposal: Acrobatics (Agl), Arcana (Int), Athletics (Str), Dungeoneering (Cng), Empathy (Cng), Handle Animal (Cha), Handle Device (Dex), History (Int), Investigation (Int), Linguistics (Int), Nature (Cng), Perception (Cng), Religion (Int), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Speechcraft (Cha), Stealth (Agl), Streetwise (Cng), and Theatrics (Cha).

Acrobatics = Balance, Flying, Tumbling
Knowledge Skills (Arcana, Dungeoneering, History, Nature, Religion, and Streetwise) = Field appropriate identification, and aspects of survival and/or item crafting/item use.
Athletics = Climb, Jump, Swim
Empathy = Sense Motive+ + Wild Empathy+
Handle Animal = Handle Animal + Wild Empathy lite + Ride
Handle Device = Disable Device, Open Lock, Use Rope++
Investigation = Gather Information, Search++
Linguistics = Decipher Script, Forgery, Speak Languages
Perception = Listen, Spot, Search lite
Sleight of Hand = Sleight of Hand+ + Somatic gestures, etc
Speechcraft = Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate
Stealth = Hide, Move Silently
Theatrics = Disguise, Perform

[Durazno]

I think that the idea behind adding strength to attack rolls is that, in most cases, you aren't going to completely miss your opponent when you swing a mace at them. The problem is defeating their attempts to parry you and hurting them through (or around) their armor. If your strength isn't high enough, your mace will glance off their breastplate or stop cold when it hits their shield, and you've "missed." If it is, then you've rattled them despite their protection and done a few hp worth of damage.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I've always found myself trying to rewrite the Ability Scores, and never satisfactorily. The best I got was a set of 8:


Might - Strength Projection. Str checks and Damage
Endurance - Structural Strength. Health or Toughness
Speed - Overall Agility. Balance, AC bonus, reflex, etc
Coordination - One's Finesse. Attacks, Open lock, disable device, etc
Acumen - Mental Processing Power. Search checks, Skill points
Awareness - Spatial Perception. Spot and Listen
Personality - Sheer Charisma/Ability to Affect Others. Diplomacy Checks, magic stat(?)
Willpower - Social Perseverance. Will Saves, Ability to resist another's personality

[lesser_minion]

I'd actually be tempted to just nuke strength, constitution, and charisma entirely. If we then add in agility, we get something like:

Dexterity
Agility
Instinct
Reason


This condensed list has several advantages: every ability score is on roughly the same level of abstraction; every ability score is tied to character skill, instead of providing another redundant way to express how powerful a character is (build choices and character level already express this more than well enough); and it should be possible to make every one of these ability scores valuable to a player.

[Durazno]

Going without strength seems really strange to me. I mean, how would you model a bodybuilder as opposed to a gymnast in that system?

I assume social rolls would be handled by "instinct?"

[unbeliever536]

Yeah, I suspect dropping any ability scores will cause some problems, and dropping strength especially seems wierd. Similarly, I'm a bit nervous about introducing derived ability scores, especially since the way Z's set things up, Reflex is tied to a main score and Fortitude and Will are both derived. Mr Bear's ability scores seem pretty nice, but I'd rather change how mechanics interact with the six scores we have than add new ones.

To that end, I would suggest:
-Tieing encumberance (but not lifting) to Con in some way, and removing most of its effects on combat. You're going to drop your pack when the fight starts anyway; having characters run around with a backpack full of matches and rations and crowbars and 10-foot poles was never realistic. We can keep some of the rules for encumberance in combat; your actual combat gear does weigh something, after all.
-Allow high Con characters to adventure longer. What I mean by this is that if you have good endurance, you should be able to walk further and longer overland than someone who doesn't. Tough character should get more distance out of a day's journey than frail ones.
-Divorce skill points from any ability score. Skill points are a separate system; they shouldn't be tied to a single ability score overall any more than feats are. Ability scores reflect your raw talent, and skills reflect your training. Training is reflected by your class, so your skills should come only from there.

[lesser_minion]

Going without strength seems really strange to me. I mean, how would you model a bodybuilder as opposed to a gymnast in that system?

By character class and build choices like feats, manoeuvres, and so on.

Strictly speaking, the game doesn't need ability scores at all. What I'm proposing is a way to make the basic ability scores useful so that we can justify keeping them around.

[Ziegander]

So, to work with NinjaDeadBeard's thought, which is dangerously close to my own "three physical, three mental, two derived" idea, what about this:

Strength
Modifies physical damage rolls and save DCs, encumbrance, and climb, jump, and swim.

Agility
Modifies defense and balance, escape artist, hide, move silently, and tumble.

Dexterity
Modifies all attack rolls and disable device, open lock, sleight of hand, and use rope.

Intelligence
Modifies skill points per level and arcana, architecture & engineering, decipher script, history, religion, search, and speak language.

Cunning
Modifies initiative, dungeoneering, listen, nature, sense motive, spot, and wild empathy.

Charisma
Modifies magic damage rolls and save DCs, and bluff, diplomacy, disguise, handle animal, perform, and ride.

From there, Reflex would no longer exist, and two derived values, Constitution and Willpower would be "introduced." Constitution would determine overall toughness, probably modifying hit points and fortitude (maybe even something to do with damage reduction). Willpower on the other hand would represent mental toughness, modifying will saves and possibly adding something like mental hit points to the game as a buffer against psychic assault and debilitating stress. Or even "MP" which could be interpreted simultaneously as Magic Points and Mental Points and serve, in addition to standing as mental HP, as a replacement for spell points/slots?

Anything that would normally call for a Reflex save is now just an attack vs defense. If it was an area attack that would have normally dealt half damage on a successful Reflex save, then it deals half damage on a miss. Other things, like making a Reflex save to avoid falling or the like, would simply be Agility checks.

[eftexar]

Those look good and I'm especially glad to see agility and dexterity separate, as that has always irked me. But I think the whole skill system needs rewrote around them too. I'm probably getting ahead of you here, but I want to post it before I forget it.

Why not have all skills as ability checks, but still allow bonuses from feats and any class that offer's class skills could offer a +4 bonus to all involved skills.

This would prevent ballooning skill checks and if a player wanted to become better at a skill they could take skill focus. Suddenly a +2 is worth the feat in question.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

While that looks good, I worry about Intelligence getting bloated again. I would suggest, if eftexar's Ability Check idea isn't implemented, that Skill Point Bonus be left to Intelligence, but we remove Arcana. At least until Magic gets hammered down. Can't rewrite the system if one of the biggest flaws is left in.

[bobthe6th]

See, I think the issue is that charisma is really a skill... it doesn't generally do anything besides modify skill checks, unless you use things to add it to stuff. Then it can apply to basically everything. So... I think You should shed it, and tie replace it as a ability with perception. The social bits should become skills based off of cunning . Perception takes listen, search, spot. initative becomes the average of cunning and Perception. Then have Perception reduce range penalties for ranged weapons... perhaps make the range increment shorter and let perception lower the penilty.

edit: also, I agree that str is an odd stat. the fact you can't train your body for an increased str score... is odd.

[Yitzi]

An idea I previously came up with that might help in terms of anti-dumping CHA: Split Will saves into Will (for most of them) and Insight (against charms and illusions), and make Will CHA-based (as CHA is force of personality, just what you need to resist Dominate Person) and Insight WIS-based.

[The Troubadour]

Using STR for melee attack rolls makes sense under the attack roll as envisioned by Gygax and Arneson: a very, very abstract thing that both considers and simplifies all factors involved in melee (armor, weapon, attacker's skill, defender's skill, etc.) and boils them down to a single roll.

I wouldn't mind diverging a bit from that model, though, and I'd also like for all (or at least, most) attributes to have some usefulness in combat. So here are my suggestions:

Strength - Affects damage for melee, thrown and muscle-powered ranged weapons - that is, bows.
Dexterity - Affects attack rolls and defense values.
Constitution - Affects resistance/endurance/etc.
Wisdom - Affects Initiative.

[Draz74]

If Wisdom is a derived ability score from the other mentals, does it steal the "force of personality" aspect of Charisma away?

I've heard from people who actually fight with medieval weapons that STR as an attack roll stat actually makes a lot more sense than DEX or AGL. They say that Weapon Finesse should be automatic for light weapons, rather than requiring a feat; but for heavier weapons, your aim is ostensibly less of a big deal than how quickly you can swing your weapon (or thrust it, or move it and then thrust it, or feint and then attack ...), which has more to do with STR. (Not to mention trying to puncture armor, if your system is keeping the silly armor = "harder to hit" mechanic.)

CON being derived from the other three stats doesn't really make any sense to me. Correlation between physical health (e.g. endurance or ability to resist diseases) and any of the physical stats you're looking at (coordination, flexibility, or brawn) seems pretty weak to me.

Which mental stat covers "thinking quickly on your feet"? This always seemed like a very important mental aspect for a game to model, especially for Rogue-types; but the system has never done so very well. Most often it seems to default these types of things to Intelligence, occasionally to Wisdom. I dislike the former, because correlation between book-smarts and quick-thinking cleverness is tenuous (just like fitness with coordination/brawn/flexibility). To a lesser extent, it also bothered me because (pre-Factotum) Rogue-types never had enough nonmagical incentives to make Intelligence a focus. Wisdom ... obviously doesn't work, as Cleric aren't known for being particularly clever improvisers and most Rogues aren't exactly "wise" ... but I would actually approve if you turned Awareness into your "cleverness" stat and allowed people to use it to do roguish things in addition to just being a Spot/Listen/initiative modifier.

I'm a little bothered by Intelligence (book-smarts) being the stat that modifies skill points ... but that can probably stay, since otherwise INT will become an immediate dump stat for most classes. :smallsigh:

[nonsi]

The core mechanic is left unchanged, but automatic success/failure is more uniformly used by all d20 rolls. Degrees of success/failure will also be used throughout the system for less binary results.

A two and a half year old child will never beat you at anything – ever (except maybe at being cute).
I’ll also make the assumption that you’re not a professional sprinter. If that’s the case, then you’re absolutely incapable of beating Usain Bolt at 100/200 M contest.
What I’m saying is that there should be a level of difference at a specific task (any task) where one cannot automatically fail while the other cannot automatically succeed.
Also, there should be a level of competence where one does not fumble at all (or that the chances of failure are so slim that they have no mechanical game expression).
As for Degrees of success/failure – those I welcome wholeheartedly (though I have no idea where to go here).




Modifiers are being reduced (for the time being) to Circumstance, Competence, Enhancement, Inherent, and Item.

Those seem totally arbitrary to me and quite incorrect.
Armor & shield, for instance, fall under the Item category and don’t stack.
Consider the following:
1. Ability Score
2. Enhancement
3. Morale
4. Circumstance

And why not Competence or Inherent: those are the baseline. The sum of one’s features:
- Racial
- level-derived
- Feats
- Skills.




Ability modifiers cap at +5 though "superpowers" can be accessed by scores that would normally have a higher modifier. This helps keep the RNG reigned in tight.

Apply my suggested modifiers and you won’t have to resort to artificial caps.




Right off the bat, when I read that Strength is added to melee attack rolls I'm left wondering what Strength has to do with accuracy. But also, why not simplify things as say that, barring exceptions like Crossbows, Strength just adds to all weapon damage, because the stronger you are the more pull you get out of a bow. Adding to athletic skills makes a reasonable amount of sense as does the simple checks bit.

No athlete on the planet has a radically high STR-score.
Athleticism should go with Agility.

 


Something that isn't mentioned here, that I would actually like to see get more attention, is that Strength also determines a character's carrying capacity. I think, instead of armor making a character sluggish and slow, encumbrance should do that, so a strong character is rewarded with greater mobility under heavier burdens than other characters.

I agree that this option should be on the table, but not given automatically for all armor types.
Armor is not just extra weight. It physically restricts range of motion (at least heavy plate & full plate).




It's been noted many times that having Dexterity cover all of hand-eye coordination, ability, balance, and overall reflexes is a lot of area to cover. Perhaps too much area. The accuracy with ranged attacks makes perfect sense for Dexterity, but I would be inclined to make Dexterity important for accurate melee attacks as well.

Right on.




Traditionally Dexterity is merely a measure of hand-eye coordination and one's ability to be precise. To me, that just doesn't translate to avoiding attacks, so I'd rather move the bonus to AC and Reflex saves away from Dexterity. Splitting Dexterity into Dexterity and Agility seems preferable to me, allowing Agility to add to AC and Reflexes, and then splitting the skills between the two of them as well.

This is also my claim for a long time now.




Dexterity would get Balance, Open Lock, Ride, Sleight of Hand, and Use Rope while Agility would get Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, and Tumble.

The subtlety involved with Hide & Move Silently makes them more suitable for DEX, while Agility should modify athleticism.




Something that isn't noted here is that Dexterity also adds to Initiative checks

I’d make Perception affect initiative.




A thought I had about Constitution, if we split Dexterity into Dex/Agl, would be to have it be a derived stat equal to [(Str + Dex + Agl)/3], rounded to the nearest whole number. It would still determine a character's overall toughness and fortitude, and it would pair with a derived mental stat determined in a similar way only using Int + Wis + Cha. Just a thought.

This one actually makes a lot of sense to me, but might make things more complicated.
Could be an improvement if handled with care.




There's a large disconnect here, and with each of the three mental Abilities in their own way, between how useful this score is to characters in general and how useful it is to specific classes. I would like to do something about that, but I am at a loss for exactly what.

As far as spellcasting goes, I point you once again to this suggestion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14999390&postcount=7) (look at the bottom).
Regarding noncasters, I’m not sure, so I’ll welcome any innovative idea.




Again, Wisdom adds to many useful skills and also modifies the vitally important Will save, so vital that dumping Wisdom is almost as detrimental to a character as Constitution (perhaps even more so in the highest levels of gameplay).

Again, IRL wisdom is just one’s life's experience, not one of someone’s raw capabilities.




The physical Abilities do much more for a character than add to a few skills. Should the mental Abilities do more than add to skills? Should they add to more and/or more important skills than their physical counterparts? How should we go about dealing with the mental scores to put them on a more equal footing with the physical scores or should we bother doing so at all?

I’m OK with mental stats meaning more to spellcasters than noncasters and vice versa.
It makes a lot of sense.

[nonsi]

Which mental stat covers "thinking quickly on your feet"? This always seemed like a very important mental aspect for a game to model, especially for Rogue-types; but the system has never done so very well. Most often it seems to default these types of things to Intelligence, occasionally to Wisdom. I dislike the former, because correlation between book-smarts and quick-thinking cleverness is tenuous (just like fitness with coordination/brawn/flexibility). To a lesser extent, it also bothered me because (pre-Factotum) Rogue-types never had enough nonmagical incentives to make Intelligence a focus. Wisdom ... obviously doesn't work, as Cleric aren't known for being particularly clever improvisers and most Rogues aren't exactly "wise" ... but I would actually approve if you turned Awareness into your "cleverness" stat and allowed people to use it to do roguish things in addition to just being a Spot/Listen/initiative modifier.


Perception.
To me, it basically means one's ability for a fast accumulation of input and "connecting the dots".
This, of course, has nothing to do with one being analytical or deductive. I'm talking about a more "primordial" level of analysis.

[Ziegander]

If Wisdom is a derived ability score from the other mentals, does it steal the "force of personality" aspect of Charisma away?

Not really. Willpower wouldn't modify the social skills in any way and Charisma is still important for determining how well you resist mental attack (it just shares that importance with Intelligence and Cunning).


I've heard from people who actually fight with medieval weapons that STR as an attack roll stat actually makes a lot more sense than DEX or AGL. They say that Weapon Finesse should be automatic for light weapons, rather than requiring a feat; but for heavier weapons, your aim is ostensibly less of a big deal than how quickly you can swing your weapon (or thrust it, or move it and then thrust it, or feint and then attack ...), which has more to do with STR. (Not to mention trying to puncture armor, if your system is keeping the silly armor = "harder to hit" mechanic.)

I'm not sure what to think of that. I could possibly buy that in the real world, but we're trying to develop a fantasy game here where someone's Agility (see: quickness of personal movement) can match or even outpace someone's ability to shove a piece of metal around in the air. Also, getting a little ahead, but I was planning to use a level-based defense bonus with armor providing only DR. Shields would then grant an item bonus to defense and be used for parrying.


CON being derived from the other three stats doesn't really make any sense to me. Correlation between physical health (e.g. endurance or ability to resist diseases) and any of the physical stats you're looking at (coordination, flexibility, or brawn) seems pretty weak to me.

And yet, people that have all three in abundance are, typically, much healthier. You must hone your body to have exceptional Str, Dex, and/or Agl, and in doing so you improve your overall health.


Which mental stat covers "thinking quickly on your feet"? This always seemed like a very important mental aspect for a game to model, especially for Rogue-types; but the system has never done so very well. Most often it seems to default these types of things to Intelligence, occasionally to Wisdom. I dislike the former, because correlation between book-smarts and quick-thinking cleverness is tenuous (just like fitness with coordination/brawn/flexibility). To a lesser extent, it also bothered me because (pre-Factotum) Rogue-types never had enough nonmagical incentives to make Intelligence a focus. Wisdom ... obviously doesn't work, as Cleric aren't known for being particularly clever improvisers and most Rogues aren't exactly "wise" ... but I would actually approve if you turned Awareness into your "cleverness" stat and allowed people to use it to do roguish things in addition to just being a Spot/Listen/initiative modifier.

Under my outline above Cunning would become that stat, but I'm interested as to what "roguish" things you imagine such a stat should allow characters to do. It will be handling perception and initiative, and what I'm going to be calling Streetwise, sort of a combination of Gather Information, Knowledge (Local), Profession, and Sense Motive. Is there something else you expect Cunning to offer a Rogue-type character?


I'm a little bothered by Intelligence (book-smarts) being the stat that modifies skill points ... but that can probably stay, since otherwise INT will become an immediate dump stat for most classes. :smallsigh:

Yep. That was the only conclusion I could come to. My plan is to consolidate a lot of skills, add one or two new ones, and make them more important over the course of a 20-level career but try to keep the power level down so that Int-based characters don't automatically get a new form of spellcasting.


A two and a half year old child will never beat you at anything – ever (except maybe at being cute).
I’ll also make the assumption that you’re not a professional sprinter. If that’s the case, then you’re absolutely incapable of beating Usain Bolt at 100/200 M contest.
What I’m saying is that there should be a level of difference at a specific task (any task) where one cannot automatically fail while the other cannot automatically succeed.
Also, there should be a level of competence where one does not fumble at all (or that the chances of failure are so slim that they have no mechanical game expression).

As I've said before, this will merely be the basic rule. d20 is a game of exceptions, and things like Take 10 and Skill Mastery can assure that specific characters, specialists, can avoid the basic rule.


As for Degrees of success/failure – those I welcome wholeheartedly (though I have no idea where to go here).

I have some plans for it.


Those seem totally arbitrary to me and quite incorrect.
Armor & shield, for instance, fall under the Item category and don’t stack.

Since my current plan is to have armor and shields offer a different bonus, I don't see a problem. But trust me, they are not arbitrary. I gave an explanation for why they were chosen in the previous thread.


No athlete on the planet has a radically high STR-score.
Athleticism should go with Agility.

I can see the argument, partially, but then Strength would be left with no associated skills and Agility would then modify lots of useful skills. Perhaps each skill could become associated with two ability modifiers, using the higher modifier? It's worth looking into anyway, but it might get tiresome in practice.


The subtlety involved with Hide & Move Silently makes them more suitable for DEX, while Agility should modify athleticism.

I wasn't sure, but in the end I decided to put the movement-based skills (sans athletics) with agility. If you have a suggestion for what to give to Str I could feel better about this shuffling around.


I’d make Perception affect initiative.

I'm calling it Cunning, but, yeah, it does.


This one actually makes a lot of sense to me, but might make things more complicated.
Could be an improvement if handled with care.

I'm looking to take inspiration from Spycraft for this one, and also possibly your old, basic Final Fantasy games. Toss in a little of Heroes of Horror's rules about taint, and we could have something compelling.


I’m OK with mental stats meaning more to spellcasters than noncasters and vice versa.
It makes a lot of sense.

More important, certainly, I have no problem with that. But the mental stats should still offer something of value to noncasters and they shouldn't only be important to casters because their spells section says, "you need Cha 10 + spell level to cast spells." That's not good design. The Abilities themselves should have compelling benefits first.

I'm surprised to see as much support for my outline above. I thought it would get shot down immediately, but it looks like, with some tweaking, this will be what I move forward with. But keep the conversation coming!

In the next thread I will examine "the chassis" built for d20 characters. The basics of Hit Dice, Class Skills, Skill Points per Level, Base Attack Bonus, and Base Save Bonuses. The way we're going now it looks like a lot of that needs to be thrown out the window or significantly altered.

[lesser_minion]

I can see the argument, partially, but then Strength would be left with no associated skills and Agility would then modify lots of useful skills. Perhaps each skill could become associated with two ability modifiers, using the higher modifier? It's worth looking into anyway, but it might get tiresome in practice.

Well, this was another part of my rationale for cutting strength from the stat line and just letting players take strength-themed build options if they want a strong character.

I definitely think that a "power" vs. "mastery" split makes far more sense than a "physical" vs. "mental" one, especially if we want interesting stats that might have some appeal to a player of any kind of character.

But at the same time, most characters are only really going to be interested in one kind of power.

So in reality, the best way I can think of to handle the matter would be to use just one power stat, and determine its meaning and effects based on character class. How about a system where your character gains power at some levels, mastery at others, and you also get some points over time that you can allocate as you see fit?

[Ziegander]

I'd actually be tempted to just nuke strength, constitution, and charisma entirely. If we then add in agility, we get something like:

Dexterity
Agility
Instinct
Reason


This condensed list has several advantages: every ability score is on roughly the same level of abstraction; every ability score is tied to character skill, instead of providing another redundant way to express how powerful a character is (build choices and character level already express this more than well enough); and it should be possible to make every one of these ability scores valuable to a player.

Sorry, sir, I didn't mean to so fully ignore you. My biggest issue with this set up is that I can't see how it would be implemented and you don't exactly give any guidelines or direction for how to use it. Your scores are clearly defined into two physical scores and two mental scores, so I'm not sure they are equally abstract. I'm also not seeing exactly what you wish these scores to do. You say that they don't express how "powerful" a character is, so what do they express? Raw agility and/or raw reason both seem like power to me in their own ways.


Well, this was another part of my rationale for cutting strength from the stat line and just letting players take strength-themed build options if they want a strong character.

But then you'd have characters who are strong because they are Knights and smart because they are Wizards and there would be no room for smart Knights and strong Wizards because the build options don't exist (either that or they must be transparently contrived). The reason, to my understanding and design goals, for ability scores providing their own benefits is so two Knights with the same or similar builds can still feel and play different based on the core of that character - the character's ability scores.


I definitely think that a "power" vs. "mastery" split makes far more sense than a "physical" vs. "mental" one, especially if we want interesting stats that might have some appeal to a player of any kind of character.

[...]

So in reality, the best way I can think of to handle the matter would be to use just one power stat, and determine its meaning and effects based on character class. How about a system where your character gains power at some levels, mastery at others, and you also get some points over time that you can allocate as you see fit?

I just don't understand what you mean by any of this. It sounds like you're talking about getting rid of all ability scores entirely. The only way I'm seeing that work sounds entirely undesirable to me, but I don't know if I'm envisioning the same thing you are. To me, mastery and power should go hand in hand, which is to say, the more proficient you are with a certain skill set or ability, the more power you should derive from that thing. But you seem to be discussing something altogether different. :smallconfused:

[nonsi]

As I've said before, this will merely be the basic rule. d20 is a game of exceptions, and things like Take 10 and Skill Mastery can assure that specific characters, specialists, can avoid the basic rule.

What about Take 10 on attack rolls... or at least Take 5. Everyone should be able to do the later on just about anything.




Since my current plan is to have armor and shields offer a different bonus, I don't see a problem. But trust me, they are not arbitrary. I gave an explanation for why they were chosen in the previous thread.

It'll have to make a lot of sense.
Let's not forget that a lot of the magic of 3.Xe is the attemp they made to model RL on quite a few aspects.




I can see the argument, partially, but then Strength would be left with no associated skills and Agility would then modify lots of useful skills. Perhaps each skill could become associated with two ability modifiers, using the higher modifier? It's worth looking into anyway, but it might get tiresome in practice.

Some skills maybe (like Intimidate), but I don't believe you could assign two attributes to all of them without it seeming too artificial.




I wasn't sure, but in the end I decided to put the movement-based skills (sans athletics) with agility. If you have a suggestion for what to give to Str I could feel better about this shuffling around.

I say let's be patient and let other toss in their 2 cents before we give up on that one.

[Carl]

Main thoughts summarised.

First and foremost i have no issue really with the concept of primary and dump stat's. Trying to make this not happen means radically altering the way in which several stats are used. Certainly doable, but at the same time it's adding a lot of extra ruls, and (if you really make no dump an unbreakable theme), hits both customisation and roleplay. In short i don't see the benefit so long as every class has a few stats to focus on there's no huge downside save the possibly that a roleplayer might want a smart fighter, (as an example), but gain littile from being so. But that could be dealt with via feats and PRC's, (think an expansion of the weapon finesse feat concept to allow you to substitute intelligence for strength on all your strength modifier dependent affects), especially if said feats where made less feat taxy, (they could be character creation only feats for example that you can take more off but get's counterbalanced by another creation mechanic somehow).

As far as the individual stats go.

Strength and ex are fine IMO. Yes dex may be a little confused, but it works and there's no questioning it's value. If you want hyper realism you could go for a completely different system altogether, (I've got a few bits of one lying around), but it's not vital to a functional game.

Con suffers from the HP generation mechanics, even with maximised hit dice a 16 con score equates to a fifth of all HP's coming from con for a D12 class. Practically speaking higher con and smaller hit dice being common just makes it worse. Of course sharply increasing the HP's granted by class levels so even wizards don't gain more than a modest potion of their HP's from con would throw some other factors into the mix that may be undesirable.

Int you hit most points, a better skills system would make it a better option without overpowering it IMO.

Wisdom: again most points where hit though i think something else was raised here i'm going to touch in a moment.

Charisma: Again most points hit but this really is the re-headed step child of the stats. and there's a good reason


Okay i said there was something else to mention. Quite simply put all martial classes desire a certain focus on strength and dex. The first adds t damage and hit chances, the second to a couple of important defences. Con will probably also be a fairly common focus for anyone not expecting to be able to stay out of the fighting for a bit, regardless of what is done with it. Some classes may certainly as class features desire something other than these 3 as their main stat, but every martial class does, and probably always will desire a certain moderation in these stats.

By comparison casters don't care about any mental stats save their caster specific one. There's no direct equivalents of strength or dexterity for spells amongst the stats.

Charisma though is the red headed stepchild here. Whilst in mechanics terms you cna make cases for some classes to focus on it. As an in combat ability score it leaves a lot to be desired. There are countless examples of heroes and villains using the other stats to win battles. But charisma is sadly very lacking, even bond one of the defining examples of he charismatic heroes never gets anything more than a bad girl switching sides out of it. We can potentially make Wisdom and Intelligence more valuable to casters in general, but short of the feat stuff i mentioned further up, there's not much we can do. Charisma is going to need an overhaul of the out of combat stuff to make it more worthwhile imo.

[Ziegander]

What about Take 10 on attack rolls... or at least Take 5. Everyone should be able to do the later on just about anything.

Oh, definitely. I don't see why Take 10 can't be used for any and all d20 rolls. Maybe not as the default rule (the "stressful situation" bit does make some sense), but I think anyone with a modicum of "proficiency" (as we move forward I'll be using that word a lot more, and more loosely) should be able to do it. It's often not even very advantageous.


I say let's be patient and let other toss in their 2 cents before we give up on that one.

Certainly.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Certainly.

I'm fully in favor of Agility, if it is a stat, covering Athletics. I'd also suggest making Brawn (or Force, or something similar) at skill governed by Strength that is used in place of simply raw Strength checks for feats of force application. After all, Strength is something you can train at, and it would give a nice distinction between the naturally strong (a Troll, say) and the Olympic Power-lifter who is an expert in feats of strength despite possibly losing to said Troll in an arm-wrestling contest. He's better at specific uses of his strength, perhaps.

Raw strength checks are common enough in D&D that a skill like this for lifting/breaking/bypassing objects would definitely be useful.

[GrandDM]

Hi

I took a look through this thread, and what intrigued me most was the 'degrees of success' idea. I had a think, and came up with this:

10+ over DC
Amazing Success
You far exceed the requirements placed upon you. Your action takes only half the time (if applicable - searching etc.), or you cover twice the distance (if applicable - climbing, jumping etc.). You also gain a +2 morale bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls, skill checks and saving throws for one minute.

5+ over DC
Great Success
You exceed the requirements placed upon you. You gain a +2 morale bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls, skill checks and saving throws for one minute.

DC to 4 over DC
Success
Your action succeeds

1 to 4 under DC
Failiure
Your action fails

5-9 under DC
Bad Faliure
In addition to the normal consequences of your action failing, you take a -2 morale penalty to attack rolls, damage rolls, skill checks and saving throws for one minute

10+ under DC
Awful Failiure
In addition to the normal consequences of your action failing, you take a -4 morale penalty to attack rolls, damage rolls , skill checks and saving throws for one minute.

I thought this looked alright - I would welcome feedback.

*EDIT*
Sorry, this post seems a little off the topic of the actual ability scores; I forgot to mention my own favoured system:

Strength
Body
Mind
Sense
Agility
Dexterity
Personality

The Strength bonus is used for damage rolls, while Dex is used for attack rolls. Body is roughly equivalent to Constitution, but as well as hp, fort saves and endurance, Body is used to determine carrying capacity along with strength.

Mind is like Intelligence, but broader - although still representing the IQ of the character, it also applies to a character's will save - a strong mind can throw off domination as well as a wise one.

Sense is used for perception, will saves, searching, noticing lies and so on.

Agility influences balancing, AC, sneaking and tumbling, while Dexterity also influences sneaking, attack rolls and things like sleight of hand.

Finally, Personality is like Charisma - it's a measure of how likeable the character is, how well they act, their ability to negotiate, bluff or perform.

More on the actual mechanics of this in a later post.

[unbeliever536]

Intelligence
Modifies skill points per level and arcana, architecture & engineering, decipher script, history, religion, search, and speak language.


I still really don't like Int being the key ability for the entire skill system. I think if we're at risk for Int being a dump stat, we need to rework things so that it isn't. I'm thinking of some kind of tactical bonus. Perhaps Int could have an ability to impact your Aid Another actions, so that a smart character could provide solid buffs to his friends by telling them the best way to go about something. If we go with the +5 hard cap on ability bonuses, we can just say that you add your Int bonus +1 to your friend's roll when you Aid Another, for an additional +1 to +6 on the roll. That makes Aid Another a very worthwhile action for an Int-based character, where now it's almost useless, and it makes Int worthwhile for everyone, not just casters in need of Arcana.


A two and a half year old child will never beat you at anything – ever (except maybe at being cute).
I’ll also make the assumption that you’re not a professional sprinter. If that’s the case, then you’re absolutely incapable of beating Usain Bolt at 100/200 M contest.
What I’m saying is that there should be a level of difference at a specific task (any task) where one cannot automatically fail while the other cannot automatically succeed.
Also, there should be a level of competence where one does not fumble at all (or that the chances of failure are so slim that they have no mechanical game expression).
As for Degrees of success/failure – those I welcome wholeheartedly (though I have no idea where to go here).


With the mechanic we're going with, you are absolutely correct. Usain Bolt could, perhaps, have his shoes fly off and trip as he leaves the starting block, giving you the win in the dash...but that's not going to happen 5% of the time. I would be much more in favor of largely dropping critical failure (since it is mostly harmful to player characters anyway) and possibly dropping critical success.

If we want to keep critical hits (I think we do), those should be relegated to a precision-based attack that everyone can make, like a called shot.


I'm fully in favor of Agility, if it is a stat, covering Athletics. I'd also suggest making Brawn (or Force, or something similar) at skill governed by Strength that is used in place of simply raw Strength checks for feats of force application. After all, Strength is something you can train at, and it would give a nice distinction between the naturally strong (a Troll, say) and the Olympic Power-lifter who is an expert in feats of strength despite possibly losing to said Troll in an arm-wrestling contest. He's better at specific uses of his strength, perhaps.

Raw strength checks are common enough in D&D that a skill like this for lifting/breaking/bypassing objects would definitely be useful.

That is... a really good point that I never would have thought of. You could break it up as Break (for doors and such), Lift (pick up something heavy and carry it around), and Burst (to break ropes and manacles). Or, of course, you could leave it as a single skill.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I keep seeing people talk about degrees of success/failure and "largely dropping critical failure (since it is mostly harmful to player characters anyway) and possibly dropping critical success", and I am honestly sickened.

Failure and Death should be omnipresent, not removed. The Players are not widdle babies who need Mama/Papa to hold their hand. Even the greatest hero can roll a 1 and botch the landing, and even the most worthless shmuck can roll a 20 and nail Achilles right in his heel. I'd make a nasty remark about "video game-ness" but even some video games can put the player through a ringer before they earn their victory.

There are plenty of ways to mitigate fate (Skill Mastery, spell/skill rolls that allow a reroll) but I am begging everyone here: Don't go down this path, or forever will it control your destiny.

[Durazno]

I can think of one way to approach making ability scores more varied, but it's probably more fitting for a different d20 game than it is for D&D. Also, it would be a colossal pain to balance, unless it was standardized to an uncomfortable degree.

Divide each class into six wedges based on the attributes, then have players pick two at character creation. Each wedge would be a collection of features and options that say, "A {class} with great {attribute} is able to..." So for instance, the Charisma wedge on the Fighter would be all about inspiring allies, intimidating foes, building a fighterly reputation and resisting mental attacks. Dexterity wedge has abilities relating to light weapons, precision, agility, that kind of thing. Each player chooses the two attributes they want their character to focus on most and then they end up with a version of their chosen class that capitalizes on them.

This also allows some archetypes that were more difficult to pull off within the rules - for instance, the elderly commander could be an Intelligence/Wisdom fighter, relatively frail on the front lines but able to help his allies with tactical acumen and battle experience.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Failure and Death should be omnipresent, not removed. The Players are not widdle babies who need Mama/Papa to hold their hand. Even the greatest hero can roll a 1 and botch the landing, and even the most worthless shmuck can roll a 20 and nail Achilles right in his heel. I'd make a nasty remark about "video game-ness" but even some video games can put the player through a ringer before they earn their victory.

Minor point: Achilles was killed by Paris. While Paris isn't really a great combatant compared to most in the Trojan War, he is a damn good archer, and he's also definitely a fairly major player in the conflict. Definitely some variety of PC or named BG (although not the BBEG). So he's far from "the most worthless shmuck."

If you look throughout mythology, heroes are rarely felled by "worthless shmucks" unless poison, treachery, or the like is involved.

That being said, your post reeks of "my way is better." What's the compelling argument for having anyone be able to succeed 5% of the time, and even the most skilled person in the world fail 5% of the time? Yes, Ursain Bolt can botch a run, but if he botched 1/20th of his runs he wouldn't be where he is today. The system as is would say, if we allow critical success and critical failure, that Ursain Bolt can be beaten by an overweight account in a 100m sprint 5% of the time. Doesn't seem right to me.

The players aren't babies, true. This is already accounted for by pitting them against level appropriate threats, and we can further fix it by limiting scaling to prevent auto-successes. A 15th level Rogue, however, shouldn't EVER have to worry about failing to pick the rusty iron jail lock, unless there are some HUGE circumstantial modifiers. That's not hand-holding: that's a nod to realism.

[bobthe6th]

Bell curve rolls?

[lesser_minion]

Sorry, sir, I didn't mean to so fully ignore you. My biggest issue with this set up is that I can't see how it would be implemented and you don't exactly give any guidelines or direction for how to use it.

Yeah, sorry about that. Unfortunately, none of these ideas are really as fleshed-out as what you have. Hopefully, my answers to your other comments will make it clearer what I'm saying.


Your scores are clearly defined into two physical scores and two mental scores, so I'm not sure they are equally abstract. I'm also not seeing exactly what you wish these scores to do. You say that they don't express how "powerful" a character is, so what do they express? Raw agility and/or raw reason both seem like power to me in their own ways.

If you look at strength, it's pretty clear what is being talked about -- there is even a table in the game telling you how much a character with a given strength score can lift, drag, or carry. Compare that with dexterity or intelligence. We all have a reasonable idea what the designers are getting at when they talk about these things, and we even know that a 10 is roughly average for a human, but their mechanical effect is expressed through abstract numbers, and descriptions like "a very difficult task, for example, ...".

As for what I'm saying these express as opposed to 'power', I'm talking about finesse and skill -- i.e. ways to get better use out of the power you do have. A character with better reasoning skills might be able to devise better tactics. A character with higher dexterity can aim his spells better so they don't hit allies, and so on.


But then you'd have characters who are strong because they are Knights and smart because they are Wizards and there would be no room for smart Knights and strong Wizards because the build options don't exist (either that or they must be transparently contrived).

The "power stat" for wizards doesn't really exist in D&D at present (even though intelligence likes to pretend otherwise, it's really more of a finesse stat). With write-in power stats, I imagine that a wizard would call it something like "essence", the player of a paladin or a cleric might interpret it as 'faith' and the player of a fighter might call it 'might' or 'muscle'.


To me, mastery and power should go hand in hand, which is to say, the more proficient you are with a certain skill set or ability, the more power you should derive from that thing.

They're different things. "Mastery" is how much bang you get for your buck. "Power" is how many ducks you have.

My idea was that a character's dexterity, intelligence, cunning, and agility would help them to accomplish tasks with greater finesse, while a fifth, "write-in", stat gives you more power with which to accomplish tasks. For physically-inclined characters, that stat is essentially strength, and for magical ones, it's raw magical power. For characters who are both, it represents a bit of both.

As a character levels up, at some levels, you'll have the option to decide whether you want your character to be more powerful or more skilled. At others, it will be decided for you, to prevent extreme builds in the vein of "guy who knows six thousand ways to kill someone with a sheet of paper but is too weak to so much as lift one".

[Ninjadeadbeard]

That being said, your post reeks of "my way is better." What's the compelling argument for having anyone be able to succeed 5% of the time, and even the most skilled person in the world fail 5% of the time? Yes, Ursain Bolt can botch a run, but if he botched 1/20th of his runs he wouldn't be where he is today. The system as is would say, if we allow critical success and critical failure, that Ursain Bolt can be beaten by an overweight account in a 100m sprint 5% of the time. Doesn't seem right to me.

The players aren't babies, true. This is already accounted for by pitting them against level appropriate threats, and we can further fix it by limiting scaling to prevent auto-successes. A 15th level Rogue, however, shouldn't EVER have to worry about failing to pick the rusty iron jail lock, unless there are some HUGE circumstantial modifiers. That's not hand-holding: that's a nod to realism.

I'm sorry if that came off as a tad egotistical. Let me rephrase:

The people I play with are of an old-school mentality. We play 3.5 usually, but always with several variant rules designed to make the game more lethal. While what you say is true, I have found that among the people I play with, even a critical failure is cherished. I am not saying that a 1 is always a critical failure, as I would hope there would be systems in place for sufficiently high-level character to negate the occasional one. What I'm saying is that there should always be a chance of failure, regardless of one's ability. Ursain Bolt may be an astonishing athlete, but there should always be a chance, even a 1/1000 chance, that he could trip on the start line.

Even a critical fail can be fun.:smallsmile:

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Ursain Bolt may be an astonishing athlete, but there should always be a chance, even a 1/1000 chance, that he could trip on the start line.

Even a critical fail can be fun.:smallsmile:

This I agree with, but it either creates a ton of extra rolls to confirm the failure (which gets tricky) or requires a different dice system.

I've been toying with an Xd20 skill system for my own purposes, where the better you are the more d20s you roll, taking the best result. With, say, 4d20 Usain Bolt would have about a 99.999% chance of success...but there is a chance of failure.

[Yitzi]

I keep seeing people talk about degrees of success/failure and "largely dropping critical failure (since it is mostly harmful to player characters anyway) and possibly dropping critical success", and I am honestly sickened.

Failure and Death should be omnipresent, not removed. The Players are not widdle babies who need Mama/Papa to hold their hand. Even the greatest hero can roll a 1 and botch the landing, and even the most worthless shmuck can roll a 20 and nail Achilles right in his heel. I'd make a nasty remark about "video game-ness" but even some video games can put the player through a ringer before they earn their victory.

There are plenty of ways to mitigate fate (Skill Mastery, spell/skill rolls that allow a reroll) but I am begging everyone here: Don't go down this path, or forever will it control your destiny.

You're half right. There should be no guaranteed successes or failures (even for skill and ability checks, where currently a natural 1 or natural 20 are not automatic failure/success)...but on the other hand, the minimum, if one even exists*, should be well below 5%.

*Personally, I think there should be no minimum; as your skill increases, the chance of failure should keep decreasing toward 0, it should just never hit 0.)

[Durazno]

And depending on how simulationist the game is, there should probably be rules for just letting things happen. After all, it would be frustrating to have a whole harrowing prison escape encounter fail to get off the ground because the party rogue managed to flub a 499/500 chance to pick the lock.

I think that there should always be a chance of failure, but the chance of failure should come in different places when you're at different levels. If you have thirty ranks in "pick lock," I'm comfortable with letting you just pick the lock already - it's just that the lock isn't where the challenge of this session will lie.

[unbeliever536]

If you look at strength, it's pretty clear what is being talked about -- there is even a table in the game telling you how much a character with a given strength score can lift, drag, or carry. Compare that with dexterity or intelligence. We all have a reasonable idea what the designers are getting at when they talk about these things, and we even know that a 10 is roughly average for a human, but their mechanical effect is expressed through abstract numbers, and descriptions like "a very difficult task, for example, ...".

As for what I'm saying these express as opposed to 'power', I'm talking about finesse and skill -- i.e. ways to get better use out of the power you do have. A character with better reasoning skills might be able to devise better tactics. A character with higher dexterity can aim his spells better so they don't hit allies, and so on.


The "power stat" for wizards doesn't really exist in D&D at present (even though intelligence likes to pretend otherwise, it's really more of a finesse stat). With write-in power stats, I imagine that a wizard would call it something like "essence", the player of a paladin or a cleric might interpret it as 'faith' and the player of a fighter might call it 'might' or 'muscle'.

They're different things. "Mastery" is how much bang you get for your buck. "Power" is how many ducks you have.

My idea was that a character's dexterity, intelligence, cunning, and agility would help them to accomplish tasks with greater finesse, while a fifth, "write-in", stat gives you more power with which to accomplish tasks. For physically-inclined characters, that stat is essentially strength, and for magical ones, it's raw magical power. For characters who are both, it represents a bit of both.

As a character levels up, at some levels, you'll have the option to decide whether you want your character to be more powerful or more skilled. At others, it will be decided for you, to prevent extreme builds in the vein of "guy who knows six thousand ways to kill someone with a sheet of paper but is too weak to so much as lift one".

So if I'm reading you right, character under this system would have the following, in no particular order:

-Abilities (your four)
-Skills
-Feats
-Power
-Mastery
-Class abilities (may include spells)
-Minor derived stats (HP, AC, saves, etc)

I like that for a monoclass character, but what happens to, say, a level 6 wizard when he takes a level in fighter. Does his Wizard-themed power/mastery suddenly also apply to his fighter abilities? Does he get a whole new power/mastery pair? What happens if he takes a level of rogue next? In fact, what happens to the rogue at all? What does a rogue's power represent? Agility and Dexterity are already ability scores, so it's not those. Strength doesn't make sense, so... Cunning? What is it?

[nonsi]

Failure and Death should be omnipresent, not removed. The Players are not widdle babies who need Mama/Papa to hold their hand. Even the greatest hero can roll a 1 and botch the landing, and even the most worthless shmuck can roll a 20 and nail Achilles right in his heel. I'd make a nasty remark about "video game-ness" but even some video games can put the player through a ringer before they earn their victory.

Paris was a renown archer (even if he was a worthless schmuck in melee).




There are plenty of ways to mitigate fate (Skill Mastery, spell/skill rolls that allow a reroll) but I am begging everyone here: Don't go down this path, or forever will it control your destiny.

Which is why I suggested the Take 5 (not minutes :smallsmile:) option.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Which is why I suggested the Take 5 (not minutes :smallsmile:) option.

I can see that working, but only if there is a per day cap on "Protection From Nat 1" abilities and powers. Like I said, there should still remain the chance of failure, even for a Superhero.

Say a Rogue has 3 uses of Take 5. He uses one to reverse a Nat 1 while picking a cell door, preventing the loss of his tools. He uses another to not step on a twig and alert the guard (and the 5 was high enough to avoid immediate discovery), and his last one to stop himself from falling off the roof as he makes his getaway. Then he crit fails a Spot check and walks into the guards' ambush. :smallsmile:

Or a Wizard has two "Reverse Fortune" spells he's prepared. He uses one to reroll a 1 he got while making a concentration check when a Ranger pegs him as he prepares a Fireball. He uses another reroll to nail that wounded Elder Dragon's wing and bring him down to where the Fighter can do some damage. And then the Wizard rolls a 1 on a Fort save against Disintegrate.

The chance is always there to fail miserably. It puts just the right spice into rolling, ya know?

[3WhiteFox3]

I can see that working, but only if there is a per day cap on "Protection From Nat 1" abilities and powers. Like I said, there should still remain the chance of failure, even for a Superhero.

Say a Rogue has 3 uses of Take 5. He uses one to reverse a Nat 1 while picking a cell door, preventing the loss of his tools. He uses another to not step on a twig and alert the guard (and the 5 was high enough to avoid immediate discovery), and his last one to stop himself from falling off the roof as he makes his getaway. Then he crit fails a Spot check and walks into the guards' ambush. :smallsmile:

Or a Wizard has two "Reverse Fortune" spells he's prepared. He uses one to reroll a 1 he got while making a concentration check when a Ranger pegs him as he prepares a Fireball. He uses another reroll to nail that wounded Elder Dragon's wing and bring him down to where the Fighter can do some damage. And then the Wizard rolls a 1 on a Fort save against Disintegrate.

The chance is always there to fail miserably. It puts just the right spice into rolling, ya know?

Or you could do the same exact thing by keeping the numbers from becoming too high or at least flatten the math a little. I dislike auto-success/failure rules because I've seen them cause problems. If you keep them in, then I know for a fact that some GMs will assume that a nat. 1 should hurt your character in some way, or that a nat. 20 will always deal double damage. This is because in 3.5 about 1/2 of the GMs I play with used fumble rules without really understanding why they had been taken out of the game.

In addition, I personally feel that they break immersion; how am I supposed to feel like a hero when I fail catastrophically when trying to fight off a common guard who then kills me with a lucky, anti-climatic crit? You have something like that happen enough and you start to grow detached from making cool characters; after all, why should you even try to be awesome if the system is making you periodically fail thanks to mere dice rolling?

Now, as to the proposed solution of a ability to take 5 every so often. I feel that such a thing is strange from an immersion stand-point; so I can be awesome despite bad luck only a few times a day? Why such a hard limit? It also still means that I can die in stupid and inappropriate ways.

There are other, better ways than natural 1/20 rules to give rolling a bit of spice. Instead, have people go against threats and obstacles that they can't overcome automatically no matter how powerful they are. A good example of thats is this OOTS page, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0867.html) Haley had to go against a threat that matched her abilities, and there was tension because of the obvious possibility of failure. However, Haley hasn't been stopped by normal traps and locks in a long time, simply because she out-grew that. So in a RPG, the GM should be able to have level-appropriate threats for all characters and with higher levels of power, the stakes become higher.

[lesser_minion]

I like that for a monoclass character, but what happens to, say, a level 6 wizard when he takes a level in fighter. Does his Wizard-themed power/mastery suddenly also apply to his fighter abilities?

Mastery is just a derived stat based on your ability scores, and doesn't necessarily have to exist -- Dexterity and Cunning are applicable to both fighters and wizards.

As for his fighter abilities, yes, it could happen that way. I would assume that you knew in advance that you wanted to be a fighter-wizard and not just a wizard, so the character would have be spending time on strength training as well as magical training.

Another way to handle it would be to just give them a new power stat with the minimum score (and the opportunity to transfer points over from his original power stat).


Does he get a whole new power/mastery pair? What happens if he takes a level of rogue next? In fact, what happens to the rogue at all?

Well, their main power source is physical, so it would be strength or something similar. The archetypical rogue is more of a skilled character, so I don't really see them building any power stat, but you can still imagine them getting physically stronger over time.

[GrandDM]

Mastery is just a derived stat based on your ability scores


That doesn't sound right to me. The way I think about it, mastery would represent your expertise in your chosen field - a fighter's skill with weapons doesn't increase because he works out - his damage might, but not skill. A wizard can't cast spells faster by doing brain-training games - he could increase his capacity, but casting speed is down to skill, not raw mental power.

For me, mastery represents your skill; it's a statistic in its own right, rather than just a derivative. A rogue who is highly dexterous doesn't necessarily have a clue about how to pick this or that lock - that's down to skill.

Hence, mastery.

[lesser_minion]

That doesn't sound right to me. The way I think about it, mastery would represent your expertise in your chosen field - a fighter's skill with weapons doesn't increase because he works out - his damage might, but not skill. A wizard can't cast spells faster by doing brain-training games - he could increase his capacity, but casting speed is down to skill, not raw mental power.

If the name is a problem, we could just change it to something else.

[GrandDM]

If the name is a problem, we could just change it to something else.

Fair enough - I just think it would be good if the distinction was clear. What I think of as mastery is skill; if that's not your definition, I agree with a name change as the favourable course of action; 'mastery' suggests skill, which is not what you have in mind.

-DM

[Tovec]

That being said, your post reeks of "my way is better." What's the compelling argument for having anyone be able to succeed 5% of the time, and even the most skilled person in the world fail 5% of the time? Yes, Ursain Bolt can botch a run, but if he botched 1/20th of his runs he wouldn't be where he is today. The system as is would say, if we allow critical success and critical failure, that Ursain Bolt can be beaten by an overweight account in a 100m sprint 5% of the time. Doesn't seem right to me.

The players aren't babies, true. This is already accounted for by pitting them against level appropriate threats, and we can further fix it by limiting scaling to prevent auto-successes. A 15th level Rogue, however, shouldn't EVER have to worry about failing to pick the rusty iron jail lock, unless there are some HUGE circumstantial modifiers. That's not hand-holding: that's a nod to realism.

I would guess that Bolt has training (ranks) and circumstance bonuses (conditioned training, expertise at running, good shoes, familiarity with the track/running professionally) which would give him the chance to take a 10 and still end up with a higher bonus than a 'overweight account', regardless of the overweight guy's roll. The 5% on the roll has to do with giving him a CHANCE of failure if he were not able to take a 10 for example, and actually had to try, to push himself instead of just running regularly.

A 15th level rogue should be able to take 10, or 20, on open lock checks. I know they probably can't RAW but they should be able to. The 5% chance has nothing to do with it. If they are actually rolling in that case, they need to do it more quickly or are in some way agitated beyond being able to take their time, then there should be a chance (however slight) that they fail (5%).

[unbeliever536]

I would guess that Bolt has training (ranks) and circumstance bonuses (conditioned training, expertise at running, good shoes, familiarity with the track/running professionally) which would give him the chance to take a 10 and still end up with a higher bonus than a 'overweight account', regardless of the overweight guy's roll. The 5% on the roll has to do with giving him a CHANCE of failure if he were not able to take a 10 for example, and actually had to try, to push himself instead of just running regularly.

A 15th level rogue should be able to take 10, or 20, on open lock checks. I know they probably can't RAW but they should be able to. The 5% chance has nothing to do with it. If they are actually rolling in that case, they need to do it more quickly or are in some way agitated beyond being able to take their time, then there should be a chance (however slight) that they fail (5%).

Ok. If the default is taking 10, I could accept an "every roll crits". As it stands now, though, most skill checks in the SRD are rolled unless you explicitly take 10, which would mean that every attempt would have a 5% chance of automatic failure, which I find silly to have in the rules by default (people can houserule whatever they want, of course).

[Blightedmarsh]

Atributes


Dexterity
Agility
Physique (Con/Strength hybrid)

Intelligence
Perception/social
Willpower (wisdom/con hybrid)

HP: I suggest you get a front load of HP at the start and give everyone a small racial + class hit die per level.


Weapons

Speed weapons

Speed weapons use Dexterity to hit and dexterity to damage.

Example:
Light crossbow
Dagger

Medium weapons

Medium weapons use dexterity to hit and strength to damage.

Example:
Longsword
Bow

Power weapons

Power weapons use strength to hit and add strength to damage.

Example:
Great sword
Throwing axe



Skills

Rather than make all skills dependent (as in leveling them up, not adding a bonus to them) on just intelligence what about typing them to their attributes?

When you level you would get intelligence skill points for intelligence based skills, strength based points for strength skills and so on.

Alternately you could divide your attributes and skills into mental and physical types; you pick a primary attribute from each and you draw your skill points to spend from your bonus from these. I would add the class skill points as either set or untyped on top of that.

Example

A thief levels up.
From her physical attributes she uses her 16 DEX to get +4 physical skill points
From her mental stats she uses her 15 CHA to get +3 mental skill points.
Say rouge gives her +1 physical +1 mental and +2 untyped.

Total +5 Physical skill points +4 Mental and +2 untyped

[Yitzi]

A 15th level Rogue, however, shouldn't EVER have to worry about failing to pick the rusty iron jail lock, unless there are some HUGE circumstantial modifiers. That's not hand-holding: that's a nod to realism.

The chance of failure should be so low that he doesn't have to worry, but there should still be that tiny tiny chance.

(In RAW, by the way, there isn't even that tiny chance; if his modifier is at least as high as the DC or one less, he'll automatically succeed.)

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Weapons

Speed weapons

Speed weapons use Dexterity to hit and dexterity to damage.

Example:
Light crossbow
Dagger

Medium weapons

Medium weapons use dexterity to hit and strength to damage.

Example:
Longsword
Bow

Power weapons

Power weapons use strength to hit and add strength to damage.

Example:
Great sword
Throwing axe

That's actually pretty interesting. I like it. Maybe we should consider that as opposed to Simple, Martial and Exotic?


Skills

Rather than make all skills dependent (as in leveling them up, not adding a bonus to them) on just intelligence what about typing them to their attributes?

When you level you would get intelligence skill points for intelligence based skills, strength based points for strength skills and so on.

Alternately you could divide your attributes and skills into mental and physical types; you pick a primary attribute from each and you draw your skill points to spend from your bonus from these. I would add the class skill points as either set or untyped on top of that.

Example

A thief levels up.
From her physical attributes she uses her 16 DEX to get +4 physical skill points
From her mental stats she uses her 15 CHA to get +3 mental skill points.
Say rouge gives her +1 physical +1 mental and +2 untyped.

Total +5 Physical skill points +4 Mental and +2 untyped

That sounds great. Someone who has high Strength should be able to increase his Strength skills faster than the guy with a high Int. How many rocket-scientists are bodybuilders?

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

The chance of failure should be so low that he doesn't have to worry, but there should still be that tiny tiny chance.

How small does a chance have to be before it's no longer worth accounting for in a game? This is an honest question, not me trying to prove a point: I actually like small chance systems, but I think this could be a good issue to debate.


(In RAW, by the way, there isn't even that tiny chance; if his modifier is at least as high as the DC or one less, he'll automatically succeed.)

Well yes. On skill checks, anyway.

[Ziegander]

The whole Power and Mastery concept sounds basically like obliterating Ability Scores as a thing entirely and it just doesn't sound like anything I would be interested in designing.


[...]Say a Rogue has 3 uses of Take 5. He uses one to reverse a Nat 1 while picking a cell door, preventing the loss of his tools. He uses another to not step on a twig and alert the guard (and the 5 was high enough to avoid immediate discovery), and his last one to stop himself from falling off the roof as he makes his getaway. Then he crit fails a Spot check and walks into the guards' ambush. :smallsmile:

Ah... Take 5 as a failure mitigation device. I actually really like that, and I agree it is something that would need to be limited if it's something that's going to be used after knowing the result of your roll. I like it that way, but it should be limited in some way. I don't know if a strict per day limit is the way to go, but... this is interesting design space. I'll think about it for a while.


Or you could do the same exact thing by keeping the numbers from becoming too high or at least flatten the math a little. I dislike auto-success/failure rules because I've seen them cause problems. If you keep them in, then I know for a fact that some GMs will assume that a nat. 1 should hurt your character in some way, or that a nat. 20 will always deal double damage. This is because in 3.5 about 1/2 of the GMs I play with used fumble rules without really understanding why they had been taken out of the game.

My plan for Automatic Failures and Automatic Success is that the rules should clearly spell out exactly what happens for every skill and for any attack. If the DM wants to houserule other stuff on top of that, or houserule any of that away, that's up to them, nobody can stop them, but the rules themselves will say, "A critical failure on an attack roll provokes opportunity attacks," or "A critical success using the Arcana skill to identify an associated creature causes your next successful attack against that creature to be a critical hit." Stuff like that, so that it's clear exactly what happens. More than just, "You definitely succeed/fail, no matter what."


In addition, I personally feel that they break immersion; how am I supposed to feel like a hero when I fail catastrophically when trying to fight off a common guard who then kills me with a lucky, anti-climatic crit? You have something like that happen enough and you start to grow detached from making cool characters; after all, why should you even try to be awesome if the system is making you periodically fail thanks to mere dice rolling?

If you can't fail when you roll the dice, then why are you rolling the dice? Just to see how awesomely you succeed? No, that doesn't feel right, does it? And yet...


Ok. If the default is taking 10, I could accept an "every roll crits". As it stands now, though, most skill checks in the SRD are rolled unless you explicitly take 10, which would mean that every attempt would have a 5% chance of automatic failure, which I find silly to have in the rules by default (people can houserule whatever they want, of course).

I will be seriously considering the implications of allowing characters to Take 10 on any d20 roll. Maybe not all the time, but definitely with special abilities. Maybe just with the barest proficiency.


Skills

Rather than make all skills dependent (as in leveling them up, not adding a bonus to them) on just intelligence what about typing them to their attributes?

When you level you would get intelligence skill points for intelligence based skills, strength based points for strength skills and so on.

Alternately you could divide your attributes and skills into mental and physical types; you pick a primary attribute from each and you draw your skill points to spend from your bonus from these. I would add the class skill points as either set or untyped on top of that.

It sounds ideal, but in practice it's clunky, complicated, and again forces us to come up with a possibly contrived unique thing for Intelligence to stand for. I would much rather have each score have one clear thing that it does that no other score does than break things like attack rolls and damage rolls and skill points between multiple different scores.

[Elricaltovilla]

Regarding Charisma being the dump stat, maybe ascribing more importance to it is the way to go. For example, tying saves to 2 scores instead of one, like:

FORT: use the higher of STR or CON
REF: use the higher of INT or DEX
WILL: use the higher of CHA or WIS

Perhaps tying other skills/class features to multiple ability scores would make it less likely that any one stat becomes the dump stat.

[Blightedmarsh]

**ADDENDUM**


Atributes
Weapons

Speed weapons

Speed weapons use Dexterity to hit and 1/2 dexterity to damage.

Example:
Throwing
Dagger

Balanced weapons

Balanced weapons use dexterity to hit and strength to damage.

Example:
Longsword
Bow

Power weapons

Power weapons use1/2 strength modifier to hit and add strength to damage.

Example:
Great sword
Throwing axe

[3WhiteFox3]

My plan for Automatic Failures and Automatic Success is that the rules should clearly spell out exactly what happens for every skill and for any attack. If the DM wants to houserule other stuff on top of that, or houserule any of that away, that's up to them, nobody can stop them, but the rules themselves will say, "A critical failure on an attack roll provokes opportunity attacks," or "A critical success using the Arcana skill to identify an associated creature causes your next successful attack against that creature to be a critical hit." Stuff like that, so that it's clear exactly what happens. More than just, "You definitely succeed/fail, no matter what."

I definitely like this, by having explicitly written rules, hopefully most DMs won't feel the need to interject their own in. I would like to have an official variant rule that takes out the auto-success/failure rules to make combat a little more heroic, though.



If you can't fail when you roll the dice, then why are you rolling the dice? Just to see how awesomely you succeed? No, that doesn't feel right, does it? And yet...


Because failure is fine, good even; however, anti-climatic events (such as unlucky failure) work best when used sparingly. I'll admit that most of my reluctance comes from seeing lucky crits from NPCs bring PCs dangerously close to death. I just dislike such things because they have a negative impact on the heroes moreso than the hordes of enemies; the opposition has more dice to throw to get 20s (over the course of the game) and isn't nearly as effected by rolling 1s. If a mook rolls a 1 and provokes an AoO that kills him then that's just one mook, whatever, but if a PC does the same thing, and that kills him, that's a death of a supposedly great hero and that should be a big deal IMO.

That said, I have seen nat. 1's create memorable moments, but not always for the right reasons. I would rather have interesting combats where you fail (or even die) when the stakes are high enough. That's what heroes do, they don't get felled by some lucky Orc armed with a pick who killed them before they ever got to even take an action. That's an extreme situation, but a possible one thanks to the rules as they currently are written, and something I feel should be avoided at all costs.


I will be seriously considering the implications of allowing characters to Take 10 on any d20 roll. Maybe not all the time, but definitely with special abilities. Maybe just with the barest proficiency.

I like this alot, back when I got into D&D I always liked the idea of taking 10, sadly, it doesn't get used much because people forget that the option exists thanks to major limiters in actually using it. If taking 10 becomes a more common way of getting around mundane obstacles then that will be a good thing indeed. However, my fear is that it means that you won't be rolling much and for some players that might not be optimal. Heck, I love rolling the dice, because it can be very exciting.

What I would want in an ideal system would be a some kind of risk/reward system; where you can take 10 on something and bypass easy challenges that way, but if you roll you get something for taking that chance. What that be could vary, from some sort of in-game currency that you can spend later for benefits or the option to do something extra heroic, it could be anything that gave an incentive to let the dice determine your fate. It would fit well narratively, the focus is not on the mundane tasks most of the time, merely being filler for the main plot; however, once in a while focus is put on a normally routine action where the effects of the heroes success/failure can really mean something.

[GrandDM]

The whole Power and Mastery concept sounds basically like obliterating Ability Scores as a thing entirely and it just doesn't sound like anything I would be interested in designing.

I don't think it does eliminate ability scores. I will attempt to clarify:

Ability Scores
Base measurements of your character's attributes, named after what they measure - Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma

Power
The amount of force a character can bring to bear, coming from their physical abilities (Ability Scores) and constant honing (adventuring - Levels). For a fighter, some form of derivation from level, Str and Con. For a wizard or sorcerer, level, Int and Cha. For a cleric, level Wis and Cha.

I was thinking P=L*(Amod+Bmod); where P is Power, L is level, Amod is the modifier for ability A and Bmod the modifier for ability B

Mastery
The skill of a character in their field. NOT a derivative, not a substitute for ability scores. A thief with shaky hands might still be able to pick a DC 25 lock, because he knows how they work. Mastery should increase with level, and when you do things associated with it.

Example: Vaarsuvius :vaarsuvius: is a wizard. S/he (it's not clear) invented the spell "Vaarsuvius' Enhanced Scrying". This should grant a mastery increase, representing the insight gained into magic through creating a new use for it.



-DM

[lesser_minion]

The whole Power and Mastery concept sounds basically like obliterating Ability Scores as a thing entirely and it just doesn't sound like anything I would be interested in designing.

Not at all, at least not how I envision it. What I'm suggesting is that:

You don't have "mental" and "physical" ability scores, you have "power" (Strength, Essence, Command, etc), and "finesse" (Dexterity, Agility, Instinct, Reasoning) ability scores.
Power ability scores let you do things more forcefully. Mastery ability scores let you do things more skillfully -- with the benefit of better understanding or greater finesse.
Since every character should be able to find something compelling in every "mastery" ability score, but most characters don't really care about more than one kind of power, the 'power' ability scores work essentially like World of Darkness essence/gnosis/psyche/blood potency.
You get a lot of stat points with levels, some of which are allocated specifically to power or mastery abilities, and others which can be allocated freely.

What kind of power stat you have influences your resources (perhaps including "health") -- how much you get, how you can recover them, and so on. So a monk might have "conditioning" as their power stat, and have 'command points' that they use to ignore injuries and other hostile effects.

Fortitude and Will saves would then be just some variation on an opposed power check.

[Ziegander]

Not at all, at least not how I envision it. What I'm suggesting is that:

You don't have "mental" and "physical" ability scores, you have "power" (Strength, Essence, Command, etc), and "finesse" (Dexterity, Agility, Instinct, Reasoning) ability scores.
Power ability scores let you do things more forcefully. Mastery ability scores let you do things more skillfully -- with the benefit of better understanding or greater finesse.
Since every character should be able to find something compelling in every "mastery" ability score, but most characters don't really care about more than one kind of power, the 'power' ability scores work essentially like World of Darkness essence/gnosis/psyche/blood potency.

No, I understand all of that, but in practice here's what it seems to translate to:


Every class has a single affiliated "ability" score that pretends to be different by calling itself something different. In reality, each class' ability score is the same thing, it just modifies things that class does.
Every class has different class skills and gains skill points per level which with they are able to increase their mastery over a variety of class-related fields of work and study.


So, sure, the Fighter has Might and the Wizard has Magic. Those are their "Power" stats. Since they only care about one kind of "Power" they don't have other ability scores, right? So Might adds to anything the Fighter cares about, hitting stuff, parrying blows, jumping ravines, whatever. For all intents and purposes, his Might modifier adds to his d20 rolls. Same goes for the Wizard and his Magic modifier.

Now, Mastery is a different sort of animal that sounds, to me, exactly like class skills to be honest. You say that it translates to skill and finesse and represents a character's better understanding (or training). Characters should be able to find something compelling for each Mastery "score," but you don't define what the score actually does or what that compelling stuff is, but it does sound like skills.

So, putting these together, if I'm getting it at all right, in your suggestion the only thing ability scores would do is add to skill rolls. Basically. Since the "Power Score" can more truly be understood as a class-based bonus to stuff that class cares about. Now, as I said, this really doesn't sound like something I'd like to design for, but perhaps I'm still getting it wrong.

[GrandDM]

Again, not what I mean, and probably not what lesser_minion means either (although I don't seem to be working on exactly the same idea as him either, to be fair)

I do admit that a Power stat could be problematic, so if we get rid of it an just have Mastery, I think it will be a whole lot easier.

Mastery, to me, is a combination of experience, knowledge and application. It's no good having huge muscles if you don't know the best way to swing your sword to use your raw power. Mastery is a complement to ability scores, not a killer. It allows you to determine not just the raw physical statistics of your character, but the skill with which he applies them - a wizard might be able to overcome spell resistance with brute force, but he can also do so through knowledge of its strengths and weaknesses.

On a related note, I also have the idea of 'specialized mastery' ; for example, a wizard chooses to take a lot of feats pertaining to the creation of magic items. He then crafts magic item after magic item. He should get increases to mastery overall for this, but after a couple of points he should no longer gain bonuses to the 'main' mastery statistic - there's only so much you can learn from doing the same thing over and over. Instead, he should gain points in 'Mastery (Craft Magic Item)'.

The point increases here will pertain only to that specific thing. In addition, an increase to mastery overall will increase specialized mastery, but not the other way around.

I hope this is a bit clearer.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Just throwing in my 2 cents...again...but this time at the whole "Mastery" debate. From how GrandDM is describing Mastery, it sounds to me a lot like the old D6 rules for skills, where you could put another die into Engineering, but could also put it into Engineering (Volkswagons). I'm not sure exactly what the point is?

Now, if anyone has seen Yora's thread (where she rebalanced D&D as an E10 system), one thing that she had there for certain classes was Skill Mastery, which stated that after a certain level the class with this ability could not roll lower than a 10 for a skill roll. Nat 1's still resulted in failure, but a 2 through 9 was treated as a 10 by the rules.

Not sure if that's what we're talking about. The terminology is a little muddled for me.

[Ziegander]

Again, not what I mean, and probably not what lesser_minion means either (although I don't seem to be working on exactly the same idea as him either, to be fair).

[...]

I hope this is a bit clearer.

Nah, your idea was pretty clear already, you're just not talking about the same thing Lesser_Minion is. I already have plans to do something similar to what you're talking about revolving around "Proficiency" rather than "Mastery" but it is all essentially the same. In dividing the gameplay into Tiers I plan to also divide character Proficiency into Tiers to represent growth in skill and the acquisition of new avenues of power.

The current thought is for five Tiers (Basic, Expert, Master, Legend, and Epic) that characters would progress through. The higher the Tier the bigger the bonus to d20 rolls, but more than that, the more (and more powerful) options the characters have with their skills (and other stuff). A character with Basic Heavy Blades Proficiency gets a +2 competence bonus to attack rolls with Heavy Blades and access to some minor tricks. A character with Epic Speechcraft Proficiency gets a +10 competence bonus to Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate checks and can trick Loki into ruining his own Ragnarok by convincing him of a "better plan".

[GrandDM]

The current thought is for five Tiers (Basic, Expert, Master, Legend, and Epic) that characters would progress through. The higher the Tier the bigger the bonus to d20 rolls, but more than that, the more (and more powerful) options the characters have with their skills (and other stuff). A character with Basic Heavy Blades Proficiency gets a +2 competence bonus to attack rolls with Heavy Blades and access to some minor tricks.


This sounds good, except for two things:

1. You should have a Journeyman tier (Basic, Journeyman, Expert)
2. Basic Proficiency should simply negate non-proficiency penalties. Minor tricks and competence bonuses should start at Journeyman.

On a related note, I was thinking of starting a thread about crafting and enchanting using this tier system, unless you want to save it for later?

*EDIT*
Just saw Ninjadeadbeard's post, mentioning "you could put another die into Engineering, but you could also put it into Engineering (Volkswagons) - what's the point?"

The point is that you don't choose to put another die in. Having a specialized mastery field would simply show your specialty, like a wizard specialized in necromancy. You might have Mastery (Magic) 4, which is a category, but within that you could have Mastery (Enchant Weapon) 6, which isn't you choosing to put extra power into it, it's showing that you have more knowledge and experience in enchanting weapons than magic in general.

To clarify: you don't put points into mastery, you gain them through doing things associated with that category or specialization. Being specialized in enchanting weapons has a point, because it is your specialty and you're better at it than other things.

A good example is a professional kitchen. You have a pastry chef, a sauce chef and so on - they can all cook anything well, but they can cook their specialized thing amazingly.

[TuggyNE]

Just saw Ninjadeadbeard's post, mentioning "you could put another die into Engineering, but you could also put it into Engineering (Volkswagons) - what's the point?"

The point is that you don't choose to put another die in. Having a specialized mastery field would simply show your specialty, like a wizard specialized in necromancy. You might have Mastery (Magic) 4, which is a category, but within that you could have Mastery (Enchant Weapon) 6, which isn't you choosing to put extra power into it, it's showing that you have more knowledge and experience in enchanting weapons than magic in general.

To clarify: you don't put points into mastery, you gain them through doing things associated with that category or specialization. Being specialized in enchanting weapons has a point, because it is your specialty and you're better at it than other things.

A good example is a professional kitchen. You have a pastry chef, a sauce chef and so on - they can all cook anything well, but they can cook their specialized thing amazingly.

So, use-incremented skills*? This is a thing in some systems; it has the problem that any useful skill is likely to have attempts spammed, in order to raise it to the point of being worthwhile. (Because players are rational actors, in the economic sense, even if the characters are not.)

*Bah, I forget the exact name right now. Something like that.

[lesser_minion]

So, sure, the Fighter has Might and the Wizard has Magic. Those are their "Power" stats. Since they only care about one kind of "Power" they don't have other ability scores, right?

No, I'm suggesting that they only have one of a particular kind of ability score, and I'm not suggesting that it adds to everything the character cares about -- only situations where the amount of force the character can bring to bear matters, and probably with a cost attached even then.

And while the different power stats would have the same functional role for each character, they can still function in different ways.


Now, Mastery is a different sort of animal that sounds, to me, exactly like class skills to be honest. You say that it translates to skill and finesse and represents a character's better understanding (or training).

As I said, this is barely past the idea stage. But if those scores just modifiers for skills, that would defeat much of the point, unless the skills were made far more important.

The goal here is to have power vs. skill be a significant choice that can apply to most character classes.

So:

Power doesn't add directly to most d20 rolls, but failed d20 rolls can be converted to successes by expending resources.
Dexterity adds to attack rolls.
Agility adds to defence.
Cunning adds to initiative rolls, and provides currency for customising special abilities on the fly.
Reason provides currency for bringing more options into battle.


Obviously, these are all incredibly preliminary, but as a rule of thumb, you add mastery ability scores to dice rolls, and you use resources granted by your power stat to change the outcome.

[Yitzi]

So, use-incremented skills*? This is a thing in some systems; it has the problem that any useful skill is likely to have attempts spammed, in order to raise it to the point of being worthwhile. (Because players are rational actors, in the economic sense, even if the characters are not.)

The answer then is that past a certain point, it's incremented only for the harder uses of the skill, and using the skill at that level takes time and (depending on the skill) may be dangerous as well, so you might as well do it when you're going to be paid (i.e. as part of an adventure).

Essentially, making skills use-incremented in the same way that combat skill is use-incremented via the XP system.

[GrandDM]

So, use-incremented skills*? This is a thing in some systems; it has the problem that any useful skill is likely to have attempts spammed, in order to raise it to the point of being worthwhile. (Because players are rational actors, in the economic sense, even if the characters are not.)


That's not what I meant. I'm not talking about skills here, I'm talking about mastery. Skills are about being able to do something, Mastery is doing it well.

An example: a mechanic has 9 ranks in Mechanics, the Skill Focus (Mechanics) feat, and Mastery (Mechanics) 4. Mastery is not a bonus to a skill, it's finesse with that skill. Someone with Mastery (Mechanics) 4 is capable of more fine, detailed and precise work that someone with Mastery (Mechanics) 0, which is the default.

In game terms, Mastery doesn't increase success chance, except for the first few points. It means that if you succeed, you do so better.

A wizard with Mastery (Spell Creation) 6 might make a load of ability and skill checks (for me, creating a new spell would be some form of combination of Spellcraft, Knowledge (Arcana), and a spellstat check). He would gain a +2 circumstance bonus to these checks because he has a Mastery of Spell Creation over 2 points, but beyond that, the checks aren't increased. It's the spell that's better - it needs less expensive materials or does more damage or has a faster casting time than otherwise.

As for mastery increase, there isn't a set system for this. Your mastery will increase at the DM's discretion, when he thinks you've done something worthy of it. For example, creating your first new spell might grant you a point in Mastery (Magic), bringing it up to 1 (and also bringing its subcategories, like Spell Creation, Alchemy, Magic Item Creation and so on, up by 1) and also a point in Mastery (Create Spell), bringing it to 2, but casting a spell you've just learnt wouldn't.

Similarly, there would be a point where you've created so many new spells that you can't gain any more insight by doing so again. Instead, you can work at other aspect of magic, which will eventually up your overall Mastery (Magic), and thus your Mastery (Spell Creation).

As I said: not incremented, it's a little more abstract than that, but I think it works quite well.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

An example: a mechanic has 9 ranks in Mechanics, the Skill Focus (Mechanics) feat, and Mastery (Mechanics) 4. Mastery is not a bonus to a skill, it's finesse with that skill. Someone with Mastery (Mechanics) 4 is capable of more fine, detailed and precise work that someone with Mastery (Mechanics) 0, which is the default.

In game terms, Mastery doesn't increase success chance, except for the first few points. It means that if you succeed, you do so better.

So what you're saying is this (maybe): Lidda has 10 ranks in Sneak, and has Mastery Sneak (Crowd). When making a Sneak check to avoid the Guards' attention while she walks the city streets, she does not count her Mastery bonus on a failed Sneak check. On a successful one, she adds her Mastery if she used a crowd for cover, which matters in a Gradient Success/Failure System, as the OP is looking for, because it might bump you up one grade in success.

If I read you correctly.


As for mastery increase, there isn't a set system for this. Your mastery will increase at the DM's discretion, when he thinks you've done something worthy of it. For example, creating your first new spell might grant you a point in Mastery (Magic), bringing it up to 1 (and also bringing its subcategories, like Spell Creation, Alchemy, Magic Item Creation and so on, up by 1) and also a point in Mastery (Create Spell), bringing it to 2, but casting a spell you've just learnt wouldn't.

I would hesitate to give the DM the power of telling my character if they've earned Mastery in a skill or ability. It should be bound to the Basic, Journeyman, Expert, Etc system Ziegander was talking about. Say that each step represents 5 levels. Level 1-5 lacks any Mastery. At Journeyman and every other tier the character may select a skill to attain Mastery in, or increase the mastery of a previous skill. D&D has always been a crunchy mechanical game. Too much DM fiat is bad for balance if there is a personal debate between player and DM.

Math is impartial.

[GrandDM]

So what you're saying is this (maybe): Lidda has 10 ranks in Sneak, and has Mastery Sneak (Crowd). When making a Sneak check to avoid the Guards' attention while she walks the city streets, she does not count her Mastery bonus on a failed Sneak check. On a successful one, she adds her Mastery if she used a crowd for cover, which matters in a Gradient Success/Failure System, as the OP is looking for, because it might bump you up one grade in success.

If I read you correctly.


Pretty much, although Lidda would gain a +2 competence bonus to her attempt because she has a more than, say, two points in Mastery (Sneak (Crowd)), but beyond that you've got the idea. Instead of the guards not noticing her, she might, say, be able to get right up behind the guards in a position to pick their pockets.



I would hesitate to give the DM the power of telling my character if they've earned Mastery in a skill or ability. It should be bound to the Basic, Journeyman, Expert, Etc system Ziegander was talking about. Say that each step represents 5 levels. Level 1-5 lacks any Mastery. At Journeyman and every other tier the character may select a skill to attain Mastery in, or increase the mastery of a previous skill. D&D has always been a crunchy mechanical game. Too much DM fiat is bad for balance if there is a personal debate between player and DM.

Math is impartial.


I do see your point, and I admit that it would depend entirely on how fair the DM is. I think that if we do tie it to levelling up and the tiers, different classes will need different amounts of incrementing - a rogue might want two or even three at a time (all to different skills, obviously), but a fighter would probably only need one at a time.

As to when your mastery increases by DM approval, I think it could work in a collaborative way:

Player A: Oh wow, Player B, that was awesome! You should get a Mastery increase!
DM: Ok, everyone, what do you all think?
Player C: Yeah!
Player D: Alright
Player E: If he has to... (don't see why I shouldn't, grumble grumble grumble)
Player F: No way!

DM: Ok, that's 3 votes to 2. Mastery increase!


But I think I prefer tying it to the tiers better.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Pretty much, although Lidda would gain a +2 competence bonus to her attempt because she has a more than, say, two points in Mastery (Sneak (Crowd)), but beyond that you've got the idea. Instead of the guards not noticing her, she might, say, be able to get right up behind the guards in a position to pick their pockets.

Well that was just an example. She could have also used the check to quietly stuck one with a hidden blade and sauntered off before the body hit the pavement.


I do see your point, and I admit that it would depend entirely on how fair the DM is. I think that if we do tie it to levelling up and the tiers, different classes will need different amounts of incrementing - a rogue might want two or even three at a time (all to different skills, obviously), but a fighter would probably only need one at a time.

You say that like a Rogue is automatically more skillful than a Fighter. Warriors throughout history have honed their skills with weapons and tactics. While they shouldn't necessarily be a Master Pickpocket also, I would think the Fighter more than capable of matching the Rogue in sheer number of masteries.

And besides that, tieing Mastery to Classes is detrimental to multiclassing. It should be based on Tier and Level. Tier provides the numerical bonus (Basic = +1, Journeyman +2, Expert +3, etc) while Character Level determines the number of skills they have mastered (similar to Feats usually being tied to Character Level).


As to when your mastery increases by DM approval, I think it could work in a collaborative way:

Player A: Oh wow, Player B, that was awesome! You should get a Mastery increase!
DM: Ok, everyone, what do you all think?
Player C: Yeah!
Player D: Alright
Player E: If he has to... (don't see why I shouldn't, grumble grumble grumble)
Player F: No way!

DM: Ok, that's 3 votes to 2. Mastery increase!


But I think I prefer tying it to the tiers better.

Yeah...how many games have you been in where not one of the Players tried to game the system? Giving them a vote in the matter only means that whenever anyone suggests gaining a Mastery there will be an overwhelming Yay vote. Because what's good for one character is good for the party, in the same sense as "I scratch your back, you scratch mine". :smalltongue:

[Ziegander]

Just checking in. I've been very busy with various real life projects, but I'm still thinking about this every day. I've even just had a breakthrough on how to better organize and design the Fighter/Warblade retool I was working on, so I'll try and get to that later this week.

@lesser_minion: That makes much more sense now and is actually fairly close to the system I've already proposed, so perhaps we can come to a compromise agreement that will make us both happy. Let me think about it some more.

Otherwise, I think we're pretty close to moving on to the next thread.

[Vadskye]

I think you are all going much farther afield than need be. D&D ability scores can be reworked into a perfectly functional format without abandoning the classic six. If you get rid of those, you may have a functional gaming system, but it is hard to call it D&D.

To that end, I propose several things. First, ability score modifiers should be (score-10) instead of (score-10)/2. This generates a much better scaling mechanism. Part of the reason D&D fails so badly at representing truly superhuman play is that it scales the ability scores so abominably slowly. This also leads to the beautiful mechanic where a Str 10 character has the same chance to perform a DC 10 check as a Str 20 character has to perform a DC 20 check. It makes so much more sense!

Second, ability scores must all contribute to skill points. Specifically, they should contribute to the skill points for skills within their purview. If I have a high Strength score, I get more skill points for Climb, Jump, and Swim skills. Simple as that.

Third, Wisdom is entirely perception and intuition. Charisma is willpower. This solves some of the nonsense surrounding their respective definitions. It also enables the beautiful symmetry where each saving throw has two related stats. Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma are the primary stats for Fort, Reflex, and Will. However, it also makes sense that Strength, Wisdom, and Intelligence would be each help Fort, Reflex, and Will, just not as much as the primary stats. Mechanically, half your Strength modifier can be applied to Fort saves, half your Wis modifier can be applied to Reflex saves, and so on. This, in combination with the skill point change, means every ability score matters for something. That is a good thing!

There are a few more changes, which are summarized here in this PDF about the ability scores. I think this is a fairly intuitive system, and retains much more of the core feel of D&D while still solving the issues you presented in the initial post.

[Carl]

@Ziegander: Any response to my post seems t have gotten forgotten since we posted within seconds of each other.

[Draz74]

Second, ability scores must all contribute to skill points. Specifically, they should contribute to the skill points for skills within their purview. If I have a high Strength score, I get more skill points for Climb, Jump, and Swim skills. Simple as that.

This gets weird with ability scores essentially affecting skills twice, indirectly by providing skill points and again by modifying the actual skill rolls.

It also makes Intelligence immediately a dump stat for most characters (like it is in 4e).

[unbeliever536]

This gets weird with ability scores essentially affecting skills twice, indirectly by providing skill points and again by modifying the actual skill rolls.

It also makes Intelligence immediately a dump stat for most characters (like it is in 4e).

Vad's system dodges that, though, by tying Int to Ref as a secondary stat. It's the closest thing the system has to a dump stat, but it isn't entirely one, the way Cha is now.

[Draz74]

Vad's system dodges that, though, by tying Int to Ref as a secondary stat. It's the closest thing the system has to a dump stat, but it isn't entirely one, the way Cha is now.

Will, actually, not Reflex.

And ... still too close to a dump stat for my taste. Meh.

[lesser_minion]

I think you are all going much farther afield than need be. D&D ability scores can be reworked into a perfectly functional format without abandoning the classic six. If you get rid of those, you may have a functional gaming system, but it is hard to call it D&D.

Eh... it's the responsibility of a tabletop game designer to make the best game he can possibly make, not necessarily one that adheres to any given tradition or fits with any given brand.

[nonsi]

Eh... it's the responsibility of a tabletop game designer to make the best game he can possibly make, not necessarily one that adheres to any given tradition or fits with any given brand.

I second this notion.
The only chance for this endeavor to succeed is if we go at it with the many years of 3.5e insights, putting sentiments aside.

There's a good reason why traditions die out.

[Vadskye]

Eh... it's the responsibility of a tabletop game designer to make the best game he can possibly make, not necessarily one that adheres to any given tradition or fits with any given brand.

Absolutely. But the more you change, the less you understand what you are changing. Right now, your proposed five ability score system is altering most of what makes the d20 system go. You will have to change virtually everything else in the game to compensate for that, and you've removed your frame of reference to understand the implications of the changes being made.

Yes, traditions can die. But the original post talked only about the imbalance between the ability scores, which can be fixed. I haven't seen any argument that they actually need to be disposed of - just that, in theory, this other arrangement might also work. And, you know, if you put enough effort in, it probably. But I have no idea why you would want to rewrite everything unless you are confident you can't achieve the same results using a system that has seen the test of time. The problems with the existing ability scores are well understood. The problems with your proposed system have never been encountered before, and will take vastly more effort to resolve.

[nonsi]

Absolutely. But the more you change, the less you understand what you are changing. Right now, your proposed five ability score system is altering most of what makes the d20 system go. You will have to change virtually everything else in the game to compensate for that, and you've removed your frame of reference to understand the implications of the changes being made.

Yes, traditions can die. But the original post talked only about the imbalance between the ability scores, which can be fixed. I haven't seen any argument that they actually need to be disposed of - just that, in theory, this other arrangement might also work. And, you know, if you put enough effort in, it probably. But I have no idea why you would want to rewrite everything unless you are confident you can't achieve the same results using a system that has seen the test of time. The problems with the existing ability scores are well understood. The problems with your proposed system have never been encountered before, and will take vastly more effort to resolve.

I don't understand why you regard the 6-ability distribution as D&D's most inner core for theme & balance.
As long as you have 20 levels, BAB, the 3 saves, AC, HD, the basic ability-score values & modifiers, conditions, and the general mechanics of skills & feats . . . That's enough for power level assessments.

[Vadskye]

I don't understand why you regard the 6-ability distribution as D&D's most inner core for theme & balance.
As long as you have 20 levels, BAB, the 3 saves, AC, HD, the basic ability-score values & modifiers, conditions, and the general mechanics of skills & feats . . . That's enough for power level assessments.

It is not the most inner core, no. But the system proposed here is also proposing a fairly substantial departure from skill mechanics (with masteries), general roll mechanics ("Power doesn't add directly to most d20 rolls, but failed d20 rolls can be converted to successes by expending resources.") and exploring totally new territory ("Reason provides currency for bringing more options into battle."). The 3 saves are going away ("Fortitude and Will saves would then be just some variation on an opposed power check."). I think you are dramatically underestimating how much rewriting you are going to have to do - and I guarantee it will have balance issues for a very long time before you can actually get things sorted out. In addition, you will have completely lost compatibility with the wide breadth of non-SRD 3.5. Yes, you can change what you need to. But a little finesse in core mechanical changes, to change as little as possible while still arriving at a more beautiful result, goes a long way.

[Yitzi]

It is not the most inner core, no. But the system proposed here is also proposing a fairly substantial departure from skill mechanics (with masteries), general roll mechanics ("Power doesn't add directly to most d20 rolls, but failed d20 rolls can be converted to successes by expending resources.") and exploring totally new territory ("Reason provides currency for bringing more options into battle."). The 3 saves are going away ("Fortitude and Will saves would then be just some variation on an opposed power check."). I think you are dramatically underestimating how much rewriting you are going to have to do - and I guarantee it will have balance issues for a very long time before you can actually get things sorted out. In addition, you will have completely lost compatibility with the wide breadth of non-SRD 3.5. Yes, you can change what you need to. But a little finesse in core mechanical changes, to change as little as possible while still arriving at a more beautiful result, goes a long way.

I think there are benefits to both approaches; for something labeled as a system rewrite, I think that changing the fundamental mechanics is ok, as long as you understand that you can't rely on the old system for balance purposes.

[Morty]

I've kept away from the discussion about abilities because I haven't had any useful insights, but I support a thorough rethinking of the ability scores. This is a system rewrite, so there's no real room for keeping ineffective mechanics just because they've always been there.

[GrandDM]

I do agree that the 'standard rules' ability modifiers are slightly odd, not giving you value-for-money with your high scores, but I don't think they're a big problem. It's the sort of thing you might want to houserule if you find it annoying. This is a whole game-system rewrite; we're looking at the big stuff.

[Yitzi]

I do agree that the 'standard rules' ability modifiers are slightly odd, not giving you value-for-money with your high scores, but I don't think they're a big problem. It's the sort of thing you might want to houserule if you find it annoying. This is a whole game-system rewrite; we're looking at the big stuff.

In a whole game-system rewrite, you're not just looking at the big stuff; you're looking at everything.

[nonsi]

It is not the most inner core, no. But the system proposed here is also proposing a fairly substantial departure from skill mechanics (with masteries), general roll mechanics ("Power doesn't add directly to most d20 rolls, but failed d20 rolls can be converted to successes by expending resources.") and exploring totally new territory ("Reason provides currency for bringing more options into battle."). The 3 saves are going away ("Fortitude and Will saves would then be just some variation on an opposed power check."). I think you are dramatically underestimating how much rewriting you are going to have to do - and I guarantee it will have balance issues for a very long time before you can actually get things sorted out. In addition, you will have completely lost compatibility with the wide breadth of non-SRD 3.5. Yes, you can change what you need to. But a little finesse in core mechanical changes, to change as little as possible while still arriving at a more beautiful result, goes a long way.

Yes. Indeed what you're describing here is going too far for my personal preferences. However, I'm not sure that decisions have been made. Up until now it comes down to a bunch of ideas that have been tossed around.

The general wind that blows from 3.5 is a good baseline in my book.
It conveys a realistic feel.
If and when I find things to stray too far off, I'd probably withdraw from this project altogether.
ATM, I'm keeping a watchful eye hoping things don't come to that.

[Vadskye]

Yes. Indeed what you're describing here is going too far for my personal preferences. However, I'm not sure that decisions have been made. Up until now it comes down to a bunch of ideas that have been tossed around.
That's fair. I don't think you need to go quite as far as I have to address the issues raised in this thread, though I do think it yields better results overall. And after further thought, I've partially mitigated the (ability score-10) rule; it was causing unpleasant consequences for things like damage and hit points from Strength and Constitution.


The general wind that blows from 3.5 is a good baseline in my book.
It conveys a realistic feel.
If and when I find things to stray too far off, I'd probably withdraw from this project altogether.
ATM, I'm keeping a watchful eye hoping things don't come to that.
Agreed. I really like the particularly realistic and concrete feel the D&D has; it is somewhat unique among RPGs that I have played. And that comes in part from the direct grounding that ability scores have in intuitive concepts. So... be careful. I definitely dislike having "Power", "Cunning", and "Reason" as attributes. None of those have a quite as intuitive a connection to what they represent.

[GrandDM]

In a whole game-system rewrite, you're not just looking at the big stuff; you're looking at everything.

Ok, I wasn't clear enough. Here's a metaphor:

The game system rewrite is like a building site. First, you put up the framework, the girders, or the basic concepts and ideas. Then you pour concrete and make the walls - the large-scale mechanics and rules. After that, you put the floors in, so people can move around - mid-scale things like equipment, feats and so on. Finally, you put carpets, light fittings, running water and so on into it, to make the building livable - the small rules that make things work better like ability modifiers, low-light vision and so on.

Is that clearer? I wasn't suggesting we ignore it, just that we're looking at larger-scale stuff right now, and we can go back and fiddle with the details at the end.

[Ziegander]

Alright, Lesser_Minion, it sounds to me like your proposal is actually still a lot like mine (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15041571&postcount=8) except that you would omit Strength and Charisma and replace them with "Power," which can vary by class. Or by character? But characters only get one Power attribute unless they multiclass (or maybe even if they do multiclass).

Power, under your system, is what would handle any bonuses that go to things that are NOT d20 rolls. Such as increasing Save DCs of a characters abilities? Damage rolls? You also mention something about the Power stat granting resources to characters which can be used to influence the outcome of d20 rolls. Something like Action Points? Or re-rolls? Can you offer a better explanation of these resources?

If you are of the mind of making the Power stat more of a class-based subsystem, than I see no reason for it to be considered part of any character's core ability scores. But I also see no reason why we couldn't use my six ability scores AND also use your ideas for Power resources when we get to designing classes.

@Rest: Until such time as Lesser_Minion can hammer out a more detailed explanation of his Power score proposal I am going to move forward to the next thread using my original proposal complete with HP and MP systems. Our next thread shall discuss The Chassis.

[Yitzi]

Ok, I wasn't clear enough. Here's a metaphor:

The game system rewrite is like a building site. First, you put up the framework, the girders, or the basic concepts and ideas. Then you pour concrete and make the walls - the large-scale mechanics and rules. After that, you put the floors in, so people can move around - mid-scale things like equipment, feats and so on. Finally, you put carpets, light fittings, running water and so on into it, to make the building livable - the small rules that make things work better like ability modifiers, low-light vision and so on.

Is that clearer? I wasn't suggesting we ignore it, just that we're looking at larger-scale stuff right now, and we can go back and fiddle with the details at the end.

Ok, that makes sense. First should come a basic idea of combat mechanics, magic mechanics (not spells, just the basic structure), and skill structure (maybe feats too), then classes and races, then the actual numbers. Of course, later steps might suggest modifications to earlier steps, but that's what revisions are for.

[lesser_minion]

Well, this isn't actually a more detailed proposal, but:


If you are of the mind of making the Power stat more of a class-based subsystem, than I see no reason for it to be considered part of any character's core ability scores. But I also see no reason why we couldn't use my six ability scores AND also use your ideas for Power resources when we get to designing classes.

That's pretty accurate, tbh, although I would vary the stat by "power source" rather than directly by class.

The reason I've been bringing this idea up at this stage is that I think there's a decent case for removing Strength and Charisma scores and folding the concepts they represent into class + level, more than anything else.

I'll talk about what sort of thing I'm thinking for resources in the next thread, since I'm not sure it's even past the objectives stage. That said, the overall objectives I have in mind are:

Make injuries less abstract, by tying how characters deal with them to the other special capabilities that they have.
Make sure that the defensive capabilities shared by all characters are decent.

[Vadskye]

The reason I've been bringing this idea up at this stage is that I think there's a decent case for removing Strength and Charisma scores and folding the concepts they represent into class + level, more than anything else.

No. Your ability to bench-press or bash open a locked door has absolutely nothing to do with your fighting skill. Those are separate concepts.

[Just to Browse]

No. Your ability to bench-press or bash open a locked door has absolutely nothing to do with your fighting skill. Those are separate concepts.

I can use the same hyperbole to say that your ability to bench-press has absolutely nothing to do with your ability to open a locked door.

The point is that, in a fantasy fighting game, we need to make some assumptions and ignore some details. Invoking realism to counter that is a terrible idea--you should instead invoke whether or not it supports the idea of a heroic fighting game.

Now whether or not Str/Cha going into one stat does help the theme of a heroic fighting game, I'm still not sure about. I could go either way.

[Vadskye]

I can use the same hyperbole to say that your ability to bench-press has absolutely nothing to do with your ability to open a locked door.

The point is that, in a fantasy fighting game, we need to make some assumptions and ignore some details. Invoking realism to counter that is a terrible idea--you should instead invoke whether or not it supports the idea of a heroic fighting game.

True. I'm not arguing against it based on realism. I'm saying those are separate concepts. That is, strength is a completely distinct idea from combat skill. I have never seen any game that treated "Strength" and "combat skill / experience" as the same, no matter how abstract you go. To illustrate my point, let's look at some classic fantasy combat archetypes.

Fezzik is a big, slow bruiser. He's not agile, he's not the most skilled fighter, but he hits like a truck - and he can probably lift one, too.
Drizzt is an agile, skilled warrior. He's not the strongest, but he knows how to hit you where it hurts.
Conan is a strong, durable barbarian with years of experience. He knows how to use dozens of weapons, and he can hit hard with any of them.


Now, of these, D&D (and my system) can represent all three. The proposed system here can only represent one. It just can't represent Fezzik or Drizzt in any way.

Even if we put aside the "there is no such thing as Strength" idea and stick with Ziegander's idea, the system still has problems with Fezzik and several other archetypes. If Con is the average of Str/Ag/Dex, there is no such thing as a durable person who isn't agile unless they are also absurdly strong. It just doesn't exist. There is no good way to represent trolls, oozes, and dozens of other monsters and character archetypes without introducing special rules that override the ability score system. And that means it isn't a good system.

[Just to Browse]

That's a good enough argument for me.

[lesser_minion]

True. I'm not arguing against it based on realism. I'm saying those are separate concepts. That is, strength is a completely distinct idea from combat skill. I have never seen any game that treated "Strength" and "combat skill / experience" as the same, no matter how abstract you go.

That's not actually what I suggested doing.

And character level is not "combat skill / experience". It actually represents any kind of development in a character's overall capabilities.


To illustrate my point, let's look at some classic fantasy combat archetypes.

Fezzik is a big, slow bruiser. He's not agile, he's not the most skilled fighter, but he hits like a truck - and he can probably lift one, too.
Drizzt is an agile, skilled warrior. He's not the strongest, but he knows how to hit you where it hurts.
Conan is a strong, durable barbarian with years of experience. He knows how to use dozens of weapons, and he can hit hard with any of them.


Now, of these, D&D (and my system) can represent all three. The proposed system here can only represent one. It just can't represent Fezzik or Drizzt in any way.

Firstly, if you go back and read over any of the posts where I actually said what I was doing, you'll realise that you are simply wrong: my system is quite capable of representing all of these character classes, even as different builds of the same character class.

Secondly, it wouldn't actually matter if it couldn't -- the purpose of ability scores in a class-based game is not to represent any basic character archetype, because that would make them redundant with the classes themselves. They're there to allow a little extra customisation -- in this case, specifically, to allow characters to be placed on the "skill vs. power" spectrum.

Thirdly,

"I didn't have to miss."

"I believe you."

D&D couldn't actually represent Fezzik with its ability scores, because he actually had a high dexterity score -- despite, as you point out, not being very agile.


Even if we put aside the "there is no such thing as Strength" idea and stick with Ziegander's idea, the system still has problems with Fezzik and several other archetypes. If Con is the average of Str/Ag/Dex, there is no such thing as a durable person who isn't agile unless they are also absurdly strong. It just doesn't exist. There is no good way to represent trolls, oozes, and dozens of other monsters and character archetypes without introducing special rules that override the ability score system. And that means it isn't a good system.

As far as "and that means it isn't a good system" is concerned, it doesn't follow from what you've said. Especially given that none of the examples you've provided of it failing to handle something hold any water:

Trolls don't need a high constitution score in order to be durable -- they already rely on special abilities.
Oozes, likewise, don't need a high constitution score in order to be durable. They're radically different enough to normal player characters that expecting to represent them with a couple of numerical tweaks is unreasonable anyway.
As mentioned above, Fezzik is actually handled better by Zieg's system than by the basic D&D system.