System Design Question: Stats and Weapon Builds

[Dienekes]

So, I was tinkering with a system I'm working on. At it's core it's another medieval fantasy combat simulator game. But, I was struck with the idea of how allocating stats efficiently would work. I kinda am tinkering with the idea of a system, where it is optimal not to focus down one main attribute getting it to full, but instead getting strange stat distributions. For this let's assume we're just using the standard D&D attributes, which technically isn't true for the system, but it's close enough without getting bogged down into unnecessary details.

Some examples, let's say you want to use massive axes in battle. Then yeah, you max out strength. But perhaps instead you are going for a longsword build, they may instead want an even spread between dexterity and strength. While the duelist only using a rapier and no armor would just max out Dex. With various states in between.

The only way I've been able to figure to accomplish this is to 1) Remove the attributes from affecting attack rolls. 2) Use attributes as essentially a limiter. You must have this stat allocation to be able to use this ability or that weapon.

And so far it works for the intended effect. But it feels somewhat inelegant. And I was wondering if the playground had any ideas on the subject. Thank you.

[arkangel111]

I think the best bet is to ensure that every stat is important. Not just important to a specific build, or only in a specific scenario. For instance most players in DND dump charisma, if your not a face or don't have abilities that scale off it, its completely worthless. Most DM's never consider your charisma in social situations until they make you roll for something anyway. It's even worse with wisdom, since even with the will save and perception keying off it most people just don't want a negative. If you are building a new system, and it is centering around warfare, make sure the ability is needed. Either design monster's that target will saves or charisma saves often, or just dump the stat entirely.
If every stat is useful 80% of the time, then your players will likely naturally gravitate towards more rounded builds. For combat you could tie Dex purely to hit, and strength purely to damage. This makes it so a good fighter needs to keep both stats decently rounded. Even if a 2h weapon still grants 1.5x strength that fighter will likely have a 60/40 or 70/30 split depending on how risky he wants to be. Yea you'll still get the players that want the 100% strength build, but their hits will suffer and probably end up doing less damage in the long run. Additionally by tieing just Dex to bonus damage for crits you would let players who want a rapier and crit fishers to focus dex but they likely would still end up with 70/30 builds or 80/20 on the high end.
Now all of this does complicate ranged builds because strength usually doesn't apply to bow or gun attacks anyway, and they likely would be hitting super easy but doing low amounts of damage. I mean its easy to justify adding at least some strength to damage for bows, but crossbows and guns there is no logical reason. Maybe tie some bonus damage to Wis or Con and justify it by saying breathing techniques or some such?

[Dienekes]

That divide generally would probably be much easier to implement. The difficult bit then becomes balancing accuracy to damage. But since I’m working with a Damage reduction system instead of a hit/miss system for armor I think that already brings the balance closer together.

As to ranged weapons, honestly real warbows already require strength (more than dex really) so I’ll see if I can make that work as well.

[Amechra]

I mean, as always my first suggestion is going to be to look at all the games if you haven't already. Looking at a game like Riddle of Steel is probably a good start if you want to see games that have tactical combat that doesn't have D&D's... peculiarities.

That being said, a potentially elegant way to handle it would be to give weapons special features gated by your stats. For example...

Axe:
high damage, low accuracy, two-handed
Str 15: +accuracy
Str 17: -two-handed

Sword:
decent damage, decent accuracy.
Str 13: +damage
Dex 13: +parry
Dex 15: can parry ranged

Bow:
decent damage, low accuracy, two-handed, ranged
Str 13: +damage
Dex 13: +accuracy
Wis 13: +accuracy

[Dienekes]

Oh, I definitely look at RoS, one of the greats in my opinion.

I like the idea of tying different bonuses to attributes. Thank you Amechra, you've given me something to think about.

[Anonymouswizard]

Another idea is basing most things off the sum or higher of 2+ stats. Ideally with each stat contributing to multiple things so you can't do the D&D4e 'this character is Dexterity based so I can dump INT'.

You can then in theory add weapon tags that shake it up, if you're not afraid of basic calculations in game (probably best to stay away from averages). So if your normal attack bonus is Strength+Dexterity, your defence is Dexterity+Will, and your damage bonus is Strength+Will then a fighter focused on Heavy weapons which don't get Dexterity to attack might invest in Strength more to keep their accuracy up.

The potential downside is, of course, potentially encouraging all-rounders with no stats particularly high or low.

[Amechra]

Another idea is basing most things off the sum or higher of 2+ stats. Ideally with each stat contributing to multiple things so you can't do the D&D4e 'this character is Dexterity based so I can dump INT'.

If that's a concern, you could always go the route of basing stuff off of the lower of two stats.