The New Mental Stats: Int, Per, Wil

[For Valor]

Too many people with too many different ideas about Charisma. I dislike it. All the mental stats should be on equal ground, and they're not.

... So here goes:

The three mental stats:

• Intelligence is your know-how. Once you have information, your intelligence determines how well you figure out what to do with it. It affects your skill points.
• Perception is observation and the making of instinctive connections. Perception is the stat for learning information. It affects your initiative.
• Willpower is your dedication and determines how hard you try at what you do and how steadfast you are in your work. It affects your will save.

New casting assignments:

• Intelligence (Wizards and Bards) is the study of magic
• Perception (Druids and Rangers) is attunement to the natural flows of magic
• Willpower (Sorcerers, Paladins, and Clerics) is the direct channeling of magic

None of that changes the spontaneity of casting.

Skill rehash (taking the skills from all 3 mental stats and rearranging them)

• Intelligence: Appraise, Bluff, Decipher Script, Disable Device, Disguise, Heal, Knowledge, Spellcraft, (Intimidate)
• Perception: Diplomacy, Forgery, Listen, Sense Motive, Spot, UMD
• Willpower: Craft, Perform, Profession, Gather Information, Handle Animal, Search, Survival, (Concentration)

Concentration can be moved from a Con-based skill to a willpower-based skill.

Intimidate can be either an intelligence or a strength skill. you pick.

Since skill points can be ignored with skill-boosting items, and saves can be ignored with save-boosting items, I'm thinking about writing up initiative-boosting items as well, in order to even the playing field. My desire is for all 3 of the mental stats to be balanced, so that a spellcaster can choose between any of the three at creation (not to fit flavor purposes, simply for crunch).

INITIATIVE-BOOSTING ITEMS:

Spoiler

Show

So there are a few init-boosting items from the magic item compendium, but they're mostly weapon augments, and the two that aren't don't progress. So here's what I've got.

For Normal D&D Treasure:

Helm of Warning
This helm offers a magical edge in combat in the form of a +1 to +5 insight bonus to initiative.

Faint abjuration; CL 3rd; Craft Wondrous Item, Kaupaer's Skittish Nerves (Magic of Faerun); creator’s caster level must be at least three times the helm's bonus; Price 3,000gp (+1), 6,000gp (+2), 11,000gp (+3), 18,000gp (+4), 27,000gp (+5); Weight 3 lb.

Turqouise, Disc-Shaped Ioun Stone
This does the same damn thing as a helm of warning, but doesn't take an item space and costs twice as much.

In case you can't see it, the cost for enchantment is 2,000 + (bonus)^2 in gp. Go knock yourself out.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

For Book of Gears Treasure:

Item of Warning
This helm offers an insight bonus to your initiative equal to 1/3 your level.

[jiriku]

Complicated. Not sure what value it adds to justify the change.

[Morph Bark]

So your Will save is suddenly based off a different ability score too?

Hey look, new dump stat!

[Milskidasith]

This is complicated and adds little to the game. Furthermore, it makes bluff even harder to avoid, because "three ability mods" is almost always going to be higher than "one ability mod+3."

It also makes UMD incredibly easy to use for basically everybody, which is... possibly good, possibly bad.

[Eurus]

...Why on earth does Willpower apply to Knowledge?

[Temotei]

...Why on earth does Willpower apply to Knowledge?

Dedication to learning, I'd guess.

[For Valor]

@jiriku: This is in place because Charisma has no current D&D mechanic (other than action points, which is also a homebrew idea and is t3h suck) that it fits into flavorfully. This results in classes dumping Charisma all the time unless they're using it for something. At which point the stat becomes ridiculously valuable. It's bothersome that the mental stats aren't all on the same level.

@M-Bark: Um, yes. Also that one about skill points, too. I mean, honestly... magical items of ridonkulous skill checks exist. The only stat that would be really prioritized would be Perception, which is actually the strongest of the three because initiative-based items don't exist and Perception covers Spot and Listen. Hence, the last paragraph is talks about Init-boosting items (which need to exist).

With that, all three mental stats are on equal level, if we're talking "dump".

@Milskidasith: Except for the time when you've got 14 Wis, 12 Int, and 8 Cha v. 14 Wis. That's 2 + 1 - 2 = 1, and 2 + 3 = 5.

I was thinking about the skill bonus scaling (jumping around level 10 during wish territory), but I'm not sure if that's actually necessary. Tell me, do you still think +3 is a bad idea?

And UMD needs to die in a hole.

@Eurus and Temotei: Willpower is racking your brain. When you try to remember things, willpower is how long you spend going over each and every page you read in your mind or each place you went before you lost your keys. Willpower is also keyed to patience, but there's no skill for that.

[Draz74]

This is similar to some ability-score shuffling drafts that I've gone through, and I think it's a definite improvement in clarity and verisimilitude over the standard system.

The one thing I really don't like is the Universal system. That just gets complicated. I agree that some of these skills could be affected by any of your three mental scores here, but having them affected by all three by default ... ick. I don't suppose you're open to solutions like, "None of your scores affect these by default," but include a number of feats or skill tricks that let you add skills to a certain list? Like a "Glibness" feat that makes Bluff, Perform, and so forth into Intelligence skills?

[Temotei]

all three mental stats are on equal level

That's debatable. They're closer, but I wouldn't say they're equal.

A rogue could probably pretty easily dump their Willpower stat, for example. A high-level rogue could do it with even less going against them (slippery mind?). Of the skills it governs, only Search is worth anything to the rogue, and to any other class, the only possibilities for actual investment are Search and Survival, usually.

The universal skills attempting to stop that dumping aren't doing much, since there are still crazy skill-boosting items, skill ranks and the other abilities balancing it out, etc. Dumping an ability score is easily affordable, and it gets easier at higher levels.

I agree with Draz that there shouldn't be any universal skills. That's just needlessly complicated. Make Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, and Use Magic Device work with Perception, Intimidate and Perform with Willpower, and Knowledge with Intelligence. Adding rules like universal skills isn't doing anything good for D&D.

[The Rose Dragon]

Did you try just playing Unisystem? It already uses that ability distrubition, and it's mostly a better system than D&D.

Its .pdf is also free, in the form of Witchcraft.

[For Valor]

skills now shifted. Nobody likes Universal skills, so they've all been filed away.

Some don't work as well as others in the realm of flavor. I did some of this stuff for crunch.

@Temotei: Well, I hate to make the rogue MAD again, but Abuse Magic Device is going into perception.

[Shpadoinkle]

Yeah, because players who aren't glib and persuasive shouldn't be allowed to play characters who are!

[For Valor]

Yeah, because players who aren't glib and persuasive shouldn't be allowed to play characters who are!

Damn. Right.

[Schylerwalker]

What about Concentration? I don't think it should be based off of Constitution.

[Temotei]

What about Concentration? I don't think it should be based off of Constitution.

It would fit in Willpower fairly well, though that makes the Willpower-based casters even more SAD.

[For Valor]

It would fit in Willpower fairly well, though that makes the Willpower-based casters even more SAD.

Well, maybe. I mean, the main reason you stack Con is for HPs. A concentration bonus is meh, but I don't see anyone investing an extra 2 points from their point-buy to explicitely power their Concentration check.

If we moved Concentration to willpower... int and per casters would have to not dump willpower as hard for the lower levels. At higher levels, they could do whatever they wanted. So maybe those guys would drop their Con a little, or sacrifice some of the other mental stat... while sorcerers and clerics wouldn't change a thing.

I actually think that's fine.

Oh, and I don't think I said this: Anthromorphics get ridiculous bonuses to their Wisdom, which will translate to Perception. No more bat or toad clerics. yessss... of course, I'm sure there's a hefty charisma bonus from some anthro.

BUT WE'RE FIGHTAN T3H SYSTEM. AND THAT'S WHAT COUNTS!