Intelligence is not a superpower

[Tanarii]

I'm actually happier with skills than with attributes, despite growing up on D&D. The problem is "natural talent" isn't really reflected very well in them, as in things that reasonably can be done untrained, with varying degrees of success depending on your relevant talent.

OTOH that's kind of overrated. Either they shouldn't be a roll if anyone can do them, or everyone can just have a minimal chance of untrained success, or you can add feat-alikes that modify skills like "Coordinated, add 20% to piloting and parrying skills, including untrained".

[Morty]

I generally wouldn't merge strength and endurance while splitting agility and dexterity, as either the attributes should be narrow of broad, consistently. Social/Mental/Physical seems fine, especially in a game where each of them is highlighted well. Just having a long list of skills generally isn't actually just skills, though, as there are usually a bunch of other things that are analogous to Hit Points and similar (they just don't stop in the middle for attributes, which are this odd in-between land that somehow gained primacy in most systems).

I see the concern regarding the first one, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily a problem. I've seen systems do that, though I haven't tried them out in practice. Even if split, both agility and dexterity are very useful to many concepts, while even the combined attribute of "strong and tough" is pretty narrow as far as problem-solving goes.

I'm actually happier with skills than with attributes, despite growing up on D&D. The problem is "natural talent" isn't really reflected very well in them, as in things that reasonably can be done untrained, with varying degrees of success depending on your relevant talent.

OTOH that's kind of overrated. Either they shouldn't be a roll if anyone can do them, or everyone can just have a minimal chance of untrained success, or you can add feat-alikes that modify skills like "Coordinated, add 20% to piloting and parrying skills, including untrained".

The line between "natural talent" and "learned skill" is blurry and indistinct enough in real life that I'm not convinced it's worth dwelling too much on in game rules. That there are some things that everyone should be able to attempt is true, but it's also something many systems struggle with anyway.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The line between "natural talent" and "learned skill" is blurry and indistinct enough in real life that I'm not convinced it's worth dwelling too much on in game rules. That there are some things that everyone should be able to attempt is true, but it's also something many systems struggle with anyway.

Honestly, I'm of the (very strong) opinion that everyone should be able to attempt anything in the "skill" arena (as opposed to, say, spellcasting or things covered by class features).

Not a rogue? Still should be able to (try to) find traps. Not "trained" in Arcana? You can still try to decipher those runes. Won't be as good at it, but go right ahead.

Proficiency/training/"skill points" should make you better and possibly unlock other features, but shouldn't gate ability to attempt.

[Tanarii]

Honestly, I'm of the (very strong) opinion that everyone should be able to attempt anything in the "skill" arena (as opposed to, say, spellcasting or things covered by class features).

That depends entirely on the game conceit (e.g. adventures know adventuring things; this game is about ninjas and super spies doing ninja & super spy things), and frankly on the era as well. Modern and future games require specialization / trained skills.

I mean, it's a valid design method to require an Engineering Class to do engineering-type things with engineering-type class features. Or Hacker class to use it's features.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That depends entirely on the game conceit (e.g. adventures know adventuring things; this game is about ninjas and super spies doing ninja & super spy things), and frankly on the era as well. Modern and future games require specialization / trained skills.

I mean, it's a valid design method to require an Engineering Class to do engineering-type things with engineering-type class features. Or Hacker class to use it's features.

Note the parenthetical in the quote. Things like spellcasting (the fantasy equivalent of Star-Trek engineering or Shadowrun hacking) I'm fine with requiring a "class feature". But in a system like D&D that has "general" skills not uniquely tied to a class, anything covered by those should be open access, with "training" only modulating difficulty. IMO.

[Willie the Duck]

I see the concern regarding the first one, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily a problem. I've seen systems do that, though I haven't tried them out in practice. Even if split, both agility and dexterity are very useful to many concepts, while even the combined attribute of "strong and tough" is pretty narrow as far as problem-solving goes.

Oh, I can imagine uses. For instance, westerns could have dexterity for the never-miss gunslinger, agility for the guy who never gets hit/sneaks around a lot (and if all of that came under one stat, it would be the power stat of the game), and then 'strong and tough' for the bar-room brawler. Just highlights what I think is the important part -- you have to have an idea of how much each stat is going to effect the game before you decide how they are split out.

[Rynjin]

This thread reminds me of why I've grown dissatisfied with the traditional attribute spreads (strength, dexterity, intelligence, etc.) and became eager to explore other means of representing aptitudes.

Unfortunately, a lot of the attempts just end up with different odd edge cases and overlaps/conflations.

"We split agility from dexterity, but combined strength and endurance!"
"We just give you three, Physical, Mental, and Social!"
"There are no characteristics, just a long list of skills!"

I like the FFd6 attribute spread:

Power: Raw energy and strength. Note: not just physical strength, but magical might. Determines damage with many weapons and spell power for some spells.
Resolve: Endurance (HP primarily).
Dexterity: speed, agility, coordination. Determines damage with a few weapons.
Mind: knack for lore and magic.

Plus the derived stats:

HP: Derived from Resolve
MP: Derived from Mind
Avoidance: Basically armor class; derived from Dex.

Force: Derived from a combination of Power and Resolve; determines ability DC with some abilities and spells.
Finesse: Derived from a combination of Dexterity and Mind; determines maximum skill ranks you can have in a given skill and ability DC with some abilities and spells.

[Satinavian]

I see the concern regarding the first one, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily a problem. I've seen systems do that, though I haven't tried them out in practice. Even if split, both agility and dexterity are very useful to many concepts, while even the combined attribute of "strong and tough" is pretty narrow as far as problem-solving goes.

I have played some and if it is not a system where dexterity is the firearm skill and firearms are the most common weapons for everyone, it ends up with dexterity being a dump-stat for everyone safe some specialists. It is not that you can't find uses for dexterity, it is that none of those use are things that most characters care for.

For fantasy systems, agility+dexterity is not a good idea ime.

Note the parenthetical in the quote. Things like spellcasting (the fantasy equivalent of Star-Trek engineering or Shadowrun hacking) I'm fine with requiring a "class feature". But in a system like D&D that has "general" skills not uniquely tied to a class, anything covered by those should be open access, with "training" only modulating difficulty. IMO.

Shadowrun hacking has always been skill based and so is starship engineering in many space opera rpgs. And that is not bad. The only thing skill based via class based does here is allowing hybrids or people picking it up later and those are all viable concepts in the corresponding fiction.

As for untrained stuff, there should be a lot untrained people simply can't do, no roll allowed. There are other things where everyone should have a chance. But most skill based systems already have mechanisms for both and while one might argue about particular implementations, there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

[Morty]

Honestly, I'm of the (very strong) opinion that everyone should be able to attempt anything in the "skill" arena (as opposed to, say, spellcasting or things covered by class features).

Not a rogue? Still should be able to (try to) find traps. Not "trained" in Arcana? You can still try to decipher those runes. Won't be as good at it, but go right ahead.

Proficiency/training/"skill points" should make you better and possibly unlock other features, but shouldn't gate ability to attempt.

In fairness, rogues being required to deal with traps is something 20 years past its expiration date, attributes notwithstanding.

Oh, I can imagine uses. For instance, westerns could have dexterity for the never-miss gunslinger, agility for the guy who never gets hit/sneaks around a lot (and if all of that came under one stat, it would be the power stat of the game), and then 'strong and tough' for the bar-room brawler. Just highlights what I think is the important part -- you have to have an idea of how much each stat is going to effect the game before you decide how they are split out.

It is difficult to argue about it in a vacuum, yes. And I generally thing it's more useful to talk about it in terms of what character concepts are being enabled and how many situations the attribute can be applied to rather than trying to reflect any real traits.

I have played some and if it is not a system where dexterity is the firearm skill and firearms are the most common weapons for everyone, it ends up with dexterity being a dump-stat for everyone safe some specialists. It is not that you can't find uses for dexterity, it is that none of those use are things that most characters care for.

For fantasy systems, agility+dexterity is not a good idea ime.

I have heard of it happening in Warhammer Fantasy RP 4E, so there's something to it. Of course, WFRP also has separate Weapon Skill and Ballistic Skill attributes as a holdover from the wargame. I know the Conan 2d20 RPG also splits it into agility and "coordination", but I haven't played it (much as I'd like to).

[Telok]

In fairness, rogues being required to deal with traps is something 20 years past its expiration date, attributes notwithstanding.

Also in fairness that was a misreading of a poorly explained subsystem/class ability and it was never intended by the designers to be run that way.

Unfortunately that still happens. I wonder if that's part of the issues. One dev putting "Int is memory and smarts" type things in the player chatacter chapter, another putting "Don't roll if its obvious" in a different chapter or book, and nowhere are there actual useful examples of what/when to roll. Then everyone brings in their personal interpretation of "smarts" and "obvious", which of course won't match two different (and probably not really communicating) developers ideas of them.

I mean, I'm doing a rewrite of the DtD40k7e1.6 book and there's a perception skill but the "how hard" chart is basically a prototype for the 5e D&D chart. In a system with everything from 2d10 to 'roll 10d10, keep best 8, reroll 1s' what does "hard difficulty: target number 20" mean? An orc a half mile away? A jumbo jet at 50k feet? I don't know and I don't know what the original author intended. So for my rewrite I checked some military research on how far away people spot and ID stuff, wrote a chart based on that and the numbers normal people would roll when looking for stuff, and then went and found picture examples to include. And now people playing that game will have a shared expectation of what the skill means.

Plus it turns out that 10 keep 8 really is a perception superpower, which is fine as that matches the tone of the game and exceeds normal human maximums anyways.