>Ability Scores
Thinking mainly out of d&d, but how do they work and how could they work better?
I think having Intelligence as a Fighter should be a great benefit, but it doesn't seem to matter in most systems unless he's also a spellcaster.
Seems like Dexterity and Strength should matter greatly when attacking, but with finesse weapons you just switch from one of the other in 5e.
Like even if I'm mainly fighting using my dexterity I feel like adding ogre strength to that should be a massive boon, but it's either or from what I've seen.
What do you think, which systems handle ability scores the best, how do you homebrew it?
>how do (5e) work
They actually wrote a book on it
Dark heresy uses weapon skill to hit, agility to dodge and strength for damage among other things
Well, for starters, I'd note that AD&D was a lot more lax in terms of ability scores, namely because the difference between a high and low score is much less.
While to a degree, it makes sense that high Strength or Dexterity should matter for a Fighter, in practice, having a sharp difference means that people are more willing to sacrifice less important stats like Intelligence in order to fight better.
And attempting to make all the stats 'matter greatly' and give a 'great benefit' just means forcing the player to choose what they want to suck at, unless you're also giving Fighters 20 in every stat.
>Like even if I'm mainly fighting using my dexterity I feel like adding ogre strength to that should be a massive boon, but it's either or from what I've seen.
Again, a factor in AD&D, where Strength's bonus to damage did apply to things like Bows which otherwise got an accuracy bonus from Dexterity.
I will grant you that high Int doesn't matter for a Fighter in AD&D, but 3.5 attempted to remedy that with Combat Expertise having a 13 Int prerequisite and all it really does is lock a Fighter out of a bunch of feat chains.
Ability scores certainly could work better, but I don't think they're ever going to be great so long as the difference between a 12 and a 16 in a stat is something that people will complain ruins a character and makes them suck. Adding in more things that stats influence just means a character with mediocre stats sucks at more things.
All I have to say is: play stupid games, win stupid prizes
>how do they work
They offer a bonus based on their value to a relevant roll. The bonus is usually proportional, but not actually equal, to the stat's value; so 12 INT might offer a +1 to all INT based checks/saves. A check/save is a largely arbitrary value, as the books only offer suggestions and the creator said you don't even need the books for the !game. So what you do is hope your DM hasn't set the target number too high and hope your die roll + bonus meets or exceeds the target number.
>best
"All TTRPGs have the same issues as D&D", so there is no best or worst. They're all based on whim, therefore they're all nothing.
>how I homebrew ability scores
I don't do roll+ability score for my games, as I despise such mechanics. My abilities are sets of active and passive skills, categorized by weapon, to assist in tactical combat.
>All TTRPGs have the same issues as D&D
This is possibly the most moronic thing I have heard in a long time.
Share what game does a better job, then.
This is the common sentiment thrown at me when criticizing D&D 5e.
If I show people how moronic they are when they make that argument, maybe they'll fricking stop.
But that would require them to have some self-awareness and desire to improve their shitty behavior, so frick me I guess.
>but how do they work and how could they work better?
combine strength and constitution
combine intelligence and charisma
done now you have 4 genuinely compelling stats for characters to care about, dumping any of STR, DEX, WIS, or INT has a major impact on your character and each is compelling
This is what I did. Body, Reflex, Mind, Self (Awareness, I chose self since it's shorter and doubles for being also general sense of your own mind for Wis saves).
>Seems like Dexterity and Strength should matter greatly when attacking, but with finesse weapons you just switch from one of the other in 5e.
This makes sense, to a degree. If you're fighting with sharp or pointy weapons, you don't put all your force into every attack. At least when fighting humans as a human there is a certain base level of strength necessary to inflict deadly wounds with swords and spears which most teenaged boys of average stature have.
Weapons are force multipliers for a reason. If you hulk swing your longsword and miss, you're wide open for a counter attack so if you learn fencing, you quickly learn to apply just enough force.
Sure, in a fantasy setting when you're hacking away at dragons with a big axe, more strength is better but I suppose the fnesse/str split was made for the above reasons. If you have enough base STR to drive the point of a rapier through the skin of a dragon, then more STR won't hurt the dragon any more but aiming the point of the blade nimbly to the vital organs does. At least that's how I see the logic behind it.
A stronger swordsman would be able to use more force without overswinging. Strength doesn’t only matter at your maximum, it also makes swinging with less force easier and allows you to be more nimble and reactive.
Gurps does basic attributes very well.
I prefer attributes that are more thematic than specific.
Regarding basic attributes, this is sadly the only correct answer.
You just can't be accurate by naming basic attributes physical or mental real-life abilities.
Let's say STRENGTH gives you a bonus to your weapons swings, well that's not the only attribute you need, to be accurate you'll also need COORDINATION, SKILL, SPEED, DEXTERITY.
That's apply to any skill check you want to do.
So if you want to be accurate you need a ridiculous amount of crunch.
And the alternative is to not consider that and ask people to turn their brains off and make-believe that to hit something you only need STRENGHT.
People usually forget that TTRPGs needs plenty of abstractions to actually function in-game. We are not computers, there's just so much chrunch we can keep up with.
So until we can't use VTT+AI to take care of all the crunch for us the best we can do is work with abstractions.
>The basic attribute "Sign of the Warrior" gives you a bonus to-hit and damage.
There, it just works.
The alternative to that is disregarding attributes completely and just letting the system put specific actions into it's characters sheets.
>Swordfighting +1
>Chronomancy +2
>Persuasion +3
"Character tags" is unironically the best way to emulate and play in tabletop.
My character has the tag "Really Fricking Strong +4" so whenever I can argue that this tag is relevant for the scene/roll I could use this tag bonus for it.
Simple, efficient, roleplay, ultimate freedom for character creation, but it will NEVER be popular because it doesn't support character building autism.
A big chunk of TTRPG players just spend most of the time building their characters, not playing. Skimming through supplements to find the specific feat/spell/power that it will fit the character he wants to play.
With character tags he could just create it, but that doesn't itch his building autism.
So yeah, in the end the best way to go about it is to use abstract/themed fixed attributes
This always devolves to arguing your way into using your best tag whenever you can.
This already happens in with common stats.
Just to expand on this, let's take a well-know game skill as an example
"Atlethics".
It can be used for running, jumping, endurance, grappling, climbing, swimming, etc...
If anyone used it as a "tag" people would be crying their hearts out how unfair it is and how he wants to use that tag for fcuking everything.
But make it a skill in D&D and suddenly no one bats an eye.
Because tag-based games usually have you select way fewer tags and each tag has a much higher impact than distributing skill points. At the same time, they encourage you to be somewhat specific to prevent you from being good at everything. In a basic b***h skill system, there's usually way more skills than players can pick, let alone be good at. If you pick "Athletic", "Charismatic" and "Genius" as your tags, you don't even have to argue your way into getting your high scores on every roll.
>The alternative to that is disregarding attributes completely
Doesn't really work for me since I want the strength because strength is a quality a person has.
I'm not playing chess here, I'm here for more than just the mechanics, I want mechanics that are informed by the immersion.
>strenght is a quality a person has.
So is coodination, agility, speed, deterity and resistance.
Are you going to factor all that into the system?
Or are you going to use your own bias and say that you just want to factor strength because you like it?
You are not being immersive and accurate if you do that, again you're just using your own bias to justify the use of some attributes and disregard of others.
What I woud suggest you to do is to use thematic basic attributes like
>Are you going to factor all that into the system?
Ideally yes
>What I woud suggest you to do is to use thematic basic attributes like
Awful idea
>Ideally yes
Ok then, so if you're not payling lip service I'll give you the way to do that.
First decide an action
>I hit him with my sword
Then factor in all the attributes you need for that.
>Strenght 1+Dexterity 2+Agility 2+Speed +3+ Swodsmanship +4 = 12
Then roll whatever die your system use and factor all that in.
Don't forget that the enemy has to defend against it so he also would have to factor in many attributes, like perception/dexterity/reflexes.
Keep in mind that we're only factoring attributes until now, in-game you'd probably woud have to take in consideration any other item/feats/powes/spells bonuses.
Now... good fricking luck making that work in-game.
>Awful idea to use thematic attributes
Please, enlighten me with your better alternative.
>Please, enlighten me with your better alternative.
No, I won't.
You don't understand.
I'm interested in X+Y.
You suggest Z presumably because you really love Z.
I don't care about Z, doesn't matter how good you think Z is, it doesn't relate to what I enjoy.
Anything you say about Z after that, doesn't matter.
>you don't understand.
Yes I do.
You homosexuals always come here to argue about semantics "Akchually Dexterity should be used instead of Strenght to hit with a longsword"
But no, it still wrong.
You homosexuals never want to commit to solving a problem objectively, the problem here is that you don't like the terminology but don't understand that most terminology would be wrong because you're trying to emulating real-life.
Are you going to factor-in potential/kinectic energy? Do you really want me to be autistic about it? Let's talk about slow and fast muscle-fibers? Resistance? Flexibility?
Of course, you want to be autistic, but ONLY to a certain-level.
In the end you're just complaining about things that don't cater to your likings, if you want to call an attribute another thing, do it homosexual, nobody cares.
You may not want to face it, but calling you ability to hit "Strenght"and you spellcasting power as "Charisma" is just as thematic as calling it "Moon" or "Sun".
If you want o balance D&D attributes this anon here
already solved that problem for you.
Otherwise your thread and discussion (if you're OP, that is) is just pointless self-jerking.
Can you tell me why I have dexterity, agility, and speed as some kind of basic, intrinsic quality of a person?
"Speed" certainly isn't - limb proportions aside, sprinting is a strength sport. Attempting to include limb proportions in the argument is FATAL tier.
And I don't see any compelling reason that "dexterity" and "agility" should both exist independently.
That's assuming you're making an argument in good faith and just deliberately reframing things you don't like in an absurd manner.
That's just physical ed 101.
My point is, you have an action "to hit with sword" you could use a skill for that:
>Swordsmanship
There. Problem solved.
But you want to go a step beyond and use stats for it.
>Strenght
But then homosexuals complain that it's innacurate, well, obviously, of course it is, it's abstraction, it's already "thematic" you just didn't notice it.
>I know! We should call it Dexterity!
That's still wrong, if you want to emulate real life and factor in every physical ability that your body needs to do fencing you would be dealing with a ridiculous amount of crunch.
That's why abstractions are needed, and that's why you're bette off using thematic stats because you're not gonna get it right by calling it agility or dexterity only.
Then these homosexuals don't realize that reffering to willpower as "Wisdom" and spellcasting power as "Charisma" or Stamina as "Constitution" is just as thematic as calling it "Moon, Soon and Shade".
The funny thing is that they think that these terms describe those actions better, and it does not, it pulls you back to reality halfway, strenght is for muscle resistance, it's easier to believe that the "Sign of the Warrior" is what gives you such amazing swordsmanship accuracy than strenght alone.
This is nice as a theory or even an art piece, but it's dysfunctional in actual play. I've tried variations of it, but at the end of the day the added cognitive load to figure out what scores are relevant to a roll just isn't worth it. It's a minor annoyance that'll keep coming up dozens of times per session that doesn't really gain you anything.
I've never had trouble with this in Nova. Maybe you're just a brainlet.
Most RPGs could remove attributes, tweak some bonuses here and there, and be better for it. For example in D&D5, Strength gates what armor you can wear, modifies some attack rolls, and modifies a few skills. All on a -4 to +5 scale with a bell curve. If fighters just had +4 to melee attacks and expertise in athletics, and certain classes were banned from heavy armor, it would do the same thing. But not have stupid debates over STR vs DEX. This is an issue in all RPGs that have attributes and only use them for that kind of thing.
I'm pretty convinced that you could just double each class's proficiency bonus in places where they're proficient, apply proficiency bonus to damage, and you end up with a similar system.
>hit bonus scales from 4-12 instead of 5-11
>wizards are good at hitting stuff with a quarterstaff or crossbow but it's still terrible compared to actually casting spells in most cases
>character who invests in a skill that their class can't normally spare stats for gets to actually be okay at the thing they invested in
They have to keep the ilusion of choice.
If not for attributes every fighter would be of same strength and that's wrong for some reason.
But being limited to a class features is not, for some other reason.
Character classes are just character templates, it's like taking the OOC of another person and making believe that it's yours.
Never liked it.
No matter what you do with attributes you'll never emulate real life 1to1 because reality is boring and not a game. Accept the benefits of abstraction.
>Noooooo, thematic attributes are awful idea for some reason.
You'll never emulate reality. Never. Your failure will be eternal, but that was a given since you like to post such disgusting images.
Yeah anon, that was exactly my point. I was mocking another anon, if you still don't get it.
Name 6 ~~*thematic attributes*~~ that do a better job of describing characters than str/dex/con/int/wis/cha.
Name 6 attributes that are better than
Five chinese elements + luck.
Depends on the theme of your setting/system, moron.
How can you not understand what thematic means?
Game design is all about compromises. You don't want to give players a god stat that they're gonna want to max out for every character. On the other hand, you don't want to force them to spread out their stats too much or everyone ends up a homogeneous blob that isn't particularly good at anything. And on another axis, you need to decide whether you're taking a simulationist or gamist approach, which influences the compromises you're willing to make as a designer.
The trouble is when other people look in on the compromises you've made with a different lens. A gamist can look at a simulationist system and see a fricking nightmare of questionable balance decisions, while a simulationist can look at a gamist system and see it as laughably out of touch with anything resembling reality.
The truth is that you're never going to please everyone. All you can do is try to accomplish what you're setting out to accomplish. If you want to make X, Y, and Z archetypes playable in your game, then that's gotta be what your system's good for.
Intelligence Fighter: Can distribute his int bonus among party members To-Hit and AC by giving orders and warning them.
Wisdom Fighter: Can distribute his wis bonus among party member saving throws by pointing out easily-missed details
Charisma Fighter: Can distribute his cha bonus among enemies as a penalty to hit and AC by acting valorious
There.
Shadow of the Demon Lord greatly improves on 5e's model by first condensing the stats down to Strength/Agility/Intellect/Will, with Constitution being rolled into Strength and Charisma splitting between Intellect (for deception) and Will (for persuasion).
Then, it made dozens of classes across three tiers with you able to jump across roles freely in each tier instead of a gimpy multiclass system that favors totally frontloaded 1-3 level dips. With this, you are often incentivized to favor 2/4 of your stats as hybrid magic/martial play is quite encouraged (even moreso in Weird Wizard).
Finally, the Godless supplement (and probably some others but that's the one I know of) introduced the concept of weapons that generally favor Strength/Agility but gain certain traits at breakpoints in the other stat. For instance, the ubiquitous Katana, shown in the supplement as a rare two-handed Finesse weapon, but with a Strength of 11 or higher you can wield it one-handed instead, with an extra bonus to the damage roll. You also get an additional +1 bonus to your damage with an Agility of 11 or higher, so going either way with it still incentivizes having some investment in both stats even if you're a heavy armor-type.
The issues always stem from attachment to some predetermined flawed abstraction of realism. I like it how the Pillars of Eternity video games do it, you technically have something to gain from every attribute with any class, but they just ditch some of the abstractions. Intelligence allows you to hit a wider area with your attacks and spells, which is nice, but there is no explanation of how it realistically allows you to do that. Might allows you to deal more damage as either a martial or a caster, but a caster shouldn't be able to perform feats of strength the same way as a martial. They also do the 13th age thing of having every ability contribute to your 3 saving throws in some way, which is nice.
So I think the best way to go about it is to overhaul what each of the ability scores represent in the first place. People just have to accept some unrealistic abstractions, which already exist anyway. For instance, it makes zero sense for higher Strength to allow you to hit more accurately in melee, but everyone accepts it otherwise Strength would be an extremely weak ability score to invest into. So why can't other conceptions be made?
Ultimately none of it matters when D&D and derivative systems punish you for going MAD anyway, and that's the main issue to be resolved in a debate like this. Unless you are mechanically punished for dumping stats, people will just focus on one or two and dump everything else. On the other hand if every stat does everything, then the system is just entirely devoid of meaning.