Changing the six ability scores?

Psikerlord · May 16, 2017, 07:43:22 PM

Dragon warriors had a pretty straight forward opposed system:

ATTACK vs. DEFENCE, MAGICAL ATTACK vs. MAGICAL DEFENCE, STEALTH vs. PERCEPTION, and SPEED vs. EVASION

Charon's Little Helper · May 16, 2017, 08:30:21 PM

Quote from: Psikerlord;962667Dragon warriors had a pretty straight forward opposed system:

ATTACK vs. DEFENCE, MAGICAL ATTACK vs. MAGICAL DEFENCE, STEALTH vs. PERCEPTION, and SPEED vs. EVASION

Reminds me of Pokemon stats.

Kyle Aaron · May 16, 2017, 08:37:40 PM

With few enough attributes, you are basically turning attributes into class levels.

With heaps of attributes, you are turning attributes into skills.

Dumarest · May 16, 2017, 09:23:27 PM

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;962681With few enough attributes, you are basically turning attributes into class levels.

With heaps of attributes, you are turning attributes into skills.

I don't understand what you mean in the first sentence. The second sentence: I concur.

Cave Bear · May 16, 2017, 10:50:02 PM

Quote from: Willie the Duck;962550That brings to mind an interesting idea. What if the OD&D stats were Dex, Con, Cha, and XP-Bonus? I mean, we really don't need to know the magic user's strength or wisdom, or the fighting man's wisdom or intelligence*, or cleric's strength or intelligence, so why have them?

Do we really need Con? We already have hit dice for determining HD, and system shock rolls can be rolled into saving throws.

Aglondir · May 16, 2017, 11:06:53 PM

Quote from: Psikerlord;962667Dragon warriors had a pretty straight forward opposed system:

ATTACK vs. DEFENCE, MAGICAL ATTACK vs. MAGICAL DEFENCE, STEALTH vs. PERCEPTION, and SPEED vs. EVASION

I get it all except Speed vs. Evasion. How does that work?

Aglondir · May 16, 2017, 11:15:41 PM

Quote from: Dumarest;962628I often think I prefer no social attributes in RPGs and instead consider the player/character should have to play it out if they want to be intimidating or otherwise impressive.

I'm considering the idea. Getting tired of "I roll diplomacy, I got a 22." Just roleplay it.

Anon Adderlan · May 16, 2017, 11:27:53 PM

Strength
Dexterity
Endurance
Passion
Cognition
Identity

And they all play a part in perception and social abilities.

Dumarest · May 17, 2017, 12:40:12 AM

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;962718
Strength
Dexterity
Endurance
Passion
Cognition
Identity

And they all play a part in perception and social abilities.

So what would a Passion of 3 mean compared to a Passion of 9 or 18 if I'm playing this game?

Same question for Identity.

Psikerlord · May 17, 2017, 12:48:25 AM

Quote from: Aglondir;962713I get it all except Speed vs. Evasion. How does that work?

Different attack spells or certain monster attacks like dragons breath, had different speeds, which was an opposed roll vs the target's evasion.

Psikerlord · May 17, 2017, 12:49:08 AM

Quote from: Aglondir;962715I'm considering the idea. Getting tired of "I roll diplomacy, I got a 22." Just roleplay it.

Yeah me too

Anon Adderlan · May 17, 2017, 02:56:03 AM

Quote from: Dumarest;962733So what would a Passion of 3 mean compared to a Passion of 9 or 18 if I'm playing this game?

Same question for Identity.

I'm glad you asked

#Passion is nothing more than the force you can bring to bear on non-physical tasks, such as convincing your local bugbear not to kill you.

#Identity is how able you are to resist influence which forces you to act in ways contrary to who you are or what you want. I initially had this as #Willpower, but there was too much overlap with #Passion.

Basically, the three mental attributes are parallel to the physical ones.

Willie the Duck · May 17, 2017, 08:35:28 AM

Quote from: Willie the DuckThat brings to mind an interesting idea. What if the OD&D stats were Dex, Con, Cha, and XP-Bonus? I mean, we really don't need to know the magic user's strength or wisdom, or the fighting man's wisdom or intelligence*, or cleric's strength or intelligence, so why have them?

Quote from: Cave Bear;962712Do we really need Con? We already have hit dice for determining HD, and system shock rolls can be rolled into saving throws.

You don't really need anything. My very first full D&D campaign I played in when I was 8 the only thing we used stats for was determining xp bonus (and even that could be dropped) and the game ran fine. However, my point was that (with the exception of languages for Int), the only thing Str, Int, and Wis did in OD&D was determine xp bonus for a specific class. So why not drop the other two for whichever class you are not. Have Str for fighting men, Int for magic users, and Wis for clerics? And in that case, why not call the stat XP-B instead? I thought it was an interesting thought experiment.

Nerzenjäger · May 17, 2017, 09:31:11 AM

I'm quite fine with the six attributes as is. They cover a lot of ground.

Attributes, like all other things in D&D, are an abstraction. Your campaign style and setting should define how much abstraction you need. As "Searchers of the Unknown" has shown, you can play that same game with characters solely based on HDs, too.

Running Ravenloft, I sometimes wish I had Warhammer's Willpower stat.
When I do elaborate city/intrigue campaigns, I wish I had a Social Status stat.
When I go into the macro, running a domain game, I can do without most of the stats.

And since most of these things have already been done, I can steal all of these ideas from other games, because D&D's core is so flexible.

AsenRG · May 17, 2017, 09:38:12 AM

Quote from: Psikerlord;962664I like this alot, although I'd probably switch Size for Willpower. But I like the idea of Int/basic Cha being left to the player to roleplay.

I'd rather drop Constitution, myself, because Con can be folded with Str and called Might. But I find that Willpower is also unnecessary as a stat, for most cases, and it can be a save, or a skill, depending on whether you have skills.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;962679Reminds me of Pokemon stats.

Except Dragon Warriors predates Pokemon by over a decade:).

Quote from: Aglondir;962715I'm considering the idea. Getting tired of "I roll diplomacy, I got a 22." Just roleplay it.

"OK, but this is going to have different results depending on what you actually say. What did you say to get the result?"

Quote from: Psikerlord;962735Yeah me too

And then you roll;).