Quote from: jhkim on Today at 12:11:46 PM

Quote from: Corolinth on Today at 11:41:28 AMWhat about smarts?

Smarts has the most skills linked to it, and so it does relatively little by itself.

I'd note that Smarts is used to resist Taunt and other attempts to fool the character.

I like how Taunt is a well-supported skill in Savage Worlds, and it can be very useful in combat.

That gets into the tests mechanic. Because Smarts has the most skills linked to it (including the easiest to use for a test), in theory it's the most useful for making those defensive rolls.

i.e. Smarts doesn't need any additional "help" to convince people why they should have it.

Quote from: Corolinth on Today at 11:41:28 AMWhat about smarts?

Smarts has the most skills linked to it, and so it does relatively little by itself.

I'd note that Smarts is used to resist Taunt and other attempts to fool the character.

I like how Taunt is a well-supported skill in Savage Worlds, and it can be very useful in combat.

Quote from: Matrix Sorcica on Today at 10:56:12 AM

Quote from: Corolinth on September 19, 2024, 10:56:26 AMSpending +1 power point to change trappings is pretty reasonable. Particularly considering that damaging powers are generally weaker than hitting something with a sword.

But it makes monster resistances etc. more or less worthless. Sure, there's a cost in PP, but the whole emphasis on trappings seems redundant (espcially so when trappings in SWADE don't carry mechanics).

What do you think resistance is for? If you think the purpose of resistance is so that the GM can say, "Haha! You can't hurt the monster!" then you're going to be disappointed, because Savage Worlds wasn't designed to be that kind of game.

Making the Bolt power cost double is far from worthless. That's actually pretty significant, and probably makes the spellcaster use entirely different spells.

This is also a different game. In B/X, the fighter is swinging around a magic long sword for 1d8+3 damage once you factor in his strength, while the magic-user has a 7d6 fireball. Forcing the magic-user to use his 7d6 lightning bolt instead against a red dragon doesn't really mean much, but also, that fire immunity did nothing to the fighter.

In Savage Worlds, the fighter is swinging around a magic long sword for 2d8+1 damage and has 1 armor piercing, while the wizard is throwing a 2d6 bolt of fire. The wizard also doesn't have a lightning bolt to switch to. The wizard already deals less damage than the fighter. Why do we need to further penalize his ability to damage the monster? The only reason we have resistance is because of stuff like red dragons being immune to fire. Is that supposed to make the wizard useless? Because that fire resistance did jack shit to inconvenience the fighter, who is also hitting harder to begin with.

Trappings are for flavor. Resistances are for flavor. Neither of them is for balance. If you insist on penalizing the wizard with monster resistances when he already does less damage than the fighter, every wizard is just going to take magic missile and ignore resistances entirely. The way it works now, the wizard is going to pay extra and throw a giant icicle at that red dragon because red dragons are vulnerable to ice. Isn't that what the wizard is supposed to do? Isn't the whole point of the wizard to do some magic bullshit and have the right spell for the job?

Quote from: weirdguy564 on September 19, 2024, 10:25:03 PMI think I heard once that stats are used as savings throws, while skills are used when you're acting on your turn against somebody.

I'd say that's accurate.

I like the effect of it, though. In skill-based systems, I prefer the design choice to require serious investment in skill in order to be good at that skill.

--

In some generic systems, having a high attribute gets you skill for free or very cheap. Say you have a high-Intelligence bookish wizard. Under some systems, the bookish wizard can easily become great at Survival and Tracking, if those are Intelligence-based. Effectively, this means that the only character niches are based around attributes - i.e. there are only two classes "Intelligence class" and "Dexterity class".

Requiring more investment for skills leads to more character types, because the bookish wizard can't easily compete with the ranger's outdoor skills.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on September 19, 2024, 10:25:03 PMSo, I hear a lot about Savage Worlds.  I think it's the third most popular game behind D&D, and Pathfinder (which is a version of D&D). 

What I find the hardest to understand is the difference between your stats, which are dice, and skills, which are also dice.  However, a high stat doesn't make a related skill easier. They're not rolled together, or added up.   

It does make it easier to increase a skill when the stat is high.   But, that only matters when it's time to "level up" a skill from a small dice to the next size dice.

I think I heard once that stats are used as savings throws, while skills are used when you're acting on your turn against somebody.

You understand it better than you present in this post. The difficulty you're having is what you understand is weird compared to other RPGs and so you're second-guessing yourself.

What I suspect you're really trying to ask is, "What is the point of attributes if they don't modify skill rolls?"

Online discussion around Savage Worlds does a poor job of answering this question, largely because you learn by doing. Typically this question is being asked by someone who's never actually played Savage Worlds, and so we use the language of D&D, which pretty much everyone understands. D&D is an imperfect tool to use to describe Savage Worlds. The reality is attributes get rolled more often than, "Attributes are saving throws," implies, but this is not true in all games, and it's least true in games with inexperienced players.

Strength is used for melee damage rolls (and some ranged damage rolls) as well as determining whether you're strong enough to use a particular piece of equipment.

Vigor is used for a variety of not-dying related things, both static values and rolls.

It is not clear to a lot of newer players what the other three attributes are for, apart from serving as a soft cap on skills (skills rated above the linked attribute are more expensive).

Spirit is used to recover from having the wind knocked out of you. This is a thing that happens in combat which isn't prevalent in other games. The actual term is "shaken" and it's broader than simply having the wind knocked out of you, but it's a precursor condition to being wounded.

Agility is used to get out of the way of dragonbreath, dive into a bathtub before a stick of dynamite explodes, or a variety of other, "Duck and cover!" situations.

What about smarts?

Smarts has the most skills linked to it, and so it does relatively little by itself.

Savage Worlds has a mechanic called "test" which a catch-all term for various shenanigans one might engage in to throw an opponent off-balance - throwing sand in the eyes, "Is that a rabbit over there?", "I see your Schwartz is as big as mine! But can you use it?", the halfling running between the ogre's legs to confuse it, and so forth. Tests are performed to set up your allies. When you do this, you roll a skill. "Is that a rabbit over there?" might be persuasion. The halfling running underneath the ogre might be athletics. The defender then rolls the attribute linked to the skill you used. "Is that a rabbit over there?" would be persuasion versus spirit, while the halfling maneuver would be athletics versus agility.

If you're not using the test mechanic, then attributes will be rolled less frequently in game. Newer groups tend to use fewer tests overall.

Cool; we've played in a bunch of the megadungeons, but never "finished" any unless you count Temple of Elemental Evil back when I was in high school in the 1980s.  But I'm still hoping we'll do it one day; just need to find the right group and enough time, neither of which is easy.

Quote from: Corolinth on September 19, 2024, 10:56:26 AMSpending +1 power point to change trappings is pretty reasonable. Particularly considering that damaging powers are generally weaker than hitting something with a sword.

But it makes monster resistances etc. more or less worthless. Sure, there's a cost in PP, but the whole emphasis on trappings seems redundant (espcially so when trappings in SWADE don't carry mechanics).

So I bought & played the original Operation Unfathomable and enjoyed it quite a bit.  When I found out there was this expanded version for DCC, I grabbed that as well and read through it, but we never got around to playing it because DCC is just a bit too clunky for us.  But now I think I'll flip my DCC version for this since it is that much fun, especially if you're keen on settings that are a bit off.  And note that it's not really a megadungeon.  You can play the underworld section in 3-4 sessions pretty easily.  Then do what you want with the Odious Uplands.

Strength is rolled for melee attack damage, Spirit is rolled to throw off Shaken (this is a very common roll; IIRC, some settings have a skill for this), Vigor gets rolled for healing, Agility gets rolled to avoid area effects, there are other places where attributes are directly rolled.

This is why I fell in love with the system from Dungeons and Delvers Dice Pool Edition. 

In DDDPE your 5 stats are dice, your 20 skills are dice, and most of your racial and class abilities are a dice. 

Roll them all, pick the best two, and that is your roll.  Beat a target number. 

Example: A Dwarf can have a bonus with Axes.  A Barbarian can have a bonus with 2-handlers.  Roll your strength of 1D8, Melee skill of 1D6, racial axe bonus of 1D4, and class 2-handed bonus of 1D4. 

Result: 5, 1, 3, 1.  Pick the 5+3, and you rolled an 8 because of your high strength and racial proclivity for axes. 

Savage Worlds seems like your stats don't matter that much.

Do any Savage Workd vets want to chime in?   Do you roll your stats very much, or are they sort of a mute point because of the way the game is played?