Things Other People Aren't Allowed to Like

[hogarth]

In D&D-genre high fantasy stories, fit characters are generally strong and vice-versa. D&D archetypes such as the wizard who dumps Strength and maximizes Constitution can feel contrived. In such a game, strong but sickly characters are probably best represented by mostly flavor flaws with names like 'unhealthy'.

Is there any D&D attribute that you can't replace with one or more flavour traits/flaws? Not really. Attributes are just a "package deal" (in the Champions/HERO sense) of various bonuses to die rolls; whether you like a system where those bonuses are bundled or decoupled is a matter of individual preference.

[Swordslinger]

2. Constitution and Charisma. People have made some (very poor) arguments about why Constitution and Charisma are boring/worthless stats, but most of these arguments seem to boil down to "I want to put more points into something else".

Constitution is far from useless, its just something that should go into strength. Lets look at everything con does. It increases HP and it increases fortitude. In other words, we're looking at tough guy attributes and anything that's tough in fantasy is also strong. I really don't see why Constitution shouldn't be merged into strength. All this does is hose melee characters. If the dex based character is getting defense and offense from one stat, then so too should the strength based character.

Charisma has always had problems, for the reason that you don't see many ugly and uncharismatic heroes in fantasy. Nobody wants to play the ugly master swordsman with no leadership abilities, but the game makes charisma crazy overpriced for what amounts to flavor text most of the time. In fantasy, charisma is something that high level people have. Whether you're an archmage, a barbarian chief or a high cleric, you should definitely be regarded by the world as a badass.

[A Man In Black]

What about:

- resisting diseases?
- resisting poisons?
- holding your breath?

Those are not doing things. If they involve any action at all, it is an action that is being done to you, not any action that you are taking.

- extended running?
- extended swimming?
- any other action involving cardiovascular fitness as its primary determinant?

Strength, Dexterity, and Agility in no way measure your ability to do these sorts of things. "Fitness" is a valid attribute - you can have strong and/or quick people who nevertheless have poor cardiovascular fitness.

No, they don't, but neither can you build a whole class around cardiovascular fitness, nor can you build more than one or two interesting skillsets around cardiovascular fitness. It's not a large part of any game, unless you're planning on making Javelins & Hurdles: The Olympic Roleplaying Game. These things come up especially rarely in D&D, where travel is both restricted by the slowest member and also often supplemented by supernatural effects.

You could easily fold these into whatever stats cover being physically quick or being physically strong. They're so often associated with being quick or strong in fiction that few people would really mind if you just did that, save for the fact that you have a lot of people who are attached to the fact that D&D has a "Constitution" stat.

[echoVanguard]

Being able to build a class or an action around an attribute isn't necessarily a prerequisite for having an attribute, and Strength or Dexterity alone don't seem like good substitutes for what Constitution (D&D) or Body (Shadowrun) accomplish. That being said, making some sort of calculation result from Strength and Dexterity (similar to how GURPS determines some of its derived stats) might be a workable solution here. For example, one might have an "effective CON score", which is the average of a character's Strength and Dexterity scores. Or, if you wanted to introduce more choice into your system, perhaps the highest of the two scores.

echo

[Grek]

There's plenty of skills that can be made to make sense for Constitution:

-Survival: In order to survive in the wild, you have to be tough.
-Use Magic Device: Instead of fluffing it as beguiling the device, you fluff it as overpowering it with your personal toughness.
-Concentration: Already a Constitution skill.
-Handle Animal: Getting along with animals isn't about being nice, it's about being patient and training them.
-Ride: See Handle Animal. You have to be at least this tough to do that with a horse.

[A Man In Black]

There's plenty of skills that can be made to make sense for Constitution:

-Survival: In order to survive in the wild, you have to be tough.
-Use Magic Device: Instead of fluffing it as beguiling the device, you fluff it as overpowering it with your personal toughness.

Any stat can go here. Not just any stat in D&D, but any stat you can imagine.

Here's a bullshit useless stat you'd want in no game: Stomach Capacity.

- Survival: Someone who can hold a lot in their stomach can go longer between meals, and is ideal for surviving between meals.
- Use Magic Device: Instead of fluffing it as [whatevering] the device, you fluff it as consuming all the miscasts until you get it right.

-Concentration: Already a Constitution skill.

Yet another being-tough-prevents-bad-things-from-happening-to-you example, and it's a bullshit non-standard saving throw instead of an actual skill anyway.

-Handle Animal: Getting along with animals isn't about being nice, it's about being patient and training them.
-Ride: See Handle Animal. You have to be at least this tough to do that with a horse.

Getting along with animals is also about having a natural understanding of how they're reacting to you, having the patience to shovel horseshit, and the awareness and quickness to avoid getting stepped on.

Riding involves having enough of a rapport with animals to get the best performance out of them (which melds into proper leadership of "men" when you're talking about intelligent animals, and Riding still covers that), and enough agility and strength to perform stunts without being thrown/unseated/unbalanced.

Those skills could make some sense with Constitution, but they'd also make just as much or more sense with some other stat.

[Koumei]

-Survival: In order to survive in the wild, you have to be tough.

That's the Fort Saves part of it. The skill is so you know what not to eat, how to track and trap things etc.

-Concentration: Already a Constitution skill.

Because as we know, your ability to concentrate on your exams is linked to your immune system. Wait, what? That's an example of a skill that should be swapped out from Con. Or dropped altogether and replaced by a Will Save.

-Handle Animal: Getting along with animals isn't about being nice, it's about being patient and training them.

Neither of which have anything to do with toughness, unless you think the trick is to let it bite you until it gets bored.

[tzor]

No. I have a huge problem with Constitution over and above the poor handling in D&D. It doesn't do anything. You cannot take or describe a Constitution-related action.

That does it Frank. I'm holding my breath until you recant!
roll d20
roll d20
roll d20
roll d20 oops


I knew I shouldn't have made my con stat my dump stat.

[souran]

I have to agree with the people who have been saying that constitution should be merged with strength. There really isn't a convincing reason to have 2 stats that measure fairly similar qualties.

Charisma is quite similar.

A lot of the issue goes back to 1e and 2e. When you are rolling for Stats and can easily end up with a super character then having a stat that is basically "other people like me this much" isn't so bad because the people who are playing MAD characters are playing them because they rolled really awesome. Further you could farily safely use char as a dumpstat because scores between 9-14 didn't do anything.

Constitution also makes a lot more sense in a 1e/2e style game where what the stats can do is determined by the attribute charts [of doom] at the front of the book. Your con score is not just extra hp, its your chance to return from the dead or survive polymorph or do several other things that are distinct and unique from the things that the strength chart does

Further, in 2e exceptional strength was really the primary class feature of being a warrior type, but you don't want them to get to out of hand with bonus hp either. Its not a great justification, but I can at least see why in 2e you could really call Consitutution a stat.

From 3E on, however, your stats are just a modifier. Honestly, having "stats" at all is really a waste because it is just a number indexing another number. A strength of 20 could just as easily be a strength SCORE of +5.
[/i]

[Koumei]

While we're at it, I'll add this one, tentatively:

Other people aren't allowed to like anything, until I look it over and approve it first. Whatever it is you want to be allowed to like, I wouldn't get my hopes up.

[Josh_Kablack]

See above, with the possible exception of drinking contests. And if that's an important action in your games... not sure if want.

Drinking contests are far more important in boardgames than in RPGs. :chug:

[sake]

Now it's bad enough to give people the choice of 'be effective in combat' and 'be effective in non-combat' stuff but what makes it a really shitty stat is that it's a have-your-cake-and-eat-it too stat, especially in 3E and 4E D&D. Even if the Paladin and the Ranger were perfectly balanced in combat, the paladin would still be a better character.

Ugh, don't remind me. My current group likes to play what they call "Combat Light 4E" but what ends up being "Only Classes with CHA as a Class Stat Need Apply" Now I've tried to find work arounds for this problem, I mean you'd think high INT/WIS characters loaded with insight and knowledge skills would be just fine in non combat situations, but no, at best the character only becomes pet fact checker/lie detector monkey.

Now in other systems this wouldn't be that bad, since at least the non people skills characters could at least have their times to shine, but in 4E, the Faces are also Paladins, Rogues, Warlords and so on, and thus get to do as much of fighty stuff as everyone else.

Next time I'm up to DM, I'm thinking of house ruling in a Highest of Two Stats rule for skills like how 4E handles saves, to soften this problem a bit.

Bluff- Cha or Int
Diplomacy- Cha or Wis
Intimidate- Cha or Str
The four knowledge skills- Int or Wis
Insight- Wis or Int
Arcana- Int or Cha (Yeah, it's rather stupid, but arcane/psionic characters are all int or cha heavy so it's the only way it covers eveyone crunch wise, and there's too many int/wis skills under these rules as is)
Perception Wis or Dex (again, fucking stupid as all hell but it seems to cover all the 'lookout/trap detector' classes better this way)

[Novembermike]

There is nothing you could possibly do with "Constitution" that wouldn't be better in Strength or Agility. It's just an empty fucking concept.

-Username17

-Run a marathon.
-Pick yourself off the ground after a solid knock to the face
-do 15 minutes in the ring with a trained wrestler
-go three days without sleeping
-keep on pushing yourself to sprint after you've run out of breath
-after being impaled, stay in control long enough to cut off your enemy's head
-force an unhealthy amount of energy through your body in order to strengthen a spell

DnD doesn't do a particularly good job of having constitution make sense, but GURPS (for example) does a pretty good job of making it a reasonable stat where its used for everything from staying on your feet when your guts are spilling out to casting any spell that requires some exertion.

[Psychic Robot]

most of those things are reactive though. in 95% of cases, characters (not necessarily people) with high strength also have high con, and characters with low strength also have low con. not advocating getting rid of con as it's one of those things that makes D&D into D&D but I'm just saying

[Whatever]

However, let's say I'm creating a character, and want to make a character who's strong and quick, but also fat and out of shape. Under a system that has no flaws or constitution score, how would I go about doing so?

Step one: declare your character to be fat. Unless your DM makes you roll for things like height, weight, age, and gender, in which case step one is "get a new DM".

Step two: making your character strong. Put points into Strength. Done!

Step three: making your character "out of shape". Don't put too many points into Dexterity.

Step four: making your character quick. Take Improved Initiative.


If you want to make a character who is "physically fit, but also unhealthy" I question why the game rules should even allow you to make that happen.

[Josh_Kablack]

If you want to make a character who is "physically fit, but also unhealthy" I question why the game rules should even allow you to make that happen.

Yeah, you totally shouldn't be able to make a character who was a serious athlete until they had a career-threatening injury or came down with a disease that was named after them or something like that....totally implausible.....[/sarcasm]

[Doom]

-Run a marathon.
-Pick yourself off the ground after a solid knock to the face
-do 15 minutes in the ring with a trained wrestler
-go three days without sleeping
-keep on pushing yourself to sprint after you've run out of breath
-after being impaled, stay in control long enough to cut off your enemy's head
-force an unhealthy amount of energy through your body in order to strengthen a spell

Wisdom (willpower) for running a marathon (not winning it, perhaps).
Dexterity (agility) for getting off the ground.
Dexterity (agility) for simply avoiding a wrestler (and willpower could be used to endure a hold)
Wisdom (willpower) for not sleeping.
Wisdom (willpower) for pushing on when your body says to quit (a person with high constitution wouldn't even get to this point....)
Wisdom (willpower) for actions while impaled.
Wisdom for wielding unhealthy amounts of energy.

Constitution is skippable, but it's also another fun stat for dice-rolling systems---not quite dump, but lots of leeway. In point-buy which is all about the min/maxing, it's a funny stat that everyone wants to max, subject to what they really need to max, so it does add needless complication.

[Whatever]

Yeah, you totally shouldn't be able to make a character who was a serious athlete until they had a career-threatening injury or came down with a disease that was named after them or something like that....totally implausible.....[/sarcasm]

If they had a career-threatening injury, how are they still physically fit? Or if they're just as capable as before, how are they unhealthy?

As for the disease, Lou Gehrig's disease "is characterized by rapidly progressive weakness, muscle atrophy and fasciculations, spasticity, dysarthria, dysphagia, and respiratory compromise." That's hardly "physically fit".

[Doom]

Kirk Russell was a seriously good baseball player before he had a career ending shoulder injury, fwiw. He still looked physically fit enough.

Ricardo Montalban walked with a severe limp thanks to a serious injury he received horseback riding in 1951...you would have never guessed from watchign him in the movies, however.

[Kaelik]

Kirk Russell was a seriously good baseball player before he had a career ending shoulder injury, fwiw. He still looked physically fit enough.

Which would make him physically fit, but not in any way "not physically fit." And would be better represented as loss of dexterity than loss of constitution.

[Psychic Robot]

this discussion just went full retard

[A Man In Black]

Yeah, you totally shouldn't be able to make a character who was a serious athlete until they had a career-threatening injury or came down with a disease that was named after them or something like that....totally implausible.....[/sarcasm]

Is this something you want to have happen as often as "smart guy who isn't terribly strong"? Is this something you want to encourage at character creation?

The question is not "Can you imagine some physically strong person who is not physically fit?" The question is "Can you imagine some physically strong character who is not physically fit that someone would actually want to play as a player character?"

The guy who is strong but crippled by an injury you can handle with your crippling-injury special case rules, I would imagine.

• 
  
  DnD doesn't do a particularly good job of having constitution make sense, but GURPS (for example) does a pretty good job of making it a reasonable stat where its used for everything from staying on your feet when your guts are spilling out to casting any spell that requires some exertion.

In GURPS, Body is used for tasks of physical strength, short-term and long-term physical exertion, and endurance. "Strength" and "Endurance" in that game are specialized advantages that take the form of Body with a disadvantage modifier for only applying to a limited subset of tasks. GURPS has already condensed D&D's STR and CON into one stat, and benefits from so doing.

[K]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm pretty tired of stats altogether. They had meaning back in the day when the only difference between two Fighters or Thieves was magic items and stats, but we've gotten past those dark ages.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The basic problem with stats is that they don't scale in effect very well. They're quite useful at low level for people to tell the difference in effectiveness between a 12-year old girl in a cloak and hood, her grandmother, and a beefy woodsman. So if the challenge is 'push a rock out of the way of the bridge' that kind of micromanagement is helpful.

Where stats break down though is at higher ranges of play. If you can give me the strength scores of Iron Man, Thor, the Incredible Hulk, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch while still being able to reflect the fact that Tony could beat Wanda in an arm-wrestling contest and the Hulk could lift an office building then I'll eat my hat. Which isn't a big deal, because you could just do a 1 to 20 strength scale or some shit. Which will kludge results like how much more acrobatic is Batgirl than Nightwing, but like I said isn't a big deal.

The problem is that D&D starts you out at Little Red Riding Hood level and you end up at Superman Level. Now while there are ways to cope with this (namely, forcing people to abandon subsystems at certain breakpoints and use the brand, spank-my-ass new ones) the problem is that people get all whiny and crybaby and snivel that Magneto's Craft: Spandex skill should still be relevant and that he shouldn't just have his Diplomacy Skill rolled into a feat talent.

Which as a bullshit bonus ties back into why the Fighter should be banned from the outset. People just being unable to accept that a game has to move on.

[K]

I'm perfectly fine with those things just being a function of class like they do for Saves. If people are going to have to be retarded to choose the Int 10 Wizard, then it shouldn't even be an available option.