"In my game the Mental Attributes are..."

[MGuy]

What? I am very explicitly only making a heartbreaker for my own use at my tables. When you design a game you're designing a game. Tautological I know but that is not the same as caring about what people do with it after it's out there in the public. I would not care, even if I put one out on the market, if someone added nekomimis to use at their table. The thing I 'can' care about is what incentives I give people who play the game RAW. I say incentives because there's no reason to expect people to abide by them. For all the posting about orc wizards not existing or whatever there are people who played them anyway because people are not slaves to the books.

More directly, AA, you're making a pokemon game. Something I'm not interested in. Remember how I gave you design advice centered around reaching your stated goals? That was given while I had no interest in ever producing, running, or participating in a pokemon themed game. So while I can talk about the design of the game I do not care that you're going to run it at home and would not waste time telling you that making a game based off of a child friendly cockfighting world is bad or that you shouldn't do it. It's not my business.

[merxa]

I'm thinking about what am I incentivizing a person with high Int stat to actually do when they are playing the game. What kind of classes, skills, abilities, etc are bolstered by having a higher int? In my game it means you make stuff faster, know factoids about subject areas that come up in game, likely have a higher will save, and more 'slots' for abilities that require them. I'm making a roleplaying game and these attributes, and their related numbers, serve a function where game mechanics are concerned. I do not bother thinking about whether or not having a +1 or +2 in Int corresponds to some IQ score or whatever nonsense.

If I understand the back and forth, and that's a dubious claim on my part, I think this is the crux of the disagreement -- that attributes influence too many other game statistics and it would be better to just forgo basic attributes and focus on the game statistics you are interested in instead.

Now to claim one thing is better then another you do need some criteria to judge it by, and when it comes to playing games and having fun that could turn out to be surprisingly difficult, but we can probably still agree with some things in principle or at least acknowledge what some says is their goal in design and then judge if that goal was met.

But before we wade into those waters, we can try another analysis of this view by taking extreme examples. Lets say one game there is only 1 attribute -- the omni-attribute, and it impacts all other statistics in game, and in another game lets say everything is an attribute -- we'll call the two games omni and omega.

So in game omni, clearly people would maximize the single attribute as it makes everything they do better. Presumably you could still impact the other non attribute statistics -- wearing a set of plate would protect you in some manner in comparison to not wearing plate. But when it comes to character generation there really wouldn't be much choice as not maximizing the only attribute would be, seemingly, just a bad decision, the sort of decision other PCs might get upset at you for doing because you're purposefully sandbagging or creating an ineffective character which in turn impacts assumptions on team effectiveness (most tabletop rpgs assume cooperative play with multiple other people).

Another clear drawback would be the inability to be selectively bad at some things which impacts your ability to roleplay certain stereotypes. Sometimes people want to play a strong but naive brute, or a weak but bookish caster. In my opinion it's not especially fun, in a ttrpg, to be good at everything. When paizo was playtesting PF2, it was a common complaint that the stock level bonus ruined the flavor for some people.

The advantage, if there were to be one, is the simplicity of game omni, and the omni attribute would really end up being a hard measure of level.

On the other extreme, game omega, everything is an attribute (or someone clever could claim there are no attributes in this game). This would allow extreme customization. It would make character generation complex and likely a lengthy process, and balancing the costs of getting better at lifting weights versus smashing an object versus dealing melee damage would require extensive playtesting and likely still get things wrong. There is also a question of whether it makes sense for someone to be able to lift 10,000 pounds but unable to break down a rotten wooden door and always dealing the minimum (or none) damage in melee. This would hurt my ability to become immersed in the game, but YMMV. It also makes monster generation laborious.

Once you decide that maybe the ability to lift 10,000 pounds or 100 pounds should inform how well you can break down a rotten wooden door you fall back into the 'trap of attributes', or at least rebalancing your various game stats to reflect that your new 'lift and smash objects' stat is impacting more of the game world. Going back to damage, in game world omega, presumably the damage you deal punching someone vs punching someone with brass knuckles, or a dagger, or a bayonet would all be different, which i think would make lots of people cry. So maybe you instead roll that all into a 'melee damage bonus' stat, but again I wonder, does it make sense for a character to magically lift 10,000 pounds and smash through reinforced iron doors with ease to also be dealing min damage in melee? like, as soon as a creature becomes a corpse, now you obliterate that object, but not until it becomes classified as such? Maybe that makes sense to some people, it doesn't make much sense to me, but maybe it makes game balance sense and maybe that's enough for some people (but not me).

Ultimately I think you end up creating attributes even if you claim your game doesn't have attributes, because attempting to design and implement game omega is absurd and impossible. At some point you will decide a given game statistics informs more then one thing -- are you going to have a separate 'ability to break object' stat for every single material and or unique object in the game? Oh I can bend iron bars, but can't snap wooden sticks.

So you end up with something like strength or might or bruteness, or whatever it is, to inform the basic physics of a creature. Perhaps in your game mass matters more, but instead of cross referencing a strength and mass table, it seems clearly superior to have a single table and just let mass inform strength, but again people probably disagree either because they think it makes more sense to be two completely separate things, or for the sake of game balance they don't want 60 ft giants dealing massive damage in melee (but why wouldn't you want that?).

Let's take dodge and range to hit. Should those be completely separate, should nothing impact both of those together? Since plenty of popular games do in fact separate those, a good case can be made to do so simply by the existence of such popular games. How about the ability to dodge a range attack vs a melee attack vs a fireball?

Anyway, people will cleave up various game states and game stats as they think make sense from the perspective of verisimilitude and game balance and simplicity. And that is where all the work goes, deciding where along those considerations (and there are plenty of others), you make distinctions.

[deaddmwalking]

If they are strong, they'll likely be good at other Strength-based skills besides weightlifting.

This is the reality we all live in.

Only two things, it isn't reality, it's a game, and it isn't likely, attributes make it set in stone.

And what are the other strength based things? For example... Swordsmanship? Being a good weightlifter makes you a good swordsman? And visa versa? But agile swordsmen can go die in a fire of wasted additional feats and other requirements just to even exist in the first place IF the system even lets them do that? And cunning swordsmen are probably even more screwed again?

You keep making the mistake of assuming that because one specific implementation of attributes doesn't yield the results you want to see that every implementation couldn't possibly yield the results you want. If you want 'cunning' to impact swording, you can just do that. Do you want strong swordsmen and cunning swordsmen to be equally viable? Do you want them to play exactly the same?

Even if you want them to be equally viable, I'd expect that you'd want them to play differently. The conclusion of the movie Rob Roy has a fight between an expert duelist and a highlander. The highlander is getting his ass kicked until he ignores the non-fatal stab from the light blade and cleaves the guy in two with his Claymore.

Personally, if I wanted to play a strong character and someone else was playing a smart character and they did everything exactly the same with slightly different flavoring, I'd find that unsatisfying. I can certainly imagine a situation where I raise the portcullis with brute strength while my friends run through but the Man in Black uses a lever and the weight of several large stones to do the same thing; or I hack a person in half with a big axe and the Man in Black stabs him in a vulnerable area, but if there is no difference at all at any time or in any way it really isn't clear who is smart and who is strong.

In a system where you just put the resources in to be a good swordsman and the system is either agnostic to your cunning or lets you invest in something individual that you just say is "well that's because I'm so cunning isn't it" you would be good to go.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a system that says 'strong people are better with big heavy weapons' or 'agile people are better with fencing swords'. There may be a problem with a system that says 'strong people are better at all weapons than anyone else'. That reduces support for alternate character types. Being strong doesn't HAVE to impact melee accuracy. Hell, Accuracy can be an attribute!

In "Int is only good for knowledge skills and wizards" you are wasting an important primary character build resource an gaining nothing but Knowledge(Pocket Watches) in return.

This is a strawman and you know it. Even 3.x doesn't do this. Intelligence impacts the number of skills you have available (and number of languages known). You may not think that having more skills is useful or meaningful, but don't pretend that it doesn't exist. In any specific implementation, you're able to choose what Intelligence impacts and it doesn't have to be just those things. In our system Intelligence impacts Ranged Attacks and Resist checks against Illusions, as well as the TN to resist special effects like a Rogue throwing sand in your eyes (ie, the TN is based on the Rogue's intelligence, the resist check is based on the target's Agility). As MGuy pointed out, we're INCENTIVIZING people who play Rogues to be smart and we LIKE the result: rogues tend to be smarter than many other melee-Warrior type characters, but the smartest characters probably choose to be Wizards.

It really shouldn't be that big a deal if you wanted to describe a character like a big wizard who is clumsy and useless at physical combat... but can lift up heavy objects. But no, if the wizard can carry that heavy treasure chest you found on his shoulder, then he is ALSO good with a great sword. And also he therefore didn't invest as much in 5 other attributes of far higher priority than he should have JUST so he could do the gimmick of "yes, I can pick that up!".

Once again you're making a claim that isn't even true in 3.5 and certainly does not have to be true in any system. BUT, it's pretty clear that all else being equal, a STRONG wizard is better with a Greatsword than a WEAK wizard. I don't think that's a bad thing. Wizards don't get proficiency with Greatswords as a class feature, so STR +4 Wizard is attacking at +0 (2d6+6 damage) while the STR +4 Fighter is attacking at +5 (2d6+6 damage) and a wizard with a Staff and +0 STR is attacking at +0 (1d6 damage). Yeah, a Wizard with a Greatsword does more damage, but not sure that qualifies him as 'good at physical combat'. AND, at some point, you probably do want a high-level wizard character to be better at combat than a 1st level character. Of course, 3.x does that with BAB. I'm not sure 'bad at melee combat FOREVER' is a character concept that should be protected.

And sure, you can say "well screw the weightlifting non-combat wizard concept" what does it matter, we can't represent everyone! But the thing is it's just one of many concepts, and some of them, like the agile swordsmen, are a bigger deal than others, and all of them are screwed by the attribute mechanics, and there are SO MANY character concepts that are screwed like this, and for so many of them the only obstacle is the base attribute mechanics.

I support a weightlifting wizard concept. In fact, in our heartbreaker metal armor interferes with spellcasting. Dwarf Wizards are often strong and walk around in stone armor. We think it's a cool concept, but stone is much heavier than metal. Dwarves have some other abilities that make that a workable concept, but not everyone else does. We also support the agile swordsman. For us, Light Weapons use Agility to determine attack bonus; 1-handed weapons can use Agility or Strength (wielder's choice) and 2-handed weapons always use Strength to determine attack bonus. Again, as MGuy pointed out, we're incentivizing behavior here; we want big strong guys to be the ones that wield big heavy weapons, and we want small dextrous people to wield small dueling style weapons. And then we took it a step further....

You see, even with small dextrous people using small dextrous weapons, we didn't think that it supported the cunning swordsman well enough. Because even if you could make Agility apply to attack rolls, we still had STR apply to damage. So there was definitely an incentive to be strong if you wanted to stab people... Especially if one-handed weapons were bigger and did more damage to start with. So we allow people with light weapons to add Agility to damage in all the same situations that a rogue would get sneak attack. Now if you're planning on assassinating Ceasar, instead of halberds you have a mechanical incentive to use daggers hidden in your togas. For your average Senator, they're going to deal more damage, anyway.

They also get a floating +1 to add afterward, so 6, 5, 4, 4, 3 would be a very common character array. 6, 5, 5, 1, 1 would also be a possible build (18 points). The score is the bonus (ie, a six is +6 to attribute relevant checks).

So, +6 is maximum? And a common profile is 6,5,4,4,3, or in other words only 8 bonuses points short of the maximum possible 30 bonus points or 6,6,6,6,6 profile? Or someone can randomly decide to be bad and have 6,5,5,1,1 and be 12 points short of the maximum possible which in a more run of the mill system would still be seen as a pretty generous stat distribution with only 2 dump stats in return for 3 nearly maxed out?[/quote]

There is no maximum. You could use your +1 to raise a stat to 7, but that's the highest STARTING VALUE. You get a +1 every other level, so you could potentially raise a stat to 13. You can also magically raise STR/AGI; some magic allows you to replace your other attributes with a potentially higher score, but not directly increase it. But this isn't nearly as generous as you believe.

Any ability you have has a TN that is determined by the relevant attribute. If an opponent has the same/higher attribute in the save, they'll always save on a 10+. We have abilities that let you take 10 a handful of times. But if your attribute is lower and you can't succeed by taking 10. Thus a difference of even 1 point can be meaningful.

But secondly. Just racial penalties? I'd say to some extent Elf(subspecies the smart one) is perhaps MORE of a punch in the guts of wizard character concepts and game balance than Orc(subspecies the stupid one).

Well, actually, we got rid of Racial attribute bonuses, too.

The only thing we do is attributes for physical size. Smaller creatures are weaker; bigger creatures are stronger. It turns out that Gnomes aren't the greatest Berserkers, but we can live with that.

There are of course other issues with Race mechanics, and they could have similar issues without base attribute modifiers at all. But the reason racial base attribute modifiers are so very obviously bad... is basically because what base attributes do to character builds and concepts is at it's very foundation just that bad.

Attributes allow you to allow a single function to impact multiple other functions. If you want those functions to be related, this is a good thing. If you don't think the related functions should be related, OF COURSE it seems like a bad thing. BUT, attributes aren't everything. Most systems have additional bonuses on top of the underlying attributes.

It's also possible to discourage character concepts without attributes. Level-maximums for instance.

[MGuy]

If I understand the back and forth, and that's a dubious claim on my part, I think this is the crux of the disagreement -- that attributes influence too many other game statistics and it would be better to just forgo basic attributes and focus on the game statistics you are interested in instead.

The disagreement PL is on now is over whether or not I should care what things people are ok with when they make certain design decisions. whatever thinks that there's a contradiction between the fact that I don't care what people do at their personal table and the fact that we're discussing game design. AA might think the same but I don't know. I do not know what kaelik's position is. I don't get the sense that jon is disagreeing with me about anything.

That has been the back and forth as far as I can tell. I'm a lot more interested in having an actual discussion about the points I made and how to apply them instead of faux concerns about whether in my heart of hearts I care about if PL gets to play an orc wizard at their table without feeling bad.

I think that it seems inevitable that people are going to fall into having stats that cover multiple things (whether they are derived from 'attributes' or 'skills' or whatever). I'd add one more thing to the above about what happens when you do a thing where every thing is a 'skill' applicable to only to some narrow set of actions. I would say you incentivize people to find the skills that come up the most and/or cover the widest variety of actions that are useful in that game. One of the things that happened in 3.5 was a sorting of skills that were 'important' and skills that were basically useless (or useless in most cases). Even if skills encompass a wider variety of activities players are going to lean toward the ones that seem the most important and generally useful. I'm not saying that this is bad. It is just a thing that will probably happen and we should be mindful of it when making other decisions down the line. I don't think I have anything else to add to all that off the top of my head.

I am expressing this view because the post that kicked this off (disregarding the first one I made that was just about what I did in my hb) was made in response to jon musing about not having a social stat and fox talking about what might've made Aftersundown attributes more interesting. So when I talked about how the interesting bit is found in the incentives it was because Jon talked about what numbers he wanted to use (or not use) and fox talked about how AS allowed different numbers to apply to a thing but neither of them talked about what they 'wanted' players to actually do in the game. I don't think that just focusing on slapping different numbers together (or not using numbers at all) is going to inch anyone toward exploring that important part. I think the starting point should be 'What do I want to push players toward doing?' then have your design decisions flow from there.

Ogre at the beginning of the thread talked about how they were going to separate attributes and skills. I do not know why they are deciding to do that. I have no opinion on that decision. Kaelik outlined how they are using attributes and what the intent was. So I know why they are doing that. I can have an opinion on the efficacy of that decision (seems like a good decision). I use attributes but the decision to do so was arbitrary because I started my hb well before I got into the habit of thinking more deeply about these decisions. I have since have not had a reason to change this so it persists.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

What? I am very explicitly only making a heartbreaker for my own use at my tables. When you design a game you're designing a game. Tautological I know but that is not the same as caring about what people do with it after it's out there in the public.

Good point. I guess that's what I get for trying to speak for someone else.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

You keep making the mistake of assuming that because one specific implementation of attributes doesn't yield the results you want to see that every implementation couldn't possibly yield the results you want.

I think what most of your post is doing here is picking off individual examples and saying how you instead do right by that specific example, or if not, then could.

And that's good. That's fine. Even if it is a base attribute system one that acknowledges something as fundamental as an agility fighter as a viable role and takes efforts to support it from a foundational mechanical level is definitely an improvement on a system that goes "Lulz, +Str to rapier damage, or pay feat taxes for +Dex, hur hur.".

You CAN attempt to minimize the damage that base attributes mechanics do. And IF you are using base attributes then you definitely should.

But it's never just one example, it's a game of whack a mole. Not just because that's how internet arguments work, but because sometimes that's how game design needs to work. You need to notice that there actually seems to be a never ending stream of potential examples of viable character concepts rendered non-viable by base attributes. You need to determine that there is a commonality in those examples and determine what is causing it.

Because, as in the case base attributes, it is inherent to the very nature of the mechanic that it will create these examples.

Also, as in the case with base attributes, they don't really actually DO anything else. Bunching together abilities into arbitrary and limiting stereotypes is pretty much their only real function.

Which is especially notable because I for one do not believe it is even their INTENDED function. I'm pretty sure they exist almost exclusively for the sake of tradition at this point, and way back in primitive prehistory as a clumsy and failed attempt at figuring out how to describe characters.

Worse there is another, I think far better mechanic which I think is far more INTENTIONALLY bunching abilities together into arbitrary and limiting stereotypes. Now, I'm all about points buy, but if I DID want to create and enforce stereotypes, I would do it with Classes, they are more effective and importantly much more transparent to the player.

Double worse, base attributes can, and almost always do, interact with Class mechanics in ways that break some classes, making some of your explicitly intended viable stereotypes... non viable.

Again, basically base attributes do bad things without doing good things and we just don't need them, other mechanics are already carrying the real load on every front while base mechanics just keep tripping them and everything else up.

There is no maximum. ... But this isn't nearly as generous as you believe. ... a difference of even 1 point can be meaningful.

Actually, that's pretty much what I meant by maximum, your further elaboration is pretty much exactly what I'd expected by this point... and yes a difference of even 1 point can be meaningful. But that is technically true even if you were rolling percentile dice and had bonuses ranging out to 400+.

The question is how meaningful is 1 point? And looking at your elaborations it is from my perspective "not-very". I know there are people who think every single point counts every time, even in situations where it is more negligible than this, but being used to mechanics and implementations where every single point counts far more than the one you are describing...

The "very common" 6,5, 4, 4, 3 array you described still to me looks a lot like "barely a choice at all" rather than a "hard choice" about difficult priorities.

I'm not going to say it's bad. Choices don't have to be hard. Minimizing the impacts of a base attribute system by simply giving out so many points that just about every character concept short of "the very best possible at everything simultaneously" will always have more than enough attribute points to go around isn't bad.

But it is definitely a minimization of the role of base attributes in the system. And just a few more points away from the base attribute system pretty much mathematically cancelling itself out of existence.

Which, also, probably wouldn't be all that bad.

Well, actually, we got rid of Racial attribute bonuses, too.

Well done, that's like maybe about 1/2 or so of the bad bit of Race Mechanics and a major step forward.

It will ALSO help to further minimize the issues with base attributes themselves as the more you reduce their variation on top of the generous starting array numbers the closer they come to pretty much not existing.

It's also possible to discourage character concepts without attributes. Level-maximums for instance.

Like I said. Classes. Tell your players straight up, you want a role? these are the roles, this is what they do, the end, no hidden surprises on your initiative or saving throws or seven different skills you'd need to look up.

[Foxwarrior]

Also, as in the case with base attributes, they don't really actually DO anything else. Bunching together abilities into arbitrary and limiting stereotypes is pretty much their only real function.

Which is especially notable because I for one do not believe it is even their INTENDED function. I'm pretty sure they exist almost exclusively for the sake of tradition at this point, and way back in primitive prehistory as a clumsy and failed attempt at figuring out how to describe characters.

Ah, I'm a bit more optimistic, I always hope that bunching together abilities into arbitrary and limiting stereotypes was the intent.

Worse there is another, I think far better mechanic which I think is far more INTENTIONALLY bunching abilities together into arbitrary and limiting stereotypes. Now, I'm all about points buy, but if I DID want to create and enforce stereotypes, I would do it with Classes, they are more effective and importantly much more transparent to the player.

If you want a light touch of arbitrary and limiting stereotypes in your game, then ability scores without classes could be a nice middle ground to somewhat limit your choices in point buy to a theme without having to do the class thing of defining a special mechanism for picking class abilities based on your individual class choice.


Sometimes (usually) I think that it would be better if games did classes or ability scores, but not both...

[deaddmwalking]

You CAN attempt to minimize the damage that base attributes mechanics do. And IF you are using base attributes then you definitely should.

But it's never just one example, it's a game of whack a mole. Not just because that's how internet arguments work, but because sometimes that's how game design needs to work. You need to notice that there actually seems to be a never ending stream of potential examples of viable character concepts rendered non-viable by base attributes. You need to determine that there is a commonality in those examples and determine what is causing it.

Once again, I think you're conflating two things. Your argument appears to be predicated on an assumption that anyone should be as good as anyone else at anything they choose to do. So Luke can be good at laser-sword fighting, but so can Yoda and so can R2-D2. Personally, I didn't think sword-fighting Yoda was 'cool' - I liked him better as a wise mystic character, rather than as a duelist. But even in the prequel implementation it was clear it wasn't all 'skill ranks'. They relied on underlying physical attributes (which is why old Yoda couldn't do those things anymore - at least without Force augmentation). While that is a point you can assert, the validity of the argument is up for debate.

We want wizards to be smart. We want magic to be a mystic force that requires delving into ancient tomes and calculating the impact of Venus entering Aquarius before casting. Yes, having attributes encourages characters to have commonalities. Our wizards are smart because smart characters are better at wizarding. Any character can choose to be smart, and not smart characters can choose to be wizards, but they won't be the best wizards. For us, that's working as designed.

Also, as in the case with base attributes, they don't really actually DO anything else. Bunching together abilities into arbitrary and limiting stereotypes is pretty much their only real function.

I think that in a game of imagination, stereotypes do have utility. Saying a wizard uses the power of accumulated arcane lore or a berserker uses their huge muscles to brain you with a greatclub are immediately understandable. Putting that character together is also easily grasped - choose smart/wizard or choose strong/berserker. Inherently, that also allows a player to play against type, which also has value. If every berserker is automatically able to do strong person things, but you don't want to be strong (just consumed by a demon of rage), you are losing something...

Now, potentially you can decouple everything, but I think merxa did a great deconstruction of where that leads. Personal tastes matter here, but I don't want a character to be able to put every point into 'ultimate weapon' and no points into anything else - I don't think those types of characters are interesting... And if putting all of your points into 'ultimate weapon' ends up becoming the optimal strategy, even though you have thousands of abilities available, you end up with less diversity than 'attribute + class' options.

Worse there is another, I think far better mechanic which I think is far more INTENTIONALLY bunching abilities together into arbitrary and limiting stereotypes. Now, I'm all about points buy, but if I DID want to create and enforce stereotypes, I would do it with Classes, they are more effective and importantly much more transparent to the player.

In many point-buy systems, they provide some 'archetypes'. They're not actual classes - just examples of how you can spend your points to pull off a given character concept. Incidentally, most of them STILL use attributes - and I don't think it is for tradition. In those cases, attributes avoid a divide by zero error. If you don't have a relevant skill or ability, the system defaults to an attribute check because that's the fundamental level of the system. Knowing that you can't possibly predict all attempted actions, you end up with a kludge. Maybe you ask the GM to look at what skills the character has, decide which one is closest, then roll at a penalty based on how different it is. That doesn't seem more transparent to me than just saying 'roll an attribute check'.

Double worse, base attributes can, and almost always do, interact with Class mechanics in ways that break some classes, making some of your explicitly intended viable stereotypes... non viable.

Recognizing failures in specific implementations still does not generalize it to a base failure in the system. But I agree that making attributes important for a critical function for a class can make a character less effective if they don't invest in that attribute. Where I'm not sold is where that fails to support 'explicitly intended viable stereotypes'. And I have an example we can use to discuss this in more detail!

In the Robert Downey Jr Sherlock Holmes, the titular character uses his power of deductive reasoning to identify what the opponent is doing, counter, and target them with an incapacitating blow. Normally, people associate avoiding being hit with something like agility, dodginess, mobility or speed, not Intelligence. Most people also associate a rib-breaking punch to be associated with strong people. We don't see most professional chess-players dominating the prize-fight circuit. AND YET that is a character that someone might want to play at the table.

In our system, they wouldn't really benefit by playing a 'smart warrior'. Intelligence doesn't automatically make them better at avoiding blows, hitting with their firsts, or dealing additional damage. There are Feat/Talents that they can take that do help - for example there is a Talent that allows them to take a penalty on attack rolls and get a bonus to Defense up to their Intelligence. But since that makes them less likely to hit (and they will do less damage than a strong/agile warrior), it doesn't really achieve our goal. But, they could play a wizard that sees/senses the flow of time. Spells like prescient dodge would make them pretty good at avoiding blows. As a starting character they could spend all of their talents to (1) be able to fight unarmed, (2) cast another school of spells that includes inflict wounds, and (3) cast the spell in conjunction with an attack. If they hit they'd do 1d4+2d8+STR damage. Obviously a stronger/more agile Wizard would be better than one that is weak/clumsy, but we have support for the concept.

In the movie, Sherlock was the superior build (it was his movie after all), but in our case, this isn't clearly superior to alternate builds. A strong/agile berserker could do 1d4+1d6+STR damage, and with the talents they have they could get another attack when they get hit (Retributive Strike), heal up to END+1 hit points, and potentially punch Sherlock's fist hard enough to prevent him from making natural attacks for the rest of combat.

From our perspective, a fist-fighting Wizard is probably not the OPTIMAL build, but it is a VIABLE build, and it can be fun for a player that wants to do that. The fact that the player can make some choices to make the build fun to play and won't know exactly how it will stack up to the opposition is part of the fun. I can guarantee that it will play DIFFERENTLY than a more typical martial-focused slugger.

It's also possible to discourage character concepts without attributes. Level-maximums for instance.

Like I said. Classes. Tell your players straight up, you want a role? these are the roles, this is what they do, the end, no hidden surprises on your initiative or saving throws or seven different skills you'd need to look up.

Again, matter of preference. When I play a rogue, I want to try different things - I don't want them to be cookie-cutter, even though they have the same class abilities. One of them I might play as a sniper; another as a two-weapon fighting duelist. I don't like 3.5 classplosion where so many abilities are exclusively the domain of a particular class and I particularly don't like the magical/mundane divide; I think most classes benefit from the ability to incorporate a small amount of magic at higher levels. I like attributes as a quick way to describe someone; an easy way to mechanically differentiate similar classes, and I like a lot of customization within a class. Having different pools of abilities (attributes/skills/feats/class abilities, etc) give you a variety of tools to customize a particular concept. I certainly think that having a class that is Sherlock the Boxer, a completely different class that is Sugar Ray Leonard the boxer (Boxer-Puncher), and a third completely different class that is Ivan Drago the boxer (Slugger) is poor use of design space.

[JonSetanta]

Sherlock: INT Rogue or Fighter
Conan: STR Rogue

They really should be legit choices, but from what I've seen, anyone who makes a Fighter/Paladin/Barbarian with all points into mental stats and a STR of about 10 is going to die.

EDIT: An option I proposed in a similar discussion years ago was to allow an option of at least 2 stats for every class ability, whichever is higher.
For most things this would be something like "Finesse: Int or Dex" and "Fortitude saves: Str or Con"
This might lead to some confusion, but things like basing Sorcerer bonus spell slots and save DC off of Con as an option would be at least transparent rather than "Take a feat" or some kind of Stamina Sorcerer class alternative.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Sherlock: INT Rogue or Fighter
Conan: STR Rogue

They really should be legit choices, but from what I've seen, anyone who makes a Fighter/Paladin/Barbarian with all points into mental stats and a STR of about 10 is going to die.

EDIT: An option I proposed in a similar discussion years ago was to allow an option of at least 2 stats for every class ability, whichever is higher.
For most things this would be something like "Finesse: Int or Dex" and "Fortitude saves: Str or Con"
This might lead to some confusion, but things like basing Sorcerer bonus spell slots and save DC off of Con as an option would be at least transparent rather than "Take a feat" or some kind of Stamina Sorcerer class alternative.

That's funny as hell, I'm actually playing a CON caster who got to pick his saves and is otherwise playing a totally normal casting class. God bless this Sphere shit for making 5e somewhat palatable and letting me make my own magic style. I could actually dump all of my mental stats if I wanted, but I want to play a poofy Lovecraft protagonist and not a muscle wizard, so I thought it would be funny to dump physical stats, avoid defensive spells, and make casting magic kill me.
If only WotC would actually try to design something for once!

[merxa]

Pathfinder has decent coverage for 'sherlock' via the investigator hybrid class.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Once again, I think you're conflating two things. Your argument appears to be predicated on an assumption that anyone should be as good as anyone else at anything they choose to do.

Why on earth would you think that?

I just want to remove a clumsy and needless hurdle that obfuscates and prevents players from investing character resources directly in being good at things the player wants their character to be good at to a proportionally appropriate manner.

So Luke can be good at laser-sword fighting, but so can Yoda and so can R2-D2.

You... pick as your example a group of crazy assholes that include at least 2 characters that spend at least 5 movies pretending they cannot fight, spit out fire, deflect lightning, and fly?

Personally, I didn't think sword-fighting Yoda was 'cool' - I liked him better as a wise mystic character, rather than as a duelist.

I... don't respect that opinion. I don't think that opinion should effect games, and I'm going to condemn it not just as narrow minded but ALSO as probably in large part an inability to separate a distaste for a visual effect from a preference about permissible RPG characters.

They relied on underlying physical attributes (which is why old Yoda couldn't do those things anymore - at least without Force augmentation). While that is a point you can assert, the validity of the argument is up for debate.

... up for debate? It's crazy talk is what it is. The closest thing in the star wars universe to base attributes is Midi-chlorians and they are also universally regarded as the worst thing in the star wars universe. Star wars does NOT tell us "Yoda used to have a higher Strength score when he was slightly younger ancient instead of swamp hermit ancient". And if it did... so what? You can get old and weak without base attributes, it happens in the real world after all.

I think that in a game of imagination, stereotypes do have utility.

That does not mean all stereotypes implemented in all ways have utility.

Even a racist orc stereotype DOES have utility in an RPG. If you pull out your orc wizard character and go on an adventure and a fight against racist stereotypes people try to inflict on you that COULD be fun. Creating structure and conflict in your story.

But that only works if the stereotype you are in conflict with is made out of fluff and fiction, a misconception held by other characters.

When the stereotype is game mechanical you are instead choosing to role play in a world where those anti-orc racists are actually objectively correct and you are trying to defy your very real objective inferiority. And that is, way less cool.

And again, I don't really care if it's an orc wizard or a hutt jedi or the second worst implementation of Sherlock Holmes in recent memory. Game mechanically enforcing inferiority on arbitrary groups of character concepts will always bite you in the ass, you WILL have players who want to "play against type" because that's part of the psychology of wanting their personal player character to be special.

This is why you cannot just present players with a set of types they can play and imagine you have accounted for everything their natural reaction is to take one your types as presented and ask "how can I make this uniquely my own?". Your system must have sufficient give and flexibility to allow that and base attributes are not just a wall but a potential maze full of trap options that prevent that.

Personal tastes matter here, but I don't want a character to be able to put every point into 'ultimate weapon' and no points into anything else

Why would you pretend you can or should do that?

Look I'm more than happy to let you endlessly claim that each and every time your system encounters a mechanically punished viable archetype you somehow customize the rules to account for and support it individually with individual classes and a new set of abilities that do the same thing as other abilities but tied to different base attributes.

But... you want to pull out the most extreme version of the specialization problem, claim your preferred direction is immune to it and tie it to the alternative to use as a straw man?

Similarly, Merxa's post. It wasn't as uncharitable as that, but it is made in large part out of baseless assumptions presented instead as conclusions that naturally follow entirely disjointed points.

In many point-buy systems, they provide some 'archetypes'. They're not actual classes - just examples of how you can spend your points to pull off a given character concept.

Suggestions aren't binding and don't punish you for "doing it wrong".

However I think I can condemn a lot of specific implementations of suggested archetypes for multiple reasons. They undermine the point of going classless, they are often used to try and mask over large mechanical flaws by "suggesting" players avoid them, and honestly a good points buy system shouldn't really need them the available options should intuitively inspire players to build interesting characters with them.

But that is all neither here nor there. Because a suggestion is not a base attribute, and a base attribute is FAR different to a suggestion.

Incidentally, most of them STILL use attributes - and I don't think it is for tradition.

Most of them still use attributes because most systems period still use attributes. Something that would be entirely consistent with my view that attributes are a wide spread tradition.

I would suggest in fact that attributes in points buy systems are fundamentally worse than attributes in other systems (how many times have you seen a point buy system where "the bit that broke the fastest/broke everything else" was base attributes?). I would suggest that even in class based systems when the attributes are themselves points buy they are worse than attributes in other systems (genuinely randomized attributes could almost justify base attributes). And, that again, the only reason they persist even in these cases where they ARE worse than others, is again, tradition.

In those cases, attributes avoid a divide by zero error. If you don't have a relevant skill or ability, the system defaults to an attribute check because that's the fundamental level of the system. Knowing that you can't possibly predict all attempted actions, you end up with a kludge. Maybe you ask the GM to look at what skills the character has, decide which one is closest, then roll at a penalty based on how different it is. That doesn't seem more transparent to me than just saying 'roll an attribute check'.

The start of that acts like you can't revert to a default without base attributes (you can) then you present one of the alternatives to base attributes for a default, one that IS even used in base attributes systems and in fact would be unintuitive to avoid using even in a base attribute system and then complain that you don't like it as much.

You can't account for all actions. A base attribute system is NOT a magic safety net that accounts for all unnaccounted for actions. In theory trying to use it as such, and arbitrarily declaring all other character values should not be used as such, is bad not just because that is kinda dumb but because the already damaging hiving off of accounted for abilities into base attribute stereotypes now adds on the utterly unbalanced and unaccounted for variation in "every other action you might imagine" now hiving off unpredictably at the last moment into base attribute stereotypes as well.

But, then who cares? We all know the sorts of "unnaccounted" for actions you are talking about and it's a by the vast majority a pile of trivial nonsense we can (and would still have to, and already do) deal with however we feel like really. It has nothing one jot to do with base attributes.

Recognizing failures in specific implementations still does not generalize it to a base failure in the system. But I agree that making attributes important for a critical function for a class can make a character less effective if they don't invest in that attribute. Where I'm not sold is where that fails to support 'explicitly intended viable stereotypes'. And I have an example we can use to discuss this in more detail!

I think you might have some sort of problem with drawing the worst possible examples from modern fiction, I don't mean worst for your case, just worst.

Anyway.

You know that base attributes routinely are the failing point of classes, character builds, and various specific options or combinations of options.

One of your primary solutions to support character builds despite having base attributes limit them is to just present more and more classes, characters builds and combinations of options.

To some extent more content to support more content IS a tautological requirement.

But, when you allow an underlying weakness to remain in the system, one that routinely unintentionally sabotages such content every single time you add those types of content that are susceptible to that underlying weakness you risk creating a monk or a bard.

It's a design methodology thing. If you identify a flaw that is prone to creating other flaws, if you can fix or remove it, you do that rather than just cross your fingers and hope you will forever in future manage to account for it without error. You do not move forward with a design that requires you to get a perfect result every time in a field full of examples of every other designer ever failing to do that.

Also, your downy junior punch wizard looked a bit like a unconvincingly bad matching kludge. I'm not going to hold it against your argument, because with minimal effort you should have been able to present something far better as an example if you wanted to.

It's just odd you spent that much time to present something that poorly matched based on such a horrendous piece of fiction. At this rate I look forward to the representation of the Will (fucking dumb ass) Ferrel Holmes with 3 pieces of straw and a whoopee cushion. Though really, that WOULD represent Will (ew its him again) Ferrel pretty well.

Again, matter of preference. When I play a rogue, I want to try different things - I don't want them to be cookie-cutter, even though they have the same class abilities. One of them I might play as a sniper; another as a two-weapon fighting duelist. I don't like 3.5 classplosion where so many abilities are exclusively the domain of a particular class and I particularly don't like the magical/mundane divide; I think most classes benefit from the ability to incorporate a small amount of magic at higher levels. I like attributes as a quick way to describe someone; an easy way to mechanically differentiate similar classes, and I like a lot of customization within a class. Having different pools of abilities (attributes/skills/feats/class abilities, etc) give you a variety of tools to customize a particular concept. I certainly think that having a class that is Sherlock the Boxer, a completely different class that is Sugar Ray Leonard the boxer (Boxer-Puncher), and a third completely different class that is Ivan Drago the boxer (Slugger) is poor use of design space.

I think you need to think very hard about virtually every sentence of that text there and consider what it is you really want out of your game and what game mechanics you actually need to have.

Because almost all of it reads like you are presenting contradictory goals and methods.

You do not seem to like classes or grouped stereotypes of options at all. You very much seem to be describing things you want which would be massively better supported without classes or base attributes.

You also seem to be entirely pleased by arbitrarily tying multiple unrelated roles together in "Rogue" like Sniper and Two Weapon duelist (why on earth would you put those in the same class as separate build paths in a same system?) but then seem to think that it is exclusively base attributes that mean you can have three subtypes of guy who punches people in a guy who punches people class.

This whole section stands out from your other text as not belonging to someone who knows what they want or how to get it.

[JonSetanta]

That's funny as hell, I'm actually playing a CON caster who got to pick his saves and is otherwise playing a totally normal casting class. God bless this Sphere shit for making 5e somewhat palatable and letting me make my own magic style. I could actually dump all of my mental stats if I wanted, but I want to play a poofy Lovecraft protagonist and not a muscle wizard, so I thought it would be funny to dump physical stats, avoid defensive spells, and make casting magic kill me.
If only WotC would actually try to design something for once!

I would soooo play as a Lina Inverse style Mage!

Running low on Stamina from casting Explosion Array?
Whip out the snaggle tooth and chow down.

[JonSetanta]

Pathfinder has decent coverage for 'sherlock' via the investigator hybrid class.

Yeah, ah, that's what I stated as.. should be avoided.

Players don't need 6 classes for every archetypal D&D trope, with the only variant between them being the primary stat their abilities draw from.
Well, maybe some might want that, but this is the process that leads to, oh I dunno, 500+ classes?

[MGuy]

Pathfinder has decent coverage for 'sherlock' via the investigator hybrid class.

Yeah, ah, that's what I stated as.. should be avoided.

Players don't need 6 classes for every archetypal D&D trope, with the only variant between them being the primary stat their abilities draw from.
Well, maybe some might want that, but this is the process that leads to, oh I dunno, 500+ classes?

I'm a bit confused. Sherlock fist fighter isn't an archetypical DnD trope. In a DnD kind of game wouldn't that be the exact kind of extra thing that you'd include in a splatbook because it isn't something that needs to be covered for a regular dnd game?

[merxa]

Your system must have sufficient give and flexibility to allow that and base attributes are not just a wall but a potential maze full of trap options that prevent that.

Must attributes be a maze full of trap options? Is there no possible realm they act a guide or short hand to help players build their concept without needing to read through every single option available?

Similarly, Merxa's post. It wasn't as uncharitable as that, but it is made in large part out of baseless assumptions presented instead as conclusions that naturally follow entirely disjointed points.

What a well thought out counter argument! I just hadn't realized I made baseless assumptions, as for how I presented conclusions which naturally followed disjointed points... it makes me wonder if I exist on some higher order of logic to accomplish such a feat. Perhaps you could further enlighten us, or perhaps not, or perhaps I cannot even speculate without falling into the same mistakes I made already. Perhaps.

It's posts like these that make me wonder if I'm really just reading some GPT-3 output trained off the original PL. I'm trying to understand your point of view, but it's becoming increasingly murky -- you are for using classes to design? or against attributes and classes? I'm am really struggling, which I guess would track since I apparently cannot string together coherent logic.

What is this system that you envision? It seems like the library of babel, an infinite variety of choices -- that will certainly cover every concept available, of course even if you were to design such a system -- actually wait, this system has been designed, let me link it here, discovery is said to be a significant issue, but this system is in fact complete and highly customizable. Of course some people complain that many classes and rules presented seem like complete gibberish or are contradictory, and they further have the temerity to argue that it lacks an introduction or clear place for the novice to begin; but we can safely dismiss such complaints as mere monological chauvinism -- why design a system for a single multiverse when the most perfect system will cater to all possible and impossible mulitverses!

Maybe your system isn't even a system, perhaps something closer to LARPing, or maybe it's just all MTP all the time.

But I will make the astounding leap of logic that the library of babel in fact fails as a set of rules to run a ttrpg -- apologies to our polylogical friends in the audience -- instead I'll admit that I could never design a system (and even make the bold claim that no one can design a system) which will cater to all possible character concepts a person (or alien) may want to play. I think the task is akin to finding the largest prime number.

so what am I to do? give up? That is indeed likely the end result, but I'll continue the struggle a bit longer and suggest that a viable alternative could be to in fact design a frame work that can, within the limits of human reason, be used by others to quickly build out character concepts that are not supported right out of the box.

but alas, the boulder has slipped from my grasp and is rolling back down the hill, and I see the vultures have come to eat out my liver once more. Until next time (or place!) Neo Phonelobster Prime, my GPT-3 friend!

[JonSetanta]

I'm a bit confused. Sherlock fist fighter isn't an archetypical DnD trope. In a DnD kind of game wouldn't that be the exact kind of extra thing that you'd include in a splatbook because it isn't something that needs to be covered for a regular dnd game?

The Dex/Wis Monk is standard for the last 20 years, but I seem to recall some feat from some splatbook that allows the use of CHA instead of WIS, which is the same old typical Make It A Feat attitude.

And true, INT-based unarmed warriors are not supported by game design in any edition, but that's what I'm stating: built in options for stat-dependency > more feats and class variants to do the same thing.

But there is Koumei's INT-based Ninja... viewtopic.php?f=6&t=52755

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Sherlock Holmes is not a fucking D&D monk. You stop that right now.

[erik]

Sherlock Holmes is not a fucking D&D monk. You stop that right now.

Looks like someone got discombobulated by Sherlock's stunning fist.

[JonSetanta]

https://youtu.be/lLuhWLNqpiA

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I saw that movie, I know that fight scene. Fuck off. He is not a goddamned Monk. What is this, Fate/Grand Order?

[Foxwarrior]

Sherlock is usually described as being very perceptive, I remember that in the original stories a lot of the time Sherlock would run off and Watson would chase behind confusedly and the immediate mystery was "what clue did Sherlock see that made him run this way?" So yeah, totally Wisdom-based, so Monk.

[Foxwarrior]

Neo Phonelobster Prime, there is a major problem with the freedom of point buy systems that don't enforce stereotypes at all:

Look man, you can't say that an option spell ruins a spellcasting concept, My Necromancer just knows the spell fireball, my Beguiler just learned the spell Raise Dead, and my Wizard just learned the spell Barbarian Rage 5/day which he doesn't cast but just happens.

This doesn't have to effect your necromancer, beguiler, or wizard because all it does is make your character a necromancer who refused to learn fireball, a beguiler who refused to learn Raise Dead, and a Wizard who refused to learn Barbarian Rage. But also your character could learn this tomorrow, and every day will be defined in part by their refusal to learn this spell.

Likewise, it's totally not a problem that my fighter learned the sword strike Teleport, where he imagines a location, chants some words, and then he and several people touching him teleports to that place. It doesn't have any effect on all the fighters who choose not learn this sword strike, except of course that they are all now defined as people who could have learned this but didn't and the class fighter which is a large defining concept of the character is defined as a class that can teleport by chanting magic words and visualizing.

[erik]

I saw that movie, I know that fight scene. Fuck off. He is not a goddamned Monk. What is this, Fate/Grand Order?

He's a fool for not using this scene instead.

But srsly, being talented in baritsu martial art was a significant aspect of the literal Sherlock Holmes character.


I've had that thing playing 5 minutes in the background. Mind is slowly, slipping.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Please no. If he's a monk, then that means he can just attain bodily immortality and become immune to aging, making Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century canon.