Stats that are both offense/defense

[Judging__Eagle]

Mostly because people don't understand the attributes as simply as possible, before trying to define them.

Wisdom = Sense(s) (by comparison, Intelligence = Abstraction)
Charisma = Influence (by contrast, Willpower = Tenacity)

The thing is, there are games that work totally fine with attack/defense stats being the same. After Sundown basically treats Strength as if it was Health (really, one's health pretty much defines their physical strength).

The trick is to make things slightly more nuanced than the initial proposal; the other attributes should interfere with attacks made against an attacked attribute.

I'm also become in favour of "strength" being a no longer used term. "Health" is simply such a better definition of the concepts trying to be defined in terms of the bodies non-nervous organs. While "Nerve" is probably more precise than "Dexterity" has ever been. You don't take 4 steps at a time (up, or down) because you have 'right-handedness' (i.e. "dexterity"), you do it because you have a high performing nervous system and you can control your body to make those actions successful (or pratfalls if not).

[...You Lost Me]

Can't report on the value of gameplay, but I don't get good feedback from players when using stats that double as offense and defense. I have players that love to be a full glass cannon and players that want to be a tanky tank.

[AndreiChekov]

Can't report on the value of gameplay, but I don't get good feedback from players when using stats that double as offense and defense. I have players that love to be a full glass cannon and players that want to be a tanky tank.

This.

There is a trope in some stories to have a guy that can take any punch ever, but isn't really good at hitting back. How do you show that if strength also determines hp?

[angelfromanotherpin]

I seem to recall that in SAME the stats were mostly relative to each other, and role-based abilities were also a factor. So you could get class- and/or equipment-based modifiers to soak rolls, and become tankier without increasing damage output.

[Mask_De_H]

Can't report on the value of gameplay, but I don't get good feedback from players when using stats that double as offense and defense. I have players that love to be a full glass cannon and players that want to be a tanky tank.

This.

There is a trope in some stories to have a guy that can take any punch ever, but isn't really good at hitting back. How do you show that if strength also determines hp?

The converse is much truer, I'd say. Usually those defenders don't fight back, instead of being unable to fight back well. Even for relatively offensively anemic defensive types in games or stories, it's a dodge/accuracy thing in which they are very good at "taking" blows by not getting hit with them and hit perfectly fine but don't do much damage. Or they are bad at fighting back because they're inaccurate, but if they land one shot the opponent's going down.

I'm actually having a hard time thinking of situations in stories where being really tough but bad at fighting back both is and stays a thing, outside of as a quirk of a game system.

[OgreBattle]

I'm actually having a hard time thinking of situations in stories where being really tough but bad at fighting back both is and stays a thing, outside of as a quirk of a game system.

The Simpsons, Homer's boxing. That's a joke though.

If you broaden it to "High defense with powerful counterattack" you have Wobbufet and other counter punchers.

In fighting games the high defense guys have a tendency to be slower attackers that hit hard.

[Judging__Eagle]

Can't report on the value of gameplay, but I don't get good feedback from players when using stats that double as offense and defense. I have players that love to be a full glass cannon and players that want to be a tanky tank.

Except that a tanky tank is still a tank. With a cannon. Thus just as dangerous as the "glass" cannon.

While I understand the idea, the idea is also flawed. Stronger people (not water-filled steroided up bodybuilders) are... faster, tougher, and hit harder; than weaker people. There is no reality to the "lean but fast" person, because people who are all lean muscles have slow twitch muscles; that aren't fast.

[maglag]

Can't report on the value of gameplay, but I don't get good feedback from players when using stats that double as offense and defense. I have players that love to be a full glass cannon and players that want to be a tanky tank.

Except that a tanky tank is still a tank. With a cannon. Thus just as dangerous as the "glass" cannon.

While I understand the idea, the idea is also flawed. Stronger people (not water-filled steroided up bodybuilders) are... faster, tougher, and hit harder; than weaker people. There is no reality to the "lean but fast" person, because people who are all lean muscles have slow twitch muscles; that aren't fast.

Most birds are faster than humies, yet humies can easily overpower them.

Also an awful lot of professional atlethes die young, showing they weren't that tough after all. Having bigger stronger muscles doesn't make you more resistant to diseases and toxins. Heck, excessive training may just make you burn out faster, although you'll die with a great looking body I guess.

Meanwhile women are still statistically living longer than men worldwide despite statistically having worst muscles (and often less rights as well meaning they're abused more often, yet endure longer).

[brized]

Also an awful lot of professional atlethes die young, showing they weren't that tough after all. Having bigger stronger muscles doesn't make you more resistant to diseases and toxins. Heck, excessive training may just make you burn out faster, although you'll die with a great looking body I guess.

Meanwhile women are still statistically living longer than men worldwide despite statistically having worst muscles (and often less rights as well meaning they're abused more often, yet endure longer).

1) Regarding professional athletes, Chronic drug abusers have a lower life expectancy than non-abusers. Who knew? And yeah, excessive training is probably bad. Repeat concussions definitely are, and feature in some sports more than others.

2) Men tend to take more risks and abuse drugs more. [1], [2], [3] (see pg. 8), [4]

[Whipstitch]

There is no reality to the "lean but fast" person, because people who are all lean muscles have slow twitch muscles; that aren't fast.

That's taking things rather far. Typically "fast and lean" is just a product of people speaking colloquially about overall mass rather than advocating for specific muscle fibers. The image isn't that inaccurate in the big picture--yes, Usain Bolt is jacked but he's also super lean compared to your average cheeto dusted American.

[AndreiChekov]

Again, someone else said it for me. In this case whipstitch.

But, srsly, tanky but not hard hitting is a thing that a lot of players want. Doing away with it for the sake of realism is stupid. The people that complain about realism like fighters.

[Mask_De_H]

Again, someone else said it for me. In this case whipstitch.

But, srsly, tanky but not hard hitting is a thing that a lot of players want. Doing away with it for the sake of realism is stupid. The people that complain about realism like fighters.

You don't count as "a bunch of people", but this realism argument does have nothing to do with the mechanics of things.

Still, please to be addressing my previous point in which, outside of D&D mechanical fuckery, where is the Tank type bad at fighting, instead of merely inaccurate/less DPS focused.

[...You Lost Me]

Again, someone else said it for me. In this case whipstitch.

But, srsly, tanky but not hard hitting is a thing that a lot of players want. Doing away with it for the sake of realism is stupid. The people that complain about realism like fighters.

You don't count as "a bunch of people", but this realism argument does have nothing to do with the mechanics of things.

Still, please to be addressing my previous point in which, outside of D&D mechanical fuckery, where is the Tank type bad at fighting, instead of merely inaccurate/less DPS focused.

Me and Andrei and the players in my group. Considering the sample size, that's not something you can handwave. Where that sentiment came from, or how common it is on TV, is not a reason for dismissing it.

[Whipstitch]

Still, please to be addressing my previous point in which, outside of D&D mechanical fuckery, where is the Tank type bad at fighting, instead of merely inaccurate/less DPS focused.

Shelled animals and undead creatures. I'm not even being facetious here, because if you're creating a supers/high magic game with arbitrary power sets or want to have a fuck off huge monstrous manual then you might want your system to handle lumbering mummies, Shuckle and Combat Wombat as NPCs even if their weirdly skewed builds would be abject failures as player characters. However, you could still potentially use unified offense-defense attributes in such a setup as long as characters can still pull bonuses from other sources. E.G., it's not hard to imagine a system where Ben Grimm has a much higher Might score than Sue Storm but the latter still super hard to kill because she is so good at breaking line-of-sight and line-of-effect. In such a situation I'd argue that unifying Power & Toughness is less about streamlining things and more about making sure the Thing isn't getting overcharged for a mediocre power set.

[hyzmarca]

It's been spitballed a few times here that base stats should really only affect defenses so that people aren't trapped into making certain kinds of characters. If strength determines your bonuses to hit and damage, justifying putting any points into intelligence instead of strength for a warrior is punishing your effectiveness for flavor. That's not really ideal. However, the idea that your basic characteristics don't actually give you positive bonuses is pretty silly- the super strong guy really only punches as hard as the frail old guy?

So what if each stat was both an offense and a defense? Say a stat spread like this:

Might- Is physical damage and damage reduction
Agility- To hit and AC
Intelligence- Save DC and save bonus (magic)
Charisma- Save DC and save bonus (social)

Would anything of value be lost switching to a stat system like this? Would anything be gained?

Either get rid of one star or add a fifth. A setup like this is basically Rock, Paper. Scissors. It's balanced by the fact that the one stat you pick beats half of the other moves, and is beaten by the other half. But this only works if you have an odd number of stats. An even number of choices means that they're lop sided. There will be two stats that are simply better than the other two.

And if every stat only defends against itself, then your stat choice doesn't matter at all and you should pump everything into initiative instead.

[Mask_De_H]

Again, someone else said it for me. In this case whipstitch.

But, srsly, tanky but not hard hitting is a thing that a lot of players want. Doing away with it for the sake of realism is stupid. The people that complain about realism like fighters.

You don't count as "a bunch of people", but this realism argument does have nothing to do with the mechanics of things.

Still, please to be addressing my previous point in which, outside of D&D mechanical fuckery, where is the Tank type bad at fighting, instead of merely inaccurate/less DPS focused.

Me and Andrei and the players in my group. Considering the sample size, that's not something you can handwave. Where that sentiment came from, or how common it is on TV, is not a reason for dismissing it.

How do you keep track of a group large enough to be statistically significant? :V

But it is totally possible to handwave a single game group; all sorts of singular game groups do and think and want all sorts of weird shit that is summarily ignored. I also did say "outside of D&D fuckery" and AndreiCheckov has "I only play D&D 3.5" in his sig, so you're already included.

But Whipstitch did it for you: I'd argue that Shuckle/Metapod are only acceptable as things you fight in a standard TTRPG because they fucking suck as solo PCs, but I can't argue they aren't Tank type PCs. So thanks Whip.

[Chamomile]

If you only want something to be supported as an NPC, you should probably give it a unique ability rather than leaving leaving an open manhole in the chargen chapter.

[...You Lost Me]

How do you keep track of a group large enough to be statistically significant? :V

But it is totally possible to handwave a single game group; all sorts of singular game groups do and think and want all sorts of weird shit that is summarily ignored. I also did say "outside of D&D fuckery" and AndreiCheckov has "I only play D&D 3.5" in his sig, so you're already included.

Here is the conversation.

MASK: Giving people dedicated stats doesn't happen in media, so it shouldn't happen in games.

PEOPLE: Sure whatever. We enjoy that aspect and we're 30% of the audience in this conversation.

MASK: Information I disagree with must be scientifically rigorous, and info I agree with can be justifications from my own head. Since you disagree, your data is not rigorous enough. Also you play D&D so it doesn't count. (?????) Also your way of playing is dumb.

Do you see now why your argument is not a good justification for ignoring the ability to have tank characters?

[Mask_De_H]

Can you not fucking read or is being an ignorant asshole infectious in your group?

In that very same post you quoted I said I had been given sufficient examples of the archetype by Whipstitch. In the original post, I said that the soak/defense Tank type in media was not bad at fighting, but bad at hitting compared to the average. I also said there was a parallel concept of the Dodge Tank, who is bad at doing damage, but hits well and is good at not being hit. The thing I was saying is there weren't media examples of playable character types that were overall bad at offense (both accuracy and damage) but great at overall defense (soak and evasion). I have been proven wrong. I admitted that, in the very post you selectively quoted.

The barrel of cocks will be at your door within three to five business days.

[RobbyPants]

Can't report on the value of gameplay, but I don't get good feedback from players when using stats that double as offense and defense. I have players that love to be a full glass cannon and players that want to be a tanky tank.

This.

There is a trope in some stories to have a guy that can take any punch ever, but isn't really good at hitting back. How do you show that if strength also determines hp?

You could do it with feats or some other customization option. Your stat would set a baseline, and you could take a Tough feat or Bruiser feat if you wanted to differentiate a bit.