Murtak wrote:It should work out decently if you have exactly one offensive and one defensive use for each ability.
True. Compare and contrast that idea to the idea of having separate attack and defense stats:
Let's say that you have 8 bonus points to distribute between McAttack, McDefense, PhysAttack, and PhysDefense. Now let's consider that characters are roughly equally concenred with attack and defense. Let's look at three characters:
Gygja the Knight:
Magic Attack: +0
Magic Defense: +2
Physical Attack: +4
Physical Defense: +2
Harold the Wizard:
Magic Attack: +4
Magic Defense: +2
Physical Attack: +0
Physical Defense: +2
Gengis the Fire Warrior:
Magic Attack: +2
Magic Defense: +2
Physical Attack: +2
Physical Defense: +2
What do we notice? If Harold or Gygja attack any of these people, they do so at +2. If Gengis attacks any of these people, he does so at +0. So it's not balanced, definitionally. But watch what happens when we make even more specialized characters:
Kentotha the Berserker:
Magic Attack: +0
Magic Defense: +0
Physical Attack: +8
Physical Defense: +0
So when Kentotha attacks any of those other clowns, she does so at +6. When they attack her back, the best they do is +4 (+2 if they are one of those suckers who diversified their
attack). So it's not balanced here either. If Magic Attack, Magic Defense, Physical Attack and Physical Defense are all transferable, the correct answer is to put all of those points into your favorite attack - because anything else you spend points on is only going to be used half the time.
But now let's make the stats be Strength (Physical Damage Resistance and Damage Infliction), Agility (Physical to-hit and Dodge), Intelligence (Mental to-hit and Dodge), and Charisma (Mental Damage Resistance and Damage Infliction). Again with 8 points to distribute:
Even Steven:
Str: +2
Agi: +2
Int: +2
Cha: +2
vs.:
Sir Edgar Aloqua:
Str: +4
Agi: +4
Int: +0
Cha: +0
Sir Aloqua is going to be +2 to-hit Even Steven and +2 to damage Even Steven. Even Steven will counter attack at +2 to hit and +2 to damage because he will use mental attacks preferentially.
Red Huffington the Magic Man:
Str: +0
Agi: +0
Int: +0
Cha: +8
Red Huffington is +0 to hit Sir Aloqua and +8 damage. Sir Aloqua is +4 to hit back and +4 damage. Even Steven Red Huffington at +2 to-hit and +2 damage. Red Huffington strikes back at a minus two to hit and +6 damage.
Assuming that you have a set-up in which scalingly superior to-hit rolls add to damage and damage is on a consistant scale, all of these characters will do roughly equally well against each other.
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Murtak wrote:You might have the classical DnD abilities
Not just no.
Hell no. With six abilities, it doesn't work any more. There's no symmetry anywhere.
Whenever the combat possibilities are divided by 3 the possibilities are... unfortunate.
Consider the situation you described, in which there is physical and mental attacks that are themselves divided into special attacks and damaging attacks.
That means that any time you invest in magical defense, you have to invest 2 points to stop any particular one point of investment in whacking you (since there are two attack categories and they are only using one).
Nope. 6 stats doesn't work. It's definitionally unbalanced.
-Username17