Getting Rid of Ability Scores in 3e D&D-style systems

[Kaelik]

I do dig the endure, avoid, and realize saves that Kaelik posted above however. It makes *far* more sense.

Not me.

[JonSetanta]

So seriously, why do you want to lay down three stats? What is that for?

-Username17

For less mess, easy squeeze.

Flatline: They could be any name. It's what they apply to a character build that I was focused on, as abstractions rather than realism.

[TheFlatline]

I do dig the endure, avoid, and realize saves that Kaelik posted above however. It makes *far* more sense.

Not me.

Apologies to both parties. I wasn't paying attention when I wrote the post. I need to stop doing that.

[Judging__Eagle]

TheFlatline, I think that was me. XD

I'll probably be using Canny and Uncanny versions of both of those three types of "saves" for FAR; with Equipment (Block, Parry, Deflect) being the other set of "basic" saves.

[DragonChild]

So let's consider skills for a bit. I was thinking that in a system like this...

There's a list of, say, 15 total skills.
Choose...

2 skills to be Excellent at (5+ 1/2 level)
4 skills to be Good at (3 + 1/2 level)
4 Skill to be Proficient at (+3 bonus)
1 skill to be Terrible at (-3 penalty)

The remaining 4 skills are all at +0.



In addition, I'm thinking about Josh's "Feng Shui" set up, or the trait mechanic. I'm planning on writing some up over the weekend and seeing how they look, although it'll be hard to do.

[DragonChild]

Make your own thread for trying to figure out how to make ability scores usable, and petty, pointless feuds that spam the board, plzkthx.

[Josh_Kablack]

There's a list of, say, 15 total skills.
Choose...

2 skills to be Excellent at (5+ 1/2 level)
4 skills to be Good at (3 + 1/2 level)
4 Skill to be Proficient at (+3 bonus)
1 skill to be Terrible at (-3 penalty)

The remaining 4 skills are all at +0.

That's potentially workable, but it's hard to see at a level that abstract, without even names for what the skills are.

So I'm going to assume that we're with something very close to 3.x/4th D&D

And in that setup you'll need to include at least suggestions (if not outright rules) for handling the "everything" else rolls that raw stat checks have been traditionally used for in such games.

I'm totally cool with the Strength check to break a door becoming an Athletics check - but the oddball task assignments get trickier for more abstract tasks. When the player asks the DM to repeat the clue from the coded verse six sessions back or something similar that's usually a raw INT check to see if the character remembers. I'm totally cool with making it an Insight Check, a History Check, having an outright Memory Skill or some other check - but you;ll want to make sure you set the skills and descripts up so that it's clear what sort of check that is - or which check is the best and what else can be used at a penalty for defaults.

[For Valor]

waitwaitwait... what 15 skills are we using?

[Zinegata]

So let's consider skills for a bit. I was thinking that in a system like this...

There's a list of, say, 15 total skills.
Choose...

2 skills to be Excellent at (5+ 1/2 level)
4 skills to be Good at (3 + 1/2 level)
4 Skill to be Proficient at (+3 bonus)
1 skill to be Terrible at (-3 penalty)

The remaining 4 skills are all at +0.

It's a little vague to judge it. Are the skills going to be the same as in 3.X? Will they replace attributes partly, or entirely?

[PhoneLobster]

There's a list of, say, 15 total skills.
Choose...

2 skills to be Excellent at (5+ 1/2 level)
4 skills to be Good at (3 + 1/2 level)
4 Skill to be Proficient at (+3 bonus)
1 skill to be Terrible at (-3 penalty)

The remaining 4 skills are all at +0.

Well... that's just an attribute system with 15 attributes that have 5 potential values.

It is a tiny bit different to what D&D defines as a base attribute that derives into skill attributes.

But basically it's a set of numbers with varying values that describe your, well, attributes.

In a sense its an all skill attribute system, or rather a system where the skills just are a big list of base attributes and there aren't any skills or derived attributes.

I mean nothing wrong with that, and for some games that may be significantly better than the whole base attributes/skill attributes/other derived attributes/etc... attributes mess most systems are.

[TheWorid]

So let's consider skills for a bit. I was thinking that in a system like this...

There's a list of, say, 15 total skills.
Choose...

2 skills to be Excellent at (5+ 1/2 level)
4 skills to be Good at (3 + 1/2 level)
4 Skill to be Proficient at (+3 bonus)
1 skill to be Terrible at (-3 penalty)

The remaining 4 skills are all at +0.



In addition, I'm thinking about Josh's "Feng Shui" set up, or the trait mechanic. I'm planning on writing some up over the weekend and seeing how they look, although it'll be hard to do.

Would this include "skills" in the FATE sense, in which a skill can be something like "Strength" because they're meant to encompass anything an attribute could do?

[fbmf]

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
The "What does INT/WIS/CHA really mean?" discussion was moved here:
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51 ... sc&start=0
[/The Great Fence Builder Speaks]

[Username17]

There's a list of, say, 15 total skills.
Choose...

2 skills to be Excellent at (5+ 1/2 level)
4 skills to be Good at (3 + 1/2 level)
4 Skill to be Proficient at (+3 bonus)
1 skill to be Terrible at (-3 penalty)

The remaining 4 skills are all at +0.

Well... that's just an attribute system with 15 attributes that have 5 potential values.

It is a tiny bit different to what D&D defines as a base attribute that derives into skill attributes.

But basically it's a set of numbers with varying values that describe your, well, attributes.

In a sense its an all skill attribute system, or rather a system where the skills just are a big list of base attributes and there aren't any skills or derived attributes.

I mean nothing wrong with that, and for some games that may be significantly better than the whole base attributes/skill attributes/other derived attributes/etc... attributes mess most systems are.

That's the crux of it. Whether you call things "Attributes" or "Feats" or "Skills" or whatever is unimportant. The important thing is what your modifiers actually are. Sometimes they are the result of a pile of numbers added together, sometimes they are a single number by itself. But only the final numbers are actually important from a game balance perspective. Some games have all preset variables, and other games let you name various numbers yourself. But at the end of the day, you take various actions and your character sheet outputs numbers for those purposes.

Now there are several things that need to be addressed. You need to be able to generate a number for every occasion off your character sheet. Sometimes this is done by having basic attributes that power all actions in some distribution. Other times it is done by having some kind of skill default system in place that allows you to use one skill in place of another (usually at a penalty). Other times it is done by having the player mandatorily generate some kind of number for every listed test type. Again, it's not super important, so long as within the context of an actual game every player has a number to output from their character sheet for every possible action they can take.

-Username17

[DragonChild]

To be honestly, I was mostly throwing out a half-finished idea to salvage the thread while I still could.

Vague list off the top of my head:

Athletics
Acrobatics
Stealth
Sleight of Hand (also used for locks and traps? maybe split into "mechanics" as well, but I don't use traps often in my game)
Perception
Medicine
Diplomacy
Bluff
Intimidate
Insight
Arcana (contains knowledge on non-"aligned" planar creatures)
Nature (both knowledge:nature and wilderness lore)
Religion (contains knowledge on demons/devils/angels/slaad/etc)
History

Yeah, that's only 14. So I took a guess. For the sort of "remember a clue" check, I'm perfectly fine with just giving that to a character. If all else fails, there's also just level checks.

So the question becomes now, are there any obvious skills I'm missing that would actually get used in a typical D&D game? The craft skills can just be backgrounds, like in Shadowrun. I am totally OK with a character writing "You are a blacksmith" or "You know how to rock on the lute" just like they would write "You speak orcish".

Are there any events that people would actually want to roll for that I don't have a skill for?

[schpeelah]

I actually have a bunch of half-baked stuff for a skill overhaul based on the skill challenge discussions (y'know, tightening the bonuses, solving the skill point/class skills BS, skill challenge framework that actually works etc.) That involved collapsing skills into something with broader applicability to make coming up with situation-relevant uses for them easier. The following encompasses all of the PHB skills.

1)Athletics (the Str skill): climb, jump, swim, feats of strength (high Str characters only), feats of resilience (e.g. long running)
2)Agility: Acrobatics+Stealth
3)Engineering: Craft (subskills by type), Disable Device (including open lock and aid in destroying objects of any size), Appraise, know(architecture)
4)Manipulation (the Rogue skill): Sleight of Hand, Disable Device(including open lock), making traps, applying poison, Search, Use rope
5)Deception: Bluff, Forgery, Disguise, recognising another's deception
6) Persuasion: Diplomacy, Intimidate, Sense motive, Gather info
7)Nature: Spellcraft for nature magic, Survival, Handle Animal, identify animals, plants (both creatures and not), Magic Beasts, Heal
8)The World: Geoghraphy & History, local knowledge (subskills by location), Gather Info, Know Language
9)The Planes: the planes (duh), planar creatures, gods & religions, Spellcraft for divine magic
10)The Arcane: Spellcraft for arcane magic, identifying magic items and certain kinds of monsters, Decipher Script
11)Perception: self explanatory

Where Perception is explicitly a skill point tax - it only exists so that NPCs have the option of not having it, so a "sneak/bluff your way past something way out your league in combat" challenge is possible without stupidly titanic and blatantly obvious MC pity penalties.

Also: most of the things listed under the main skill are Subskills, and this is an actual game term now. Items only give bonuses to subskills and you also get Backgrounds/Professions that give you effective max ranks only in a number of subskills. NPCs mostly do not get the big skills, only professions. In addition you probably want some system for handing out small skill-related abilities like knowing a language or performing certain kinds of stunts/skill tricks.

I plan on posting the whole thing when it's finished enough to work as a system in any sense of the word.

[Josh_Kablack]

So the question becomes now, are there any obvious skills I'm missing that would actually get used in a typical D&D game?

I'm curious where you'd put the following D&D skills/tasks in that setup: Endurance, Find Secret Doors, Read Lips, Setting Traps, Building Siege Towers, Navigation, Jousting/Hurdles/Horseracing and Making Alchemical Items ?

[DragonChild]

I'm curious where you'd put the following D&D skills/tasks in that setup: Endurance, Find Secret Doors, Read Lips, Setting Traps, Building Siege Towers, Navigation, Jousting/Hurdles/Horseracing and Making Alchemical Items ?

Endurance - Athletics skill use in most cases
Find Secret Doors - Perception
Read Lips - Perception or Insight, depending on the case. Tough one, but 3e doesn't really have a place for it either.
Setting Traps - Does it necessarily need a skill roll? Prehaps take the bits of slight of hand and fold it into "Mechanics".
Building Siege Towers - Background skill
Navigation - Nature
Jousting - Tough one. Mounted combat is its own worry...
Making Alchemical Items - Some use in Arcana if need be, but can be a background skill, just like blacksmith, and occasionally a class feature.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You mean I'm gonna have to go back and read TriStat again?

I suppose I can. It might take a while, I only own one of the tri-stat books at the moment. Sailor Moon was the most horrendous of the offenders too, which might be difficult to dig up.

It won't be the new edition though that came out 5 years ago, it'll probably be a 2nd edition review.

So, uh, we gonna get that TriStat review or what?

[hogarth]

So, uh, we gonna get that TriStat review or what?

I can only speak for Silver Age Sentinels, which I played for a while. It had all of the problems of other point-buy superhero games like Champions or Mutants & Masterminds (e.g. some powers are completely unbalanced, relying on the GM to say "don't do that") but it was less elegant (IMO).

My character had enough points in Intangibility (or whatever the power is called) to be immune to all physical and energy damage; the GM wasn't impressed with that.

[Novembermike]

The basic problem with stats is that they map arbitrarily to abilities. Damage could conceivably come from hitting harder (strength), hitting the right spot (dex/int), waiting for the right opening (wis), making an opening through a feint (cha) or taking a blow so you can go for the throat (con). But only strength actually makes you do more damage. This holds true for pretty much any other trait.

The easiest way to fix this is to have people directly assign points to the derived abilities. Players choose from +ac, +damage, +hp and probably a few other things depending on the class.

[RobbyPants]

Of course, at that point, why have ability scores at all?

[Novembermike]

Of course, at that point, why have ability scores at all?

Read the title again.

[hogarth]

The basic problem with stats is that they map arbitrarily to abilities. Damage could conceivably come from hitting harder (strength), hitting the right spot (dex/int), waiting for the right opening (wis), making an opening through a feint (cha) or taking a blow so you can go for the throat (con). But only strength actually makes you do more damage. This holds true for pretty much any other trait.

The easiest way to fix this is to have people directly assign points to the derived abilities. Players choose from +ac, +damage, +hp and probably a few other things depending on the class.

From what I gather, that's basically how Mutants & Masterminds and the latest version of the HERO system work, although M&M isn't totally decoupled like that.

Of course, at that point, why have ability scores at all?

You could still use Strength for measuring how much stuff you can lift, for example. Or you could package various bonuses under one heading (e.g. one level in "Dexterity" gives you +1 to hit, +1 to reflex saves and +1 to initiative), as long as there isn't a cost savings that way (like their used to be in HERO).