Crissa wrote:Nor does Frank answer why six stats is worse than five, aside from theatrics.
The mayth is a bit complicated. But the long and the short of it is that regardless of whether you are setting up stats circularly or statically, a stat system based on fours or twos can work. A stat based on any other prime number can't.
There's a run down
here.The short version is this: if your choice of point assignment is inherently binary, the things you aren't buying are of equal value with those things you did buy. This makes each choice equally valid, and is repeatable indefinately in order to have a total number of choices of 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc. etc. But if there's a non-binary prime number in there, then the points you didn't spend in other things are split up two or more ways. Thus, putting everything into one pile is inherently superior to doing things any other way.
A six stat sustem always punishes characters who want to diversify. Always.
K wrote:Why people spend time pissing on this game instead of working on, and improving, its core conceits is beyond me.
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. D&D has the advantage that people basically know how it works, and you can play a game with some people you just met at the game store - but that doesn't mean that it's fair.
After careful consideration, I don't think that working within the core conceits of D&D is a useful goal to have. 3.5 is garbage. It's garbage that you can play at a moment's notice with people whose play style you don't know, but it's still garbage. Playing D&D is like drinking Coors or Fosters, and no colorful cup or hand made pretzels are going to change that.
And in the world of RPGs, there really aren't any games that match the quality even of Samuel Adams. If you want something better than a Corona Light you have to make it yourself.
And the reason things are like this is because people sit back and get pissy every time people bring up math and question the early bad decisions made by some ego-tripping madmen in Wisconsin before most of us were born.
K wrote:
What can't this system do?
Well, your system isn't really a system at all. It's the age-old buck passing concept of "just make some classes up and everything will work itself out". Tht hasn't. Ever. Worked.
Basically there's nothing particularly "Dwarven" about your proposed "Dwarf" class. All you've done is committed yourself to the creation of a fvck tonne of classes that can all be taken at first level. There's a "mountain warrior" class (that from flavor text is often taken by dwarves), there's a "farmer thief" class (that from flavor text is often taken by hobbits), and there's a "brain sucking psychic" class (that from flavor text is often taken by mind flayers). Well yippee-doo-daw, now that you have dozens or hundred of playable core classes, what have you actually gained?
There's still no rubric for making sure those classes are anything like game balanced, and there's still no meaningful correlation between the names of these classes and their capabilities. Telling someone "I'm a halfling Wizard" is, under your proposal, even less informative than it was previously (which was honestly not much).
So really what I guess I'm saying is that what your system can't do is have any advantages or merit.
-Username17