Incorporating Mental Statistics into Combat [Archive] - Wizards Community

Incorporating Mental Statistics into Combat [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
TheMightyMcClaw
04-29-04, 10:11 PM I'd like to create a set of rules to work the mental statistics (intelligence, wisdom, and charisma) into the basic combat process. Aside from spellcasters and a handful of special abilities and skill checks, melee combat is mostly a test of who is the strongest, fastest, and toughest. While that's fine for certain styles of gaming, it doesn't really click if one wants to run a more swashbuckling or OA style game; shouldn't cleverness, alertness, and dertermination count for something as well in the heat of battle?

Ideas I've had so far.....

Replace the dexterity bonus to initiative with intelligence bonus to initiative, or possibly just take an average of the two. A high intelligence means a 'quick' and able mind; one that can react to danger and assess one's situation quickly; thus, it's reasonable to use for initiative.

My ideas so far....

Allow intelligence bonus to be used offensively for grapple checks. Knowledge of joint locks and all that.

Integrate wisdom into AC somehow. While perhaps not a flat-out +wis mod to AC (as that would step on the monks toes), maybe something against flanking and the like to represent one's alertness of one's surroundings.

Allow a Charisma check to "Grit your teeth" and keep fighting when reduced to zero hit points; this deals more with the "force of personality" aspect of charisma more than the "social skills" part. I believe the Alternity system had a rule similar to this.

Charisma bonus to hit when charging, either as a replacement or an addition to the flat +2. Again, the idea of bringing one's force of personality to bear when fighting, and committing yourself entirely to an attack rather than holding back from meekness.

A lot of these could also be done up as feats, as well.....
Xyplex
04-29-04, 11:38 PM In that case I'd suggest you remove Strength, Dexerity, and Consitution alltogether ... if you take away their ability to function in combat, about the only place they are important, than you take away their usefullness. Once you do that, they become redundant, thus replaceable, and you can reason everything over to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.

In the old version of Star Wars, you had two stats which defined your initiative ... Perception and Reflexes ... people with the lowest perception would declare their actions first, and then the highest perception people would declare their actions last ... then the order in which they were executed would proceed from highest Reflexes to lowest Reflexes. Perceptive (or in your case, high Int characters) could weigh the situation and act in the best manner ... even if they're not the first off the block.

I guess my thoughts are that any of the core Fighter type classes (save for the Paladin) would get the royal shaft in this situation. Casters have to have high levels of Int, Wis, and Cha to function properly ... now you're telling the Fighters that they have to balance their stats across 6? The Mage wouldn't care less if he had a high Str, or even Dex and Con if he plays his spells right ... so non-Fighters would look to the now more important 3 stats which were already more important to them.

Like I suggested at the beginning ... either go all the way or not at all. Eliminate Str, Dex, Con and replace them with logical extensions of Int, Wis, and Cha ...

If not that ... then make things that are typically based on Int, Wis, and Cha more focused on Str, Dex, and Con ... like Intimidate as a Str skill, Diplomacy as a Con skill (it's not how well you speak, but how long ... ), Bluff as a Dex skill, Bonus spells based off of Con (how much juice do you have in your body to fuel these extra spells), etc.

Sause for the goose.
Dartanel
04-30-04, 07:39 AM If you wish to have the mental stats affect combat, do not have them supplant existing stat modifiers. Rather have them affect out of game circumstances, like so:

Int - Intelligence affects a characters ability to reason and think under pressure. A character who has a high int should give their player more time to determine their character's action each round. Create a chart of how long each player has to decide upon their characters action based on their PCs intelligence mod. If they cannot decide upon an action by the end of that time, they repeat their previous round's action (or DMs call if last round's action is unapplicable)

Wis - Wisdom measures awareness. A PC with a positive wis mod should allow their player to ask a single question about the state of the battle per point of mod each round.

Cha - Charisma affects the PCs ability to communicate effectively. For each point of charisma modifier, the PC may take a single immediate action to speak to other characters. Characters without a cha mod, or with a cha negative may only speak as a swift action (i.e. once on their turn)
Degobah
05-03-04, 05:06 AM I'd suggest mixing the standard and mental-stat based approaches, so that some characters have the option of being "smart" warriors rather than musclebound guys. Create new feats and skills for this, or allowing alternate class features.
Swashbucklers already get Int bonus to damage, and monks get Wis to AC for instance.

Another idea I'd like would be to give characters bonus feats for Wisdom (mirroring the way Intelligence gives bonus skill points). This gives a high-mental stat character the advantage of more options in combat, rather than flat bonuses to rolls: so the wiser characters knows a trick or two in a fix. If this seems unbalanced, consider limiting these to a limited feat list.
Salla
05-03-04, 12:12 PM One thing I've been mulling over lately is the idea of giving fighters some non-Feat-based class abilities at 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th level, based on Attributes.

At those levels, you can pick a mental attribute (INT, WIS, or CHA) and use its modifer to add to your to-hit in melee, to-hit at range, melee damage, or ranged damage. You can only choose a particular combination once, and you can choose not to take the ability if you would be forced to apply a penalty (for example, if your WIS and CHA were both 8s, and already took INT melee-hit, melee-damage, ranged-hit and ranged-damage, you wouldn't have to take the last one and put a -1 on something). It only applies to weapon or unarmed damage, not spells.

This opens up the fighter to Multiple Ability Dependency a bit, of course, but since nothing was taken away from the class in place of this (and we all know how fighters dump into mental stats), they aren't getting a whole lot (unless they got some seriously huge stat rolls).
eggplantm
05-03-04, 01:23 PM There are already many feats that rewrite the rules of combat to make another stat more important in combat. I could easily see how certain mental stats could replace the physical stats in this way such as a feat that lets you use your intelligence bonus for initiative.

Rewriting the rules to favor mental stats more would be a very complex set of house rules at this point and I can't say that I would agree with them. I admire the current system that the physical domain is governed by physical stats and mental for mental but I can easily imagine someone using their intelligence or willpower or confidence to improve their own combat ability.

On a related note. Which classes would benefit the most from these feats. Fighter and barbarians would not much. Sorcerers and wizards probably not much either but they could really shine for the players of skill heavy classes such as bards, rogues and rangers. I'd love my bard to have a bonus to AC based on his charisma or a rogue with a damage bonus based on intelligence when he makes sneak attacks. Extra hit points based on will power could be cool as well. Just be careful when you design these feats. Things could get out of balance very easily.
Degobah
05-05-04, 05:04 AM OK, I'll do a couple of mental stat-based feats.

Combat Insight
You know what your foe is going to do before he does.
Requires- Int 13+, Expertise

Make an Int check opposed to your enemy's Int check as a move-equivalent action. If you succeed, you gain a +2 bonus on attack rolls (vs them only) for one round. Due to being prepared, you also gain a +2 bonus on saves or ability checks vs. any extraordinary effects or special attacks used against you (stunning fist, trip, bull rush, etc).

Flash of Inspiration
Attacks you make rapidly are guided by an uncanny instinct.
Prerequisite: Wis 13+, BAB +1
When you make an attack of opportunity, you may use your Wis bonus to hit rather than your Str or Dex bonus.

Dirty Fighting
You know how to use dirty tricks in combat.
prerequisites: Bluff 2 ranks
As a standard action, you can make an opposed Int check (both sides also add their BAB) to do any of the following: blind your opponent (by throwing sand in their face, slashing their scalp, or trying to gouge out an eye), or stun them for one round (knee in the groin: Fortitude negates as Stunning Fist but at -4 penalty).

Controlled Rage
Prerequistes: Int 13+, rage ability.
Your anger is cold and controlled, rather than reckless. You suffer no penalty to AC while raging and may use any combat-related feats or skills normally.
Krelios
05-06-04, 10:21 AM Combat Expertise
Improved Trip
Improved Disarm
Improved Feint

These already require a 13+ INT to acquire/use.

For more class abilities, see the Swashbuckler, Duelist, etc.

No need to rewrite combat, just make use of the appropriate items already included.
Laiqualasse
05-08-04, 02:56 AM Int - Intelligence affects a characters ability to reason and think under pressure. A character who has a high int should give their player more time to determine their character's action each round. Create a chart of how long each player has to decide upon their characters action based on their PCs intelligence mod. If they cannot decide upon an action by the end of that time, they repeat their previous round's action (or DMs call if last round's action is unapplicable)

Wis - Wisdom measures awareness. A PC with a positive wis mod should allow their player to ask a single question about the state of the battle per point of mod each round.

Cha - Charisma affects the PCs ability to communicate effectively. For each point of charisma modifier, the PC may take a single immediate action to speak to other characters. Characters without a cha mod, or with a cha negative may only speak as a swift action (i.e. once on their turn)

That's a really cool way of running combat. It had always bothered me a little bit that the mental scores had a lot less to do as far as combat actions and stuck basically to spellcasting and noncombat stuff. I'm definitely using this in my campaign. NIce work.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
TheMightyMcClaw 04-29-04, 10:11 PM	I'd like to create a set of rules to work the mental statistics (intelligence, wisdom, and charisma) into the basic combat process. Aside from spellcasters and a handful of special abilities and skill checks, melee combat is mostly a test of who is the strongest, fastest, and toughest. While that's fine for certain styles of gaming, it doesn't really click if one wants to run a more swashbuckling or OA style game; shouldn't cleverness, alertness, and dertermination count for something as well in the heat of battle? Ideas I've had so far..... Replace the dexterity bonus to initiative with intelligence bonus to initiative, or possibly just take an average of the two. A high intelligence means a 'quick' and able mind; one that can react to danger and assess one's situation quickly; thus, it's reasonable to use for initiative. My ideas so far.... Allow intelligence bonus to be used offensively for grapple checks. Knowledge of joint locks and all that. Integrate wisdom into AC somehow. While perhaps not a flat-out +wis mod to AC (as that would step on the monks toes), maybe something against flanking and the like to represent one's alertness of one's surroundings. Allow a Charisma check to "Grit your teeth" and keep fighting when reduced to zero hit points; this deals more with the "force of personality" aspect of charisma more than the "social skills" part. I believe the Alternity system had a rule similar to this. Charisma bonus to hit when charging, either as a replacement or an addition to the flat +2. Again, the idea of bringing one's force of personality to bear when fighting, and committing yourself entirely to an attack rather than holding back from meekness. A lot of these could also be done up as feats, as well.....
Xyplex 04-29-04, 11:38 PM	In that case I'd suggest you remove Strength, Dexerity, and Consitution alltogether ... if you take away their ability to function in combat, about the only place they are important, than you take away their usefullness. Once you do that, they become redundant, thus replaceable, and you can reason everything over to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. In the old version of Star Wars, you had two stats which defined your initiative ... Perception and Reflexes ... people with the lowest perception would declare their actions first, and then the highest perception people would declare their actions last ... then the order in which they were executed would proceed from highest Reflexes to lowest Reflexes. Perceptive (or in your case, high Int characters) could weigh the situation and act in the best manner ... even if they're not the first off the block. I guess my thoughts are that any of the core Fighter type classes (save for the Paladin) would get the royal shaft in this situation. Casters have to have high levels of Int, Wis, and Cha to function properly ... now you're telling the Fighters that they have to balance their stats across 6? The Mage wouldn't care less if he had a high Str, or even Dex and Con if he plays his spells right ... so non-Fighters would look to the now more important 3 stats which were already more important to them. Like I suggested at the beginning ... either go all the way or not at all. Eliminate Str, Dex, Con and replace them with logical extensions of Int, Wis, and Cha ... If not that ... then make things that are typically based on Int, Wis, and Cha more focused on Str, Dex, and Con ... like Intimidate as a Str skill, Diplomacy as a Con skill (it's not how well you speak, but how long ... ), Bluff as a Dex skill, Bonus spells based off of Con (how much juice do you have in your body to fuel these extra spells), etc. Sause for the goose.
Dartanel 04-30-04, 07:39 AM	If you wish to have the mental stats affect combat, do not have them supplant existing stat modifiers. Rather have them affect out of game circumstances, like so: Int - Intelligence affects a characters ability to reason and think under pressure. A character who has a high int should give their player more time to determine their character's action each round. Create a chart of how long each player has to decide upon their characters action based on their PCs intelligence mod. If they cannot decide upon an action by the end of that time, they repeat their previous round's action (or DMs call if last round's action is unapplicable) Wis - Wisdom measures awareness. A PC with a positive wis mod should allow their player to ask a single question about the state of the battle per point of mod each round. Cha - Charisma affects the PCs ability to communicate effectively. For each point of charisma modifier, the PC may take a single immediate action to speak to other characters. Characters without a cha mod, or with a cha negative may only speak as a swift action (i.e. once on their turn)
Degobah 05-03-04, 05:06 AM	I'd suggest mixing the standard and mental-stat based approaches, so that some characters have the option of being "smart" warriors rather than musclebound guys. Create new feats and skills for this, or allowing alternate class features. Swashbucklers already get Int bonus to damage, and monks get Wis to AC for instance. Another idea I'd like would be to give characters bonus feats for Wisdom (mirroring the way Intelligence gives bonus skill points). This gives a high-mental stat character the advantage of more options in combat, rather than flat bonuses to rolls: so the wiser characters knows a trick or two in a fix. If this seems unbalanced, consider limiting these to a limited feat list.
Salla 05-03-04, 12:12 PM	One thing I've been mulling over lately is the idea of giving fighters some non-Feat-based class abilities at 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th level, based on Attributes. At those levels, you can pick a mental attribute (INT, WIS, or CHA) and use its modifer to add to your to-hit in melee, to-hit at range, melee damage, or ranged damage. You can only choose a particular combination once, and you can choose not to take the ability if you would be forced to apply a penalty (for example, if your WIS and CHA were both 8s, and already took INT melee-hit, melee-damage, ranged-hit and ranged-damage, you wouldn't have to take the last one and put a -1 on something). It only applies to weapon or unarmed damage, not spells. This opens up the fighter to Multiple Ability Dependency a bit, of course, but since nothing was taken away from the class in place of this (and we all know how fighters dump into mental stats), they aren't getting a whole lot (unless they got some seriously huge stat rolls).
eggplantm 05-03-04, 01:23 PM	There are already many feats that rewrite the rules of combat to make another stat more important in combat. I could easily see how certain mental stats could replace the physical stats in this way such as a feat that lets you use your intelligence bonus for initiative. Rewriting the rules to favor mental stats more would be a very complex set of house rules at this point and I can't say that I would agree with them. I admire the current system that the physical domain is governed by physical stats and mental for mental but I can easily imagine someone using their intelligence or willpower or confidence to improve their own combat ability. On a related note. Which classes would benefit the most from these feats. Fighter and barbarians would not much. Sorcerers and wizards probably not much either but they could really shine for the players of skill heavy classes such as bards, rogues and rangers. I'd love my bard to have a bonus to AC based on his charisma or a rogue with a damage bonus based on intelligence when he makes sneak attacks. Extra hit points based on will power could be cool as well. Just be careful when you design these feats. Things could get out of balance very easily.
Degobah 05-05-04, 05:04 AM	OK, I'll do a couple of mental stat-based feats. Combat Insight You know what your foe is going to do before he does. Requires- Int 13+, Expertise Make an Int check opposed to your enemy's Int check as a move-equivalent action. If you succeed, you gain a +2 bonus on attack rolls (vs them only) for one round. Due to being prepared, you also gain a +2 bonus on saves or ability checks vs. any extraordinary effects or special attacks used against you (stunning fist, trip, bull rush, etc). Flash of Inspiration Attacks you make rapidly are guided by an uncanny instinct. Prerequisite: Wis 13+, BAB +1 When you make an attack of opportunity, you may use your Wis bonus to hit rather than your Str or Dex bonus. Dirty Fighting You know how to use dirty tricks in combat. prerequisites: Bluff 2 ranks As a standard action, you can make an opposed Int check (both sides also add their BAB) to do any of the following: blind your opponent (by throwing sand in their face, slashing their scalp, or trying to gouge out an eye), or stun them for one round (knee in the groin: Fortitude negates as Stunning Fist but at -4 penalty). Controlled Rage Prerequistes: Int 13+, rage ability. Your anger is cold and controlled, rather than reckless. You suffer no penalty to AC while raging and may use any combat-related feats or skills normally.
Krelios 05-06-04, 10:21 AM	Combat Expertise Improved Trip Improved Disarm Improved Feint These already require a 13+ INT to acquire/use. For more class abilities, see the Swashbuckler, Duelist, etc. No need to rewrite combat, just make use of the appropriate items already included.
Laiqualasse 05-08-04, 02:56 AM	Int - Intelligence affects a characters ability to reason and think under pressure. A character who has a high int should give their player more time to determine their character's action each round. Create a chart of how long each player has to decide upon their characters action based on their PCs intelligence mod. If they cannot decide upon an action by the end of that time, they repeat their previous round's action (or DMs call if last round's action is unapplicable) Wis - Wisdom measures awareness. A PC with a positive wis mod should allow their player to ask a single question about the state of the battle per point of mod each round. Cha - Charisma affects the PCs ability to communicate effectively. For each point of charisma modifier, the PC may take a single immediate action to speak to other characters. Characters without a cha mod, or with a cha negative may only speak as a swift action (i.e. once on their turn) That's a really cool way of running combat. It had always bothered me a little bit that the mental scores had a lot less to do as far as combat actions and stuck basically to spellcasting and noncombat stuff. I'm definitely using this in my campaign. NIce work.