Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ZealOdin 05-01-06, 11:47 PM	I was thinking in my next campaign possibly adding, but couldn't come up with any that didn't sound stupid or replace other abilities. For example: a perception score would majorly lower wisdoms already low use for some classes.
TheChilliGod 05-02-06, 12:46 AM	Some have debated about the addition of an Appearance score to one's campaign, made separate from Charisma because of the possibility of a butt-ugly human whom everybody trusts and loves, or an absolutely stunning elf that, for some reason, nobody wants to listen to. Just a suggestion.
tsuyoshikentsu 05-02-06, 12:59 AM	I'm playing with a Comeliness score right now. Straight d%, lets you know how attractive you are, and lets you have a low CHA without looking like you were hit with an Executioner's Mace at birth.
allenchan 05-02-06, 01:09 AM	Ive been in campaigns that utilized a Luck stat before, normally the modifier is applied to d% rolls that actively involve the PC in question. A DM used it for more then that, but I cant come up with any specific examples atm.
Silverstream 05-02-06, 01:58 AM	An appearance stat, I've found, tends to not get used much. In White Wolf RPG's, for example, their old system had appearence as a trait. It was much lauded among others and my friends when they got rid of it in new system, as it seemed to just take up space. Perception wouldn't be bad, but you'll be taking away from Int and Wisdom, both of which are considered one of the "lower" stats, with the physicals being the bst. But... it'll let you play characters that might not be too intelligent, or wise in the ways of the world, but experience as a soldier or whatnot has heightened their senses. A good skill for a rogue to have. Luck does seem like a good option, and it's easily quantifiable into the sytem. I've also seen its use in other systems, and it worked out well there. Lemme think... other options you might consider include willpower or ego, as a form of mental defense. It would be rather static, though, unless you used it for things like concentration (and take away Constitution's only skill :)) Lastly, there's a way to separate Dexterity into Dex and Agility, one for fine manipulation and the other for gross manipulation. Tumble and Reflex saves would be Agi, shooting a bow and sleight of hand would be Dex. Six stats in this system seems to be pretty grounded, and adding a new one usually seems forced. A bit easier than a new stat would be a new "ability." Like action points from that one game *doesn't remember* or willpower points from W.Wolf. A stat that can be used to add bonuses to dice rolls at times. You might make it where the Willpower ability modifier is all that matters. If you have 12 in the score, you have a +1, so you would get to use 1 willpower point a day. An 18 means you've got 4 to use. And negatives should either not exist or the DM determines a random time when you lose points off of a roll. Best of luck in your new campaign.
Langriman 05-02-06, 02:16 AM	In the old 2nd edition Player's Option system, attributes could be split into sub-attributes. So Strength had sub-attributes Muscle and Stamina, Constitution had Health and Endurance, and so on. This gives you more variety, and gets over the problem of unbalancing the importance of the attributes. Extra attributes might be worthwhile in a world-specific system. For example, if magical ability in your world is unrelated to intelligence, wisdom, or charisma (which makes perfect sense: a big dumb ugly monster can have lots of magic power) then a "magical affinity" attribute might be a good idea. One oriental system I've seen had a yin-yang kind of attribute; one of the effects it had was to modify the other attributes, so a strong person with high yang would be "strong like iron" and could hit hard and lift heavy things, while a strong person with high yin would be "strong like silk" and could dodge and maneuver well and be hard to hit and break.
celtredleg 05-02-06, 10:42 AM	Be very careful or you will create a new dump stat. Either the new one you just introduced, or the old one it nerfs. This will probably work better on rolled stats than point buy.
Arganis 05-02-06, 10:50 AM	One oriental system I've seen had a yin-yang kind of attribute; one of the effects it had was to modify the other attributes, so a strong person with high yang would be "strong like iron" and could hit hard and lift heavy things, while a strong person with high yin would be "strong like silk" and could dodge and maneuver well and be hard to hit and break. That's cool.
Vanamir 05-02-06, 11:18 AM	I was thinking in my next campaign possibly adding, but couldn't come up with any that didn't sound stupid or replace other abilities. For example: a perception score would majorly lower wisdoms already low use for some classes. Uhm just for my curisosity: Why do want to add a seventh ability score if you don't have an idea which you should add? If you have a problem figuring out what is missing the chances are good that nothing is missing in the first place. :thinks: As for an appearance score: I do not think that this is a really good idea. In D&D you have a lot of different races which may have vastly different ideas about an attractive appearance. What an orc might consider handsome might be quite nauseating by elvish standards.
Doopliss 05-02-06, 11:28 AM	I actually thought about an acuity/perception score, but really that's what wisdom is. Perceptiveness, both physical and mental. At least, that's how I looked at it in D&D.
Felyndaer 05-02-06, 11:35 AM	hmmm, all this talk about d% luck rolls makes it sound like you guys are somewhat merging D&D with CoC...
Necropolitan 05-02-06, 11:36 AM	I liked the idea of an Appearence score, because it DOES pertian to inter-species attractiveness, let me hit you with this. Let's say we've got Thokk here, bigass Half-Orc who's lo-and-behold managed to net an 18 Appearence score. Now this doesn't mean persay that Thokk is Johnny Depp with a greataxe, no elf-ladies are going to swoon over him. What it does mean in how I run it, is there are certian admirable traits that ANYONE could appricate about the character's visual presentation. Let's apply this to Thokk, now he's a pretty fine looking half-orc, but still no Calvein Cline model, but that +4 in his case, alludes to his phsyical build; our man Thokk is built like a greek god. Perfectly proportional muscles and a excellently balenced, lean and powerful build, that gives him a heavy, masculine kind of grace. That's the +4 Appearence working, he's not 'ZOMG HAWTNESS' but he's well-built and generally an eye-catching sort of fellow in that respect. Appearence scores are fun for more RP-heavy games, because they make NPCs and PCs want to talk with eachother more then the ol' Executioner Mace to the skull look did from getting a -2 Charisma.
Tarquis 05-02-06, 12:55 PM	I have toyed with the idea of a "Magical ability rating" myself. Probably because all smart people are wizards, Wise are clerics and great persomality equals sorcerer. There must be a reason why every smart person of at least 13 intelligence doesn't have a level of wizard. But I also wanted those attributes to remain important to the core class. So let's call this ability Talent. it is useful to both spellcasters and none spellcasters. A non spellcaster can add the abilty modifier to his save vs spells. A spell caster uses talent to determine his bonus spells per day and DC modifier. The spell caster's prime attribute still determines maximum spell level (ability to control his talent). A person with less than 10 Talent cannot control the weave and thereby cast spells. For a character that has levels as both caster and none caster, each bonus spell granted negates one point of his modifier, to a minimum of 0. eg. a 5th level fighter/ 4th level wizard with 14 Int and 16 talent. 16 Talent grants +3 to saves vs spells and a bonus spell of 1st, 2nd and 3rd (at 6th level). The character currently has two bonus spells so his save vs spells is only +1 instead of +3. If the character advances to 6th level as a wizard, then their save vs spells will be reduced to 0 as they pick up their third bonus spell. Thus, we have a seventh ability, important to all classes and not a dump stat for anyone.
Whim 05-02-06, 01:05 PM	An appearance stat, I've found, tends to not get used much. In White Wolf RPG's, for example, their old system had appearence as a trait. It was much lauded among others and my friends when they got rid of it in new system, as it seemed to just take up space. Appearance in the World of Darkness (White Wolf) scenarios is actually quite important in many situations--particularly when it comes to Vampires. Since vampires are very social creatures--morbidly social, that is--it becomes necessary for appearance to come into play in many situations. It could also apply to mages, but I suppose everything else has no real need for it. Anyways, back to the actual topic, I find that the only stats that D&D could benefit from adding are appearance, accuracy, and willpower, but even then, those stats are just specialized versions of already available stats.
a_psh 05-02-06, 01:52 PM	There must be a reason why every smart person of at least 13 intelligence doesn't have a level of wizard.Inadequate access to training. Same reason all those Commoners aren't Experts or Rogues.
ZealOdin 05-03-06, 03:16 PM	If anyone was wondering what I've decided, I'll probably have a luck stat, it'll be a percent and be used similar to action points only i think i'll be in control of when it is used (not sure though). And I am also looking into something similar to Unearthed Arcana's taint/ honor system. thx for the help though.
Radijs 05-03-06, 05:17 PM	WHY does it need to be a stat? Beauty is not something that will really affect game mechanics. Let the players just decide how beautiful they are. Sure you can wind up with a party filled with adonises but they are the heroes! They are supposed to be larger then life anyway.
Tarquis 05-03-06, 06:46 PM	I have run a home based system with a luck stat before as well. It makes for rolicking swashbuckling type adventures. Luck is rolled up as per every other stat, but does not have any modifiers. I allow characters to "try their luck" whenever they want to have a dice rerolled that directly affects their character. They roll a D20 against their current luck score, and if they roll less than or equal to their current luck then they may modify the die roll affecting them by another roll of the same dice type, adding or subtracting as they see fit. So if they were being attacked and I rolled a critical against them, they could check their luck and if successful reduce my roll by a d20. Conversely, if they missed an attack that they felt was really important, they could try their luck again to ADD a d20 to their attack roll.Luck dice canot be used when rolling for hit points. Each successful use of luck temporarily reduces their luck by one point, thus it makes it harder to continually rely on luck. Lost luck points are regained at the rate of one point every sunrise. Races can have stat modifiers to their luck if you wish as well. Granting a lesser played race (such as IMC a human) a +1 or +2 luck stat modifier suddenly makes it a bit more appealing. Adjust it to how it suits your campaign. Races that are thriving could be said to be lucky while those that are diminishing could be unlucky. This stat can lead to memorable moments when a character knows he escaped certain death by the seat of his pants.
Mr. NewFox 05-04-06, 01:08 AM	TAKE MY ADVICE-- if you monkey with one (or add one), you'll have to monkey with them all. That said, I've always felt that dexterity was the most "over-used" stat, especially in 3.x. If you REALLY need more than six stats, try dividing dexterity up a bit. Like into, oh, Reflex and Skill (reflex would give a bonus to AC, initiatice, and "balance" based skills, Skill would give a bonus to missile weapons and roguish manual dexterity type skills). Or something like that.
Whim 05-04-06, 08:35 AM	Beauty is not something that will really affect game mechanics. Let the players just decide how beautiful they are. Sure you can wind up with a party filled with adonises but they are the heroes! They are supposed to be larger then life anyway. A clever player could very easily abuse that. Beauty doesn't TYPICALLY come into play in most D&D games, but if the player was playing with the right DM, that player could potentially find tons of advantages to being pretty--or very very ugly.
Whim 05-04-06, 08:43 AM	That said, I've always felt that dexterity was the most "over-used" stat, especially in 3.x. If you REALLY need more than six stats, try dividing dexterity up a bit. Like into, oh, Reflex and Skill (reflex would give a bonus to AC, initiatice, and "balance" based skills, Skill would give a bonus to missile weapons and roguish manual dexterity type skills). Or something like that. Yeah, there's tons of stats that could be derived from dexterity. Me and my friends have often complained to eachother that Accuracy and perhaps even speed should be a seperate stat from dexterity. But, yeah, just be careful about what stat you do add, because if you add a stat that gives a certain class more of an advantage than other classes, then you've essentially just unbalanced your entire game. Now, if you want to add a luck stat, that could be interesting. I've actually thought of doing that myself in the past. My idea of how to do it would basicall just be that you'd roll a d% whenever you fail a roll. You'd have to roll a percentage related to your luck modifier to win the roll and get a second try at the original dice roll. So, if a modifier of 1 was equal to 5%, then you'd have to roll a 20% or lower on a d% if your luck stat is 18 in order to get a second chance at rerolling a failed roll.
StormKnight 05-04-06, 10:54 AM	If anyone was wondering what I've decided, I'll probably have a luck stat, it'll be a percent and be used similar to action points only i think i'll be in control of when it is used (not sure though). And I am also looking into something similar to Unearthed Arcana's taint/ honor system. thx for the help though. A few things about this sounds like a bad idea... First, its percent based - not that there's anything wrong with this, but no other stat works anything like this, so you have something that's not comparable to anything else in the game system. Second, and more important, you are not sure how it will work. If you want to add something, you should start with a clear idea of what you want to accomplish, and then decide what mechanics to use to accomplish that. Starting with "I think a luck stat would be cool to have, what should it do?" is a bad idea. Starting with "I want a stat roll when nothing else seems to apply" is a good start, as is "I want a mechanic that lets players control their rolls more". A clever player could very easily abuse that. Beauty doesn't TYPICALLY come into play in most D&D games, but if the player was playing with the right DM, that player could potentially find tons of advantages to being pretty--or very very ugly. Or to being fairly plain looking. Much harder for an exceptional looking person (ugly or attractive) to "escape notice". Appearance should not be rolled as a seperate modifier, as it then creates the only aspect of a character that the player has no control over. Why should you be able to control that your character will be agile and witty but weak, but have no control over how she looks? This really hurts building a character to a concept. Appearance should not be rolled as a 7th primary stat, because it will invariably detract from charisma (already weak) or have insufficient game mechanics to support it, making it a mechanically sound dump stat and penalizing anyone who wants a good looking character. Appearance should not be assigned too much importants, because its not going to have uniform effects across races or even across individuals. Its just not worth the hassle it causes. In my opinion, appearance is best handled as part of the part of character description with mechanics attached only situationally as the DM feels are appropriate.
SwiftFox 05-04-06, 12:12 PM	I like the idea of a 'luck' stat... the only question is how to impliment it. I would allow players to add their modifier from luck to a single D20 roll per day, which results in a system simmilar to action points where players have a 'get out of jail free card' when they desperately need it. As such, I would not recommend it for a campaign that already uses action points because it would be redundant.
Whim 05-04-06, 12:20 PM	I like the idea of a 'luck' stat... the only question is how to impliment it. I would allow players to add their modifier from luck to a single D20 roll per day, which results in a system simmilar to action points where players have a 'get out of jail free card' when they desperately need it. As such, I would not recommend it for a campaign that already uses action points because it would be redundant. The very nature of luck would not allow the player to pick and choose when they might get an advantage, I don't think. So however someone decided to deal with luck, it would have to appear fairly randomly to make very sure that the players can't rely on it too heavily. At the same time, luck also has the potential to occur often enough to not be limited to just once per day. So, really, luck is a very difficult stat to try to implement. There's really no solid way that I can think of to add it without causing more trouble than it's worth or giving a player too great of an advantage.
Sulaco 05-04-06, 12:27 PM	Uhm just for my curisosity: Why do want to add a seventh ability score if you don't have an idea which you should add? If you have a problem figuring out what is missing the chances are good that nothing is missing in the first place. :clap:
Vaalingrade Ashland 05-04-06, 12:27 PM	I had a Luck stat on WoE for a while. It worked like this: You could roll a 'luck' check a number of times per day equal to your Luck mod to have a favorable result in an endeavor that wasn't plot related, such as finding a specific piece of equipment in town, happening to be nearby when something exciting happens, running into someone you want to talk too. Luck was the skill mod for any skill you attempt untrained. Luck was also the key skill for my Gamble skill. I stopped using luck because it wasn't substancial enough to justify giving my PCs a free dump stat except for the more rp oriented.
Finfreeze 05-04-06, 12:39 PM	I suppose it could work if you split the physical stats and intelligence a bit more. The way it is now wisdom and charisma are much less effective than the other stats. That may be because there isn't enough bonuses in the base mechanics to support three full mental ability scores, but... If you were to devalue the bigger stats, you could easily produce a whole bunch of stats without upsetting things. You could split dexterity into agility and coordination, constitution into vitality and (insert term that means "ability to resist diseases, poisons, attacks on the soul, et cetera"), and strength into (insert two divisions here). One stat could solely govern skill points. Then you have physical attractiveness and luck. Ooh, and then we can have numerical ranks/statuses with social groups, a morale score, and friendship/love scores, and even ability score synergies! I'm intrigued by a system with lots of little stats, but there's just one real problem. That problem is work. The more things we have to keep track of, the slower the game moves. If there was some method one could automate these scores without too much design work, I'd be fully in support of such a change. It's a bit better covered through video games, but it probably wouldn't be a total disaster if you make a traditional RPG like this.
Whim 05-04-06, 12:46 PM	I suppose it could work if you split the physical stats and intelligence a bit more. The way it is now wisdom and charisma are much less effective than the other stats. That may be because there isn't enough bonuses in the base mechanics to support three full mental ability scores, but... If you were to devalue the bigger stats, you could easily produce a whole bunch of stats without upsetting things. You could split dexterity into agility and coordination, constitution into vitality and (insert term that means "ability to resist diseases, poisons, attacks on the soul, et cetera"), and strength into (insert two divisions here). One stat could solely govern skill points. Then you have physical attractiveness and luck. Ooh, and then we can have numerical ranks/statuses with social groups, a morale score, and friendship/love scores, and even ability score synergies! I'm intrigued by a system with lots of little stats, but there's just one real problem. That problem is work. The more things we have to keep track of, the slower the game moves. If there was some method one could automate these scores without too much design work, I'd be fully in support of such a change. It's a bit better covered through video games, but it probably wouldn't be a total disaster if you make a traditional RPG like this. I'm actually working on my own RPG system and what I've decided to do is have the 6 main stats and then secondary stats which are optional. Basically, the secondary stats are only there to optimize an individual's character and to start out with, you'd only get 2 secondary stats. This allows me to have my 6 main stats--which, only half of them are exactly the same as in D&D--and then if I have a character that specializes in a certain--like social interaction--they can tack on those stats for the situational bonuses.
Atirakis 05-04-06, 01:20 PM	Way back when, before 3rd edition, we tried to make 2E better. We used 2 new stats, Luck & Magic, amongst other things like having a base attack bonus and AC that went up, not down. Anywho Luck was simple you added your Luck bonus to saves and attacks. Magic might not find as much use now that the Spell Casters all have abilities tied to their spell casting. We used it as a bonus to damage, but maybe a bonus to SR checks might work better now. Just sharing some of the stuff we used.
SwiftFox 05-04-06, 11:40 PM	The very nature of luck would not allow the player to pick and choose when they might get an advantage, I don't think. So however someone decided to deal with luck, it would have to appear fairly randomly to make very sure that the players can't rely on it too heavily. At the same time, luck also has the potential to occur often enough to not be limited to just once per day. So, really, luck is a very difficult stat to try to implement. There's really no solid way that I can think of to add it without causing more trouble than it's worth or giving a player too great of an advantage.Well, in real life luck is just an abstract notion... its not a quality or trait some people posess to a greater or lesser degree than others. That being said, in a fantasy world filled with dragons, gods and magic luck might be a bit less abstract? some people may actually be 'luckier' than others... and I think being able to influence a single dice roll a day in your favour is a good way of reflecting that. How else could you impliment it? idealy it should be player-controlled, not DM arbitrated or once again luck becomes a bit too abstract. For game balance reasons there has to be a limit to the frequency with which a player can make use of this bonus, and while I chose it to be once per day in my example, another DM might rule that it can be used once per encounter. Perhaps lucky characters can make use of this ability more frequently as they gain levels... it could be usable 1/day/level or 1/day/2 levels. Some races might even be modified to give a bonus to luck... the prime candidate in my mind is half-elves as they seem a bit underpowered by core. Halflings might be a candidate too, but they are one of the more powerful races by core so you'd have to take something away to balance this, maybe sustitute their +2 to dex with +2 to luck. Their could be new skills that make use of the luck statistic, such as 'gamble', usuable only for games and the like which have truly random outcomes, such as those that use dice or coin-tosses, not so much card games like poker because they are more about perception, bluffing and card-counting, though an unskilled player might well be relying entirely on his luck which in a fantasy world could have a very real impact on his odds of winning. New feats could be implimented to allow players to use their luck for more powerful applications, such as expending one use of a luck check to negate a critical hit from an opponent, or automatically cause a critical threat on the player's next attack, expeding several luck checks to automatically suceed on their next dice roll, etc. Its a very simmilar concept to using action points as I pointed out in my earlier post, so maybe instead of trying to come up with an entirely new 7th statistic a DM looking for that little bit extra to spice up his games could simply impliment action points, just a DM in a survival-horror setting might impliment taint as additional flavour. Either way, there are many valid existing varient systems such as action points, taint and a whole lot of optional rules from unearthed arcana that are worth checking out.
Sulaco 05-05-06, 10:13 AM	The very nature of luck would not allow the player to pick and choose when they might get an advantage, I don't think. So however someone decided to deal with luck, it would have to appear fairly randomly to make very sure that the players can't rely on it too heavily. Random luck, both good and bad, is already modelled through the dice. The idea of a luck stat is to represnt luck working in the PC's favour when needed. The best version of a LUCK stat I ever saw was in the Cyberpunk RPG. You could make a LUCK roll to see if things just went your way (a green light when you desperately needed one, finding a forgotten $2 in your pocket that you required to pay a toll, the subway doors staying open just long enough for you to jump on, etc.). You could also spend your LUCK to modify other die rolls, but each point spent lowered your LUCK score for the rest of the session. So if you really, desperately, absolutley had to make a hit or a save, or if one more enemy hit would kill you, you could pull points from your LUCK stat and add or subtract them from a roll (yours or your enemy's). So if your LUCK stats was 10 and you used 5 points to modify a roll your LUCK stat would drop to 5 for the rest of the session. If I were to implement a LUCK stat to D&D it would be in that model.
Sulaco 05-05-06, 10:15 AM	Well, in real life luck is just an abstract notion... its not a quality or trait some people posess to a greater or lesser degree than others. That being said, in a fantasy world filled with dragons, gods and magic luck might be a bit less abstract? some people may actually be 'luckier' than others... Exactly. In a world where darkness, cold and even good and evil are real, measurable, quantifiable things there is no reason whatsoever that luck cannot also be just as real.
Whim 05-05-06, 10:26 AM	Random luck, both good and bad, is already modelled through the dice. The idea of a luck stat is to represnt luck working in the PC's favour when needed. The best version of a LUCK stat I ever saw was in the Cyberpunk RPG. You could make a LUCK roll to see if things just went your way (a green light when you desperately needed one, finding a forgotten $2 in your pocket that you required to pay a toll, the subway doors staying open just long enough for you to jump on, etc.). You could also spend your LUCK to modify other die rolls, but each point spent lowered your LUCK score for the rest of the session. So if you really, desperately, absolutley had to make a hit or a save, or if one more enemy hit would kill you, you could pull points from your LUCK stat and add or subtract them from a roll (yours or your enemy's). So if your LUCK stats was 10 and you used 5 points to modify a roll your LUCK stat would drop to 5 for the rest of the session. If I were to implement a LUCK stat to D&D it would be in that model. I don't think this that way is any worse than any way that I would think of, so don't take it as me shooting down your idea of good mechanics, because I'm not. I just think that when the player is able to pick and choose when their luck comes into play, it really doesn't feel like luck. A good roleplayer can just go with it and actually perceive the "pick and choose" luck mechanic as luck, but your average gamer is only going to perceive it as a special ability when that's not what's happening. The reason the basic stats (str, con, dex, etc.) work is because those are pretty subtle. You don't activate your strength stat because it's a part of your character and the stat is simply always in effect. If you're going to implement luck, I personally think that it should have that same feel. It shouldn't feel like I'm activating a special ability because that's not what it is. However, as I've already said, the "pick and choose" method is probably as good a way as any to do it since any other way would either be potentially overpowered or just more trouble than it's worth.
Tormsskull 05-05-06, 10:39 AM	All this talk of luck has me thinking of Mat from WoT. Back in 2nd edition there was a trait called Lucky. It didn't effect dice rolls at all, but it would appear in subtle ways. I think the example the book gave was something like if a player was fleeing from enemies close to a river, he'd locate a forgotten canoe. This would require a lot of DM intervention, and if players started relying on their luck, it could become dangerous. Of course good ole Mat was guaranteed to win money everytime he sat down to gamble, so you have a lot of examples to cite.