Consolidated Power Abilities

Consolidated power abilities make characters better and simpler... er uh... what do you think?

Something on the same wavelength and something that we argued over in the other thread is strength and con. By combining both of them you do away with the splitting hairs over the meaning of str and con.

Oh below, the wits save is the weakest save. It helps you figure out things like disbelieving, "oh thats an illusion." Or "oh the phantasm is just in my head." all other mental things would still fall under the Will save.

Read on...

Fewer abilities
Under this variant characters would only have four abilities Body, Dexterity, Intelligence and Willpower. The four abilities would work the same as they would for any game except that the Body and Willpower abilities are different. Body is an amalgamation of Strength and Constitution and is by far the most potent stat in a fantasy game where physical melee combat is the most common form of combat. Dexterity is unchanged from the standard ability and is still powerful in not getting hit by attackers etc. Under this variant I would use the Dexterity to hit and Strength to damage variant to spread out the power of the Body ability. Intelligence is unchanged it would still grant you skill points (unless using one of the other variants) and is the ability that controls the most skills. I would also institute the Wits saving throw to fill out the stat. Both wisdom and charisma encompass the Willpower ability. Charisma often seen as a dump ability; becomes much more desirable under this option.
To convert creatures and characters to this system take the average of the creature or characters two abilities and then take the highest ability of the two and average them again.
So for example suppose while attempting to figure out a supposed cleric characters Willpower ability she had an 18 wisdom and a 10 charisma averaged to be 14 (18+10=28 28/2=14) then average the 14 with the highest ability again to be 16 (18+14=32 32/2=16). So her Willpower stat would be 16. Do the body stat the exact same way.
The player’s handbook races would have slightly different racial ability adjustments. I do them as shown below. I change the elf from its standard +2 Dexterity to Intelligence to prevent duplication of the Halflings ability adjustments. I changed the Dwarfs penalty to Dexterity to prevent overlap with the Half-orc and finally I changed the Gnome for several reasons.

Race Ability Adjustment
Dwarf +2 Body, -2 Dexterity
Elf +2 Intelligence, -2 Body
Gnome +2 Willpower, -2 Body
Halfling +2 Dexterity, -2 Body
Half-orc +2 Body, -2 Willpower
Half-elf None
Human None

Sadrik

Imo Con and Wis should be combined to form willpower and Charisma affect not force of character but persuasiveness and/or beauty

Let me see if I understand this correctly:

Sorcerers as well as clerics would use Willpower as the stat governing spell ability.

Clerics would use Willpower for their spells and for their turning ability.

Wits are saves vs illusions only.

Undead and Constructs have Body (unless they are incorporeal, of course), and so would have bonus hit points to their hit dice.

I'm trying to think how point buy would work. Using your conversion guide as a baseline, it seems to me you would need to have different costs for different stats.

For a human to get an 18 Body, they'd need an 18 Str/18 Con. That would cost 32 points using standard point-buy (16 points for an 18 strength, and 16 points for an 18 constitution). To get a 17 body, they'd need an 18/14 in strenght and con, costing 22 points. To get a 16 body, they'd need an 18/10 or a 17/13 (18 points). A 15 body would be a 17/9 or a 16/12 (14 points). A 14 body would be 16/8 or 15/11 (10 points). A 13 body would be 14/10 (8 points), a 12 body would be 13/9 (6 points), an 11 body would be 12/8 (4 points), and a 10 body would be 3 points (11/8). A 9 body is 2 points (10/8 or 9/9) and an 8 body is zero, of course. So the point buy chart for Body (and Willpower) would be

18: 32
17: 22
16: 18
15: 14
14: 10
13: 8
12: 6
11: 4
10: 3
9: 2
8: 0

Not the most even of progressions. The score for 18 is probably inflated. If you extend the current point buy so that a 19 could be purchased for 20 points and a 20 for 24 points, then you could get an 18 for 28 points. Buy a 20 in one score for 24 points, and a 12 in the other for 4. Averaged is 16, and the average of 20 and 16 is 18. Still uneven, but better.

How would you do point buy?

Sorcerers as well as clerics would use Willpower as the stat governing spell ability.

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yes.

Clerics would use Willpower for their spells and for their turning ability.

Click to expand...

yes.

Wits are saves vs illusions only.

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Yes and phantasms and other possabilities that deal with more wrapping your mind around as opposed to willing yourself to resist it. I can think of any other examples but I am sure they are there.

Undead and Constructs have Body (unless they are incorporeal, of course), and so would have bonus hit points to their hit dice.

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Yes and no. They would still have the d12 and d10 HD respectively but included in the undead and construct trait lists would be: does not gain bonus hp from a high body.

I'm trying to think how point buy would work. Using your conversion guide as a baseline, it seems to me you would need to have different costs for different stats.

Click to expand...

I would simply give 2/3 the points you would normally give for 6 stats. The conversion thing is what it is, its an attempt to convert a character to the system, nothing more.

Sadrik

Who likes having more stats? or less stats? or is 6 just right?

Sadrik

Nice system. Adding a fourth save to 'round them out' is an interesting idea, although more ideas on how/when this save would be used are needed (I can't really think of any that aren't similar to an INT check). Great method to convert existing character's stats too.

General Barron said:

Nice system. Adding a fourth save to 'round them out' is an interesting idea, although more ideas on how/when this save would be used are needed (I can't really think of any that aren't similar to an INT check). Great method to convert existing character's stats too.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

The Wits save is there to round it out for sure. It could also deal with things like the Will save on heat metal, Basically those really odd Will saves that you kinda scratch your head and say "Okay its d&d it doesnt have to make sense...".

It could also be used similar to a skill check for general background knowledge. That way instead of just making an Int roll it would increase as you increased in level.

Look at it this way (with obvious massive overlap):
Fortitude is for Necromancy
Reflex save is for Evocation
Will is for Enchantment
Wits is for Illusion

The schools of magic are either mostly personal (abjuration/divination)or have a broad range of saves (conjuration/transmutation).

I think this shows that it could be viable.

Which classes would have a good wits save?
Wizard, Monk and Bard

Sadrik