Ability scores - How intrinsic are they to D&D?

[Mark CMG]

Review of Warriors & Warlocks - RPGnet d20

"Feats" are another one of those modern RPG inclusions that become a shorthand for narrative play. I'm not sure they are needed in a simplified game, which I feel D&D needs to become again. That game seems to present three games tied to increasing "power levels" which is an interesting way to approach the design of a fantasy RPG.

 

[Mark CMG]

To each his own I suppose.

Indeed. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Janx]

I don't think having two players that want to play fighters (one with a rapier and the other with a greatsword), and have them be equally effective, qualifies as silliness.

I would think with such a group, they still might have boundaries for what they truly consider silly.

Forex:
a sword that floors every "room" it enters with green and purple shag carpeting.

Everytime you kill somebody, they explode in a shower of coins

everytime you hit some one, little damage scores float over the target and float away.

Die Hard was cinematic, yet not silly.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Die Hard was cinematic, yet not silly.

I think Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser overlaps almost the whole cinematic range, at one point or another. There are parts of it are borderline real/gritty. There are parts of it that are borderline silly. Depending upon where you want to draw the line, you might exclude one extreme or the other, but there is a range in the material. Most of it hits somewhere in the middle.

 

[The Shaman]

I don't think having two players that want to play fighters (one with a rapier and the other with a greatsword), and have them be equally effective, qualifies as silliness.

It's not the weapons themselves that are silly; it's the environment in which they're used. The rapier was a weapon for gentlemen dueling other gentlemen, not cutting down armored men in battle.

But perhaps there is a hidden point in the above that I am missing that you would like to qualify?

In my experience, "cinematic realism" is used to dismiss any possible appeal to physics, as a blanket shorthand for, 'I can't be chuffed to care if it makes any sense at all.'

 

[Sepulchrave II]

If I were forced to strip every other element from the game: classes, levels, hit points, armor class, dungeons, dragons...

The six ability scores are the thing I would let go last. They are absolutely core.

 

[dangerous jack]

It's not the weapons themselves that are silly; it's the environment in which they're used. The rapier was a weapon for gentlemen dueling other gentlemen, not cutting down armored men in battle.

Ok, I'll concede that historically each weapon has their environments in which they're the better weapon. And to be honest I wouldn't be opposed to seeing the game model that somehow (optionally that is... weapon vs armour types of 2e, or crit ranges in 3e).

But I think that's a bit of a sidetrack from the original discussion of ability scores. I still think its time that the strong (at the expense of everything else) fighter should no longer be the optimal way to create your character.

 

[billd91]

But I think that's a bit of a sidetrack from the original discussion of ability scores. I still think its time that the strong (at the expense of everything else) fighter should no longer be the optimal way to create your character.

Doesn't that depend on what your goals are? If you want to be an archer, then maximizing strength at the expense of everything else isn't optimal. Same with any number of other choices.

But if you wanted to hit hard as your goal, why shouldn't investing in strength promote optimization? What else would make sense?

 

[dangerous jack]

Doesn't that depend on what your goals are? If you want to be an archer, then maximizing strength at the expense of everything else isn't optimal. Same with any number of other choices.

But if you wanted to hit hard as your goal, why shouldn't investing in strength promote optimization? What else would make sense?

I want to be an effective melee fighter without being the strongest human to ever have lived.

 

[billd91]

I want to be an effective melee fighter without being the strongest human to ever have lived.

Then you need to realize that effective does not necessarily mean maximized. As long as you do that, you can be effective without concentrating on strength at the expense of everything else.