D&D General Four Ability Scores

[Yaarel]

I want to give the Initiative bonus to the Intelligence-Perception ability, in the sense of noticing and anticipating an opponent. As such, the surprise check and the initiative check are moreorless the same thing.

Tentatively, give Stealth to Intelligence-Perception, in the sense of perceptive motion, knowing which twig to avoid and which shadow would work as cover − both to hide and to detect hiding.

With Stealth and Initiative, Intelligence-Perception becomes a full-on useful ability for combat encounters

The following is a start toward a comprehensive list of benefits, to compare balance in more detail.



Strength-Constitution
• size (+4 or higher as a prereq for Large), reach
• melee attacks
• ‘heavy’ weapons (benefit from Strength bonus)
• ‘heavy’ armor (move at full speed)
• grappling (keep on holding)
• carrying capacity (lift, pull, push)
• brute force (break doors, bend bars, move tree, launch boulder)
• hit points
• fortitude save

Dexterity-Athletics
• body agility (athletics-acrobatics, gymnastics, climb, balance, jump, fall, motionless poise)
• finesse grappling (sotospeak)
• speed, run
• AC bonus, dodge
• reflex save
• manual dexterity (slight-of-hand, detailed handiwork, piloting controls, steady hand)
• finesse attacks
• ranged attacks

Intelligence-Perception
• lore skills
• investigation (detection, senses, analysis, intuition)
• stealth (hide or detect hiding)
• initiative bonus
• deception (deceive an other, or find a flaw in an others deception, replicate accurately)
• perception save

Charisma-Wisdom
• rapport (insight, persuasion, animal handling, improve social attitude and helpfulness)
• charm
• frighten
• performance (force of personality, presence, art, esthetic quality, beauty)
• will save



Combat wise, Charisma-Wisdom might appear the weak one, but charm and frighten decide if a combat encounter even happens. Note, every frighten check requires a credible threat as a prerequisite. In many situations, being big and threatening to beat someone up can serve as a credible threat.

Finesse attacks make Dexterity-Athletics an especially powerful choice, and in a gun setting, ranged attacks make it a must have. Nevertheless, any concepts requiring hit points will need Strength-Constitution anyway, for a more wellrounded combatant. Also, the absence of Stealth here, helps moderate the choice of Dexterity-Athletics.

 

[FrogReaver]

Why the heck is stealth in intelligence - perception?
Deception shouldn't be the skill that counters deception?
Speaking of deception - the best deceivers are charismatic not intelligent. Intelligence plays a very small role in being able to pass off a lie - instead it's how you present yourself which is charisma 99%.

Initiative while I dislike it being under perception-intellgience I can at least understand that. You are emphasizing the identify danger ability above the split seconds you have to react to it. Makes sense in a game without guns I guess.

My biggest fear right now is that your skill brackets are drastically less useful than each other. Str characters get hosed. Int and charisma characters have flat out baller skills. I'm not seeing how you can make this fair in relation to the stats in any way.

 

[Yaarel]

Initiative while I dislike it being under perception-intellgience I can at least understand that. You are emphasizing the identify danger ability above the split seconds you have to react to it. Makes sense in a game without guns I guess.

Yeah. Perception can anticipate danger.

But also in the sense of the five senses, Perception can recognize the meaning of, and respond more quickly to, subtle movements.

In a game of guns, ‘reaction time’ is meaningless. The goal is to avoid ever entering a location where a bullet might be traveling. So, intelligent and perceptive anticipation of danger is more important for gun scenes.

Deception shouldn't be the skill that counters deception?
Speaking of deception - the best deceivers are charismatic not intelligent. Intelligence plays a very small role in being able to pass off a lie - instead it's how you present yourself which is charisma 99%.

Charisma can help with building rapport and establishing trust.

However, whether the deception itself is convincing or not relies exclusively on Intelligence.

The best deceivers are the ones who know their stuff, and can pull it off. This is necessarily true when trying to pass off a replica as an original. The creator of the replica has to know everything that an expert would look for. But it also applies abstractly, like an accountant creating a convincing investment fraud. Intelligence-Perception is everything. To be a competent liar requires being able to keep track of the lies that one is telling, whence Intelligence, and know how and when to present a lie, whence reasoning.

The same skillsets that discover a fraud, are the same skillsets that create a fraud.

Deception can also be used to create a convincing disguise, in the sense of a replica, like a fake nose or so on. Here too, Intelligence-Perception is everything.

My biggest fear right now is that your skill brackets are drastically less useful than each other. Str characters get hosed. Int and charisma characters have flat out baller skills. I'm not seeing how you can make this fair in relation to the stats in any way.

It is important to get Strength-Constitution right.

So far, my rationale is:

A high investment allows the existence of Large characters.

Brute force, like bending bars, can be useful and flavorful.

Carrying is occasionally useful for carrying other characters.

Most importantly, Strength-Constitution = hit points. Players are loath to ever dump this.

Strength might need some oomph, but hit points are a big big deal.

Why the heck is stealth in intelligence - perception?

I am more iffy about stealth, but Intelligence-Perception is often the more necessary ability.

For example. Your character crosses a lake under the cover of night and fog. Reaching shore, the character camouflages the boat with nearby shrubs to hide it from any onlookers. This is all about perception.

Similarly, the same locations that Stealth selects to avoid attracting attention − whether in shadows or in a crowd − are the same locations where a bodyguard would routinely scan to detect any intruders.



Camouflaging a boat would require perceptive Intelligence

Walking on dry leaves silently might require athletic Dexterity − but it might require perception to discern the quieter patch of leaves.

The Stealth skill, if proficient, might apply to either.

 

[FrogReaver]

All tasks require a minimal amount of intelligence.

Chasing someone down before they get somewhere is often more about angles of pursuit - which is intelligence more than speed. But the intelligence required is pretty minimal. Same with stealth. For the most part the intelligence required to be sneaky is less important than the agility to pull it off.

That is - you can't be a total idiot and be sneaky - but as long as you are moderately smart about what you are doing then more intelligence doesn't do anything for you - whereas more agility always helps.

You seem to be hung up on the - if a can see an idiot failing at it then it's intelligence.

 

[Yaarel]

Same with stealth. For the most part the intelligence required to be sneaky is less important than the agility to pull it off.

Maybe agility is more important for Stealth.

In earlier editions, ‘stealth’ was two separate highly specific skills: ‘move silently’ and ‘hide in shadows’.

Now Stealth is a much more comprehensive skillset.

But even moving silently is pretty simple. Wear socks, and land each footstep on the side of the sole. Done. When sneaking thru dim light, dont look directly at anything being focused on. Look at it from a slight angle, where the black-white vision is better. Done. (As a kid, I loved ninjas!)

The hardest part of moving silently is to NOT step on the loud creaking loose wooden floorboard. So perception is pretty important even more move silently.

I am feel conflicted about which ability to make primary for Stealth.

A benefit of assigning Stealth to Intelligence-Perception is, it becomes a great choice for the archetype that avoids head-on combat.

 

[Yaarel]

For the sake of brainstorming ...

I feel the name ‘hit’ points works well enough. It abstracts the number of ‘hits’ that are necessary before finally bypassing the defenses of the target.

Which makes me think, there can four defenses. Each one can be bypassed separately.

Here ‘toughness’ is understood as ‘natural armor’, the ability to shake off a solid hit. Artificial armor, in this sense, like chain armor, is actually a bonus to toughness. Size matters. Big beefy targets are inherently tougher than little fragile targets. While it is possible for a small target to punch above their weightclass, they are the special exception that proves the rule of how much the weightclass matters in a real fight. Normally, Size and toughness correlate. For nonmagical creatures, size is in itself a kind of natural armor, that is its own resilience to impact.

Then ‘gymnastics’ is the ability to evade the hit entirely − the reflexes, speed, and mobility, to get out of the way. (The encumbrance of artificial armor might add a bonus to toughness, but limit the effectiveness of gymnastics.)

‘Perceptiveness’ is the ability to anticipate the attack ahead of time − whether by analysis and experience, or intuition and gut instincts, or miraculous fateful luck. Perceptiveness relates to initiative and avoiding surprises, and planning an effective defense accordingly. Perceptiveness is all about tactics.

The last category is the social factor. It includes sheer willpower, and the ability to intimidate and psyche out an opponent. We see this in nature, for example, when a fiercely brave, individual, hyena stares down and scares away a lion.



These four combat factors correspond to the four D&D defenses: fortitude, reflex, perception, and will.

These four defenses correlate to the foursome arrangement of ability scores.

Strength-Constitution (fortitude)
Dexterity-Athletics (reflex)
Intelligence-Perception (perception)
Charisma-Wisdom (will)



What is novel here in this post is ...

Strength-Constitution (fortitude) is the actual ‘natural armor’, in other words, the AC. The ability to make hits less significant. So punching a Tiny animal is very different from punching a Huge elephant. Effectively − and relatively − the elephant has a higher natural armor than the tiny animal.



So, there are four kinds of defenses.

• The ‘fortitude defense’ − essentially serving as the armor class.
• The ‘reflex defense’ − dodge, leap out of the way
• The ‘perception defense’ − negating a surprise and gaining initiative to respond ahead of time
• The ‘will defense’ − the psychological factor of any combat − morale and intimidation



With an eye on 4e, it is better to treat all four defenses in the same way, mathematically and mechanically. In other words, all four are a DC target number that the attack must roll higher than to hit, or oppositely all four are saves, being a bonus that the defender rolls to avoid being hit. Either way, the defenses are a bonus number. If active, the defender adds a d20, and if passive, the defender adds a base +10.



Finally, there are four defenses. And there only needs to be one abstract hit point pool. The hit point pool is the sum of all hit point factors: endurance, dodging, anticipation, morale.

Bypassing any of the four defenses can deplete the hit points.

The reason is, in a real fight, the defenses cant really be separate from each other. If the target has formidable morale, then it might keep on dodging out of the way, a second wind from inner strength. This is the proverbial ‘300’ Spartans. And so on. A physically tough target can still press on, even if the will to survive runs out. So the hit points is a fungible and indivisible abstraction of hit points.

But the methods of attack, very much have a specific defense to bypass.