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Ability Scores - Should they increase?
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<blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5772926" data-attributes="member: 59082"><p>So, in a sense, you're advocating that the ability scores represent--as [MENTION=22260]TerraDave[/MENTION] put it--raw talent and raw talent alone? I have no problem with that, as long as it is clearly stated.</p><p></p><p>Afaik, the latest in brain science says that the human brain is fully developed sometime in the early 20s. We could describe this as a point at which the human being is first fully bio-physically mature. Perhaps, then, the ability scores represent talent/potential at this point in development, and anything after that would be trained and thus related to skills and other capacities.</p><p></p><p>In your example of weight-lifting, obviously someone is stronger after lifting for a few years, but their Strength score wouldn't change because their innate capacity for physical power hasn't changed, but their <em>actual </em>physical power has developed through training. </p><p></p><p>So again, I think it is simply a matter of clearly stating what an ability score is. If we're talking about "raw talent at bio-physical maturity" then ability scores wouldn't increase. But then we'd also have to more more clearly differentiate the skills and capacities that branch out from ability scores, but it would need be clearly defined that the ability scores are ONLY raw talent/potential and only represent actual capacity to the extent of doing something that one is not trained to do.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mercurius, post: 5772926, member: 59082"] So, in a sense, you're advocating that the ability scores represent--as [MENTION=22260]TerraDave[/MENTION] put it--raw talent and raw talent alone? I have no problem with that, as long as it is clearly stated. Afaik, the latest in brain science says that the human brain is fully developed sometime in the early 20s. We could describe this as a point at which the human being is first fully bio-physically mature. Perhaps, then, the ability scores represent talent/potential at this point in development, and anything after that would be trained and thus related to skills and other capacities. In your example of weight-lifting, obviously someone is stronger after lifting for a few years, but their Strength score wouldn't change because their innate capacity for physical power hasn't changed, but their [I]actual [/I]physical power has developed through training. So again, I think it is simply a matter of clearly stating what an ability score is. If we're talking about "raw talent at bio-physical maturity" then ability scores wouldn't increase. But then we'd also have to more more clearly differentiate the skills and capacities that branch out from ability scores, but it would need be clearly defined that the ability scores are ONLY raw talent/potential and only represent actual capacity to the extent of doing something that one is not trained to do. [/QUOTE]
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Ability Scores - Should they increase?
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