Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chris_Nightwing" data-source="post: 5926377" data-attributes="member: 882">I want the translation from ability score to its effects on play to be straightforward. Before 3E, whilst it was fun to look through the tables, it wasn't straightforward. I don't think there was a flaw with the 3E ability score/bonus system itself, but there was with the surrounding ways of increasing scores and precisely what depended on them.A system that had a large middle range of +0, with +-1/+-2 at the extremes seems friendly on paper, and it is simple. It doesn't prevent the player desire to want more though. Mongoose Traveller (which is great fun) for instance, has a similar system, and during character creation players will continually try to push their abilities up to get that extra +1, because it applies across a broad range of skills and checks (and therefore is better than a +1 to a single skill). The difference is that once the character is made, that's it; there are few ways to increase stats during gameplay (unless the GM is generous with cybernetics). Whatever system you use, I guarantee players will hunt out small ways to increase their chances of success, and it's not the ability score system that's at fault (unless you strip it down to a no-bonus system), but the subsequent rules.So how can we work with this in practice? Don't put any items in that allow characters to increase their ability scores. I'd be tempted to remove natural increases too (though given the flat math, I don't know whether that leaves no room for improvement). We can also select how the ability score bonus applies to game mechanics carefully. It's foolish to think that every ability is equally useful, but we can certainly make them all useful at some point. For instance, there is worry that Dex is a super-stat again (because you can choose weapons that use it, it applies to AC and initiative and obviously a bunch of skills). This can be ameliorated by making armour selection less Dex-biased (I think the original 3rd edition armour system worked well here, sans Mithral of course), or perhaps making Initiative based on Int (or no ability at all).</blockquote>

Verification