Abstract versus concrete in games (or, why rules-light systems suck)

[S'mon]

The weird thing is that I often play this kind of character myself. I give her eg ST 16 (strong, but not as strong as the strongest male) and CHA 12 (enough to say she's above-average), DEX maybe 14 or 16. That's plenty enough to distinguish from the ST 18 DEX 12 CHA 8 big lunk type.

 

[Particle_Man]

You're right. Zorro and the three musketeers obviously didn't know what they were doing.

Conan would have killed them all and worns their heads on his belt.

Have you considered 7th Sea?

 

[S'mon]

I don't know where you're getting that idea. She's fast, not strong. It's a perfectly viable character build, and should be able to stand toe-to-toe with anyone of her level who is "strong", but not fast. I don't see it was weaker. I see it as different.

Nope nope nope.

 

[S'mon]

You're right. Zorro and the three musketeers obviously didn't know what they were doing.

Maybe they weren't engaged in either medieval warfare or D&D?

 

[der_kluge]

Maybe they weren't engaged in either medieval warfare or D&D?

Well, it's still swordsmanship, and it's not entirely out of place in a D&D campaign.

 

[der_kluge]

Conan would have killed them all and worns their heads on his belt.

Have you considered 7th Sea?

Not my choice to make.

 

[Akrasia]

... And all fighters have strength as a primary attribute. Dex isn't an option.

Ummm ... all PCs in C&C get to choose at least one additional prime attribute (humans get to choose two).

There is nothing stopping you from choosing Dex as your extra prime.

 

[Akrasia]

IMO, in a class-based rules lite game with as abstract a damage system as D20, damage dealt should be a function of class, not weapon. Any fighter can deal x damage with any weapon, regardless of weapon. Any mage can deal y damage (y < x) damage with any weapon (and can probably deal x damage with a moderate difficulty to cast spell). So if a fighter is a hulking brute, he causes x damage by swinging heavy weapons through his targets and if he's a finesse fighter a "hit" is a bunch of slashes and gashes that equate to the one massive strike by the brute. This makes sense from a rules lite approach because it means you don't have a chart of weapon damages. Less charts, less rules.

But C&C has damage based on the weapon.

This would be amazingly easy to introduce as a house rule in C&C. And in fact, I quite like it. (IIRC there was an article in the Dragon in the early 80s that presented something like this.)

I would maybe break it down as follows:

Fighter-types = 1-handed weapons (d8); 2-handed weapons (d10)
Clerics & Rogues = 1-handed weapons (d6); 2-handed weapons (d8)
Mages & commoners = 1-handed weapons (d4); 2-handed weapons (d6).

Something similar could be worked out for missile weapons.

 

[Henry]

Playing Asmodeus' Advocate a minute...

Dex 15, STR 11 fighter, with STR, DEX, and CHR as primes...

This means a 45% chance or so of picking pockets of the unwary (Prime CC of 12, -1 for 15 DEX, +1 per level of the mark if a classed character)

It means a decent chance to slip out of bonds, which if it ever came up I'd argue to the GM that you would try to slip out rather than break free (Prime CC of 12, -1 per level and a -1 for your 15 DEX). Paralysis you're SOL, because that's solidly strength's purview.

It means that Escape Artist is viable, as DEX is a prime that's effectively a +6 bonus to do anything DEX-related. It's kind of a misnomer to say there are no skills in C&C, since all skills can be attempted pretty much by anyone - it's just to have a chance worth a darn to do it for higher-level challenges, you need to have the relevant attribute as a prime, and even better, you need to have a class that it consders relevant to the skill (Pick Pockets for rogues, etc.)

With weapon finesse Feat it means having an excellent chance to do good damage with a 1d8 dmg rapier, +1 for being specialized.

You don't need to be high-strength in C&C to be effective; in fact, something that not everyone might be aware of is that C&C bonuses are

13-15 = +1
16-17 = +2
18-19 = +3

This means that 99% of characters aren't going to have bonuses above a +1 or +2 from attributes, anyway. A +1 or +2 doesn't make nearly as much difference as what's a prime or not.

While I can understand the granularity you want, it also is not as necessary to solve your problem as it might appear. A swashbuckler is quite viable even as an 11 STR fighter, and I don't see the need to put a high score in it, because it makes little to no difference.

 

[Akrasia]

.... I see Anime as a good genre for rules-light. Medieval High Fantasy seems to be a place for a little more detail in my experience.

You're right -- modelling sword-wielding barbarians attacking massive flying lizards who breathe fire requires adequate 'detail' in order to achieve an adequate degree of verisimilitude (unlike that Anime stuff, which is so implausible that we don't need detailed rules for it).

:rolls-eyes: