Anyone remember Comeliness?

[phindar]

I've thought of physical beauty as a component of CHA (and even started a topic on that subject about six months to a year ago), but likewise I've never seen the need for a Comeliness stat or a "beauty mechanic". I've always felt that character's can look however the player wants them to. If that means there are a higher percentage of beautiful people in the game than there are in reality, that's okay. There's also a higher percentage of Fireballs in the game than there are in reality. (I call it The Melrose Place Effect.)

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Comeliness actually made another appearance in 2nd edition. It was in the Players Option: Skills and Powers book. Basically instead of a 7th stat, they divided the existing stats in half, assigning about half the usefulness of each stat to each "half". You could further customize your character by moving some points from one half of your skill to another at creation. For example

Charisma 14 would end up being...
Leadership 14/Appearance 14
which at creation you could shimmy a few points and make it....
Leadership 12/Appearance 16 if you wanted a good looking guy
Leadership 16/Appearance 12 if you wanted a force of personality guy

If you want to know the rest they were....
STR=Stamina/Muscle
DEX=Aim/Balance
CON=Health/Fitness
INT=Reason/Knowledge
WIS=Intuition/Willpower
CHA=Leadership/Appearance(comeliness)

At the time there were very few things that each stat did for characters, but now that the stats are used a lot more I think this would add some interesting complexity for those that were so inclined to pursue a conversion.

DS

 

[Scribble]

I've thought of physical beauty as a component of CHA (and even started a topic on that subject about six months to a year ago), but likewise I've never seen the need for a Comeliness stat or a "beauty mechanic". I've always felt that character's can look however the player wants them to. If that means there are a higher percentage of beautiful people in the game than there are in reality, that's okay. There's also a higher percentage of Fireballs in the game than there are in reality. (I call it The Melrose Place Effect.)

Melrose Place had fireballs?

Man... Maybe I should have given that show more credit...

 

[uriel1998]

Yeah, we have had a separate appearance score for 20 years now. It is basically a free stat score, costing almost nothing for upto 18.

I like this idea. I mean, there's a co-worker of mine whose comeliness would be in the 16-18 range. It doesn't hurt that she's a great person on top of it, but it's that kind of attractiveness that just can't help but draw attention. Which is separate from (and actually kind of modifies) her charisma. For example, some of my female co-workers actively resent her appearance and the way she "uses" men... even when she's not.

I can get away with not having a stat for something. In one of the better horror games I played recently, we didn't know our stats. But I've played with enough people to know that a metric is not just nice, but necessary to avoid disputes and provide clear rulings when there's quibbling.

But having it free makes it not be sacrificed for something "useful". Great idea.

 

[JVisgaitis]

All that I remember about Com is that it was the ultimate dump stat.

 

[noretoc]

We use attractiveness stats in my game, but they are a bit different. Males roll a d6+4 and females roll a d20+20 and a d6.

When these scores are needed in game for something, we usually just skip over the male score and drool over the other...

I mean when it comes to attractiveness that is really all we need to know.

 

[Zaruthustran]

I remember comeliness, but I prefer how 3e handwaves physical attractiveness into a non game-affecting, user-generated quality like skin color, hair color, eye color, height or weight.

D&D *is* a fantasy game, after all. If I want to imagine myself as a big brawny Hugh Jackman lookalike, well, I should be able to. Without having to roll or spend character points.

-z

 

[Marshal Lucky]

I call it LOOKS and treat it as skin, hair or eye color, height or weight: the player can roll it or select it (within reason). The only times I can remember it coming into play was a human thief (total Looks score of 22) who had a very hard time sneaking around town with all the screaming girls (and a number of guys!) following him around and causing a ruckus. The other time was when my human bard (total Lools: 21) was a member of an expedition against a coven of hags that ended in a TPK -or so we thought. Apparently the Annis, Green Hag and Sea Hag found my PC so much to their liking that they revived him and...

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Charisma is good enough.

Exceptional physical beauty should be a 1st-level-only Feat, in my opinion.