Anyone remember Comeliness?

[theemrys]

Yup... Comeliness is still in Hackmaster (part of the 7 basic stats).

In Kenzer & Cos recently released Aces & Eights (a western RPG), they have the basic 6 stats plus Looks (which replaced comeliness).

I like having that distinction between looks and charisma... they may have closer ties than other stats but are distinctly different things...

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I wasn't sure that was possible. Is it legal? Are you from Kentucky?

[hubris]Well, personally, until I find someone with as high a Comeliness score as I have...[/hubris]

Seriously, I never really liked the Comeliness stat. It seemed like a useless, overcomplicated addition that didn't provide any gains. Sure, you're pretty. Who cares? When you open your mouth, do you produce something metaphorically equivalent to the scent of an orc's armpit? If so, then you're not going to get very far on your looks. Its only purpose was to separate out looks from Charisma so that people could stop complaining about how Charisma includes looks.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I never bothered with comeliness. D&D is a fantasy role playing game. Everyone is beautiful, unless it better suits their PC to be otherwise.

 

[Korgoth]

I don't/didn't use it. Extra complexity, somewhat silly. But that describes much of Unearthed Arcana. My favorite section is the treatise on polearms (just from historical interest).

 

[KenSeg]

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.

 

[el-remmen]

Comeliness in Aquerra:

Comeliness is an optional ability score that measures physical beauty. While characters are not required to have a comeliness score, and each player may choose whatever score he deems appropriate to the way he envisions his character, some players prefer to have such a number available as a means of comparison.

Physical beauty is strongly subjective. As a result, a character's Comeliness score can be meaningless even within a cultural context, and is nearly always completely without meaning outside of that context.

Comeliness is measured as any other ability score, having a starting range from 3 to 18. Comeliness typically provides no bonus for skills, but the DM may choose to allow the normal range of penalties or bonuses as circumstance bonuses for certain social skills, such as Gather Information or Intimidate.

 

[Keldryn]

I did use it back in the day, and for a short while into 2nd Edition, but I don't think that it has a place as an "Ability Score" alongside the other six. Charisma is already generally viewed as the "weakest" for the six scores, and adding a 7th would just make for two weak scores. Comeliness would not have enough of an effect on the game, mechanics-wise, to justify its existence.

I prefer to leave it up to players to decide how their characters look, and Charisma does play a role in physical attractiveness. Many women have told me that confidence and how a man carries himself is usually far more of a factor in attraction than how "pretty" his face is. And we've already got Strength and Constitution as highly-correlated to physical attractiveness.

If a DM really wants to have some sort of system mechanic for handling physical beauty, I say go the GURPS route (beauty as an Advantage) and just create a Beautiful feat that perhaps gives you a +4 on Bluff and Diplomacy checks with members of the opposite sex. Or some such thing.

 

[Presto2112]

It's already been said here, but I think that physical beauty - that is, before all of the scars from various weapons and lightning bolts - should be left entirely to a PC's background. It really has no actual mechanical effect on gameplay. Besides, "she had a stunning beauty that rivaled the Seven Valleys of Syncraea" or "his pale, chiseled features appeared to have been carved from the purest of the rarest of stones" sounds a lot more appealing than "he had a Comeliness score of 21".

 

[Virel]

Yes, I remember when Comeliness showed up in the Dragon Mag and later in UA. We used it then and use it now. Gives seven stats. Often it's a dump stat for some players. As DM I have a lot of fun with that as many NPC's are shallow and will snub the ugly characters...just like in real life. Good Charisma will off set lower Comeliness etc so being beauty impared isn't always an issue. We don't get into all the rules etc about charm that technically goes with it BtB, but use it more as a rule of thumb.

Once a good friend and long time player rolled up a new character. He was an avid power gamer most of the time. He got one 18 and some other decent numbers. I watched him put his 18 in comeliness. Shocked, I asked what was up with that. He replied, "I play an ugly character in real life every day, I'm not going to do it in game too!"

The whole group erupted in laughter.

 

[RangerWickett]

Yup, I remember it. Never used it, but don't have an issue with it as a stat, either. Just as logical as separating out Int and Wis into two types of "intelligence", I guess.

Hey, we published Beauty rules in E.N. Armoury - Chainmail Bikinis. Also available in pdf format.