Appearence and Player Shallowness

[DarkMaster]

Very subjective it depends of the culture you are interacting with for some you can be extremely beautiful for other a bit more than average and for some quite ugly. No Comliness for me, but you could look at the second edition if you want. Some people are ugly but very magnetic and other are beautiful but look so plastic that they don't attract you. Most great leaders were not that beautiful. This stat is useless, especially during the middle ages were beauty was much less important than today and based on very different bases.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Unfortunately I already told them that it would have no game use other than what they can try to RP themselves into/out of based on appearence. Even so, it already would be one of the most desireable stats by them (hence the thread title). Then again, I must admit that I'd sack out a bit for it too...

I once played a female character whose face had been burned so badly that she never removed her mask in the sight of others. It was a good character "hook" for a game where we started at higher levels. She was a rogue type (thief-acrobat in 1st Edition), so the burning came from a trap that she had once failed to disarm.

Exact opposite of what your players are doing!

Raven Crowking

 

[ARandomGod]

The problem of using an average of existing ability scores is that having a high Comliness becomes damn near impossible. Either rolling it seperately (point buy or not), or using some other method would be best, assuming that Com had little to no game effect.

IMC, we use Comliness (with no game effect). We start with 10, and Con and Cha mods. Though it practically never comes up, we've been using practically the same system forever for determining Comliness. The DM I stole it from just averaged Con and Cha, and that works about the same. He also averaged Int and Wis for Perception checks... I fondly remember my dumb fighter never noticing a thing.

But I like that difficulty of being beautiful.
Although, I also really like the adding charisma and other modifiers to a set score. Although, why con, exactly... That's not always the most visible. You could be really pretty and a little frail. Like, say, an elf.

Perhaps it would be good to say, 10 + charisma bonus + your highest physical stat bonus?

"He's beautiful for his strength"
"She's beautiful for her grace (dex)"
"He's so tough (con), it makes him really attractive"
Or perhaps 8 + charisma mod + your two highest stat modifiers, at least one of which must be physical... I like that one even better... You could be hot for your brains and your health, or your wisdom and strength, your strength and grace, or any combination.



Now, for my obligatory comment on the idea the ppl would be wasting time by working on something with no in game effect...
You *do* realize that character background also has no in game effect, don't you? For that matter, Define: "in game effect"
So there are no mechanics really to worry about. It's a thing that makes it fun, and therefore completely worth any "waste" of time anyone chooses to give. After all, I'm almost certain that absolutely any definition of an in game effect will include the fact that it's a game, which can be said to be completely about the wasting of time. Or, at least, spending time in a manner that has no in life effect.
The more time one "wastes" pleasurably, the better the game is.

 

[CombatWombat51]

But I like that difficulty of being beautiful.
Although, I also really like the adding charisma and other modifiers to a set score. Although, why con, exactly... That's not always the most visible. You could be really pretty and a little frail. Like, say, an elf.

Perhaps it would be good to say, 10 + charisma bonus + your highest physical stat bonus?

Quite true. The DM I stole it from gave elves some bonus, and dwarves a penalty (maybe +2/-2, I don't remember. I just don't use elves