TheAlkaizer
Game Designer
The thread about the Ability Score Increases is still going strong. A bit too strong for my taste, but I do jump in to read samples of it.
In the last few pages, I've seen a few posts circling around the topic of cookie-cutter characters, classes having a critical ability score that needs to be a certain number or higher, etc. For some reason, it connected to a few other thoughts I had recently and with a video I've watched at lunch last week.
So, here are a few example points that highlight one aspect of the ability scores that I'm not fond of:
One little example of something that I really liked from 4th edition that somewhat goes into that direction were how they did the saving throws. For those that didn't play 4th edition, you had three saving throws: fortitude, reflex and will. However, as opposed to 3rd edition, they were not tied to just one ability score but two. For example, your Reflex saving throw was modified by either your dexterity or intelligence modifier, whichever is highest. Same with fortitude (strength, constitution) and will (wisdom, charisma). This kind of design lessens the emphasis on specific ability scores.
The video I refered to earlier is this one:
For context (it is a 58 minutes video after all): this is Josh Sawyer, Game Director at Obsidian Entertainment, notably on Pillars of Eternity (which is the focus of the video). It's a cool video, if you have the time I think it is worth a watch, he does refer to D&D alot. But for those that don't have the time for it, here's a quick TLDR:
The specific part of the video that kind of covers that explains that they kind of broke the verisimilitude between the name of attributes and what people expect from them. For example, there's no strength, but there's might. And might increases your damages. All damages. The damages you deal with your sword, but also with your spells. So both a fighter and a wizard could want to have a high might.
And they made sure that all attributes affected stats that were somewhat desirable to all classes. Here's a chart from that same video:
Obviously, some of the things they did would be hard to replicate in a TTRPG, like affecting the area of effect of your spells. But what I like about this approach, is that on paper, all attributes are useful in some ways to all classes. But you can still build your character in a way you wish. A wizard with a ton of intellect will have spells that have a very long duration and high area of effects, for an enchantment focused wizard, that could be great!
There's surely TTRPGs that already attempted and maybe even succeeded at this. I know Symbaroum uses specific attributes for certain actions, but some Talents allow you to use other attributes in their stead.
Anyway, I just wanted to start a discussion about it. See what people think about it, what solutions they came up with, what approaches TTRPGs I don't know about took.
In the last few pages, I've seen a few posts circling around the topic of cookie-cutter characters, classes having a critical ability score that needs to be a certain number or higher, etc. For some reason, it connected to a few other thoughts I had recently and with a video I've watched at lunch last week.
So, here are a few example points that highlight one aspect of the ability scores that I'm not fond of:
- Classes having a specific ability score marked as their key ability score.
- Classes receiving almost no benefits from many ability scores.
- Some ability scores are really, from a macro perspective, not as useful as others. (dexterity being really good is a frequent topic of discussion)
- Players feeling like they have to balance the mechanical aspect of the ability scores with what it suggests narratively and for their characters. In my opinion, it leads to people feeling like they can't fully make their character if their race doesn't give them a bonus in their key ability score.
- Less emphasis on a single key ability score for a class
- Having most ability scores be of value to most classes
- Have the gap of how useful certain ability scores feel be reduced
- Players being able to go from their character concept into mechanical character building without having to worry that their character will be fun.
One little example of something that I really liked from 4th edition that somewhat goes into that direction were how they did the saving throws. For those that didn't play 4th edition, you had three saving throws: fortitude, reflex and will. However, as opposed to 3rd edition, they were not tied to just one ability score but two. For example, your Reflex saving throw was modified by either your dexterity or intelligence modifier, whichever is highest. Same with fortitude (strength, constitution) and will (wisdom, charisma). This kind of design lessens the emphasis on specific ability scores.
The video I refered to earlier is this one:
For context (it is a 58 minutes video after all): this is Josh Sawyer, Game Director at Obsidian Entertainment, notably on Pillars of Eternity (which is the focus of the video). It's a cool video, if you have the time I think it is worth a watch, he does refer to D&D alot. But for those that don't have the time for it, here's a quick TLDR:
- Sawyer wanted to close the gap between builds that were viable and those that were optimal. He didn't want people to realize they had made a bad character after a few hours of gameplay and being unable to progress, and he didn't want player to break the game by hyper-focusing characters. But he also wanted to allow players to maximize, or not think too much about building their characters (different people, different fun).
- Sawyer summarizes the design goals to:
- Have six attributes
- Class abilities that are not explicitly associated with attributes
- Have attributes influence statistics of importance to all classes linearly
- To have "no bad builds"
- Discourage people from dumping stats.
The specific part of the video that kind of covers that explains that they kind of broke the verisimilitude between the name of attributes and what people expect from them. For example, there's no strength, but there's might. And might increases your damages. All damages. The damages you deal with your sword, but also with your spells. So both a fighter and a wizard could want to have a high might.
And they made sure that all attributes affected stats that were somewhat desirable to all classes. Here's a chart from that same video:
Obviously, some of the things they did would be hard to replicate in a TTRPG, like affecting the area of effect of your spells. But what I like about this approach, is that on paper, all attributes are useful in some ways to all classes. But you can still build your character in a way you wish. A wizard with a ton of intellect will have spells that have a very long duration and high area of effects, for an enchantment focused wizard, that could be great!
There's surely TTRPGs that already attempted and maybe even succeeded at this. I know Symbaroum uses specific attributes for certain actions, but some Talents allow you to use other attributes in their stead.
Anyway, I just wanted to start a discussion about it. See what people think about it, what solutions they came up with, what approaches TTRPGs I don't know about took.
