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<blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 7178472" data-attributes="member: 3400">There might be ways to have a decent 12-stat game (Mutants and Masterminds does a fantastic job of doing it with 8 instead of six - Strength and Dexterity are each broken into 2 stats), but the method in Players Option: Skills and Powers wasn't going to get you there.For each stat, you rolled the dice. And from that base number you established your two sub-stats by, effectively, bumping one of the up by as many as two from that base while dumping the other substat by the same amount. It was basically a stat-dumping, min-maxer's wet dream. Strength was divided between Stamina and Muscle. Stamina determined your carrying capacity while Muscle governed all of the other Strength-based characteristics like hit bonus, damage bonus, bending bars, and opening doors. Guess which of the two got dumped all the time? It wasn't that there were no interesting ideas - Charisma was broken down into Leadership and Appearance - the former drove loyalty and number of henchmen while the latter drove reaction adjustment. But too many of the choices of boosting/dumping were foregone conclusions. It was almost like every PC got a free +2 on nearly all of the stats that mattered most to them. There were few choices to agonize over when agonizing over choices is one of the hallmarks of a well-designed game where options are well-balanced and few are dominant.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="billd91, post: 7178472, member: 3400"] There might be ways to have a decent 12-stat game (Mutants and Masterminds does a fantastic job of doing it with 8 instead of six - Strength and Dexterity are each broken into 2 stats), but the method in Players Option: Skills and Powers wasn't going to get you there. For each stat, you rolled the dice. And from that base number you established your two sub-stats by, effectively, bumping one of the up by as many as two from that base while dumping the other substat by the same amount. It was basically a stat-dumping, min-maxer's wet dream. Strength was divided between Stamina and Muscle. Stamina determined your carrying capacity while Muscle governed all of the other Strength-based characteristics like hit bonus, damage bonus, bending bars, and opening doors. Guess which of the two got dumped all the time? It wasn't that there were no interesting ideas - Charisma was broken down into Leadership and Appearance - the former drove loyalty and number of henchmen while the latter drove reaction adjustment. But too many of the choices of boosting/dumping were foregone conclusions. It was almost like every PC got a free +2 on nearly all of the stats that mattered most to them. There were few choices to agonize over when agonizing over choices is one of the hallmarks of a well-designed game where options are well-balanced and few are dominant. [/QUOTE]

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