Well, to be honest I already had a clear idea in mind. I just wanted to see how much people differ on what they would assign the ability scores to. This is for Elements of Magic, an alternative magic system originally published by Natural 20 Press, and now being revised for ENPublishing to be 3.5e compatible (and to fix some bugs).
You can infuse a person with elemental energy to enhance their ability scores, and the layout we have so far is thus:
Strength - Earth. It's heavy, forceful, strong, plus most weapons are made of earth, stone, or metal.
Dexterity - We had a toss-up. I'm helping the original designer revise the book, and he says Dexterity should be Fire, because Fire is fast, and it lets off light, the fastest thing of all. I say Air, because air moves of its own accord and can travel anywhere, and creatures of the air are most nimble. While fire might equate speed, air equates with mobility, light-footedness, and the aim needed for arrows and such.
Constitution - Life. Constitution is what keeps you alive and healthy, so the connection with Life seemed the most obvious of all the elements.
Intelligence - Death. I'll admit, this one may seem a bit contrived, but what are some of the classical myths of fantasy that involve knowledge? Selling one's soul for knowledge; liches existing even after death so they can continue to perfect their magic; ancient tombs holding obscure lore that has been forgotten. Knowledge often sits, unused. Plus, if you're smart, you might be cocky, and you'll get yourself killed.
Wisdom - Water. Wisdom makes us think of purity, cool-headedness, and being able to sense things. I admit to being inspired by Bruce Lee here. Water can take the form of whatever you put it in. It can act however it needs to, strong and crashing like a wave, or gentle and soothing like a spring. It's balanced. Also, Judeo-Christian imagery often connects water with divinity, and heck, many of the high profile miracles involve water. God always struck me as a wise entity.
Charisma - Here we have the other half of the conundrum. Cyberzombie, the original creator, has air as Charisma, perhaps because he thinks most of the charming people on the planet are vapid and airheaded. I say Fire, because fire is the spark that gets things moving. Air might be light-hearted and hard to offend, but when you want to convince someone to do what you want, you light torches and lead the charge, or burn brands and threaten them with pain. So I say Fire should be Charisma.
Now, I feel I have more weight for my case because we also have paraelements, positive elements, and negative elements. Imagine that you have a globe, and Life is at the north pole, Death at the south pole, and Air, Fire, Earth, and Water form a ring around the equator. Air opposes Earth, Fire opposes Water.
Now, also on the equator you have the para-elements: Lightning, Ice, Ooze, and Lava. Lightning is Air and Fire, Ice is Air and Water, Ooze is Water and Earth, and Lava is Earth and Fire.
Each paraelement would have two related ability scores:
Paraelements:
Lightning - Dex, Cha (this works regardless of whether me or Cyberzombie wins)
Ice - Dex and Wis (I say); or Cha and Wis (Cyberzombie)
Ooze - Wis and Con
Lava - Cha and Str (me); or Dex and Str (Cyberzombie)
So far we're a little indecisive, but now we have the positive and negative elements. They're formed by taking life or death, and combining it with one of the cardinal elements on the equator.
Positive Elements:
Light (fire/life) - Cha, Con (me) or Dex, Con (Cyberzombie)
Steam (water/life) - Wis, Con. I suppose Steam might be better called Mist? Or Rain?
Sound (air/life) - Dex, Con (me) or Cha, Con (CZ).
Crystal (earth/life) - Str, Con
Negative Elements:
Shadow (fire/death) - Cha, Int (me) or Dex, Int (CZ). I personally think that, by D&D standards, shadow is too cool not to be related to charisma.
Acid (water/death) - Wis, Int.
Void (air/death) - Dex, Int (me) or Cha, Int (CZ).
Metal (earth/death) - Str, Int
As you can see, it's not really clear which way it should go. I guess we'll just have to do paper-scissors-rock to see who's version we go with.
I'm just glad that we're not trying to add ability scores to the other elements (Force, Nature, Time, Dimension, Spirit, and Chance; plus Good, Evil, Chaos, Law, and Neutrality).
What will be fun, though, is when you see some of the more interesting spells we have. We encourage players to add their own flavor, but we've cooked up some interesting ideas of our own. Like a spell that evokes powerful goodly energy to smite evil creatures, while simultaneously encasing them in a warding circle that they can't escape.
