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<blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 7824527" data-attributes="member: 58172"><p>Old school D&D generally lacked skills. But in D&D today, we have skills. Skills are useful to split out and specialize in one of variegated aspects that get clustered into a single ability score.</p><p></p><p>For example, Charisma handles both the Persuade-Charm skill and the Intimidate-Frighten skill, even tho they are somewhat opposites. A skill allows a character concept to specialize in one and neglect the other. For example, a dragon concept might have very high Charisma because it is terrifying, and invest in Intimidate to shore up this theme.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Consider the case of a Strength-Constitution ability handling both aspects. It would be routine to simply add a ‘Stamina’ skill to specialize an aspect of Constitution. Unfortunately, in this case, Stamina checks are too rare. In my experience, they almost never happen. The only time it ever happened was for a long-distance swim, and maybe two or three analogous narrative scenarios. In my lifetime, it happened only a few times.</p><p></p><p>Notice, even D&D 5e has abandoned all skills for Constitution, because they are worthless mechanically. In 5e, Constitution is a strictly ‘passive’ ‘ability’. You cant do anything with Constitution. All you can do with it is get hit.</p><p></p><p>It is nonsensical to create a mechanic that is virtually useless. In this case, a hypothetical Stamina skill for stamina checks. It is ... bad design ... a trap ... to make a player choose between a useless skill and a powerful skill, and treat them as if they were the same, when they clearly imbalance. A traps-everywhere gaming design was even intentional in 3e, to reward ‘system mastery’, but this is one of the reasons I no longer play 3e (unless a friend really implores).</p><p></p><p>This is the main problem with the D&D sixsome. Originally, in formative D&D, they arrived somewhat randomly from accidental situations, are wildly unequal to each other, and so far have resisted attempts to systematize them.</p><p></p><p>Linking Strength and Constitution, helps make Constitution a more active choice, and helps make Strength a more valuable choice.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The fact that sixsome Intelligence is drastically less powerful than Dexterity, has stopped many players from making a high Intelligence Fighter. For example.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Yaarel, post: 7824527, member: 58172"] Old school D&D generally lacked skills. But in D&D today, we have skills. Skills are useful to split out and specialize in one of variegated aspects that get clustered into a single ability score. For example, Charisma handles both the Persuade-Charm skill and the Intimidate-Frighten skill, even tho they are somewhat opposites. A skill allows a character concept to specialize in one and neglect the other. For example, a dragon concept might have very high Charisma because it is terrifying, and invest in Intimidate to shore up this theme. Consider the case of a Strength-Constitution ability handling both aspects. It would be routine to simply add a ‘Stamina’ skill to specialize an aspect of Constitution. Unfortunately, in this case, Stamina checks are too rare. In my experience, they almost never happen. The only time it ever happened was for a long-distance swim, and maybe two or three analogous narrative scenarios. In my lifetime, it happened only a few times. Notice, even D&D 5e has abandoned all skills for Constitution, because they are worthless mechanically. In 5e, Constitution is a strictly ‘passive’ ‘ability’. You cant do anything with Constitution. All you can do with it is get hit. It is nonsensical to create a mechanic that is virtually useless. In this case, a hypothetical Stamina skill for stamina checks. It is ... bad design ... a trap ... to make a player choose between a useless skill and a powerful skill, and treat them as if they were the same, when they clearly imbalance. A traps-everywhere gaming design was even intentional in 3e, to reward ‘system mastery’, but this is one of the reasons I no longer play 3e (unless a friend really implores). This is the main problem with the D&D sixsome. Originally, in formative D&D, they arrived somewhat randomly from accidental situations, are wildly unequal to each other, and so far have resisted attempts to systematize them. Linking Strength and Constitution, helps make Constitution a more active choice, and helps make Strength a more valuable choice. The fact that sixsome Intelligence is drastically less powerful than Dexterity, has stopped many players from making a high Intelligence Fighter. For example. [/QUOTE]
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