House Rule for playing smart fighters/strong wizards

[Brute]

I'll lay it out straight and discuss afterward.

When you create a character make TWO 22 point buy attribute tables. One of them is used for combat (attack bonuses, defences, initiative etc) and the other for skills and attribute tests.

Example:
I make a standard Human Fighter with 18 12 16 8 12 10. These are standard combat stats and I will be able to contribute effectively during battle.

I then make a second score array of 16 12 13 14 12 13. These will be used only for skills and attribute tests.

Explanation:
Assume for a moment that the second array (the 'character' attributes) functionally describe your character. My fighter is strong, smart, quite tough and charismatic and reasonably dextrous and wise.

The second array is merely there to describe my character's combat 'style' (for lack of a better word). As you can see my fighter attacks with powerful blows, relying on shoulder attacks (con) more than avoiding them (dex).

Uses:
Finally you can play the fighter who can interpret the arcane sigils or the Protecting Paladin who can lift the boulder of a fallen ally.

Notes:
The idea is for players to have the option to make more realistic, fleshed out characters, and not be caught between choosing an optimal class build and what they'd like to play.

Clarifications:
I'd advise removing 'class' skills so a character can choose any skill relevant to their interests.

Discussion:
What do you guys think? This house rule seems to avoid any balance issues by simply separating skill/attribute rolls from combat rolls, but there may be something I have missed.

Let me know.
Brute.

 

[FireLance]

My gut feel is that combat challenges favor specialized characters with focused ability scores while non-combat challenges favor non-specialized characters with more diverse ability scores. A character with separate combat and non-combat ability scores will thus be more capable overall. This is not a bad thing if this is what you want. However, some players may find it jarring to have their characters function differently depending on whether they are in combat or not.

 

[ghearus]

My concern would be that this is mechanically complex and would be easily achieved by simply granting a player the Jack of All Trades feat for free.

That said, part of balancing roll vs. role in the game is reconciling the character you want to play with the mechanical balance of the game, and the approach taken here seems to throw out the mechanical balance of attributes; not only does this increase it to a 32 point buy, but this are allowing the character to optimize two sets of attributes!

 

[Brute]

Thanks for the reply.

Firstly, to Ghearus: My apologies - I had meant 22 pt buy, not 32.

As to optimizing two sets of attributes; I believe the game assumes you will optimize your attributes - failure to do so results in some serious whiff action, possibly to the point of broken-ness. Does anyone play a character with less than an 18 in their main attribute?

Finally, as to the Jack of All Trades feat - I was not thinking so much of an increase of effectiveness for the characters but instread a restructuring of where their ability lies - in RAW fighters are good at climbing, wizards at history. I'm wondering whether that can be changed without compromising combat balance. The Jack of All Trades feat does not help with attribute tests either (rare as they may be!).

To Firelance: It seems to me that 4th edition has attempted to redress the class differences in 3.x (for good or for bad) in that every class can now contribute effectively to combat (the core of the game) as well as participate in skill/attribute tests. I believe that most players using the above house rule would make their "character attributes" more average across the board (as I did in my example) for your exact reasoning.