How important is Con to the game?

[IronWolf]

I am not sure I understand why I would want to remove CON as one of the stats? It seems to hold its place pretty well - or am I missing something obvious? What would we gain by removing CON?

 

[Guest 85555]

[Shatner]CONNNNNNNNNNN![/Shatner]

*ahem*

Con is a measure of health, toughness and fitness. One may be physically strong, but may have low stamina, a chronic disease or merely be grossly fat.

Think of it this way- the high Str and Dex PC is the young, raw recruit who is running the army obstacle course...and the high Con PC is the grizzled old drill sergeant who effortlessly beats them through it.

I think it all depends on how you want to slice it up, and every approach has positives and negatives.

While I think it makes sense to divide health and strength, it is also true that physical strength and conditioning have a very real impact on health. For example, I have asthma. But if I lift weights and do cardio regularly my asthma all but disappears. So there is a direct link between my physical strength and my health (you have to keep in mind stamina is also a function of how easily your muscles tire and how hard it is for them to perform actions). However I also have serious digestive health issues. No amount of weight lifting or running will improve it.

So if you wanted a totally realistic system of stats, you'd probably not only have six or more, but they would have cross over effects (like having a high strength would effectively boost con and dex under certain conditions or something like that). If you are just going for D&D level of realism, I think the 6 stats work fine. I have no problem flavor-wise removing Con and bringing it into strength. But in terms of balance I think it would create problems.

Personally I've never been too hung up on the attribute debates, since it really is all about how you want to slice it. I can have fun with a game as simple as Body and Mind. But I'd also enjoy a game that had more 8 stats.

 

[IronWolf]

So if you wanted a totally realistic system of stats, you'd probably not only have six or more, but they would have cross over effects (like having a high strength would effectively boost con and dex under certain conditions or something like that). If you are just going for D&D level of realism, I think the 6 stats work fine.

I think the cross-effects would make the most sense if the system was to be added on to. But yeah, the complexity from that would likely be more than I would want leaving the six stats I have now adequate for the level of D&D realism I want.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

To the OP:

Lack of use in one system is not a reason for the removal of an ability score in all or most systems. You could use the same basic outline to argue for the removal of any of the other 5 ability scores in D&D.

While I think it makes sense to divide health and strength, it is also true that physical strength and conditioning have a very real impact on health. For example, I have asthma. But if I lift weights and do cardio regularly my asthma all but disappears. So there is a direct link between my physical strength and my health (you have to keep in mind stamina is also a function of how easily your muscles tire and how hard it is for them to perform actions). However I also have serious digestive health issues. No amount of weight lifting or running will improve it.

I have a problem with your post here. It has to do with the word I bolded. Cardio is an aerobic endurance workout not a muscular strength workout and is what helps your asthma not the weightlifting. Consider it this way: Doing cardio is like putting points into the Endurance(Con) skill and weightlifting is putting points into the Athletics(Str) skill.

 

[Guest 85555]

To the OP:
I have a problem with your post here. It has to do with the word I bolded. Cardio is an aerobic endurance workout not a muscular strength workout and is what helps your asthma not the weightlifting. Consider it this way: Doing cardio is like putting points into the Endurance(Con) skill and weightlifting is putting points into the Athletics(Str) skill.

I think I may have been a little unclear in my example. I attribute improvement in lung function to both. That is why I said cardio and weight lifting. For the activities I am involved in I need the weights as well. It isn't just a matter of boosting my lung strength by reducing overall difficulty of doing things in my entire body. I do think cardio is the biggest factor in general for my asthma. But stregthening my muscles (and by that I don't mean simply making them bigger, but improving both explosive power and stamina) through weight routines makes it less strenuous to participate in sports and even to walk up flights of stairs. Which definitely helps the asthma. Quite simply, the easier it is to move my body against resistance the less of a problem it is for breathing. My endurance is definitely bound up in both strength training and cardio. I don't think this is true for all activities. But the sports I am involved in, I definitely see benefit from weights and other resistance training.

Again though. I think it is really how you want to cut things up. I have no problem with Con V. Str or with making them one thing. My point is if realism is the aim. Then some amount of cross over between stats would make more sense. (and for the record, I don't think realism is needed in the case of D&D's 6 stats).

Take boxing. How well you take a punch is both a result of health (Con), but also of the strength of your muscles. Weights are important in that sport because you are building up your armor. But then so is cardio.

The real point here is things aren't often as simple as the handy categories we use in games because we are abstracting things. I imagine there is a lot of cross-over between skills and between attributes. Again though, I am not promoting that as the ideal in game design.

 

[Umbran]

I think Constitution is as realistic a stat as any (which is to say, they're all kind of unrealistic*), and it's existence is justified as well as any other. The arguments made in the OP work as well against any other particular stat.

Six stats seems about right to me, so I don't see a need to get rid of any of them.



*In the real world, humans don't have just six things that describe their performance. Real people don't have separate Con and Str, and the things that give one a good (or bad) Con or Str overlap. That's just the nature of trying to simulate a person with only a few numbers that don't interact.

 

[fireinthedust]

While I think it makes sense to divide health and strength, it is also true that physical strength and conditioning have a very real impact on health. For example, I have asthma. But if I lift weights and do cardio regularly my asthma all but disappears. So there is a direct link between my physical strength and my health (you have to keep in mind stamina is also a function of how easily your muscles tire and how hard it is for them to perform actions). However I also have serious digestive health issues. No amount of weight lifting or running will improve it.

This.

I've started taking my health seriously, as I have a job that requires a lot of stair climbing and lifting (along with counseling and paperwork). I typically do a LOT of stair climbing, which is a leg workout. On top of that I run at home most days, upwards of 3-4 Km, and a lot of pushups (150 in the morning, plus some at night) and a bunch of weights, squats, etc. I'm physically stronger, which is why my muscles can endure longer.

As well my immune system is getting up there, but some of my reactions and wellness are linked to when the last time I worked out was. yes, there's cardio, but you could argue that even cardio is based on the strength of your heart muscles.

An article I read (the contents of which I can't discuss on this site) talked about other types of endurance that are based on muscle strength. Not how long you can wear yourself (and your muscles) out through strain, but how strong you are.

The problem is that RPGs are about describing an idea, even a cliche, using rules. This is why we have the nerdy, weakling scholar and the moronic jock. Reality shows us that physical health directly impacts cognitive abilitiy (read Brain Rules), as more bloodflow brings more oxygen to the brain and removes more toxins. Not that physically active people are always smarter, but rather that the full potential of a brain is brought out by taking care of it physically: get in 20 minutes of cardio twice a weak, and you reduce the possibility of dimentia as you age.

However, the idea of "balance" and the likelihood that people who sit at tables for hours talking about their awesome character are not in great physical shape, means that we keep the unhealthy mage and the dumb jock, and the strong obese fighter who breathes hard when he walk-runs (tongue lolling, lips blue, gives up chasing the PCs and goes to eat some pie. Mmmm, pie...).

I would argue that the strong obese guy is better able to run a mile than a weak obese guy.


And yeah, Constitution as a score covers a wide range of ideas that work in-game. (For some reason a 3 strength character can run a mile; not a tiny creature that's well built, but any 3 str orc or human.)

But is there a way of making a simulation/game comparison without requiring that stat? That's approximately D&D level simplicity?

How do video games do it? I don't expect that most online or console RPGs have a health stat apart from HP.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

I think I may have been a little unclear in my example. I attribute improvement in lung function to both. That is why I said cardio and weight lifting. For the activities I am involved in I need the weights as well. It isn't just a matter of boosting my lung strength by reducing overall difficulty of doing things in my entire body. I do think cardio is the biggest factor in general for my asthma. But stregthening my muscles (and by that I don't mean simply making them bigger, but improving both explosive power and stamina) through weight routines makes it less strenuous to participate in sports and even to walk up flights of stairs. Which definitely helps the asthma. Quite simply, the easier it is to move my body against resistance the less of a problem it is for breathing. My endurance is definitely bound up in both strength training and cardio. I don't think this is true for all activities. But the sports I am involved in, I definitely see benefit from weights and other resistance training.

What you are describing here is actually weight training not weightlifting.* True weightlifting, picking up the heaviest object you can lift then putting it down, will not improve muscular stamina as much as or as noticeably as weight training.

My only problem with your post was that you implied that direct strength improvement helped handle a constitution aliment when in actuality it was 2 forms of constitution improvement, one of which also had coinciding strength enhancement properties, that was actually doing it.

*Semantics, I know but sometimes they are can be a major influence on how things are interpreted.

 

[Guest 85555]

What you are describing here is actually weight training not weightlifting.* True weightlifting, picking up the heaviest object you can lift then putting it down, will not improve muscular stamina as much as or as noticeably as weight training.

My only problem with your post was that you implied that direct strength improvement helped handle a constitution aliment when in actuality it was 2 forms of constitution improvement, one of which also had coinciding strength enhancement properties, that was actually doing it.

*Semantics, I know but sometimes they are can be a major influence on how things are interpreted.

I think you can look at this from a number of angles, and I do think you raise valid points here. But I would tend to classify explosive power as a feature of str primarily. And having greater explosive power (as well as having greater strength in the muscle generally) definitely takes the edge off the lungs for me. If you are an asthmatic lifting things can also trigger symptoms. But having stronger muscles makes lifting much easier and therefore I don't tend to have as many symptoms when I do it. And I think the strength imrovement here is directly connected to the constitution improvement. When your muscles are weaker it is harder to move stuff. That makes the lungs work more.

But if you don't like that example. Think about the boxing one for instance. Normally Con goes into HP (at least in previous editions of D&D). But obviously strong muscles are also a factor in how much damage a boxer can take. Not just neck muscles, but abs, pecs, etc. And by the same token, a boxers con (his wind say) effects how much damage he can consistently dish out over the course of a match.

Personally I like con and str in D&D so I wouldn't change them. But I think it is a fair point on the part of the OP that there is overlap and they could function as a single score.

 

[Guest 85555]

I think Constitution is as realistic a stat as any (which is to say, they're all kind of unrealistic*), and it's existence is justified as well as any other. The arguments made in the OP work as well against any other particular stat.

Six stats seems about right to me, so I don't see a need to get rid of any of them.



*In the real world, humans don't have just six things that describe their performance. Real people don't have separate Con and Str, and the things that give one a good (or bad) Con or Str overlap. That's just the nature of trying to simulate a person with only a few numbers that don't interact.

I agree with all this. I think it depends on the kind of game you are after. With D&D the 6 stats work fine, and achieve what the game sets out to do (though I haven't played much 4E, so can't comment on the way they work in that edition). Like I said I am fine with games that have as few as two stats.