D&D General If you had to split up Dexterity...

[John R Davis]

It was done in 1980 with dragonquest.
Agility was your " legs" and Dexterity your "arms".

I have never liked the d20 Dex as the Uber stat.

 

[Greenfield]

You could split it a dozen different ways, and every one would be wrong. According to someone, anyway.

IRL I'm solidly built, with broad shoulders. Heavy upper body (I look a lot stronger than I am.) I used to be a professional magician. Agile, I'm not. I used to be able to walk a tightrope and ride a unicycle, but that was forty years ago.

My manual dexterity is off-the-chart for most people.

I can't hit a basket in basketball and never could. So my hand-eye coordination sucks.

So what part of that odd mix is Ability Score and what part is practiced skill? To make an item "pop" into existence in my fingers, I have to bring it from a hidden location to final view in less than 1/15th of a second. At that speed the human eye can't register the motion (medical fact involving the synapses in the optic nerve.). The coin, or whatever, is "just there" - Poof. Magic. While the skill is required, most people simply don't have the nerve and/or muscle speed to pull that off, so that's Ability Score.

Even as a kid I couldn't hit a trash can with a piece of paper. With practice I can throw a playing card and hit a small target across the room, but that doesn't translate to accuracy with anything else. I'm a decent shot with a bow, and have a few minor archery tournament prizes to my name. So my hand/eye disability is "Ability score", and my archery and playing-card accuracy are simply enough skill training to overcome the bad score.

Similarly, tightrope and unicycle are trained skills, not evidence of an exceptional ability score. I'm not clumsy on my feet, but I'm not anything exceptional either.

So, with things like that in mind, how would I split Dexterity?

Start with the base number from the character sheet. Put that same number into:

Manual Dexterity
Physical Agility
Balance
Quickness
Accuracy (Hand/Eye coordination).

Now allow the player to move up to two points from any of those categories to another. No area can be dropped by more than two points from base, and no area can be raised more than three points above base.

Now categorize the Dexterity based skills and combat actions, tying each to one aspect of Dexterity.

Sleight of Hand, Opening Locks, Disarming Traps and tying knots ("Ropework" in D&D 3.5) are all Manual Dexterity.
AC adjustments, Acrobatics and the like are Physical Agility
Initiative and Saving Throw adjustments are Quickness
Throwing/catching/shooting are all hand/eye coordination things, so they come under Accuracy.

Not sure where Balance comes in, since the later D&D editions lumped skills like Tumbling, Balance, Climb etc. into Acrobatics. So maybe we lose Balance as an area, and lump it in with Physical Agility.

Now I intentionally threw a ringer in there: Archery. In D&D, that isn't a Skill, it's a weapon proficiency, and getting better requires levels or an improving Ability Score. Either one of which would let me hit a trash can, which I still can't do.

I bring that up to remind us all that Games <> Real Life. What I did here, comparing real life abilities to game mechanics is questionable at best, and to be taken with a grain of salt.

 

[Horwath]

Four abilities:
Dex stays mostly as it is, STR and CON merged into STR.
INT, WIS and CHA rearanged into two stats, WILLPOWER and CUNNING.

STR:
all current STR and CON saves,
Hit points bonus,
Melee and thrown attack and damage,
carry capacity,
armor type limit,
skills: athletics

DEX:
all dex saves as normal
AC bonus(depending on armor)
Ranged and finesse attack and damage
skills: stealth, acrobatics, sleight of hands/thievery/thieves tools
initiative bonus

WILL:
all current int,wis and cha saves
all spell/magic attack, damage and save DCs,
paladins aura, Inspiring leader feat, monks AC bonus and similar effects

CUNN:
bonus languages, tools or weapon proficiencies. pick one per modifier
all current int, wis and cha skills
initiative bonus

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Dexterity annoys me sometimes. Outside of D&D - Why would the quickest draw be the most accurate shot? Why should the surgeon with great hands be a great acrobat? etc... For example, 2e for Skills and Powers split Dexterity into Aim and Balance.

If you had to split Dexterity into two substats, how would you break these up in terms of theme cohesiveness (not necessarily usefulness balance)?

Acrobatics
Armor Class
Climb Walls
Disable Device
Dodge
Escape Artist
Initiative
Movement Rate
Parry
Sleight of Hand
Stealth
To Hit Melee
To Hit Missile

Thanks for any thoughts!

Agility: "The power of moving quickly and easily." Acrobatics, Armor Class, Climb Walls,* Dodge, Initiative, Movement Rate, Parry,* Missiles.
Finesse: "Extreme delicacy of subtlety in action, performance, skill, discrimination, etc." Disable Device, Escape Artist, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, To Hit Melee.

*I would make these Strength-based rather than Agility-based, personally, but you asked me to assign the given list, so I have.

 

[Rogerd1]

Honestly, you might be better importing from Modern Age which has Focuses. So a high dex, with focus of acrobatics or gymnastic, or surgeon would mean a character is skilled in one particular field. It seems the simpler more elegant solution.

 

[Aldarc]

Inspired by Warhammer Fantasy, Green Ronin's Fantasy AGE splits up the usual stats:

* Accuracy: for weapon attacks with ranged and light weapon groups
* Communication: the talking part of Charisma
* Constitution: endurance, but also includes things like drinking, swimming, and running
* Dexterity: agility, initiative, and manual dexterity
* Fighting: for weapon attacks with melee and heavier weapon groups
* Intelligence: smarts, knowledge, and education
* Perception: sensory data and its interpretation, provides bonus damage to ranged attacks
* Strength: physical prowess
* Willpower: the willpower, morale, and faith part of Wisdom and Charisma

So while it keeps manual dexteriy and agility together, aspects of D&D's Dexterity are found between AGE's Accuracy, Dexterity, and even Perception (i.e., ranged damage). It makes Dexterity less of an omni-stat. (It also helps delineate the murky waters between D&D's mental stats better, namely Charisma and Wisdom, but I digress.)

 

[Horwath]

Honestly, you might be better importing from Modern Age which has Focuses. So a high dex, with focus of acrobatics or gymnastic, or surgeon would mean a character is skilled in one particular field. It seems the simpler more elegant solution.

that would be skills in D&D

 

[NotAYakk]

For all 3 of Str/Con/Dex:

Fitness (balance, muscles per pound)
Size (bigger is tougher/stronger)
Dexterity (hand-eye)

I can think of character types with any one of these high, and the others low to average.

 

[Rogerd1]

that would be skills in D&D

Yeah, but it does not have to be.

It simply says that the character is focused in a particular direction, and by doing so it gives you a +1 on the skill. It basically says they are gifted in a direction instead of a player saying I have high dex so I will automatically be better than someone with equal or lesser dex in a particular area.

Now this focus could be done by making a feat category for it.

 

[Horwath]

Yeah, but it does not have to be.

It simply says that the character is focused in a particular direction, and by doing so it gives you a +1 on the skill. It basically says they are gifted in a direction instead of a player saying I have high dex so I will automatically be better than someone with equal or lesser dex in a particular area.

Now this focus could be done by making a feat category for it.

it does not matter what you call it.

Dex gives you broad or "base" ability. then focuses/skills give extra bonus to more narrow part of that same ability.