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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 7263516" data-attributes="member: 6688937">Well, I'm not opposed to ASIs in the current framework, but I am growing increasingly sceptical of the concept of simulationist-y attributes in general. So I'll take a crack at it.I would propose that the mechanical weight born by the current ability scores be carried instead by class and racial features and a sort of ribbon list to quirk-ify characters. That way, if you want to play a heavy-hitting muscle-mountain of a fighter, you take that tank class and it's baked right in. Have another swashbuckler class for the clever, acrobatic version of fighter, who has his critical abilities baked right in.Similarly, if elves are to be especially graceful, give them an Elven Grace trait and tell me what it does. (Classes would be a smaller and more tightly-defined with fewer internal options than the current system.) That gives an opportunity to make that Elven Grace more impactful than a minor statistical variance from baseline human. (No guarantees on designers using that well.)The quirk list might provide narrower, weaker, or just plain different distinctions. It could even be wrapped into the background idea. However, as much as possible, all of these should avoid having simple mechanical stacking bonuses, especially to combat stats. The Swashbuckler and Manmountain above both have the same basic combat bonuses, but they derive from different narrative sources. (Since we are talking about them as Fighters). The differences become apparent when the Manmountain uses his "Bend Bars/Lift Gates" trait and the Swashbuckler uses his "He's a leaper" ability. Along these lines, I would recommend that the spells also be a descriptor that work within the mechanical confines of the caster class.Sent from my Nexus 7 using <a href="http://r.tapatalk.com/byo?rid=93205" target="_blank">EN World mobile app</a></blockquote>

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