Lephys

Yeah! I mean, that's how reality works, even. The things we discover ALREADY EXIST (same as being hard-coded into some resource file as a discoverable "recipe"), and we uncover them and study them and gain applicable knowledge about them. I mean, the fact that cooking a chicken a certain way, at a certain heat, for a certain amount of time makes it mighty tender and delicious is an existing fact. And we don't just boil water 50 times, then go *DING!*, and magically gain the knowledge of how to cook a chicken properly. The only difference with an RPG like this is that the player shouldn't have to 1:1 literally throw a particular herb or spice onto that chicken, taste it, then say "Nope," and try again with a different one, because complete trial-and-error isn't exactly super fun, and because the game already says we're controlling a character who has his own intelligence and capabilities. So, that stuff can easily be abstracted a bit into a more enjoyable discovery process that's less ultra-tedious. But, not-tedious doesn't mean "takes 5 seconds and is nothing more than a linear progression through a tiered tree of pre-defined recipes that are automatically discovered." Reducing everything to a single progression scale with a blatantly catalogued world full of recipes has been crafting's biggest problem for a while now, in games. And like someone said a few posts back (it might have been you?), the same kind of goes for things like spells and abilities to a more minor extent. I've said it oodles of times: Why can't I cast a variety of fire spells, choosing to use projectiles or jets or heat fields, etc., and choosing speeds or sizes or numbers of projectiles, etc.? Instead of "Fireball... Firebolt... Firewall..."? "You've hit a breakthrough in your understanding of fire magic... and produced exactly ONE single application with this epiphany! 8D!" Such systems have been begging for a dose of organic form for a long time. I mean, PnP rulesets were doing it long ago, because... well, mainly because you can pretty much do almost ANYTHING in a PnP game (governed only by the context of the lore). And I know old 8-bit games probably couldn't do it very well, but, again... Look at Minecraft (pretty simple for a 3D game), and, like you said, look at how much difference a simple change can make; choosing a topic to advance in, and making discoveries based on actual dynamic choices. And look at the effects it can have on the typical equip-it-or-sell-it loot system. Yessssss. Gooooodcellennnnnnnt... *fingersteeple* See... all I'd point out there is this: Is not the value of that weapon in the feat of overcoming the obstacles necessary to acquire such materials, FAR more than it is in the simple act of combining them? I mean, you're not going to take that dragon tail spike, and hammer it out on the anvil like it's just some mundane material, so that everyone goes "OOOOoooh! I can see how good you are at crafting, because LOOK what you managed to do with an impervious/inherently-enchanted DRAGON'S tail spike!" Like I pointed out with some shield example before, if you were to make a shield out of some naturally-occurring creature's armored plate, you wouldn't FORGE it. It'd be a simple matter of cleaning it up, maybe reinforcing it a little, and attaching a handle, pretty much. Something that's made of the emperor's crown ruby of 1,000 tortured souls isn't exquisite because of how expertly you melted that ruby into ingots, then deftly heated and cooled it at PRECISELY the right intervals in between precision hammer-poundings on an anvil. It's exquisite because it's made from a giant magical ruby containing 1,000 tortured souls. It's like everything you did to get that ruby in that state -- the whole bit with the emperor, the whole knowledge gain of infusing it, and then finding a source of all those souls, so that it wound up like it did... not to mention the dragon's tail spike and all that -- WAS the crafting process for that item. I personally couldn't care less who sets my 1,000-souled emperor ruby into a simple metal setting on a staff to which a friggin' dragon's tail spike is fitted. Does that make sense?

Sports is largely muscle memory, but it's also muscle-capability. Muscle-memory is training your muscles to replicate the exact same application of technique consistently. But you must first develop that technique. Someone with a strong arm can throw a football, but it takes a hell of a lot of practice to throw it at the perfect angle, with the perfect spiral, and hit the perfect spot, every time (or most of the time). Yes some people have more talent with that than others. One person might play football for 10 years and become the most accurate passer ever, and someone else might play football for 10 years and still be pretty sloppy at it. Maybe if you give them 10 more years, they'll become almost as good as the first person. Obviously their maximum potentials will differ... but, the point is, NO one is going to play football for only ONE year and be as good or better at passing than the person who did it for 10 years. And even the person who played for 10 years and had talent is going to be out-techniqued by the person who played for 20 and ALSO had talent. That's what I'm getting at. You can't be the only prodigy in the world, so if there's at LEAST one other prodigy in the world, and you're both doing the same thing, and he's been doing it longer than you have, I can guarantee he knows stuff you don't, and can do things to some degree better than you can. You don't get to become the best in the world at anything else. Not even combat. Well, not typically. You may become VERY skilled with a sword throughout the course of an RPG, but there's going to be some foe out there that's "better" than you: a creature that's stronger, or faster, a spellcaster who can do things you can't, a sniper who's far more accurate than you'll ever be. You can't expect to enter some 1,000-year-old-ruins and challenge the nether-creature that's ruled there and feasted on people's souls for hundreds of years and expect to just laugh and go "HA-HAH! I do more damage than you! ^_^". You can't even expect to run into no other non-nether-creature (humanoid, "regular" person) like you who hasn't acquired capabilities that you haven't, or who wasn't born with greater inherent talent than you have, or who doesn't possess far greater experience than you do. So, all I'm asking is that the same goes for crafting. I think in a lot of games, it just gets SO overly simplified. I'm not asking for an actual, in-game representation of the exact process of honing one's forging technique, with hours and hours and hours and hours of trial-and-error spend at a forge, building up control muscles and working the metal JUST right, and holding it JUST in the right spot, heating it for JUST the right amount of time... etc. I don't want to simulate real-life crafting. I just ALSO don't think there's a need to completely throw all things real-life-crafting into the garbage, for the sake of "It's fun to reap the results of horribly-oversimplified crafting! 8D! I just made Zeus's lightning bolt with the click of a button! 8D!" That's all. I think you've touched on the same thing. There have been other crafting threads around here, and people have said things like "You probably should only ever be allowed to make really basic stuff, because you don't have time to hone crafting over the course of an adventure." And I don't agree with that. That's not what I'm trying to say. I think you could probably get pretty good at crafting. Especially if your character's background involves a foundation in crafting, so that it's understood you're not starting from scratch, and learning how to forge metal as you run about from place to place, handling the narrative. But, the story is BLATANTLY only taking place over a very short (relative to people in the world who've been crafting their whole lives, and never stopped to run off and address a world-threatening narrative) amount of time. So, I think it's perfectly fine to have the cutoff point for the player's maximum potential (in the amount of time that the story allows) to be lower than that of some few renowned crafters in the world (with whom the player can interact), as well as ancient/forgotten/beyond-human-potential artifacts and equipment that can be found throughout the world. There's nothing wrong with what you can craft not being comparable to the ABSOLUTE top-tier of existing equipment in the entire universe. I don't need my character to be surpassed by none, be it at crafting or ANY other skill/capability/technique. That's all. I don't know exactly where to cut that off. Depends on a lot of factors. But I agree with the general idea of limiting the player's capability, because the rest of the world is a much older, wiser place than the player's character. And yes, I agree about the "if Blacksmithing is a skill" comment. But, it could very well not be a skill, and, as I said before (a while back somewhere in here), there's the potential for stronghold hirelings to consider. You could essentially play out the smithing system via a blacksmith who works for your party and your stronghold, and progresses as the rest of it does. You run off to tackle a dungeon, and he's busy gaining experience at the forge all the while. Boom. The player still gets to enjoy the crafting, but the character doing the crafting isn't just arbitrarily awesome at smithing because he gains some abstract levels, but because he's working at a forge for 10 hours a day. You bring him new knowledge and techniques from books or what-have-you, and/or new materials to work with, and he applies his skill to that knowledge/material and figures out how best to use it. Now, just because there's a stronghold blacksmith (if there is one, I mean), doesn't mean the entire crafting system has to hinge upon him, and no one else could ever blacksmith. But, again, he (and other smiths/merchants throughout the realm) might be able to produce or sell you equipment and such if you simply choose not to pursue crafting with any characters, and/or produce or sell you (eventually) top-tier equipment that you can't make on your own because you've hit your ceiling. OR, maybe it takes BOTH of you. Maybe you know things he doesn't (you're skilled at smithing, but also at working with rare/soul-magic-related materials, etc., which he's not as experienced with), and he's far more skilled with standard metals/materials and at running the forge than you are. So, only together can you forge a weapon out of some kind of legendary soulstone or something. (it wouldn't be made completely out of it, but it would be incorporated into the design of the weapon somehow, maybe... *Shrug*). It's just one big spectrum of possibilities.

^ Yeah. Even if the results are functionally the same as a list of recipes, just the sheer difference in the process of acquiring them via discovery is much more satisfying and true to crafting than just going through tiers of existing, procurable recipes. Not that the world should be devoid of recipes. Just... I'd rather discover a new way to work with iron, resulting in differences to all iron things I can make, instead of "You now have the recipe for an iron bracer! 8D!" The research in Thaumcraft is blind like that. There are items and materials, and their essences, and the things you research are called "theories" and are essentially comprised of a number of different essences. You put something on your research table, for study, and you study it. If something currently able to be discovered by you (many things have pre-requisites) doesn't use any of the essences of the thing you're currently studying, then, after a couple of attempts at study, the essences will grey themselves out. Basically, you've exhausted your existing knowledge with that essence. Once you study a valid essence (on that's in at least ONE of the invisible theories available for you to discover at the moment), it will pick an available theory at random, out of the pool of ones that use that essence. So, you don't know what you're getting, but, at the same time, you know what essences you're studying. So, if you want to learn more about armor, you can study stuff with the armor/defense essence (this is all just Thaumcraft contextual specifics.) Once you're onto a theory regarding, say, the armor/defense essence, you have to continue to study things that have that essence. So, the essence almost serves a double function (part knowledge, part magical crafting substance). Items still have essence amounts, and that applies to the research as well. So, a piece of leather might have 1 armor essence, while a steel breastplate might have a value of 8 armor essence. Basically, if you're studying a strip of leather, there's less data available towards the nature of protecting things and designing armor. While, the breastplate obviously provides more opportunities to observe the effectiveness of protective design (especially with the knowledge of how the breastplate works). So, studying the breastplate will result in greater percentage gains toward the completion of the armor essence aspect of your current theory than studying leather strips. But both can get you there. Of course, after a certain number of studies, the item gets "used up." Yup, it just goes away. While wonky, it works in the context of Minecraft, because the whole game is pretty much crafting. It's quite easy to whip up 17 steel breastplates just to research with. Anywho, once you get one or more essence aspects to 100% on the current theory, you generally figure out what it is you're onto (some advanced metal allow, or maybe a particular type of armor, or a type of armor enchantment, etc.). This gives you clues as to the other essence aspects involved with the theory. And when you get far enough along (or sometimes at random? I'm not sure, as sometimes it seems like it's set, and sometimes it seems almost random), it flat-out reveals other aspects to you. You still have to get them from 0% to 100%, but, you know to study items with THAT aspect instead of one of the other... I dunno, 40? Again, that's just how it works in Thaumcraft, and I wouldn't at all ask for that EXACT SAME system in P:E. I just think it's very interesting how much more like discovery it feels, even as basic as it is. Many of the theories you discover and research result in MULTIPLE recipes. So, in that way, it's less basic than may other systems. You actually come up with an applicable piece of knowledge, rather than a gamily arbitrary development of just a single object and nothing more. Imagine it like this: You know of ways you'd apply portals, IF YOU COULD MAKE THEM. So you study and study... and suddenly, you hit onto a theory about stabilizing and sustaining magical portals. You research it fully, and now you've got it. Okay, well, now you don't have to research ways in which to use portals. That was the EASY part to design. You can instantly come up with many ways of using them. But, maybe there are further bits of research for very specific implementations of this magical portal technology. Like... (I'm just making all this up for an example, for what it's worth)... defensive portals. You think "What if I could put up a portal outside my stronghold walls, to stop incoming siege weapons/arrows and such, then cause the portal to invert itself, allowing all the enveloped projectiles to exit back the way they came?" Well, now that would be something you'd need to research... to figure out how to get portals to do that. It's not just something you can automatically do with the basic knowledge and functionality of portals. Anywho... I'm sure a much more something-that-would-actually-be-feasible-in-P:E example would've been better than portal technology, but you play the hand you're dealt, I guess, heh. That's what my brain dealt me, and it refused to think of something more practical. All I'm trying to get at is, as far as my experience has shown me in Thaumcraft, the basic functionality of a research system like that is quite pleasant in tandem with the basics of a crafting system and pretty much any RPG's loot/item system. I know Minecraft is Minecraft, but its loot/item system is remarkably similar to that of pretty much any other RPG, to be honest. So, I think observing how the research and uncommon magical-essence-crafting systems interact with that item/loot system is valuable.

I was more thinking of the kind of interaction it would allow OTHERS to partake in: Hooking it with an axe, pulling you off balance. Smashing it with a hammer and bending it inward, so that now you have trouble stepping. I mean, at the very least, it makes you a bigger target than you really are, if a still-not-easily-sliceable one.

@Warren: First of all, nice post. And sorry for inadvertently stealing some of your thoughts before you got a chance to post them, . I didn't mean to. Secondly, to be fair, I never said I didn't want the player to be able to craft some of the best items in the game. I just don't think you should be able to possess the highest amount of deftness at particular active crafting processes in the world. And I think what JFSOCC hit on (the whole "skill versus knowledge" thing) is pretty spot on, really. (Now sort of also @jethro:) It's easy to know how to do something, and completely different to be able to do it well.. Even if I tell someone how to perform open-heart surgery, that doesn't mean they're going to be able to do it without screwing it up. Better yet, look at sports. I know HOW to play golf. It's easy. You swing a club, and strike a ball, propelling it towards a hole. You try to do it as well as possible. A pro golfer could teach me how to golf for two years, and I'd still be pretty-good, at best. Don't ask me why it takes us, as humans, so long to perfect things like that; to get our muscle memory just right, and time everything and perform every action with maximum efficiency and precision. I have no idea. But it does. Also, to clarify, I'm not talking about "mastering smithing" as in "getting to where you don't make swords incorrectly." I'm talking about completing the forging process in the absolute highest-quality fashion in existence. Anywho... could you have a character who, much like pro athletes of today, pretty much started crafting when they were 6 and continued doing so ever since, up until the start of the adventure that takes them away from the forge for the majority of the game's story? Sure. But then, they'd probably be pretty big noobs at pretty much everything else. Maybe not, though. Maybe they focused as much as they could on some form of, in the context of P:E, class-based combat proficiency and/or adventuring capability. The only remaining concern there is: What about that legendary Dwarf who's been at the forge for 60 years, when your character is only like 20-something? Is he not more skilled than you are? There's absolutely NOTHING he could make that you can't, now? Does that make sense? I think that, even if you're allowed to "master" smithing (or a similar artisan craft), the world would still be remiss not to contain experience and skills beyond your own, through the sheer extra amount of time and experience people in the world would obviously have put into it. Sure, maybe your character isn't a little sproutling. But, you know why they tend to be? Because, if you're 70, what the HELL have you been doing all those years if you suck at everything to the point that you're level 1, and can actually progress to something much higher throughout the game? It's hard to progress from a seasoned veteran at life to something better, and progression is one of the main aspects of these games' designs. So, maybe you can even make the equivalent of a Damascus steel blade, and get quite good at it, but there should still be someone out in the world who can make something completely different. And maybe you can find meteorite, and you know that it CAN be forged into a blade, but it's REALLY tricky, and you can't do it. Limitation... the leveling system... there's only SO much you can learn in the game. You can't just infinitely find new materials, and master the nuances of crafting with them. Knowledge-wise OR skill-wise. But, it's sure as hell a lot easier to know and comprehend something than it is to deftly perform a complex task. So, to me, it makes fine sense that you might be able to find and procure legendary meteorite metal, but you'd need to take it to someone even more skilled than yourself to have it properly fashioned into a blade that won't break and chip and bend every time you swing it. Then, maybe you even know how to do more TO that blade -- customize its hilt/guard/pommel, infuse it with soul-magic, attune it to something... who knows. But, why shouldn't you have SOME kind of limitation? And if you're going to have one, why shouldn't it be in SKILL rather than KNOWLEDGE? Like you said: anyone intelligent enough can read or be told about a process and comprehend how it works. But, not everyone can necessarily perform that process with the necessary skill. You could read a book written by a master about martial arts, all day long, and that wouldn't make you a martial arts master. Why is it that people who've practiced martial arts for 50 years are still statistically far more masterful of them than those who've only practiced for 15 years? I have no idea. I'm just observing that fact, is all. I think it's a bit cheap to simply allow your character to just so happen to be the world's greatest prodigy at whatever it is you choose to do, just so the player never has to deal with any kind of limitation. Sure, it's really cool and fun to be able to craft the most legendary sword every heard of in the history of the fantasy realm, but it puts a bit of a damper on all those thousands of years of history and legendary figures and craftsmen when you read about some blade that severed the heavens, and your character just shrugs and says "Yeah... I can consistently make those now, because I'm really good at forging."

Maybe he's just super efficient with his syntax, and the "yay" is meant to apply to both the left AND the right? *Shrug*

That tonlet just seems so unnecessarily awkward and bulky. *shrug*. You'd think it would be more prudent to have something that lies closer to your actual shape rather than flaring out so far.

you should read the skill descriptions better. deflection is a defense vs direct physical attacks. reflexes is a defense vs attacks of opportunity, traps and aoe damage. psyche is a defense against mental attacks and i dont remember the last one so a rogue will easily avoid most of the aoe damage of a fireball and a fighter wont, however if a barbarian is pounding on the fighter's shield with an axe he will barely put any hits in, while he will easily cut the thief in 2. that is the difference between the 2 stats. they do not provide the same defense in a different way, they provide defense against different things I'm sensing a potential misunderstanding here, so I'm going to go with a just-in-case clarification: I could be wrong, but the way I gathered it, each different defense value (Deflection, Fortitude, Reflexes, and Psyche) will only function specifically against the attacks that target that particular defense type. BUT, they won't act as an armor value, or as an elemental resistance in some games (which, I'm sorry if I'm mistaken, but it appears both of you seem to believe it will? -- also, I could be the one misunderstanding the system). If you have 10 Deflection and 25 Reflexes, and the incoming attack has an Accuracy/Attack rating of 20, then the type of attack it is (which defense it's targeting) matters a lot. If it's targeting your Deflection, then the foe has a 10-point advantage in his attack, which I believe translates directly into a 10-point shift in the miss-graze-hit-crit attack scale. So, instead of 5-45-45-5 (respectively, in the event of perfectly matched Accuracy and Defense values), your attacker would get 0-40-45-15. So, whatever attack that is (spell, ability, standard strike, etc.), it can no longer miss completely, it has a 5% lesser chance of grazing, and it gains a 10% chance to crit. Now, instead assume that the attack was Reflex-based. So, the same 20 versus your 25 Reflexes (instead of 10 Deflection) results in a 5-point advantage to YOU, the defender. Shift the scale 5 points in your favor, and you get 10-45-45-0. Your foe has lost his chance to crit, completely, and has a 5% higher chance to miss. So, it's not just a "Warriors' and Rogues' defenses are called different things but all work the same way against every single attack" situation. Which, yes, if it were like that, it would be admittedly quite silly. And I apologize if I saw misunderstanding where there wasn't one. I'm only trying to be helpful, in the event something WAS misunderstood.

I am in full agreement with you here. The key words are "equal in pretty much all circumstances." If that's the case, then either the class system or combat system (or encounter design) is to blame, not the sheer intent of balance. The entire thing hinges upon actually making external factors produce almost a sine wave of effectiveness from any given strength/stat-value/ability/class/etc. Just because the game's design failed to allow high DEX to produce significant differences in gameplay and viable tactics than high CON doesn't mean the two are unable to be significantly distinct, despite affecting generally the same thing -- survivability. So, yes, there is a huge problem to be had there, but I don't see how we can blame something like two stats affecting the same factor when the factor was largely oversimplified in the design. Also agreed. When I think of an entire class (with no more specifics stated) being "weaker," I can't help but think of the latter; unconditional inferiority. That should never happen. It's the same with anything in the game that bears variety. Weapons. If axes ALWAYS do 40% less damage than any other weapon type, then there's an incentive to NOT use axes, ever. So long as it's conditional, though, everything's fine. Agreed, and I fault that method of balancing for that. Sure, spellcasters are pretty insane later on in that ruleset, but the very condition of their non-inferiority is basically a grind; once you've put up with having a sub-par (like you said... overall) party for 7 or 8 levels, their balancing conditional superiority shines. It's at complete odds with the pace of gameplay and the overall combat system, though. "Suck for a while... then pretty much lose the ability to suck" isn't a very tactic-friendly shift, I don't think. That's one thing I love about P:E's design: the caster-types will still have that sort of glass-cannon treatment, but it will be a lot more consistent. They won't be a friggin' cocoon you have to protect for half the game so that a dragon can hatch out of it. Very true. But, if the game doesn't deprive you of alternatives to close combat, then that doesn't automatically equal "you're going to die all the time because you're a back-liner." That's the conditionality (don't know if that's a real word) we've both stated is necessary. If your party runs into 15 close-combat foes that just charge into melee range, then yeah, your behind-the-line-ers are going to be worse for the wear under those circumstances. The reciprocal situation is, of course, encountering 15 ranged combatants, in which case all the close-combat survivability in the world isn't going to help your front-liners. Why? Because the behind-the-line region has suddenly become the front-line, functionally. So, again, you can't have effective balance in your class system without effective balance in your encounters. If you've only got 2 situations (or 95% of the encounters all demand close-combat survivability, for example, from every member of your party) that repeat throughout the entire game, and your class system is built to account for 7, then trouble ensues. That's like designing an engine that needs fuel, then depriving it of fuel. That says nothing bad of the engine's design, because nothing's stopping you from simply supplying it with fuel. Indeed; this is all easier said than done. I realize that. There's always the potential to overcompensate for factors, or improperly balance things to create blatant problems and inadvertently make things boring, etc. But, I firmly believe it's possible to do it all properly, and to great effect. When I see games do it poorly, I don't take that as aggregate evidence as to the design's probability. I take it as additional data to utilize in the continued effort to reach as close as possible to the ideal design, to figure out how close it it's possible to get. If you're mining, and you hit something you can't mine through, it doesn't mean mining is a terrible idea. It simply means that that's not a direction/location in which you can mine to discover whatever there might be in the area. Until you find that you absolutely cannot go in any other direction but back the way you came, there's no reason to assume mining is futile. I know... I'm an optimist. Really, though, for what it's worth, I appreciate your responses. They've helped me think about these things from different angles. I value your exploration of the issue more than some ultimate decision as to whether or not it's a good design intent or a bad one.

CLEARLY racist (why's the obsidian gotta be black?!) u_u... See... Merlkir doesn't see color. He just sees obsidian. A beacon of tolerance, he is. Seriously, though... amazing work, Merlkir! Even if I could somehow match that quality, my inability to really master (er... in my case, amateurize?) anything beyond the mechanical pencil will cause whatever I produce to pale in comparison. *cracks knuckles*... I'm going for it. But, my artwork takes as many minutes as my posts do words. 8P

If they exist in P:E, they should not only be around when they're relevant, or rather, they should be just as relevant as any companion npc. Yes! I was going to say... they should basically be just as much a part of character development as anyone else in the game, rather than just an arbitrary representation of that entity's behavior. "Look, it wants food and wants to play sometimes! But it doesn't really have anything to do with anything at all in the story."

I understand that, and I share that sentiment (regarding a class being "inherently weaker"). The problem, I think, lies in the plethora of interpretations of that, and the disconnect between them. What I'm getting at is that, if picking a Mage gets you through the 100 combats you have to get through to beat the game, and picking a Warrior gets you through the 100 combats you have to get through to beat the game, then you could very easily say "they're equally feasible/useful," so they must be bland and horribly un-unique. Both of them have means of not-dying. Both of them have means of killing things. Both are sufficiently dequate to get through the whole game. And yet, they play COMPLETELY differently. That's kind of the point. See, you don't mind a class being "inherently weaker," but what do you mean by weaker? Would you want a class who, in ANY possible situation imaginable, performs 50% as well as ANY other class in that same situation? I should hope not. So, maybe you want a Wizard to be squishier, but you also want him to possess some compensating circumstantial factor that, say, Mr. Heavy Duty Warrior doesn't have, right? Like the ability to blast 15 things into particles once he gets to higher levels, from a distance. Can a Warrior kill 15 things in a single blast? Nope. But he can also take them on individually or in small groups, face-to-face, without dying to a sneeze. Thus is the nature of variance and balance. You don't want one class to gain 17 abilities per level, and another to gain only 1. Or have one class gain 6 stat points per level, and another gain none. That OBVIOUSLY would be ridiculous. So, that's the kind of "equality" I'm talking about, and that's the kind that's important. Not "when my Wizard attacks, he should be doing the same DPS as the Warrior." No. DPS is ONE factor. Because it's not governed by simply attack speed and damage. It's governed by the situation. How often are things grouped together to be struck by AOE? Depends on the enemy and environment and tactics employed, and some chance. How often are things more susceptible to fire than they are to swords? What if things are attacking from a range? Now the Warrior's ability to not die to a couple sling bullets trumps the Wizard's ability to rain down the apocalypse from the get-go, because the Wizard can't just stay away from his foes to revel in safety. So many factors, and that's what makes it so great. Dynamics. Because nothing dictates that being a front-liner is any better than being a behind-the-lines-er. If you have a party of 6 Ranger archers, you should still be able to get through the game. In some encounters, things are going to be VERY easy, and in others, things are going to be quite difficult. A handful of the encounters in the game (like those epic, optional ones) are probably going to be VERY difficult, and often your path through even necessary encounters/areas will be mandated by your lack of effectiveness without first acquiring better equipment and/or more levels (where another party build might be able to tackle that tough fight/area first -- in a different order). But, that doesn't mean that you just can't take anything on because you're SUPPOSED to have some minimum number of tanks... some specific party makeup, or you just-plain suck across the board. Again, dynamic factors are the beauty of it. If you rock at dodging, but your damage threshold sucks, then you're going to LOVE lower-damage foes who attack really, really fast, and HATE high-damage foes who attack less often. It's a balance. So is the rest of the game's design. If 90% of the game just says "You really just need a crap-ton of damage threshold on your armor, because nothing really ever has high accuracy and/or attacks very rapidly," then you've blatantly imbalanced your game within your own design's context.

True enough. I was simply considering the probability that there are other means of acquiring equipment of at least a certain caliber, besides bossy-type foes. So, the bossy-type foes don't need to be restricted to specific loot simply to eliminate the possibility that your access to a greatsword beyond "Rusty Greatsword of Meh-ness" isn't determined solely by chance. To look at it another way, if 5 different bosses dropped fixed loot, but only one dropped a greatsword, and you happened to only specialize in greatswords, would you suddenly have absolutely no reason to tackle the other 4? Or, even if the loot was fixed and not random in nature, how would you even know what they dropped until you fought against them? Or, once you found out, would it be unacceptable that all of them didn't drop greatswords? OR, what if none of them dropped greatswords, but you could get some awesome legendary greatsword through other means? That's what I was getting at. The world isn't shattered if each playthrough has Grogg the Ogre's renowned weapon potentially being a different weapon. That's all I'm saying. Not "Oh, we could just randomize everything in the game." Also, Hassat is right, in that, if you have.. say... 50 named weapon drops in the game, and they WERE all randomized, the odds of NONE of them being one of a handful of different weapons would be pretty ludicrous odds, for what that's worth.

Ahh. No worries. Sorry that caused confusion. Well, to put it simply, you're pretty much using all those other skills the majority of the time (you're battling, healing, speaking, deciphering ruins, etc.). Then, you spend 5 minutes at a forge here and there, and somehow you're mastering smithing. "I made like 5 iron swords! NOW I KNOW HOW TO EXPERTLY FOLD STEEL!". So, the time abstraction isn't NEARLY as extreme with swordsmanship and healing and language knowledge as it is with crafting, typically. As far as starting as a sort of novice and going all the way to master. Plus, I really think it's a bit silly (in a way... not silly in others, I suppose) for your character to start out at "what's a sword?" skill level. Especially when you're a level 1 Warrior or something, and not a level 1 Infant, who might actually become a Warrior after 5 more years of experience and training. In other words, I don't find it very exciting when the baseline for combat skill is "I MIGHT can swing an object at something else, maybe," and you have to go about fighting slightly angered rats and incompetent bandits until you're actually capable enough to handle feasible worldly threats. Just for what that's worth. But, of course, that brings us to your "what if you start out not as a teenager, and with much more life experience?" point. Which is quite a good one, I might add. I agree, in the same way I was just getting at combat skill. I think that, if you build a character and take some craft as one of your main skills, etc., then it should be assumed that you've had some background in it, and you're not just starting out with "Alright, *rubs hands together*, so what happens when you heat metal, and what's a forge?". BUT, I really don't think you should be able to become the absolute best swordsman in the universe, OR the best smith in the universe. If you're the most skilled combatant in the universe, then everything else is at-or-below your level, meaning you're not really overcoming much. And if you're the best smith in the universe, then all other smiths are, again, redundant. That isn't so much wrong as it is unfortunately less exciting, I think. You could remedy it by just not having other smiths in the world who are that skilled, but then, that would be a bit silly. NO one spends all their time as a smith, instead of doing other things? Why not? And so forth... So, that's just what I observe about such factors and their effects on things. I don't think it's WRONG to allow players to master a craft such as smithing, or that it ruins the game. I just think it's not really ideal, given other factors that, if removed, just trade one problem for another. So, it seems to me that allowing a player's characters to simply become moderately skilled at crafting various things (starting from a potential baseline of "I'm not a complete nooblet at this because I worked as a such-and-such for a few years before setting out adventuring" and developing an appropriate amount of skill in between all adventuring tasks that don't really hone crafting skills at all), then allowing for "I've spent my whole life at a forge, and still work at that forge" NPC crafter characters in the world to satisfy all the masterwork-level-goods needs is a pretty smart plan. That's all. I agree, and that's why you see people not wanting a feasible (albeit still abstracted) amount of effort being required/represented in the mastery of a craft skill in an RPG like this. I simply think that "let NPCs have 'mindlessly repeated' the forging process for the last 40 years and still provide the nicely represented outcome" is a preferable alternative to "let's just skip all that work and pretend it takes some skill point allocations over the course of a few hours to be able to produce magnificently-crafted equipment." Honestly, though, I'd still like to see a game that simply abstracts all that "mindless repetition" of craft-skill honing in a fun and interesting manner. That probably makes me weird, I know... Again, I'm not against crafting mastery. I just think completely ignoring the fact that it requires a QUITE extensive amount of effort (by abstracting it down to a few clicks of the mouse during the player's party's coffee breaks), while simultaneously highlighting the fact that it requires an extensive amount of time and effort (by incorporating NPC characters in the world who have spent the past 60 years not only working at a forge for 10 hours a day, but ALSO studying under some previous master smith for 40 of those years) isn't exactly the most ideal way of handling things, and I seek a better alternative. I forgot about that! Yeah, it actually was rather nice. Again, I think at the very least, it's safe to say that some amount of dynamic component utility is drastically better than 100% static recipes and component uses. It's just that, the entire game is built upon dynamics. You have a character, but it could be any number of classes, depending on what you pick. You're a Fighter? You could use all kinds of different bits of equipment, or specialize in different fighting styles, or take different combinations of skills, or even specialize in things that aren't directly related to your class (like diplomacy/social skills, or Sneakery, etc.). Got an intelligent character? You could handle a given dialogue in A NUMBER of ways. Not just "this is the smart-character dialogue option, and this is the not-so-smart-character dialogue option." Got a kick ability? You could use it to interrupt an attack, OR to reposition an enemy, OR to just deal some extra damage quickly, all depending on the situation. The list goes on. Then you get to crafting. "Want to make a weapon? You can only make an iron dagger. You need 3 iron ingots, and some wood. Yay, now you got better at crafting, and now you can make a BRONZE dagger! Ooooooh! You need 3 pieces of bronze, and some wood. Yay! You're better at crafting! Now you can make an ornate bronze dagger. Yeah, you don't even get to decide HOW it's ornate. It's just one thing. All people in the world who want to make an ornate dagger put this SAME design into it, with this exact same recipe and exact same components. They even work the metal the exact same way, and use the exact same forge tools." Like I said... it's no wonder crafting has such a bad rep. I'll end on some food for thought, regarding the effects of adventurers mastering crafting: Imagine if, in Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship just all made camp, and Gimli said "Wait a minute! Let's go to a forge, and I'll just craft us all resplendent weapons that can harm Nazgul and that all glow blue when orcs are nearby, and that do fire damage, and armor that will protect us from all manner of nasty things!" Instead of the group struggling with what resources they have, and their acquisition of exceptional/enchanted items being something quite significant. (Note: I only chose Gimli as an example because Dwarves probably had the most experience at forges. I realize the Elves were responsible for most of the equipment magic/enchantment. I was just rolling with the "if you can master one thing so quickly and easily via abstraction, why not several things?" notion.)

A valid point. However, it seems like the two are somehow still separate. As in, if you took a single-class-only individual character, and compared it to a single-class-only 6-character party, the differences would be relatively identical to those between a multi-class individual character and a multi-class 6-character party. If that makes sense... o_o. It's just a "seem" thing, heh. I'm no expert. I was never a pert, so I can't be an expert. @Tale: Somehow, you just made me think of something I haven't specifically hit on that irks me about even well-designed multi-class systems: The individual classes in them tend to be riddled with restrictions that make me ask "why couldn't they do more than this in the first place?" Like the "You're a Wizard, so you can't use a sword, but if you were to ALSO take a level in Warrior, you could" example that I made before. That's the sort of thing I mean. It just seems like that restriction is in place for no other reason than to justify the multi-classing options (to clarify, it's ONE aspect of usefulness to the multi-classing to Warrior, in the example). No matter your class, shouldn't you be able, as an individual with arms and motor skills, to wield a sword and learn how to use it, to some degree? So, isn't that sort of independent of class structure? Then, if ALL classes could use a sword, then that no longer becomes a useful choice expansion as the result of multi-classing choices. I guess that's why I question multi-classing so much. There seem to be a LOT of overlaps already, that simply make sense, without a multi-class system. And it seems like you almost HAVE to arbitrarily restrict this flexibility in order to implement a multi-class system without it either screwing things up or essentially trampling the realm of a classless system.

You could just as easily argue that classes being equally useful is somehow bad, as they'll both win about the same amount of battles throughout the course of the game. As if the differences in gameplay and the HOW of it all in any given situation is of no consequence. The fact of the matter is, if you have more hitpoints, versus getting hit less often, each amounts to completely different reactions and tactical approaches to even the very same situation. Why? Because all the enemies aren't the same. The external factors vary. If they didn't, then yes, I'd see the exact flaw that you seem to be getting at. It wouldn't matter which contributed to your ability to survive a given number of attacks: quantity of hitpoints, or dodgeability (for example). But, since the factors you're dealing with change, it DOES actually matter. It's no different from chess. All the pieces can kill all the other pieces, but they're all forced to address the chessboard in a different fashion. No one claims that their differences are rendered moot, simply because they could all ultimately accomplish pretty much the same thing.

Crap... now I'm compelled to produce some artwork. A curse on both your houses!

@Pipyui: At the risk of oversimplifying, I dare say that the best approach is to melt the two into an alloy, and make the game from that. Give shape to opportunities, but allow for the non-linear interaction with them, etc. Look at Legos. You get lots of different block shapes, to put together as you please, but they're also all designed to function together, as opposed to just being a bunch of random block shapes that may or may not actually fit together, but that allow you to do whatever you want. Anywho... excellent post, ^_^

A much-appreciated response. All I can really say to that is, while you're right about multi-class versus single-class-only expanding the choice, to say that's the only dynamic at play is oversimplifying it. And I still hold that the figurative shape is not all that counts. The balancing is a big part of the whole shape versus circumference thing; even if you don't need it to be perfect, there's a minimum to avoid huge problems. If a class combo can take out anything with ease, and a single class struggles with half the stuff in the game, that's too blatant of an imbalance if you ask me. You're literally giving one option objectively more tools in a greater quantity, and more inherent effectiveness (before player skill/tactics/cleverness/efficiency even gets applied) than another option. Why is that a problem? Because a core part of the game is a challenge, save when the player specifically alters the difficulty options himself. Class options and character builds, while allowing for more or less efficiency and/or circumstantial effectiveness, are there to provide a spectrum of variation amongst gameplay experience. It is not at all their task to directly address overall challenge/difficulty, and it would be redundant of them to do so (on top of difficulty options). Also, I say (and yes, this is admittedly a lot of hopeful speculation, as you put it, ) that a single-class-only system isn't mandated to have some set amount of restriction and lack of flexibility in builds, and that a GREAT amount of figurative shapes can be accommodated by just single-class options, without the need for multi-classing. And, again, please heavily consider this: At what point on the flexibility scale does it become more efficient to simply abolish class boundaries all-together than to maintain them? At a certain point, your class becomes insignificant, as your character is really just an assorted cluster of abilities and properties. I'm truly not trying to argue that multi-class systems are inherently crap or anything. If you design the game properly, almost the same amount of variety and flexibility can be achieved via either a single-class system OR a multi-class system, really. True, the multi-class system will always have more variety, but, how much of that, above what can potentially be offered by a quite-flexible single-class system, doesn't fall within the "this might as well be a class-less system" range? That's my thoughts on the matter, at least. Mainly just things I think are worth a lot of consideration, whichever system you go with.

... I'm sorry? Come again? Could you please point toward some evidence that their intention is to have two attributes that perform the same function? If anything, I'd say it was the opposite, and would expect legitimate concerns to be of the oversimplification of it. Yet you seem to actually be saying that they're going to overly redundantize the system? Just double all the attributes as compared to typical stat systems? I really, truly would appreciate elaboration here. I'm just missing what you're getting at.

I don't understand what this is in response to. I wasn't suggesting anything regarding a necessity for the same person performing both jobs, or even anything related to problems arising from such. I was merely comparing an actual master smith and the efforts and schedule that got him there with a narrative RPG adventurer who's dealing with problems 24/7. You can't START as a master smith, because that goes against the whole progression dynamic, and you can't FINISH as a master smith because you're too busy not doing anywhere NEAR the amount of smithing that is required for one to master smithery and forge renowned weapons and armor. On top of that, unless your character is the only person in the world who has mastered smithery, other master smiths must exist in the world, and if they spent 30 years of constant, everyday smithing to get where they are, and they're in the game and can sell you renowned equipment, and you reach mastery in a year (perhaps?) of in-between-quest smithing, where does that leave ANY kind of consistency in the lore/story/setting? OR in the gameplay? "You can buy this fan-TAS-tic sword that only this guy can make 'cause he spent his whole life smithing, OR you can just make it yourself after you level up a few times." That's the only point I was making there. I'm all for abstraction, but not blatant paradox. "Only a handful of people in the world have mastered this art after spending their entire lives at it, so their works are so amazing for this very reason, but then also you can just master and produce the exact same thing, so their works aren't really all that amazing and/or purposeful in their existence." I honestly don't know what sparked your specific reply (and I'm not saying that to be condescending). If it's the way I worded something, please point it out to me, as I seem to be missing it completely. Or, maybe I missed the point you're trying to make? No, I'm not really thinking too small, but I can see why you thought that. I was simply referencing the typical smallness of most existing games' rune/gemstone sets. They tend to be very small, and very uni-facted. I agree that if you have great enough numbers of components, and enough different slots for different ones/different factors, you can create a quite enjoyable set of possible results. The only other important factor there is that, if it's crafting, it needs to work/feel differently from mere obtaining. It's dumb when it's mere happenstance that you "made" this particular thing, instead of looted it, or bought it. I think crafting, of all things, demands emergent elements. At the very least, one thing I love about the whole essences thing (at least in Thaumcraft) is that, I can make the same thing out of OODLES of ingredients. I need 6 Fire and 4 Magic essence? Well, anything that's magical has magic essence, and anything that's fire-based (or flammable in nature) has fire. So, in the case of Thaumcraft, to get that 6 fire, I could use a couple chunks of coal, or some Fire crystal shards, or a bunch of cooked meat, or a bunch of heatscar spider silk, etc. But, the even GREATER thing is, each of those things has OTHER essences than just fire. So, if I want to make something with, say, cloth/fiber essence, AND I want to make something with fire essence, do I use the spider silk up to get the fire essence I need? Or do I save it for the cloth item? Do I go ahead and make something? Or do I wait until I have things that fulfill my essence needs much more efficiently? The other neat thing in Thaumcraft was Flux. Basically, If you have extra essence in your crucible when you make something, it just gets released into the ether, essentially, as flux -- disturbance in the magical aura of the immediate environment. So, it was something to manage, without being doomsday or anything. If you just needed fire essence, you'd think twice about breaking down an item that has Fire, Life, Darkness, AND Plant essence. Because then you generate a lot more flux than if you used an item that JUST had fire essence, or only had one other essence. Anywho, I know what works in the context of Minecraft is not what works in the context of P:E. I just think it's amazing to have a crafting system that ACTUALLY lets you make decisions and feel like you're using tools at your disposal, rather than just either following a linear path, or not. Almost everyone who dislikes crafting in these games cites how much of a chore it is. "If I want to make a such-and-such potion, I HAVE to go find 6 more of this herb, and 3 more of this spider gland, etc.". Well, what if you just needed certain types of components (maybe essence, maybe something different?)? And most items you found actually served multiple purposes? Now, instead of "this particular hard-coded item and THIS particular hard-coded item form the recipe for THIS other thing you want!", you get "here's what you ultimately need to make an item of this type, now you figure out all the different ways in which you can achieve that, and what the differences are." The same goes for non-magic crafting. I think using different styles of hilts/guards/blades/materials in combination should produce various different resulting weapons, for example. Runes, no matter how many you have, just feel like cookie cutters. I'd rather have shapeable dough in the game, then the means by which to shape the dough. Rather than "Okay, here's all the shapes in the game for the dough. Pick and choose." I want go figure out how to make a star cookie, rather than going "OH, well, obviously I use this star-shaped cookie cutter right here." I know ultimately it's all just a hard-coded "recipe" list, essentially. But, having dynamic overlaps in the ability to create even the same item, for example, drastically helps it feel a lot better. After all, I should be able to make a shield in a variety of different ways. Not just "metal ingots plus forge = shield." Oh, hey, a chitin shell from some animal! Maybe if I cut it a little, and scrape the gunk off of it, and apply some kind of resin/hardening coating and affix a grip and strap to it, it'll make an excellent shield!" It's the difference between figuring out how to get to a treasure chest, and just finding the contents of a chest lying on the floor. Or, as I've said before regarding crafting, look at combat. In combat, there are a PLETHORA of ways in which to accomplish the same thing, such as lighting a foe on fire. There's not just ONE recipe for burning a foe, like "cast Fireball, and that's the only way!". Imagine how lame combat would be if that were it? Nothing else burns a foe. Just the spell Fireball. Well, the same goes for crafting. Why should there be ONE thing that allows me to make my sword do more damage, or allows my armor to protect me from arrows? This one rune... It's just so bland. It's not crafting. It's simple procurement and application. And even if the destination is often quite nice, the journey blows. "Yayyy! I read a list, got all those things, and then clicked a button!" No wonder people tend to think it's a chore. Each recipe is little more than a fetch quest.

But the people who became master smiths weren't traveling around hunting dragons and traveling from coastline to coastline, foiling political plots and running from assassins their whole lives. They were largely working full-time as a smith, in one town or another, practicing every single day via actual production. So, yes, I'm totally fine with characters being allowed to make weapons and armor. But I do feel it's a bit extreme to say "You can literally forge the greatest sword the land has ever seen, through sheer metal-working mastery of your hammer and forge... on your lunch break in between running errands for that guild and figuring out a way to obtain that artifact from those ruins so you can save the world." By the same token, while I'm all for any system (like the rune-type systems) that lets you further customize your stuff with an array of options, I'd prefer crafting systems that let you actually CRAFT things. Rune systems just feel really, really rigid. Like "Don't worry... I know there are only 10 different runes, and so that's basically just 10 effects, and if you apply them to things, they get those effects, but it's all nice and wrapped neatly, design-wise! All balanced and everything!" You don't really get to explore crafting options. The major thing that most crafting systems are missing is a feeling of uniqueness. It hardly ever feels like you made things your own way. It's very much the same, in that respect, as character builds. If there's hardly any variance in what you can choose or how you can progress your abilities and feats and such, then it just feels like you're a cookie-cutter. It doesn't feel significant. Like... whatever you do out of the options with which you're presented, you're not really going to affect much. And sure, that's easily balanceable and everything, but MAN is it bland. So, yeah, while I'd like to be able to make a sword instead of buying it, I also don't want crafting to just feel like some alternative to money. "Well, if you don't have the money, but you have the stuff, you can also obtain that thing you can buy." I want to be able to craft things that I can't buy (or that are quite rare to buy), and I want to be able to craft DIFFERENT things in DIFFERENT ways. Things that are significantly different because of my choices. I want someone else who plays the game to go "Oh, hey, that's pretty clever." And not "Oh, I see, you went with an ice sword instead of a fire sword. I did fire instead." So, yeah, that's pretty vague; there are a number of ways in which to achieve this. But, I'd like for it to be achieved. And, basically, if we can't become ultra-master smiths, I don't want the entire crafting system to consist of getting up to pretty-decent arms and armor (all of which could just be bought from other smiths/merchants), and that's it. OR maybe also having some runes (which can all also be bought by merchants) that you can plug into them. Hence my observation of Minecraft's Thaumcraft mod, in which it's actually pretty fun to make things via magic/alchemy (which is a common counterpart to simple, physical crafting in a lot of games). I just think we can at least draw from the idea behind that, if not copy the exact mechanic. And, like I said, it gives a LOT of typically junk-except-in-VERY-specific/limited-situations items an actual purpose (you can break swords down to get some kind of metal/ore essence, then reassemble that into some new type of ore chunk. THEN, you can make even a basic sword out of THAT ore, and it's got different properties from the get-go than an iron sword. Maybe you can then break other things down and enchant/infuse the sword with different properties or abilities. It's just got the potential to be a very robust system. In other words, as fine as gemstone/rune socketing systems are, I think we can go above and beyond.

Coming in with a goldilocks and the three bears here (too hot, too cold), I think it probably should at least be restricted to a particular type of item, to support the narrative (when it matters). If some troll bandit lord is notorious in the area (in the story), and he's so successful and feared because of some iconic, fearsome weapon he carries with a specific name, I think he should probably always drop a weapon with that name with similar properties (the same general theme, at least), rather than one time he drops some loincloth or something instead of a weapon ("but hey... at least it's still a +5 item! 8D!"). But, yeah, I don't think it's necessary at all to restrict anything to ONLY the same exact item every time. For what it's worth...

Verrrry carrrefully... Or... soullll magggiiicccc!!!

Are you suggesting that somehow the survivability of high DEX and the survivability of high CON will be identical in effect? Like, if you have 18 of either one, you'll just stand there and survive hits in all the exact same situations? And if not, how is this a flaw? How is ANY difference in build not simply an alternative to something else? "I can't always fight the hostiles as well, but sometimes I can talk my way around the situation, making the fight easier by luring certain ones away or splitting them up, etc." "I'm really good at fighting, but I don't have good Charisma and Intelligence, etc., so I can't really gather info very well or utilize that to score advantages in situations." "I can do lots of damage from a range, but if they get close to me, I die quickly." "I do lots of AOE damage, but I can't take on single targets as effectively." That's the very nature of character creation point-allocation limits. There are X things, and you can only take X - N of them, whatever the combination. Essentially, for every point of betterment in ONE aspect you lose, you gain a point of betterment in another. The ONLY thing different about the idea behind P:E's attribute system as opposed to many existing ones is that they've tried to get rid of the things that don't really fit that equation very well. They don't want dropping one stat to 3 to result in significantly LESS of a loss than the gain of raising another stat to 18 (using DnD numbers for example). I don't see what's wrong with making sure a 3 point loss in one stat is as equally potentially significant as possible to a 3 point loss in any other stat. As opposed to "Oh, you're a Wizard? Well, you can either take Strength, and carry more, and still suck with melee weaponry compared to everyone else in existence, or you can take Intelligence, and... you know... not be denied most of your best Wizard-only abilities. Hmmmm... which will you choose?!" Basically, they're just trying to remove hard class ties to stats. You still have variation. You can still make a gimped character, if you really want, I'm sure. What I should say is, they haven't yet said that you can't. If you're not allowed to have random dice-roll values to make a character (allowing for a fluctuation in the total stat points you're dealing with), then you won't be able to make a gimped character. Otherwise, you will. That has nothing to do with whether or not each stat is significant in its own aspect or not. If you build a Fighter with low Dex (or whatever determines accuracy) and Strength (or whatever determines power), guess what? Gimped character. He'll probably be pretty good at other things. Maybe he'll even get some cool tactical bonuses because of Intelligence or some such, and/or he'll be really clever and apt at persuasion and situation-handling. He'll still be able to deal damage and slay things, but he won't be a powerhouse. And if a Wizard takes low Power (or whatever it'll be), HE'LL be the same way, with respect to his own class abilities. That's the only difference. A single stat will now affect the potency of both classes, instead of one affecting the potency of one class and doing zilch for another (for the class... not the character). Aside from that, we're waiting on the actual details. But, the intent they expressed was merely to have a more streamlined stat system, so that it's POSSIBLE to actually utilize various stats with any given class without simply pretending you're not a completely infeasible character at that point. So no, I don't comprehend all the "Oh no! It's failproof!" hullaballoo. It's not failproof. At least, not by its general design. Again, they could have 6 stats, that each max out at 10 points, and give us 50 points to allocate. So, then, it would be pretty failproof. But, that's true of any system. They could also give us 5 points, and then we'd always suck, no matter what. But, that's called nonsensical design, and I like to think the dev team is competent.