Attributes - Fixed or Increasing?

[Morgulon the Wise]

Hell, two pages of posts within only 2 days. Those were the days I guess.

 

I alway liked the idea that the actual attributes wouldn't be the is-state of your character, but would more or less define the potential that a character has and what maximum he can reach through natural ways of training. But the is-state attributes could grow with each level then, nothing against that. 

 

 

Speed is dependent on force.

There are fast muscles and more resilient muscles though, so I think it's legit to abstract the whole thing into kind of strength and flexibility/mobility/dexterity/speed/whatever. Maybe if you're not so strong and use a two-handed hammer, it should slow you down. But just because you are strong enough to wield a heavy hammer, shouldn't mean that you have a higher natural speed then say, someone who can only fight with daggers due to low strength.  

 

You're right there. Only fast-twitch-muscles are for speed.

I only didn't want to open a new category like: speed (fastness altogether) moving speed, thinking speed/casting speed, talking speed  8P

 

First I thought speed defines mostly through muscles and you have to force yourself to activate them in a fast way. Swinging a dagger really fast is also a very offensive skill although some flexibility helps a lot since you get faster through accustomization to the movement. It is even possible to develop techniques to speed things up.

At least in my opinion speed has too many factors to be an sole attribute. I don't like games like TES where you can raise your speed via attribute points.

 

 

But I hope that my system is clear otherwise.

For example what attributes do you need to hit an aim with a bow? Force lets you move your string and helps with maintaining the other processes, resources like wisdom give you the opportunity to aim at vulnerable parts, endurance gives you a constant output, flexibility makes all the movement smooth, maybe more effective(less clumsy) and makes you imagine one or two tricks and perception might help with moving targets or shows you wich part of the enemy looks most vulnerable at the given time, for example if he has a hole in his armor you can try to aim for it.

Edited June 10, 2013 by Morgulon the Wise

[Iucounu]

You're right there. Only fast-twitch-muscles are for speed.

I only didn't want to open a new category like: speed (fastness altogether) moving speed, thinking speed/casting speed, talking speed  8P

Actually, imo an attribute that affects casting speed would be quite cool. Even  though it might make things much harder to balance. I don't know any game that implemented something like that.

 

 

First I thought speed defines mostly through muscles and you have to force yourself to activate them in a fast way. Swinging a dagger really fast is also a very offensive skill although some flexibility helps a lot since you get faster through accustomization to the movement. It is even possible to develop techniques to speed things up.

At least in my opinion speed has too many factors to be an sole attribute. I don't like games like TES where you can raise your speed via attribute points.

What your system fails to accomplish imo, is to differentiate the strong clumsy type, from the small speedy type. So I think another attribute wouldn't be bad, or build it somehow else in. Flexibility sounds good, but a heavyweighted type can have it just as a lightweighted type.

 

 

But I hope that my system is clear otherwise.

 

 

For example what attributes do you need to hit an aim with a bow? Force lets you move your string and helps with maintaining the other processes, resources like wisdom give you the opportunity to aim at vulnerable parts, endurance gives you a constant output, flexibility makes all the movement smooth, maybe more effective(less clumsy) and makes you imagine one or two tricks and perception might help with moving targets or shows you wich part of the enemy looks most vulnerable at the given time, for example if he has a hole in his armor you can try to aim for it.

Don't like wisdom to affect your ability to aim at vulnerable parts much, that's rather something I'd associate with somthing like cunning, but I guess wisdom is ok if you interpret it that way. Other stuff sound all good, if it's not the only factor that affects the respective ability. 

Edited June 10, 2013 by Iucounu

[mcmanusaur]

 

You're right there. Only fast-twitch-muscles are for speed.

I only didn't want to open a new category like: speed (fastness altogether) moving speed, thinking speed/casting speed, talking speed  8P

Actually, imo an attribute that affects casting speed would be quite cool. Even  though it might make things much harder to balance. I don't know any game that implemented something like that.

 

I think the original Guild Wars had something like this for the Mesmer class; possibly other MMO's have done so as well.

 

 

On a general note, I see the appeal of the generalized attribute system described above (what I predicted we'll see, and which Morgulon has discussed), in that there aren't any pointless dump stats for different classes, but I still think you sort of lose some definition with the level of abstraction required to merge physical and mental strength into a single power attribute, and so on. It may be a slippery slope before it becomes something like this for every class, especially given the build variety PE is aiming for:

[attribute you should max for a dps build]

[attribute you should max for a tank build]

[attribute you should max for a utility/skills build]

[attribute you should max for a crowd control build]

Where this pattern applies to every class... sure it's very direct, but to me it would be a very boring game.

[Ulquiorra]

Im a big fan of gothic type of atributes.

 

You have all at for example base 10 and by gaining levels you decide witch of those you shoud sped ...

[Iucounu]

[attribute you should max for a dps build]

[attribute you should max for a tank build]

[attribute you should max for a utility/skills build]

[attribute you should max for a crowd control build]

Where this pattern applies to every class... sure it's very direct, but to me it would be a very boring game.

Different feats/skills that make use of attributes in different ways are a good way (only way?) to solve this. The whole D&D 3.0/3.5 games had plenty of that stuff.

Like intelligence for defense, wisdom for defense, charisma for damage etc.

[Morgulon the Wise]

Gothic (1&2) had : STR, DEX, HP, MP and various extra skills

If there weren't limitations through your class you could have developed easily into a Jack of all trades.

 

Ah and I like the attributes mostly FIXED. Only changeable through profound effects which change the whole personality (with a reasonable narrative background. I distance myself from an earlier quote:

 

 

(for every event every group member gets one free point to distribute)

 

I think it should be dependant on the choices you made, not free distributable.

 

 

 

On a general note, I see the appeal of the generalized attribute system described above (what I predicted we'll see, and which Morgulon has discussed), in that there aren't any pointless dump stats for different classes, but I still think you sort of lose some definition with the level of abstraction required to merge physical and mental strength into a single power attribute, and so on. It may be a slippery slope before it becomes something like this for every class, especially given the build variety PE is aiming for:

[attribute you should max for a dps build]

[attribute you should max for a tank build]

[attribute you should max for a utility/skills build]

[attribute you should max for a crowd control build]

Where this pattern applies to every class... sure it's very direct, but to me it would be a very boring game.

 

 

Maybe my bow explanation was too vague and abstract. All of these factors in firing a bow are also possibilities where skills could be embedded to enhance the performance of firing a bow. Every class has other approaches and craftsmanship how to deal with their world. A mage could also shoot arrows with a bow (Yay, we're not in D&D ^^) but he will not have the interest to refine the skills with it (although he could shoot exploding fire arrows!) This variety of approaches in every class should be able to break though the pattern you mentioned.

 

What I like in my attribute system is that it isn't a system which only refers to battle roles ( as dps, tank, etc. ) but depicts rather a personality of the character with its traits: directness, calmness, flexebility and wariness. Or his aim: control/result, reliability, innovation/adaption, low risk/caution.

 

At least you could see them also as 12 attributes... wich would automatically be confusing

Edited June 10, 2013 by Morgulon the Wise

[Iucounu]

In Night of the Raven, you had trouble to even get one attribute above 100 without whole lot of magical supplements. What you could adapt, is that attributes became more and more expensive, the higher they were. I think at 120 in a attribute you had to spend six learning points/attribute point, while at the beginning the ratio was 1/1. This is how it should be imo: In the beginning, very fast progress, at the end, very slow (at least when it comes to attributes). This also kind of emulates the border of what is achieveable for a human being in a very elegant way. 

The magical supplements, alchemical potions and stuff, to even have a chance against regular orcs was something I found very cool. Though for a party rpg, it's probably a bit too much.  

Edited June 10, 2013 by Iucounu

[mcmanusaur]

Gothic (1&2) had : STR, DEX, HP, MP and various extra skills

If there weren't limitations through your class you could have developed easily into a Jack of all trades.

 

Ah and I like the attributes mostly FIXED. Only changeable through profound effects which change the whole personality (with a reasonable narrative background. I distance myself from an earlier quote:

 

 

(for every event every group member gets one free point to distribute)

 

I think it should be dependant on the choices you made, not free distributable.

 

 

 

On a general note, I see the appeal of the generalized attribute system described above (what I predicted we'll see, and which Morgulon has discussed), in that there aren't any pointless dump stats for different classes, but I still think you sort of lose some definition with the level of abstraction required to merge physical and mental strength into a single power attribute, and so on. It may be a slippery slope before it becomes something like this for every class, especially given the build variety PE is aiming for:

[attribute you should max for a dps build]

[attribute you should max for a tank build]

[attribute you should max for a utility/skills build]

[attribute you should max for a crowd control build]

Where this pattern applies to every class... sure it's very direct, but to me it would be a very boring game.

 

 

Maybe my bow explanation was too vague and abstract. All of these factors in firing a bow are also possibilities where skills could be embedded to enhance the performance of firing a bow. Every class has other approaches and craftsmanship how to deal with their world. A mage could also shoot arrows with a bow (Yay, we're not in D&D ^^) but he will not have the interest to refine the skills with it (although he could shoot exploding fire arrows!) This variety of approaches in every class should be able to break though the pattern you mentioned.

 

What I like in my attribute system is that it isn't a system which only refers to battle roles ( as dps, tank, etc. ) but depicts rather a personality of the character with its traits: directness, calmness, flexebility and wariness. Or his aim: control/result, reliability, innovation/adaption, low risk/caution.

 

At least you could see them also as 12 attributes... wich would automatically be confusing

 

Right, I sort of understand what you mean with the bow thing now, but I guess the question then becomes whether at some point there ceases to be a point in changing a char's attributes. Power might affect damage per attack, perception might affect chance for an attack to hit, and finesse might affect speed of attacks, but ultimately if we measure characters' performance in damage per second, there's not a lot of point in switching a point in power for one in finesse. That is unless we want to optimize our build for certain battle situations in which quicker but weaker attacks might be more effective than slower but stronger attacks, or vice versa. But I suppose the alternative is min-maxing and pointless dump stats, and I guess this is an issue with the abstraction of allocating points to attributes in general.

Edited June 10, 2013 by mcmanusaur

[Morgulon the Wise]

You got the point that there IS a difference between the varietys of output. Also don't forget that recources are in every way a defensive stat. Perception is mostly for protection (awareness/caution) and flexibility/finesse is good for everything but has to be used actively.

 

so on the other hand only power is solely for output, perception helps passively  and flexibility also has to be actively used for output (but might need high power for constant high results. Good perception and flexibility might help to get some really devastating "crit hits". Power without finesse is just dull bashing.If your character has much power and a good perception he might have good chances to evade, but he would lack finesse to hit the vulnerable spots he sees.

 

In a dialogue power is needed to persuade and intimidate. Ressources (faith/belief) make you strong against intimidations and questions from others your answers wont be limited through their influence on you. Charisma gives you extra opportunities and makes you credible. Awareness/emphasis lets you see more of the others intentions and actions while they speak, you get more deciphered text.

Edited June 10, 2013 by Morgulon the Wise

[Lephys]

The "Speed only comes from certain muscle Strength" thing made me think, once more, about the idea of deriving most specific "ability" values from multiple stats/attributes rather than just single ones. Regarding the speed issue, you could have both Strength AND Dexterity contribute to Speed, with Dexterity representing, primarily, precision, and Strength representing raw muscle power. So, basically, the person with 17 STR and 17 DEX would have a higher speed than both the person with 10 STR and 17 DEX AND the person with 17 STR and 10 DEX. Maybe, though, at a certain point, more STR or DEX doesn't help you unless the other stat is raised, as well. With each pair of stats providing a different effect, you could still gain SOMETHING from higher DEX or higher STR, individually, but you simply wouldn't gain Speed without raising both.

 

I don't know what exact math to even start with on that. Just the idea of it. Maybe 17 STR and 10 DEX means 10 Speed. That's a simple starting point to tweak from, I guess (for example's sake). So, to get 17 Speed, you'd need both stats to be that high. Or, maybe the difference between them simply gets halved. So, 18 STR and 14 DEX gives you 16 Speed. (I think Josh said they're going to be using decimal values for calculations in game, so maybe even 15.5 and such would work.)

 

And, for another example (one I've made before), you could have both INT and DEX derive your Critical Hit factors. INT would allow you to better identify weak points/"plans" to get to weak points, whereas DEX provides you with the hand-eye coordination/physical capability of striking the intended points more often. You could even split it, if you so chose, between DEX boosting critical strike chance and INT boosting critical strike damage multiplier (as you're finding better weak points to strike and better ways in which to more effectively strike them). *shrug*. Just an example to show how it could work. I haven't done much hashing out to see how such specifics would work with the rest of the game.

 

But, I know Josh has already mentioned trying quite hard to eliminate clear dump stats, etc. I think a system in which combinations of stat/attribute values in conjunction determine your effective abilities supports that better than one that relies on individual stats. Not to mention you have more control over the specifics of your character's strengths and weaknesses. Just with the example above, if you wanted a MAX Speed character, you'd have to sacrifice some INT (or some other stat), so you'd lose out on Critical Damage Multiplier. OR, you could go with high INT and STRENGTH, and simply lose out on some Speed and Critical Strike Chance.

 

As for how stat selection/progression will work, while I'm still not against rare stat progression (namely tied to narrative events or significant happenings/choices), I think I'd maybe rather see purely fixed stats, but with bonuses to specific stat-affected values via progress. For example, instead of gaining Endurance when your character undergoes some rigorous event (maybe you're tortured for a week in a dungeon?), you simply gain maximum Stamina? Or Stamina Regeneration, or some kind of Resistance? Or, instead of gaining Intelligence or Wisdom, you gain a Casting Time Reduction, or Greater Arcane Resistance?

 

I think there's actually very little need for our actual attributes to ever increase, since the whole goal of that is to cause some effect. After all... you don't deal damage with your Strength value, but rather with a modifier based on Strength. So, why not just augment the modifier and let your Strength still represent how overall strong you are? This provides much more contextual bonuses (instead of applying a bonus to ALL things based on that stat). AND, it allows stat-reducing ailments to remain scary. If you can increase your Strength by 5 throughout the game, then, later on, you've got to increase any kind of Weakness effect there is. But, then, while that is great for your 20-Strength Warrior, who now has 25-Strength and gets drained by 5 Strength, if that hits, say, your Rogue, who still only has 11 Strength, he now can barely swing his dagger at anyone. Whereas, if your Strength remains static, then you could have a -3 or so penalty from Weakness effects, and your Warrior is ALWAYS going to feel that -3. He's never going to say "Oh well, I have 5 more points of Strength than I did earlier on, so it's really like a +2 still." He can't evolve BEYOND the Weakness effect and shrug it off.

[Morgulon the Wise]

I like your fixed+modifier system! it only could become a bit confusing in the later game if you get 100+ permanent modifiers per character ^^

slightly changes in a decimal place of an attribute might be less funny but much more clear.

 

Still since I want an abstract system there will be some things which are only tangible through modifiers. Which still shouldn't be permanent.

[Lephys]

Well... yeah... you probably just shouldn't gain 100 permanent modifiers. Problem solved, haha.

 

Really, though, I think they should still be quite limited. I just think it's more natural to gain bonuses to certain things than THE ENTIRETY OF ENDURANCE! You know, like... you listen to someone talk for 5 hours, without freaking out or walking away. Suddenly, you gain 10 hitpoints.

 

Hmmm... a good example is Pathfinder (well, D&D in general, I suppose, since I'm sure there've been oodles of instances of this type of thing throughout... but I'm playing Pathfinder right now, so... stick to what I somewhat know, haha).

 

As a Wizard in Pathfinder, when my familiar is "within arm's reach," I get a +2 to Perception checks and a +2 to Sense Motive checks. I don't get +1 Wisdom (Even though it's temporary and not permanent.) As an Elf, I get +2 to Perception checks.

 

See, granting a straight-up improvement to Wisdom wouldn't be prudent, unless you wanted to give me a bonus to literally everything encompassed by Wisdom. Keep in mind, the permanent stat-increase thing tends to happen multiple times per game. So, now you're trying to balance your game against those possibilities (Does this person take 1 point in each stat, for a total of 6 points? Or does he take 6 points in Dexterity, so that he gets like +3 AC and +3 to-hit with ranged weapons, AND an additional +3 to all DEX-based skill checks?). Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that. It's just... I dunno. Seems like you generally don't want to give a bonus to everything a stat encompasses, yet you still want a stat to encompass all those things. *shrug*

 

The best D&D example I can think of is Charisma: Why give a character a bonus to Charisma (and therefore also to beauty/attractiveness) when you really just want to increase their ability to Persuade/Inspire via speech?

 

To put it another way, I think skills and prowess in certain areas improve naturally a lot more often than overall strength or overall Intelligence or overall Endurance, etc., do.

Edited June 11, 2013 by Lephys

[Morgulon the Wise]

Ohh c'mon 10 hitpoints.

 

Imagine...

A wonderful blooming maiden joins your group. She is very timid and wholehearted but has as a mage quite the problem to cast a decent fireball. Since she has the knowledge of quite a lot protective spells you let her be for a while. Some campfires and adventures later you get to know about her dream of singing in front of an old and legendary orlan cipher who can hear the souls most deepest wish. But she is shy and there is a long way to go until you get that bastard who didn't pay his taxes at all on his knees right in front her. She sings after you had to persuade her... he is pissed off from the situation but whispers the wish into her ear. Now she has an aim in her life which you don't know, but she gained something... she traded a dream for another but she did overcome herself and is now ... sure what she wants, what she is doing.

You might have to buy new protective gear against her new fireballs now.

Edited June 11, 2013 by Morgulon the Wise

[curryinahurry]

 

To put it another way, I think skills and prowess in certain areas improve naturally a lot more often than overall strength or overall Intelligence or overall Endurance, etc., do.

 

 

^ This.  One thing that I never really liked about D&D was the tying of attributes to classes to feats & skills.  I think the reverse, in terms of causality, makes a great deal more sense; work on certain skill sets and you get better at them.  The resultant changes in attributes can happen occasionally, or even circumstantially.  

 

Since PE isn't being based on a tabletop RPG, I would imagine that the skill checks could wind up getting quite complicated at times, which is fine.

[Karkarov]

Well said it before... say again... this isn't D&D so we don't know enough about stats and how they will work to know if a fixed or scaling with level system will work best.  If it is going to end up being a similar system to D&D where stats are mostly fixed and rarely increase there should be no rolling involved.  Just give everyone perfect middle stats (say 10 out of possible 20) in all stats, add in racial mods, and then give them X number of points to distribute plus the ability to lower the stats already in place if wanted.

 

But mostly just to be sure it is out there.... please, no rolling.

[TrashMan]

I find it simpler to blance so that NOT having an attribute sufficiently high is a problem.

 

If types of attacks that are defended against with attribute X are frequent enough, then not having decent scores in that attribute gimps EVERY character.

 

Willpower for a barbarian? Get charmed, stunned, confused often.

 

Also, is it really necessary to completely avoid min-maxing and dump stats? It can lead to some fun characters too, and there are characters out there whop are...not well-rounded.

[mcmanusaur]

I find it simpler to blance so that NOT having an attribute sufficiently high is a problem.

 

If types of attacks that are defended against with attribute X are frequent enough, then not having decent scores in that attribute gimps EVERY character.

 

Willpower for a barbarian? Get charmed, stunned, confused often.

 

Also, is it really necessary to completely avoid min-maxing and dump stats? It can lead to some fun characters too, and there are characters out there whop are...not well-rounded.

 

To me the issue is when an attribute is so fundamentally useless for any single class that every build will minimize it, there's very little point in including it for that class. Ideally most attributes would be relevant to every class, and the game would ensure that different allocations actually support different playstyles. A complete dump stat like luck is also rather pointless, and if it's already virtually decided where a character will allocate their points based on which class they're playing, why even bother making the player allocate the points? Just to filter out noobs who have no understanding of the system?

[Karkarov]

 

Also, is it really necessary to completely avoid min-maxing and dump stats? It can lead to some fun characters too, and there are characters out there whop are...not well-rounded.

 

To me the issue is when an attribute is so fundamentally useless for any single class that every build will minimize it, there's very little point in including it for that class.

That's a good point.  I don't think dumb stats are a problem, but if you make a character who has a blatant weakness it should be exploited enough times in the game to make you feel regret at least a few times that you went with such a lop sided build.

[sirchet]

Many of us prefer rolling stats and other things.

 

I'd be OK with an option of no rolling that can be toggled on or off by the player.

[Sabotin]

The biggest issues I have with various systems is that they favor specialization in something much more than what could be called sensible stat placement. When some stat ends up being 10x higher than another one. Now this happens much more often in games where you have points to put into stats often, so I'm inclined to prefer more static approaches. On the other hand I very much like stat increases as for me they sort of symbolize the growth of the character both mentally and physically. For example I particularly enjoyed PS:T stat gains, not the ones from leveling, but the ones from the gameplay. It felt like some kind of achievement that stays with you. However the D&D system is unsuited I think, as things quickly break down, especially at high levels.

 

The base stats are I think of paramount importance in most systems, being the most desirable thing you can get as they increase the effectiveness of a wide range of functions or those that you use most (usually depending on how many base stats there are). I think it would be a good idea to switch some of the "weight" to the skills themselves instead, especially in a game like PE (The classes seems to be hinging on one "thing", but with multiple abilities to change it or branch into other functions. Additionally it seems they're trying to take an approach where things are regulated more by synergy than set limits).

 

One approach I could envision would be to make the base stats biological limits to one's capabilities, rather than their description.

In Infinity games the race determined how high a stat could go when you were rolling. Arcanum went a step further and made race determine how high a stat could eventually go with whatever bonuses. Here it could be a per-person thing instead, with the learning/training process being integrated into abilities.

This might not do anything, because people would still go for a stat they find the most useful, but it could allow some branching instead of specialization, sort of fitting the character build to the stats instead of the other way around ("I'll never hit as hard as that person, but I will compensate with xy which I can do better and achieve a similar result").

 

Another idea coming from the same train of thought would be to have abstracted stats (maybe 4, mental/physical power/flexibility?) and have abilities use specific amounts of each.

For example for persuading someone you'd use 20% of mental power and 80% mental flexibility. Maintaining that rage could be 60/40 physical/mental power. Maybe some abilities can be upgraded to use more of something or less of something else.

This could of course be used with any number of base stats, but the complication would rise exponentially, so I think it would be good to keep it low.

 

Now even with standard systems I'd urge to keep every stat useful in a prominent way. For example I though it a really good idea in Dragon Age 2 to make health only increase through Con (or whatever was it). Sadly it was still not worth distributing stats as the optimal approach was still to dump almost everything into one. In a party based games min-maxing is even more evident as the difference potential is even larger with more characters.

[Morgulon the Wise]

Percentual distribution of attribute influence is the key to abstract formulas like the bow craftmanship which I presented.

[Jarmo]

Compelled to push an old thought again. I'd like to see body size as an attribute. 

Preferably not a purchaseable attribute either, but one you could select freely.

 

Affecting either stuff like HP and damage output directly, or affecting Strength.

Maybe inversely affecting agility? 

 

So a dwarf could maybe have as big strength score as a big strong human, but still wouldn't have leverage to do quite as much damage.

Basically you'd be choosing a big hulking brute, or a smaller more agile creature.

[Ulquiorra]

And what do you think about dragon age orgins atributes ?

 

all of them have base 10  then they have racial bonus + for aglity for elves and then some point to spend  ...

[Morgulon the Wise]

Compelled to push an old thought again. I'd like to see body size as an attribute. 

Preferably not a purchaseable attribute either, but one you could select freely.

 

Affecting either stuff like HP and damage output directly, or affecting Strength.

Maybe inversely affecting agility? 

 

So a dwarf could maybe have as big strength score as a big strong human, but still wouldn't have leverage to do quite as much damage.

Basically you'd be choosing a big hulking brute, or a smaller more agile creature.

 

The second and third part are reeking of maximization. Body size as a not purchaseable attribute sounds good though.

[Lephys]

I definitely think Body Size could easily work as something like a trait (think Fallout) or background (Arcanum).

 

And I think the balance between the effects of stats and individual skills is pretty important, too, Sabotin. I definitely don't think that being a level 20 Warrior with 13 Strength needs to mean you only do 50 damage, whereas having 20 Strength would've had you doing 100. I think your prowess at combat should be more important in that equation.

 

Seems like stats are best left to affecting a wider range of things to a lesser degree. Like... Strength might affect your ability to intimidate, to break objects/doors, to grapple, to perform athletic actions (to an extent), etc, whereas Swordsmanship or Melee Combat would MUCH more greatly affect your capabilities in combat, but fails to affect any of the other things.

 

I think your stat/attribute values should probably shape the kind of person your character is, throughout the entirety of gameplay, rather than forming the very spine of your specific character's build as it relates to combat effectiveness. All the better with multi-faceted stats. You could have lower-Strength Warriors who simply fight in a different manner, rather than sucking at damage output, and lower-Intelligence Wizards who don't get as many spells per day, but have ridiculously fast cast times, etc.

 

To put it simply, perhaps a high value in a given stat shouldn't make you good at a class, but rather, good at a specific aspect of that class. Not to mention better/more generally capable at various things that are completely unrelated to class build (dialogue functions, inter-character interactions, exploration, crafting, etc.)