On Character Statistics, Health, Stamina, and Beyond

[Mr. Magniloquent]

For an RPG I once designed, there was not merely a derived statistic for physical health, but mental health. Much like when a character goes below zero Health, they are either dying or dead, any character with less than zero "Will" would suffer a comparable experience. This mechanic had several benefits:

1. Discouraged lop-sided min/max builds.
   
2. Created multi-dimensional options for attacking and defending.
   
3. Honed & distinguished spellcasting attributes.
   
4. Created a secondary spellcasting mechanic.
   
5. Provided combat usefulness for traditionally non-combat diplomatic skills.
   

My RPG had the character attributes of Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Consitution, Reasoning, Resolve, Perception, and Charisma.

 

Physical health was derived from Constituion, and mental health was derived from Resolve. Much like Constution governs your body's fidelity to resist outside physical influences, Resolve performed the same function for not just your character's mind, but their sense of identity and persona. The details of these influences are below:

1. Discouraged min/maxing of melee oriented characters as they must consider protecting their mind just as spellcasters must necessarily consider placing points in secondary stats so that they may carry things, have reasonable health, armor, etc.
    
   
2. Two methods versus one traditional method for slaying an opponent--openning up new strategies.
    
   
3. Reasoning/Intelligence not lumped with other abstract character traits in dealing with the mind. Characters could now be stupid or intelligent while simltaneously having strength of personality or lack there-of.
    
   
4. Spellcasting is complex, quasi-irrational act of exerting will over reality. Spells required Reasoning to learn and memorize, but required Resolve to cast safely, as failing to properly exert one's will over the forces of nature would cause a spell to backfire and damage their mind. Therefore, Wizards needed to strike a balance of their choice between reaching into the depths of arcane power and suffering from their flagrance, or safely casting a slightly more mundane repertoire. This not only provided an interesting mechanic and flavor, but helped moderate the power of spellcasters.
    
   
5. Persuade/Intimidate/Bluff skills could be used beyond diplomacy with NPCs. Within combat these skills could be used to calm an attacker into parlay, frightening off weaker creatures, or un-nerving opponents and causing them to become confused or breserk.
   

The point of this post was to suggest that, like physical health, mental/pscyhological health should be considered as a core mechanic to Project Eternity. What does everyone here think about this concept?

[Odglok]

I actually really love the idea of this in a horror-themed RPG, where Will might implicitly encompass sanity. Reminds me of a game I recently called played Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It's a first-person, Lovecraftian survival horror game, which has a sanity bar in addition to health, and running out of either would end the game.

 

How would "death" by Will loss be handled in the game? Would it be similar to death by Stamina loss, where the character becomes incapacitated until the end of the battle (if I understand the plan correctly), at which point you can revive him? Or would there be permanent consequences for reaching zero Will? I assume it would regenerate over time, like Stamina? Could it be affected by things other than spells and abilities, like maybe if a party member dies? Though I guess that could really go either way, depending on the particular character... I'd like to know more details about your system and how it might fit with Project: Eternity.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

How would "death" by Will loss be handled in the game? Would it be similar to death by Stamina loss, where the character becomes incapacitated until the end of the battle (if I understand the plan correctly), at which point you can revive him? Or would there be permanent consequences for reaching zero Will? I assume it would regenerate over time, like Stamina? Could it be affected by things other than spells and abilities, like maybe if a party member dies? Though I guess that could really go either way, depending on the particular character... I'd like to know more details about your system and how it might fit with Project: Eternity.

 

Thanks for the repsonse. As I had it, the loss of one's Will generated a permanent mental imparement that could only be resolved through healing technology or magic. When dropping below 0 Will, a character would roll 1d6 and permanently suffer from whichever cooresponding effect was rolled. They were: Confusion, Unconciousness, Paralysis, Berserk, Fear, or (my favorite) Suicidal Compulsion. The exception was with diplomacy skills; they would produce a specific effect (Parlay, Fear, Confusion, Berserk), but when used it combat were subject to "Adversity", in which your skills would be penalized by rolling twice then using your lowest roll.

 

Aside from combat, a character's Will was subject (like Call of Cthulu) to special trauma like witnessing horrific actions/entities, enduring the death of a loved one, or even a humiliating loss in a contest. Just as with how disease and poison could impare physical attributes, aquired phobias and pathologies could hinder one's mental scores as well.

 

Whether or not a second vital statistic would work in Project: Eternity would depend on how Health & Stamina are ultimately configured. I am under the impression that For every X Health a character has, they possess Y Stamina. Stamina is a derived resource used to perform actions and participate, while Health determines your mortality. A major question is whether Health can be attacked directly, or if all damage must be subtracted through Stamina first. If Health can be attacked directly, then a second statistic for mental health would work very well, must like it did within my own system. Otherwise, it would likely be redundant.

[jivex5k]

Why do you want to discourage min/max builds?

Isn't that part of the fun? Extreme specialization?

 

Why do I need my barbarian to have intelligence when my chanter can fill that gap?

[anubite]

Having too many combat-based attributes can be detrimental to itemization. I would just ask that all attributes serve a purpose for all classes. This can be easily accomplished. Intelligence should raise accuracy or critical strike rating with weapons. Strength is useful if a caster wants to wear plate armor without any penalty. et cetera

 

And what builds the main attributes cannot allow, feats adjust.

 

ie - you want rogue builds to do heavy melee physical damage while still being predispositioned to light/medium armor:

Have two feats. Feat one makes dex or agility raise your physical damage like strength. The second feat could just /give/ you enough of strength's equipment compensation benefit that you don't need any strength to use medium armor.

 

Also, it's very important to consider itemization when considering stat systems for a game. If you allow for low-level legendary items, you can allow even more complex builds to take palce.

 

ie - You want spellcasters to be able to scale their spell damage with strength or constitution - instead of making a feat, have a low level "legendary" item that can be acquired via vendor, random drop or quest reward. This legendary item (mask/staff/fetish, what have you) has "Blood Magic" as a stat on it - "Blood Magic" either causes you to cast spells using life instead of mana (maybe making skills cost more as a downside) or it causes their damage to scale off "Strength" instead of "Intelligence". Having diverse itemization can supplant a diverse stat system, which may be difficult to balance or convey properly to players. Asking players to weigh their "weak" "legendary" items against more powerful "generic" items is another form of balance.

 

Min/maxing should exist in an RPG, what you want to discourage is game-breaking min/maxing and min/maxing that results in a constraining of character builds. A good example of this is DA2. Due to its systems, Warriors in DA2 have about two possible build paths instead of what could have easily been at least five or six. You're forced to max str/con and minimize all other attributes, in order to create a viable warrior character. Wasting too many attribute points in dex/wil/magic etc. results in a warrior who cannot do anything.

 

Stat/feat systems in RPGs exist to give concrete definition and context to roles. They should not restrict possible roles within the scope of the game, ideally. In DA2, you can't really be a "paladin" - because raising your magic skill and using plate is impossible as a mage and stupid as a warrior. Such a role should exist by the context of the game and its story, but cannot due to restrictive prohibitive design. Stat systems should endeavor to provide as close to as many "infinite" character roles as possible. The moment you're preventing players from making certain combinations, the system is failing. If certain combinations are too powerful, find ways to break up that power while still allowing such a role to be viable.

Edited December 7, 2012 by anubite

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Why do you want to discourage min/max builds?

Isn't that part of the fun? Extreme specialization?

 

Why do I need my barbarian to have intelligence when my chanter can fill that gap?

Your barbarian wouldn't require intelligence. Resolve, not Intelligence/Reasoning was the governing statistic of Will. They could be immensely strong and durable, dumb, yet viable. It was developed to provide a counter balance to the reality of a person who is one-dimensional. A Wizard with total investment into their spellcasting abilities is a glass cannon whom can endure and do little else. Fighters typically do not suffer this conundrum.

 

If all one does is lift weights and practice combat, while neglecting to cultivate their mind (philosophy, self identity, willpower), then they will be a mighty physical combatant, but easily manipulated or defeated either through words or spells. It's a counterbalance. One can still reach far, but they do so at the risk of over-extending themselves in other areas.

[anubite]

Why do you want to discourage min/max builds?

Isn't that part of the fun? Extreme specialization?

 

Why do I need my barbarian to have intelligence when my chanter can fill that gap?

 

What you speak of should be possible. Here's your hypothetical barbarian under my blueprint for Obsidian (though they're welcome to create their own stat system, I would hope they can allow a character like this to exist), Oglaf.

 

Oglaf the Terrible

22 strength

6 dex

9 agility

14 constitution

6 intelligence

8 wisdom

 

Oglaf at character generation gave up all his base points in dex and intelligence to max out his strength. With leftover points, he got constitution, agility and wisdom up.

 

If wisdom, agility, con, int, and dex aren't useful to a warrior though, you've simplified the equation. It's too hard for Oglaf to grow as a character or a role. It's best if ALL attributes effect his ability to smash things. Because Oglaf is dumb, he has low crit chance. Because he's slow, he has low evasion chance and will be stuck using a melee weapon. Because he has low dex, he has poor accuracy with his main weapon. Beacause he has low wisdom, he doesn't have much mana. But because of his ridiculous strength, when he does hit things, they get horribly mangled, maybe stunned for a while so he can still swing his weapon around foolishly, missing most of the time, but making a huge dent when he does hit. Because of his strength he can also wear the heaviest armor.

 

Growing Oglaf from this level 1 power house could have you focus on intelligence (Oglaf now knows where to hit things for massive damage, so his critical strike rate with his club is much better, meaning, he hits even harder now), you could focus on agility and use that large strength to use slings at range, if you find your party lacking a ranged damage dealer (or maybe you don't want to raise his con anymore). If you raise his dex, he'll stop missing and provide more regular damage. If you raise his wisdom, he can use more abilities more often, supporting the team or enhancing how he does damage, or making his damage have special effects on hit.

 

We should want players to play the min/max game, but we don't want them feeling like they've already found some optimal build the first time they've played the game. There should be large drawbacks to completely focusing on strength, but maybe the positives outweigh them in a specific team composition. And maybe we should allow "pure max" builds to grow in interesting ways, providing opportunities for players to diversify their characters. Suppose they put a "legendary sling" into the game that hurls boulders at foes? But it needs 22 strength to wield. If you find it, will you put the necessary points into agility and dexterity to use it? What if you find a staff with the blood magic stat on it, will you give Oglaf a bunch of intelligence and have him acquire some spells? (maybe barbarians can learn barbarian "wild magic" through their class? Or maybe there are tomes/rings you can equip which give you basic spell abilities even as a non-caster)

 

If Oglaf is complete when he has max strength and that's all he needs, I think the game is too simple. That's the most basic thing I can say.

Edited December 7, 2012 by anubite

[Kaz]

I like a lot of what's being thrown out here. I feel off-stats having a large influence on how the class plays is a good thing. Not for the sake of limiting min/maxing but just to open up more avenues for role playing. In the old games, a high intelligence fighter was simply a bad fighter. It didn't stop the hardcore role-players from boosting an auxiliary stat, but beyond that there was very little reason to build an unconventional character. Sounds like the devs are already aware of this and are taking measures to offer different flavors for each class. Heavy armor wearing mage being an example.

 

This might be a bit controversial, but I'm entertaining the possibility of character attributes having marginal effect on his/her overall combat efficiency. That is to say, a low STR high INT fighter could compensate his lack of physical strength by rapidly identifying enemy weak spots (expressed through critical hits which have de-buffing effects), or by choosing more effective weapons / fighting styles which require a lot of technical skill / knowledge. This allows him to stay on par with your traditional high STR / DEX / CON warrior in combat usefulness. The specifics about how it gets balanced is not important, there's plenty of ways to justify the existence of these unconventional builds. The main point of this is, by offering ways to keep unconventional builds viable in combat, players can focus on choosing stats that best describe their character without worrying whether their choices will have a negative impact in combat.

 

Now you might be thinking, how would a fighter with nothing but charisma be able to fight like my hulking fighter with 22STR?? This wouldn't make sense to me either, you're not going to charm your way through an orc camp(or could you?). In order for this to work it might make sense to divide character attributes into combat and a non-combat pools, similar to the proposed skill point system. Then allow the player to adjust stats within each group instead of balancing combat against non-combat.

 

One issue with this is, not all classes value or classify combat stats the same way.

Wisdom is a good example where clerics call it a combat stat, while fighters do not. Perhaps wisdom could be bundled into intelligence to retain it's relevance, or design cleric spells so they depend on a wider variety of stats and not just WIS/INT. Another way might be to restrict character stats to things that are useful / relevant to all classes, then have a subset of attributes that are class specific which help you further define your character.. Anyway, I've ranted long enough. Peace!

[Lephys]

What if you tried to pair up all the stats, so that each 2 affected one effect in different ways?

 

Example: Higher DEX would increase your critical chance, whilst higher INT would increase your critical hit multiplier. The reason being that DEX allows you to more easily strike in certain places, and INT allows you to figure out to a greater degree where will be most damaging to strike.

 

Another would be that maybe CON affects your stamina pool, but DEX affects your stamina regeneration? That one probably needs some work, but I wanted to provide more than one example.

 

Then, perhaps you could simply have each stat affect bonuses to a select group of non-combat skills (STR might affect smithing, throwing, intimidate), and have these groups overlap slightly (some skills are affected by more than a single stat.)

 

On a slightly separate note, regarding things like Intimidate, you could even have class determine the effecting stat. Perhaps if you're a Mage, you intimidate with magic, rather than with physique, so INT (using standard D&D-type stats as an example) would boost it rather than STR. Or, as a Rogue or Ranger, DEX might do it (you elaborately twirl a dagger, or ridiculously-swiftly nock an arrow).

 

Just a possibility of how various stats could be given more uses.

Edited December 8, 2012 by Lephys

[Mr. Magniloquent]

What if you tried to pair up all the stats, so that each 2 affected one effect in different ways?

 

In essence, that is one of the fundamentals I set out to accomplish in creating my own RPG. I wanted every statistic to matter by have have a reciprocal statistic.

 

Strength - Melee hit/damage, carry weight, grappling, moving objects, climbing

Agility - Speed, acrobatics, gross motor skills, initiative

Dexterity - Fine motor skills, device manipulation, ranged weapon accuracy

Constition - Physical health, resistance to disease/poison, endurance

Reasoning - Cognitive skills, problem solving, memory, arcane spell casting

Resolve - Will power, sense of self/identity/strength of character, determination, ability to be influenced

Perception - Spatial/Interpersonal/Spiritual awareness, trap detection

Charisma - Social savvy, ability to interpersonally influence others

 

Every skill was specific, but had a reciprocal to most actions. Any type of character, no matter how contradictory or narrowly focused could be made. A switft and agile yet clumsy acrobat, an easily influenced charmer, a weak but cunning finesse warrior, a durable wizard, etc. The possibilites are endless. The object is to create specific yet interdependant attributes, which balance equally across mental and physical abilites.

 

That's the major reason why I would like to see a mental health statistic in Project: Eternity. Not only does it open up a greater diversity of strategy, but it imposes a greater depthy of character creation within customization and conceptualization.

Edited December 8, 2012 by Mr. Magniloquent

[anubite]

That's not bad design, but, my concern is something I don't think people consider consciously much. I call it stat conveyance

 

Pokemon, for instance, has no stat conveyance. What does HP do? Okay, maybe you can figure that one out, but Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Speed, et cetera seemingly do nothing! It's never explained outside the game's manual (if they even come with such things anymore) what these statistics do, yet the game works pretty well. I mean, I know Flamethrower does damage! And that's all I'm really worried about. Is Flamethrower a special attack or a non-special attack? A new player may have trouble deciding, but they at least get a good "feel" for a pokemon in spite of the total lack of textual conveyance. I would say that although pokemon obfuscates all of its number-based mechanics completely, it still has an okay amount of conveyance, or rather, the game is designed such that you never need to know what stats actually mean, except perhaps outside of HP/PP. This makes sense considering pokemone was intended for younger gamers.

 

On the other hand, even older gamers have trouble understanding complex systems of equations. If we let attributes effect a plethora of things in non-standard ways (by non-standard, I mean "Strength effects X by 2, Y by 4 and Z by 7.5" - well, that's fine, until you have 8 stats and they each effect 3 different things with different coefficients or formulae of effect. You might say, "Who cares? This is a cRPG. The computer handles all that."

 

But when I pick up an item in PE, and it says +2 strength, +1 climbing strength, or what have you, how can I actually determine whether +1 strength, +10 climbing strength, +10 damage is actually better? Dragon Age 2 had this problem. You need to convey what stats do in an elegant manner, or you need to make systems such that it isn't required to understand the computations that go into each stat's effect on combat and gameplay.

Edited December 8, 2012 by anubite

[Lephys]

^ Definitely. It's not too hard, though, to have decently complex mathematical relationships going on between your stats and all other aspects of your character and present it to the player in a quite simple fashion.

 

Also, Pokemon (at least the ealier ones I played) didn't involve building your pokefolk from scratch. It was, instead, like having a boatload of presets. I realize that your point wasn't "Pokemon and cRPGs are the SAME!", heh, but I just wanted to point out that it gets to do things quite differently since the player isn't in charge of allocating all the stats and dealing with the consequences across billions of skill systems.

[jamclark]

Why do you want to discourage min/max builds?

Isn't that part of the fun? Extreme specialization?

 

Why do I need my barbarian to have intelligence when my chanter can fill that gap?

Your barbarian wouldn't require intelligence. Resolve, not Intelligence/Reasoning was the governing statistic of Will. They could be immensely strong and durable, dumb, yet viable. It was developed to provide a counter balance to the reality of a person who is one-dimensional. A Wizard with total investment into their spellcasting abilities is a glass cannon whom can endure and do little else. Fighters typically do not suffer this conundrum.

 

If all one does is lift weights and practice combat, while neglecting to cultivate their mind (philosophy, self identity, willpower), then they will be a mighty physical combatant, but easily manipulated or defeated either through words or spells. It's a counterbalance. One can still reach far, but they do so at the risk of over-extending themselves in other areas.

Min/maxing toward an extreme specialization would have its natural costs or drawbacks.

 

For example the barbarian with low intelligence (or wisdom or will) could easily be charmed or controlled by an opposing spell caster. A few points would reduce the effect of say spells to sleep or be charmed.

 

Overall, I like the idea of base attributes that combine toward helping in melee skills, ranged skills, schools of magic, non-combat skills, etc.

 

A party (or squad) based game I highly enjoy and look forward to playing its' sequel of sorts had this.