Josh Sawyer reveals some information about Project Eternity's attribute scores

[J. Trudel]

 

Don't get me started how ridiculous DnD statistics were. 2nd edition, The more stronger your guy gets apparently more accurate with using his weapon. So someone completely retarded can be a master swordsman. And I don't know about you guys I find dnd more  unrealistic and ridiculous then a anime like dragon ball z. Halfings slaying a dragon lol, never...

really it's retarded that strength can affect accuracy? the stronger you are the faster you can swing. The faster you swing the more likely you are to hit your opponent and to smash through their defense. While there is something to be said about the importance of hand eye coordination in combat but that doesn't mean a stronger(bigger) opponent holds a lot of advantage in combat. Why do you think most professional fighting organizations place so much importance into dividing people into weight class?

 

 

Because a bigger guy hit a lot harder. It has nothing to do with accuracy. It's not even about strenght, even fat carry weight. And the more force in contact you have with the ground the most force you can transfer into your opponent. If you put a big force on a small weight it does more acceleration. More acceleration for your head means a lot more knock out power. 

 

As a matter of facts smaller guys in boxing are usually a lot faster than big guys. Just watch some lightweight matches then try a heavyweight one. You'll see.

Edited September 12, 2013 by J. Trudel

[J. Trudel]

 

  The same high power and low acuity for a Wizard would have a different meaning. He would be highly inteligent (mind power), yet maybe a bit lunatic. But wizards aren't known for their strenght so a high power wouldn't means big damage with an axe for example.  

 

Only that it would & wll.

PE wizards can use axes and if they have high power or strenght or whatever it's called, they'll do high damage with the axe.

 

 

The fact that the wizard will also hit harder with an axe when he grows in his power stat can mean many things. Big damage is relative, could it be the wizard is intelligent enough to hit where it hurts more ? I don't think it's that improbable. But it doesn't means he's stronger. At equal Power, I can garanty you that the Barbarian will hit harder with an axe than a wizard with the same axe.

[Sezneg]

Just be careful that we are not making assumptions.

 

We know that stats will effect attacks and spells the same, but we do not know that there is only a single damage stat (what if strength and intelligence are both damage stats?).

 

We also don't know how other systems factor into the equation, or what other features of the class system are gated by stats (are there stat requirements to pick up certain talents or abilities?  Does actually having a high skill in a skill factor matter more than high stats?).

 

Honestly we don't know much.  I wish we knew more.  At this point, we don't even have a good reason to assume that strength is the "damage stat" at all.

[Tsuga C]

At this point, we don't even have a good reason to assume that strength is the "damage stat" at all.

If they've gone sufficiently far into their collective navel as to conjure up a system in which strength is not a "damage stat", then I'd implore them to come back down to good ol' terra firma and put the bong away for a while. 

Edited September 12, 2013 by Tsuga C

[anubite]

I've done a lot of mental wrestling over what makes a good stat system.

 

I think the best ones are really really abstracted. I've been building a post apoctalypic game in a similar vein of Liberal Crime Squad (so, it's about ridiculous social reform in a collapsing society). There are six stats: Might, Youth, Obscenity, Presence, Ignorance, Academics (MYOPIA). Might and Academics are probably the cloest analogies to Strength and Intelligence, but not really. In my game, Might is a potentially physical and a mental/social kind of might - you could be physically mighty, or just an imposing, steadfast force (but you can't just tell by looking at your might score, your skills and other attributes determine this as a whole). It influences skills related to melee weapons, some social skills, carry weight, and damage reduction. Academics influences your ability to utilize explosives, craft items, learn from books and such, but it also influences certain social and combat skills (like the ability to use tech weapons like tasers).

 

The point of my system is that there is a lot of overlap. For instance, your ability to use and damage with explosives uses the Explosives skill, which is a number which comes from three sources:

 

RAW + Academics + Obscenity

 

If you have 10 academics, 0 obscenity, you have RAW + 5 total skill in explosives (You need 10 in both attributes to have a 10 base in explosives). Your RAW comes from your training in that skill. You improve RAW by spending experience points, performing specific actions, or learning from books.

 

(A skill like Science only uses the 'Academics' stat, so 10 academics = 10 science skill, meaning people who are academic are good at science, and non academic people need to invest a lot of experience in science to be nearly as good at it, most skills are hybrid though - they take 50% of two stats to determine their base score).

 

The basic idea though, is that someone who's obscene, or rather, a character who's rash, agile, reckless - he should be good at utilizing explosives. A character who's nerdy or academic too, might be good at explosives. A character who is both obscene and nerdy... he's exceptionally good at utilizing explosives.

 

You can also be good at explosives you spend a lot of expience improving your raw.

 

I think attributes in roleplaying games should be about representing your character concept in terms of statistics, since it's kind of difficult to abstract physical reality anyway, we should just make things really abstract, right? Of course, my system is hardly perfect, or maybe even good (I haven't tested it enough yet), but I do think PE is on the right track with this 'soul' system, since it's very abstract - but it's maybe a bit held back by the concept of a "soul" since our souls can be contrary to our true nature? Or at least, our souls can be contrary to our physical nature. A man who is very bulky and strong might have a very weak heart - that sort of dissonance doesn't necessarily make for a good statistics system (as it doesn't mesh too well with the roleplaying or combat aspect).

Edited September 12, 2013 by anubite

[Lephys]

 

At this point, we don't even have a good reason to assume that strength is the "damage stat" at all.

If they've gone sufficiently far into their collective navel as to conjure up a system in which strength is not a "damage stat", then I'd implore them to come back down to good ol' terra firma and put the bong away for a while. 

 

I believe you've neglected the immense difference between "the damage stat" and "a damage stat."

 

Also, I was just thinking... all the classes have "Defense," but that is then sub-divided into 4 aspects, the specific values of which vary between classes. There could be something similar with Strength (or "Power" or whatever). Of course, that's almost the same thing as just having 4 different stats (it works okay for Defense, because it's more of a rating than a stat), AND it sort of restricts the separate facets (physical strength, mental strength, etc.) to classes. So... nevermind?

 

I guess the big question is this: Is one stat actually intended to represent both physical strength AND mental strength, in the same character (regardless of class), or are the two going to be represented separately somehow?

 

I would bet on the separately part, if I had to. But, it's just a big unknown, so it'll be nice to find out from an official update on the matter.

[Tamerlane]

Making stats useful for dramatically different classes is A Good Thing for me. Dump stats have always bugged the hell out of me.

 

And there's nothing inherently wrong with the idea of magical damage being tied to physical strength. If you're plunging your hands into the unknowable void, ripping from it a piece of raw, chaotic energy, forging it into a mighty spear of fire, and hurling it at your enemy, why can't strength be the core of that? This is no more innately problematic than "sorcerer with high charisma gets more spells than sorcerer with low charisma".

[Tsuga C]

Trust me, Lephys, I've neglected nothing.  If Str. isn't the primary damage stat for physical combat, then Obsidian's decided to reinvent the wheel with their "Attribute" system and, while they might make a non-intuitive system work reasonably well, it's always going to strike me as unnecessarily "gamey".

[anubite]

There's nothing 'inherently wrong' with anything. Anything could work if it's done well enough, but since we don't have the game in our hands, we're speculating.

 

The main issue is, if I have a high 'Strength' stat does it mean I can trivially do damage with both spells and weapons? It makes the difference between spells and weapons small, if a high single stat is all you need to utilize one or the other 'well enough'. It also makes "jack of all trade" builds more easy - and that's generally not a good thing in an RPG (we want role specialization to occur, if you're a generalist, you can't have skills that are on par with specialized peers).

[Tamerlane]

There's nothing 'inherently wrong' with anything. Anything could work if it's done well enough, but since we don't have the game in our hands, we're speculating.

 

The main issue is, if I have a high 'Strength' stat does it mean I can trivially do damage with both spells and weapons? It makes the difference between spells and weapons small, if a high single stat is all you need to utilize one or the other 'well enough'. It also makes "jack of all trade" builds more easy - and that's generally not a good thing in an RPG (we want role specialization to occur, if you're a generalist, you can't have skills that are on par with specialized peers).

I think that just comes down to how much stats alone matter. A high-strength muscle-wizard that doesn't have access to fighter powers may hit decently hard, but he's probably going to be missing out on a lot of the stuff that makes being in melee actually worthwhile.

[anubite]

From my understanding, warriors will not be spamming abilities to do damage (like they might in an action RPG). There will be active skills for fighters, but they arne't required. I'm not sure how this translates, but under such a system, it's possible a wizard with a high Strength stat willl do high damage with weapons and spells, though probably favor spells, because he will have active spell skills to spam. The only way a fighter has better damage with weapons is if there are a lot of passive class-skills that need to be purchased to utilize weapons effectively.

Edited September 12, 2013 by anubite

[Tamerlane]

Fighters will be inherently biased towards passive and modal abilities but will have powers (or talents or whatever the hell they're calling them) that can make them more ability-spamming. Wizards will be inherently biased towards ability spam but you can take powers that make them more passive. Barbarians are based largely around fighting large groups in melee but can get more single-target-focused abilities. An active-ability-based fighter will always be a bit more passive than a wizard built around active abilities, or so is my understanding.

 

But... look. You ever play Pathfinder?

 

Alright. Take a wizard. Wizards are ****ing amazing. We'll say this wizard is level 11. Pathfinder's meant for mid-levels. Give him strength identical to his int. Just like that. And ****, take martial weapon proficiency for free.

 

If you drop him into a room with a barbarian of the same level, are they melee equivalents? Well... no. I mean, he's still got the 1.5x strength mod to damage if he's using a two-handed weapon. He's still got the same encumbrance. He can still take a falchion. But he also has half the base HP. He has +5 BAB instead of +11/+6/+1. He doesn't have the Beast Totems or anything in the Superstition tree or DR, not to mention +6 str and +6 con from rage. He's not using Furious or Courageous weapons. His power attack is weaker even if he's using a two-hander. So even if the barbarian isn't doing anything more interesting than "I full attack" or "I charge and full attack" (with the odd "I spell sunder" or "I rage cycle"), he's still a much better at melee specifically than that wizard.

 

Now, the wizard is a much better character because it's Pathfinder and he's a wizard and therefore ****ing amazing, but that's not the point of this terrible analogy. The point is that there are a ****load of ways that melee effectiveness can vary even with the same stats and not-very-many active abilities.

 

EDIT: And of course, I made no mention of melee-buffing wizard spells. See, I did that because

Edited September 12, 2013 by Tamerlane

[Lephys]

And there's nothing inherently wrong with the idea of magical damage being tied to physical strength. If you're plunging your hands into the unknowable void, ripping from it a piece of raw, chaotic energy, forging it into a mighty spear of fire, and hurling it at your enemy, why can't strength be the core of that?

It can. But, by definition, if your physical strength, in conjunction with physics (kinetic energy/mass/etc.), is the cause of the damage, then it's not really magical damage. If magical damage is effected by "your strength," then it's not really your physical strength.

 

Case and point: If an enchanted sword does +2 Arcane damage (purely fictitious magical damage), then it doesn't matter what your Strength is; the +2 damage is the same no matter what. That arcane damage will never fluctuate in potency. Your physical strength, however, can still affect the damage potential of the kinetic force of the sword you're swinging. Thus, a very physically mighty person could deal 20 +2 damage with that sword, while a feeble person could deal 10 +2 damage with that sword. The second someone starts dealing 10 +30 arcane damage with that sword, they're actually amplifying the magical damage of the sword, which by definition circumvents mere physics. Hence why magical attacks still work so well against that guy with full plate and a shield.

 

This is why P:E is set in a world in which your soul produces fictitious, additional effects (in comparison to reality), and not "the potential energy in your muscle fibers affects how well you can access and shape energies that have nothing to do with the effects of muscle fibers."

 

Or, to put it another way, if physical strength simply produced magical results, then, effectively, everyone (physical OR mental) would essentially be wielding non-physical power only. Either that or the effects of physical strength on NON-magical power would still go unrepresented.

[Lephys]

Trust me, Lephys, I've neglected nothing.  If Str. isn't the primary damage stat for physical combat, then Obsidian's decided to reinvent the wheel with their "Attribute" system and, while they might make a non-intuitive system work reasonably well, it's always going to strike me as unnecessarily "gamey".

Now you're simply neglecting the difference between "the primary damage stat" and "the primary damage stat for physical combat. All Sezneg pointed out was that we don't know that Strength will be the sole damage-affecting stat of any kind in existence. And here you're acting as though someone's telling you that something other than Strength will probably affect physical combat damage.

[Tamerlane]

Magic, being a made-up thing that does not exist, can be affected by whatever the hell the person making it up wants it to be affected by. Moon phases, Scandinavian poetry, dancing prowess, soul-power, diet, how many episodes of Archer you've watched, species... even dirty peasant-muscles.

[Lephys]

Magic, being a made-up thing that does not exist, can be affected by whatever the hell the person making it up wants it to be affected by. Moon phases, Scandinavian poetry, dancing prowess, soul-power, diet, how many episodes of Archer you've watched, species... even dirty peasant-muscles.

Okay... new example (I promise this'll be my last attempt to explain what you're missing):

 

I can physically take a lump of metal, and sharpen that metal into a dagger, and use my physical muscles to physically hurl that dagger at you, and it will physically damage you according to physics.

 

OR, I can (let's say) MAGICALLY summon a dagger out of thin air (because it's made-up, remember?). At which point, I STILL have a physical dagger that's physically existing in the physical plane. It's tangible, and has weight and mass, and interacts with physics. So, no matter what affects my ability to produce that dagger, if I'm still using my muscles to hurl it at you, then the physical strength of my muscles is still a factor in the equation of how much damage it's going to produce upon your person.

 

Now, instead of a dagger, let's say I produce some fire. I cannot physically grab that fire with my physical strength, and physically hurl it at you. Even if I could, it wouldn't hurt you any worse than if I set it upon your head as gently as possible. You would either catch ablaze, or you would not, depending on lots of flammability factors and all that jazz.

 

Therefore, EVEN IF your muscle mass and physical potency somehow affects your magical effects (like how hot your magical fire is, or where it's created, etc.), that doesn't in any way change the fact that your muscles STILL also physically affect non-made-up stuff, like the power of a thrown dagger, and that these are two completely different things.

 

So, what's problematic is that there would be no such thing as a physically strong, magically weak person, or vice versa. Some kid who just does pushups all day would be the greatest sorcerer in all the land, while someone who studies magic all day and never does any pushups would suck at life. Not to mention that, if such a distinction DOES exist in your game, then, at this point, you're completely neglecting to actually represent it in any way, shape, or fashion.

 

So, saying "what if physical strength is the source of your completely-non-physical powers?" is just as silly as saying "what if your non-physical strength is the source of your physical powers?" That's a paradox. Either the physical function of my muscles is pushing a box, or some made-up mental/non-physical power is pushing the box. Even if they're used in conjunction, one isn't the other. Either your muscles are contributing, kinetically, to the pushing of the box, or your non-physical, made-up power is doing all of the box-pushing.

 

 

Maybe a better way to say it is "physical force cannot forego physical effects." So, if how hard you swing a sword determines how much arcane zappiness you produce, then that's going to be on TOP of how much physical damage that sword does. Therefore, the only way to make that fair and not arbitrarily lopsided is to have non-physical force also affect physical effects, every single time. And at that point, what's the difference? Your physical and non-physical abilities have simply merged into the same thing. Everyone only has both, and both affect each other, always.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Lephys

[Tamerlane]

Now, instead of a dagger, let's say I produce some fire. I cannot physically grab that fire with my physical strength, and physically hurl it at you. Even if I could, it wouldn't hurt you any worse than if I set it upon your head as gently as possible. You would either catch ablaze, or you would not, depending on lots of flammability factors and all that jazz.

 

Yes. Yes you can.

 

Because it's magic. It's dependent only on what the person who made said magic wants it to depend on. Because it is an entirely made-up thing that can be keyed to anything. If the person making the setting wants the power of said bit of fire to rely on how well its summoner can recite the Gylfaginning, then that's what does it.

 

Because it is literally a made-up thing.

[Lephys]

*facepalm*... Whatever you say.

 

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go design a system in which you can simultaneously damage a foe AND not-damage that foe with the same attack, because magic.

[Sezneg]

My first concern is for a well designed and reasonably balanced and tuned system.

 

My second concern is for an internally consistent system.

 

I tend to agree with this line of reasoning from Josh Sawyer (from his Forumspring account):

 

 

 

If a mechanic sacrifices intuitiveness for balance, even if the player makes a choice from the basis of an incorrect assumption, their "wrong" choice may very well wind up being a viable one. If a mechanic sacrifices balance for intuitiveness, it may point the player toward the viable solutions, but it's implicit in the sacrifice that we're knowingly including sub-par (or worse, trash) options in the game's content.

 

Sawyer has stated very clearly that stats and RP *will* line up, and that you will be able to play the character you wish (including the dumb brute fighter, the weakling intelligent fighter, etc).  I'm very interested in seeing where this is taken in PE.

 

• We know there are physical AND mental stats.
• We know all of ONE stat by name (strength).
• We know that stats will apply bonuses equally and internally consistently across all classes.
• We know that there will be a stat that adds accuracy to all attacks, and a stat that adds to magnitude of attacks and spells.

Remove the context you cling to from previous systems.  Allow some flexibility; this is a fantasy environment.

 

Why should intellect be a measure of your ability to bend the power of your or other souls to your will?  Is there no room for a setting where this is a more visceral notion?  We are drawing energy from our *souls*, or bending other souls to our design.  Can this not be expressed in a physical stat?

 

And we have no reason to assume that this is "strength".  All we know is that there apparently is a stat called strength.  We have no idea what it does.

I find this discussion interesting, but there's quite a lot of closed off ways of thinking.

[Prometheus]

• We know there are physical AND mental stats.
• We know all of ONE stat by name (strength).
• We know that stats will apply bonuses equally and internally consistently across all classes.
• We know that there will be a stat that adds accuracy to all attacks, and a stat that adds to magnitude of attacks and spells.

You have forgotten two things that we also know:

• There are more than 3 stats.
• The attributtes will influence how good you discover hidden objects

source:

 

Things that are intentionally hidden (doors, containers, traps, etc.) will be marked as undetected by default. Noticing them will require getting within a certain proximity (based on character attributes) for a second or two.

 

source

 

 

:/ oh no, it is a 3 attribute system, isn't it?

 

No.

[Sacred_Path]

Wow, I think I should actually hang out on SA instead of here.

[jethro]

@Lephys:

The argument with the sword +2 doesn't really fit because it would be an intrinsic magic effect of the sword, not dependent on your strength (it would be +2 even when lying around on a bench and some monster thought it a good idea to fall on it). So even if magic would be produced by ripping the fabric of the universe with your physical strength, that weapon could still have 20+2 damage instead of 20+30 because your strength doesn't affect the magic ability built into this weapon. You (or the fighter using that sword) are not ripping at the fabric of space, the sword is, constantly.

 

The fireball is a better example. But here strength could influence the size or heat of the fireball through stronger fabric (of the universe or unknowable void) munging. The strength is needed to work with the nether ether, the fabric of time and space, the unknowable void. Not for the hurling.

 

You are absolutely correct though, that such a system would make physically weak but magically strong wizards impossible. But it wouldn't necessarily mean that everyone who is strong is a good wizard. For mending the fabric in the right way intelligence might be needed as well. Or some other stat like willpower, concentration or meditation.

 

I don't say this is a good system. I'm just pointing out that it can work consistently and intuitivly

Edited September 13, 2013 by jethro

[Valorian]

In the end, I want to be able to create a wizard who deals massive damage with spells and is exceptionally accurate with them, but when you give him a mace he can barely lift it, let alone hit anyone.

 

Simple, right?

 

 

[J. Trudel]

Hey guys, didn't you read my post about how a single attribute that governs damage bonus can make sense ? 

 

Let's say you are a Wizard, and you invest many points in the damage attribute. It may only means you are getting more intelligent and focused. How can it help you doing more damage with a melee weapon ? Simple, you know how to hit the vital structures of your target. However, this does not means that you will be able to equal the damage output of the Warrior who invested as much points in the damage attribute with the same melee weapon. 

 

As the P:E devs said : You will not be able to beat a class at his own strenght, a warrior will do more damage with a sword than a wizard. Even if you both have the same damage attribute. However, the Wizard will do more damage with spells than the Warrior. 

 

Simple really. The damage attribute may have you increasing damage output for everything, it does not means everything does equal damage output for all classes. 

Edited September 13, 2013 by J. Trudel

[Tamerlane]

In the end, I want to be able to create a wizard who deals massive damage with spells and is exceptionally accurate with them, but when you give him a mace he can barely lift it, let alone hit anyone.

 

Simple, right?

To the extent that I'd love to make a wizard who deals massive damage with spells and is exceptionally accurate with them but can't speak eight languages and is bad at math, yes. Simple.