Attribute theory

[rjshae]

That's true within a certain range, but the force applied by muscles doesn't continue to scale in a linear fashion. They can only contract or expand so fast, so you can't just apply a huge amount of acceleration to an extremely small object. I.e. the benefits of strength to the application are primarily in the range below the maximum contraction velocity--objects on the heavier end of the possible range. Light weapons shouldn't see much of a benefit from greater strength.

[Tsuga C]

No arguements from me with regards to smaller weapons like daggers receiving only a limited bonus, but larger weapons are a different matter and should receive a proportionately larger bonus to hit point/stamina damage when wielded by stronger characters. This is simply common sense. If other statistics are lacking in importance, then Obsidian should design the game around the idea of making them more relevant. Nerfing strength is too "gamey"--a quick and dirty fix to the perceived problem that doesn't make much sense.

[Adhin]

All the more reason not to call it strength. Another reason to dump the word 'intelligence' and have it apply to all damage I give to you my old friend back in middle school Robert. Robert was very smart, stupid good memory. Hell this'll even work with strength to denounce strength more so. He was about 6'4", big guy, pretty strong. He couldn't chop wood to save his life. He could pick up the axe, he definitely understood how a wedge with added force chopped up wood... but he just couldn't manage to do the motion properly.

 

Beginning of Skyrim, the executioner that chops off the head of the Stormcloak? Holds the axe handle at both extreme ends and kinda herpy-derps it down and it just sorta works. That was Robert, and spoiler, that's not enough force to chop wood, or probably that guys head. Woulda been painful though and he might of lost his balance attempting it. Granted folks kinda assume your warrior or fighter isn't that big of a derp at swinging a weapon and as such more strength equals better momentum and all that... sure.

 

Anyway I still think they should drop the normal naming convention and come up with something a bit more ideal based in theme for the names. And if inventory slots is tied to a stat, I feel like whatever gives stamina should be tied to inventory size. It just makes more sense then health. Ability to carry stuff for extended periods of time are rather heavily linked to ones stamina in a general sense, not necessarily there strength. Though Strength definitely helps.

[Yonjuro]

 

in real life more strength means using a weapon with more ease, resulting in steadier aim and faster swings.  some how people think that more muscle means more damage, which though intuitive is in fact false (like cars exploding).

Force = Mass x Acceleration Holding dexterity as a constant, the stronger you are the more acceleration you can impart to the swing of that hammer, thus the more force (potential damage and loss of stamina) you can inflict upon your opponent. Color me less than happy with the nerfing of strength.

 

 

 

 Not exactly. If we were trying to make the attributes simulationist (which, remember was not a goal), the equation to use is impulse. Apologies in advance if you know this already and were just trying to avoid writing out what I have below.

 

 (Major physics and bio-mechanics digression follows for those not convinced that we aren't trying for simulationist attributes. Even if that were the goal, intellect v. strength is more nuanced than several people have said.)

 

 You can easily convince yourself that F = MA doesn't compute what you want. A train leaves Chicago at 5 o'clock and soon accelerates to a constant 100 miles an hour. Acceleration is change in velocity with respect to time. Since it is traveling a steady 100 miles per hour, it has acceleration of zero. Therefore, force is zero? Nope, and don't jump in front of it to prove that it is because that won't end well. The equation you want is 'impulse'('impact' might be a more descriptive word than impulse, but, hey, those crazy physicists..)

 

 So, for those of you who are still awake, we'll use lower case 'd' instead of the Greek letter delta (which is used to mean change) and rewrite F = MA as F = M dV/dT

 

Multiply both sides by dT to get FdT = MdV. The quantity on the left is called impulse. The F is how hard the hit is and the dT is how long it takes the (say) war hammer to decelerate on impact (so, e.g. a rubber mallet, being soft, decelerates more slowly and doesn't produce as much force as a steel hammer all else being equal). The right side has Mass and Velocity. That's why you don't want to do the train experiment - it has a lot of mass and a lot of velocity.

 

 Note that velocity is a vector quantity - that is, direction matters. Good, say, hammer technique, would be to step towards the target, rotate the body forward and down (towards the hit) and counter rotate the arm outwards from the body to offset the inward rotation. The hammer now strikes from a moving platform and the component velocities add together, as all vectors do, to produce more force  (just as if you threw a rock  from on board our Chicago train at a target next to the tracks - it hits much harder than if you threw it standing still) .

 

 That's why technique is more important than strength - strength just needs to be enough to do the technically good movement and ***can only be applied to the extent that muscle fibers can be recruited to contract in the short window of time available*** (that is, from the forward step to the final hit can't take more than a few hundred milliseconds, not long enough to recruit most of the available fibers, because you would miss if you did it more slowly).

 

 If you view technique as codifying something that people have figured out, intellect is not a bad stat to capture that if you want the attributes to simulate RL (which, again, was never the goal).

 

 Anyone who has read this far should feel free to put an impulse equation badge in your sig line. (But, please, something tasteful  ).

[rjshae]

No arguements from me with regards to smaller weapons like daggers receiving only a limited bonus, but larger weapons are a different matter and should receive a proportionately larger bonus to hit point/stamina damage when wielded by stronger characters. This is simply common sense. If other statistics are lacking in importance, then Obsidian should design the game around the idea of making them more relevant. Nerfing strength is too "gamey"--a quick and dirty fix to the perceived problem that doesn't make much sense.

 

Right, well that's similar to penalizing the use of a particular weapon for not being at or above the "required" strength. Maybe a better wording would be "optimum strength" or "cap strength": the level at which strength bonuses no longer continue to increase, with the base weapon damage adjusted as needed to balance it out.

 

If the designers wanted to use an indirect element of "intellect" to damage, they could use it to adjust the average percentage of Health damage taken based on the Stamina damage inflicted. The burly PC could do a lot of stamina damage, but if your character is as dumb as a brick then he's mostly damaging the non-vital parts.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

If the designers wanted to use an indirect element of "intellect" to damage, they could use it to adjust the average percentage of Health damage taken based on the Stamina damage inflicted. The burly PC could do a lot of stamina damage, but if your character is as dumb as a brick then he's mostly damaging the non-vital parts.

 

 

And that would be useful/relevant in an encounter because...?

[IndiraLightfoot]

Yonjuro is right scientifically, but impulse or mass or what not! It's clear that intellect and skill matters if you are to have use of strength, regardless of the amount of it. And what does that translate as? Experience, or levelling, if you will. So, in my opinion, STR suffices as a simple RPG-attribute that is both abstract and concrete enough.

[Ganrich]

What is intelligence if not the ability to better apply the knowledge you have gained with experience and level, though?

 

Give the brute and the smart warrior the same level, weapon, and abilities and the smart warrior will find more ways to use that weapon and abilities than the brute. The smart warrior is more capable of applying his knowledge and skill in more versatile ways than the brute. The brute is more likely to just copy and paste what they have seen and experienced. While the smart warrior will adapt a single technique that was taught for a single situation to many more situations where it is applicable. This would allow for more sustained damage which is what Intellect provides in this case.

 

Strength definitely is fine for a simple RPG attribute, but so is intelligence. We just have to "unlearn what we have learned."

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I don't have the problem with keeping the name Strength. If PoE is anything like the IE games, you're going to need a minimum STR to be able to pick up and wield weapons or hold items in your back pack. eg. Two Handed sword, Requires min 8 STR. I don't recall seeing in this thread what attribute is for holding weapons and items in your back pack. Words like Power seem a little off with having a minimum x Power to hold my back pack / items in my inventory.

[Jon of the Wired]

I like the original system proposed by Josh simply because it has way more potential to use the stats outside of combats than these offshoots you people came up with. It's a lot more intuitive to say that "you have high Perception, so you can read body language and notice stuff easier", or "you have high Strength, so intimidation is easier for you", or "you have a high Dexterity, so you can do sleight of hand-type stuff" than thinking about when would "power" and when "vigor" apply, or whether pickpocketing should be a purview of Dexterity or Speed, or what to base intelligent or perceptive answers at all. 

 

His version was fairly intuitive and balanced from this standpoint (although Con's still useless).

 

I think this is a very important point, and I'd like to expand on it. I think Josh's stated goal of eliminating dump stats to expand the range of viable builds is very important, but it's not the only metric on which attribute proposals must be measured. This discussion has been almost exclusively focused on combat, and while combat is one of the main gameplay elements of Eternity, it's not the only one. We know that a character's attributes are the primary thing from their character sheet that feeds into conversations and and other scripted events, so any attribute proposal must support this use case well. 

 

Abstract or unusual sets of Attributes don't pose much problem for the combat system because combat is very systematic. The effect of an attribute in combat can almost always be summed up in a few bullet points (increases damage, improves defenses, etc.), so it doesn't matter much what you call it or how you describe it. Scripted events, however, are very different. Scripted events are bespoke content created by a designer. In order for attribute usage in a scripted event to be satisfying, the player and the designer must have the same concrete understanding of what characteristics an attribute is supposed to measure. Otherwise, the player will find that the character they made is not able to interact with the world in the way they expected (this is especially crucial to get right, because the choice of how to set your attributes is almost entirely front-loaded). You can have a very abstract attribute like "Power" and write a paragraph of explanatory text telling the player what it means (and hope they read it), but it's easier to leverage what a player already knows and expects. For this reason, I would be very careful about taking an approach to attributes that is either too abstract, or too unusual.

[Lephys]

 

I would wager that knowing the best places to strike and the best techniques to use for maximum effectiveness (ergo "damage") is more an issue of knowledge than it is of Intellect. Granted,[...]

 

If we take Power, Constitution, Dexterity, Perception, Intellect and Resolve, there won't be much left of these "attributes". CON, DEX, PER, INT, they all can be honed, even if it's clearly a matter of predisposition and genetic advantages involved as well. RES sounds like a personal trait, a temperament. And POW, is that just a big pool of abstract force? Then it's perhaps not based on knowledge, skills and training so much.

 

In many RPGs you get to increase these attribute slightly at a certain interval, often based on levels. And what is levels? Experience, and thus acquired knowledge and skills. If these attributes should be used, they surely must be regarded as abstract baselines of capacity, some springboards of predisposition that grows along with acquired experience. I'm fine with that, but then I think Resolve has to go, since it doesn't fit the bill. That perhaps goes for Power as well. I'd prefer to have STR instead, which certainly fits, just like Aluminiumtrioxid pointed out. Perhaps Resolve can be replaced by Discipline, as that could be something more easily moulded and honed?

 

Just some confused thoughts from a tired RPG-ODer...

 

 

I just want to say that, yes, knowledge is a separate factor that interacts with almost all the stats, but I'm not saying that you can't have a stat value abstractly overlap a bit with SOME amount of knowledge. But, you're basically dealing with 3 things when it comes to damage with a physical weapon:

 

1) Force/power/strength. If you swing a weapon with the strength of a 6-year-old, you're just-plain not going to be as effective as a 7-foot-tall adult person, all other factors the same.

 

2) Knowledge/experience/expertise. You know how to apply force, rather than just swinging really, really hard all the time to lesser effect and even wearing yourself out, etc.

 

3) Intelligence. Your ability to convert experience into knowledge, and apply that knowledge in an effective manner. This is why the abstraction of Intelligence granting you more skill points when you level up actually makes a lot of sense, because you gain more knowledge, more effectively, from the same amount of experience.

 

A super-genius who's really strong, who's only just seen a sword for the first time in his life isn't going to use it more effectively than an average-intelligence person of average strength who's been an active soldier for 20 years. But, give that guy 3 years, and he might be nearly as good as the 20-year veteran, simply because he extracts THAT much more information out of his experience with the sword.

 

Comparatively, a super-genius who's just discovered a sword is going to be able to use his existing knowledge (even without a lot of specific knowledge particular to swords) to deduce how to use the sword more effectively than a non-genius who's just discovered a sword.

 

What I'm getting at is that we've already got an established difference between stats (passive properties/measurements of your character) and skills (experience/knowledge gained over time). You've got Dexterity (or agility/speed etc. depending on the game), but then you've also got the Stealth skill. A situation could require a Dex check, or a Stealth check, or even both (in whatever fashion -- bonus from stat to skill for the purposes of a check, etc.).

 

AND, we've already established that strength/force does have an impact on physical weapon use, striking, etc., even if it's not always the exact same impact across the board. AND, Intellect affects your use of a tool as well.

 

And it's all abstracted in a game, but that has no bearing on whether or not it should be represented at all, or what each thing should be represented with.

 

The ideal solution, I think (ideal meaning "maybe we can't quite do that, but we should reach in that direction, at the very least"), is to have Force affect things that force affects, Cleverness affect things that cleverness affects (Intellect), and accumulated experience/knowledge (skill rating) affect things that skill rating should affect. Ideally, they don't need to step on each other's toes.

 

That's the beauty of a ruleset. You're casting Fireball. Does this use physical force generated by your body? Not at all. Okay, then your Strength has no affect on it. You're firing a longbow. Does this use physical force generated by your body? Yes? Okay, then your Strength affects it.

 

Or, maybe the simpler way to put it is "What do we want damage to actually represent in the mechanics?" Then, "What parts of that do we want stats to represent?"

 

If the goal isn't to do anything more than represent a sheer, abstracted damage amount, then alright. But, as I pointed out, things like the 4 defense types, weapon/armor types, and the Attack Resolution scale already represent conditional factors for determining the resulting damage of a given attack. So, it's not as if breaking stats' effects on damage up into parts/factors would be completely stepping into territory that would otherwise go unexplored.

[Mor]

What is intelligence if not the ability to better apply the knowledge you have gained with experience and level, though?

 

Give the brute and the smart warrior the same level, weapon, and abilities and the smart warrior will find more ways to use that weapon and abilities than the brute. The smart warrior is more capable of applying his knowledge and skill in more versatile ways than the brute. The brute is more likely to just copy and paste what they have seen and experienced. While the smart warrior will adapt a single technique that was taught for a single situation to many more situations where it is applicable. This would allow for more sustained damage which is what Intellect provides in this case.

 

Strength definitely is fine for a simple RPG attribute, but so is intelligence. We just have to "unlearn what we have learned."

I think you confuse the role of intelligence and skill, otherwise using the same argument intelligence should give bonus to almost everything in the game. Simply replace warrior and weapon with any other class and skill.

[Mor]

I don't have the problem with keeping the name Strength. If PoE is anything like the IE games, you're going to need a minimum STR to be able to pick up and wield weapons or hold items in your back pack. eg. Two Handed sword, Requires min 8 STR. I don't recall seeing in this thread what attribute is for holding weapons and items in your back pack. Words like Power seem a little off with having a minimum x Power to hold my back pack / items in my inventory.

I agree 'Power' and 'Might' seems little off, concerning the amount of items you can carry in your backpacks, i'd rather go with more familiar Strength.(btw did item weight has been mentioned anywhere?)

 

Also as far as I know there are no restrictions on what weapon or armor characters can use not per attribute nor per class, Its all about speed.

 

http://eternity.gamepedia.com/Attribute

http://eternity.gamepedia.com/Armor

Edited December 21, 2013 by Mor

[Lephys]

Also as far as I know there are no restrictions on what weapon or armor characters can use not per attribute nor per class, Its all about speed.

 

Which makes me think Strength affecting weapon speed (based on some weight factor or something) would be really, really awesome. That Wizard can USE that two-handed sword, even with his 9 Strength, but he's not going to be able to handle it as well as that Wizard with 18 STR. Then, materials come into play, too. Pay good money for that Mithril claymore, and now your Wizard can handle it much better, even though he still only has 9 STR, simply because it's lighter/better balanced.

 

It's still abstracted, sure, but I think that's a very interesting possibility. Attack speed is even a direct factor to damage, allowing STR to affect damage without simply making a given weapon swing do more damage (against which the most feasible argument is "you don't necessarily swing harder just because you CAN, because that may not be the most efficient application of a given weapon").

 

Although, certain situations still seem a bit lacking. Such as Conan the Barbarian swinging a giant maul. Sure, he'd probably handle it better and swing it faster than a weaker person, but it would be very weird if he didn't do more (base) damage swinging a giant maul harder than someone else who wasn't nearly as strong, unless the power behind his swing was ALWAYS directly proportionate to the crappiness of its angle or something... which is pretty nonsensical. Dunno why being strong would mean you can't strike properly. Annnnnnywho...

[Ganrich]

 

What is intelligence if not the ability to better apply the knowledge you have gained with experience and level, though?

 

Give the brute and the smart warrior the same level, weapon, and abilities and the smart warrior will find more ways to use that weapon and abilities than the brute. The smart warrior is more capable of applying his knowledge and skill in more versatile ways than the brute. The brute is more likely to just copy and paste what they have seen and experienced. While the smart warrior will adapt a single technique that was taught for a single situation to many more situations where it is applicable. This would allow for more sustained damage which is what Intellect provides in this case.

 

Strength definitely is fine for a simple RPG attribute, but so is intelligence. We just have to "unlearn what we have learned."

I think you confuse the role of intelligence and skill, otherwise using the same argument intelligence should give bonus to almost everything in the game. Simply replace warrior and weapon with any other class and skill.

No, I understand that. I am just trying to see this from the perspective of the current system, and arguing the sense of it. I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate to be sure. I do see this as a flaw in many cRPG's though. There are very few tangible benefits in most games to the intelligent warrior unless it is a hybrid caster of sorts, or the player is just RPing. Intelligence should have some play in physical combat IMHO.

 

On the note of a 6 year old vs a 7 foot grown man. A 7 foot tall grown man with the strength of a 6 year old will hit harder than just a 6 year old simply because the distance from his shoulder to the edge of his mace is longer, and that means the edge of the mace is traveling at a faster velocity. So this example is a bit poor because not all things are equal other than strength and intellect as there are huge differences in physics.

 

My argument has been that 2 grown men of equal height, one is fit and smart and the other a mound of muscle... I would consider the intelligent one more so, if not at least equally, dangerous.

 

If we took someone 6 feet tall, smart, and was fit but not Hercules... Put him against someone how was much stronger, the same height, and age, but a bit dense. I would bet on the smart one all things other than smarts and strength being equal.

 

Like i said in a previous post I definitely see STR being fine, but as someone pointed out if you start moving the benefits of these stats around to other stats you will lose out on what josh is trying to do by not having dump stats while retaining a versatile ability system. This is why I am arguing for it because I am not a fan of dump stats.

[Ganrich]

@Lephys I agree about Strength possibly affecting weapon speed, and have more on that, but I am at work at the moment and my lunch nears an end so I will post more on it later.

[Lephys]

On the note of a 6 year old vs a 7 foot grown man. A 7 foot tall grown man with the strength of a 6 year old will hit harder than just a 6 year old simply because the distance from his shoulder to the edge of his mace is longer, and that means the edge of the mace is traveling at a faster velocity. So this example is a bit poor because not all things are equal other than strength and intellect as there are huge differences in physics.

While I follow, I think that's getting a bit microscopic about it. I mean, the archer with the 4MPH wind behind him will have more range and retain more velocity in his shots than the archer with the 4MPH wind against him. But I'm not really worried about that detailed of a representation.

 

The point of my example wasn't that strength doesn't come from arm-length-leverage and such. It was merely that strength -- wherever it comes from -- affects things. The 6-year-old child's purpose in the example was to be blatantly weaker, physically, than the man, while the man's purpose was to be blatantly stronger than the child. The weakest 7-foot-tall man who still actually possessed the capability to fight you without crumbling into dust would be clearly stronger then the strongest 6-year-old child hopped up on steroids, ever. Barring some crazy mutation, or giantism. Which is completely beside the point...

 

My argument has been that 2 grown men of equal height, one is fit and smart and the other a mound of muscle... I would consider the intelligent one more so, if not at least equally, dangerous.

 

If we took someone 6 feet tall, smart, and was fit but not Hercules... Put him against someone how was much stronger, the same height, and age, but a bit dense. I would bet on the smart one all things other than smarts and strength being equal.

Exactly. Forgive my frustration, but I just feel like I've repeated myself about 15 times in this thread, and still I get responses as though I'm having a competition between STR and INT. I simply think STR should do its part, and INT should do its part. Not JUST one of them do BOTH of them's part, etc. It's really as simple as that.

 

The whole point is that hitting someone harder hurts worse, AND hitting someone in the right spot hurts worse then hitting them in the wrong spot. AND, hitting someone HARDER in the right spot hurts worse than hitting someone more feebly in the right spot.

 

That's the whole point of stats.

 

If you have uber Perception, you can spot stuff and calculate distances and whatnot. If you have uber Dexterity, you can physically aim at whatever you can see. If you have HORRIBLE Perception, but awesome Dexterity, maybe you're near-sighted, but you can hit wherever you aim, so long as you can see it to aim at it (so maybe you'd be REALLY good with melee weapon accuracy and short-ranged throwing knives, etc, or whips or something, but SUCK with ranged weapons?). Or, if you have AWESOME Perception and terrible Dexterity, you can see that orc at 200 paces, and tell that it's an orc, and see that it's sticking out from behind the tree it's hiding behind. But, you cannot make a shot with a bow that far, because you lack the physical control to match your Perception with aim.

 

Two parts of the same thing. Just like with damage.

 

Strength is the generation of force. Intelligence is making the most out of the force you can generate.

 

Neither one makes every single thing you do hurt worse. "That guy hit you in the head with this maul, and you died. But, I'm so smart, I hit you in the head with this maul, and you died even WORSE!"

 

If anything, in the given mechanics, Intellect should affect your attack resolution. Because, your hard base damage value is simply a point of reference for the Attack Resolution scale to do its thing. Your damage might be 10, but when you crit, you do 20. And surely it's not that you just swung really, really hard that one time, right? It's that you hit your foe in such a way that the applied force of your strike was even MORE effective than usual (hammer to the temple instead of the chest). Part of that is luck, sure, but you'd think being smarter/cleverer would allow you to statistically strike in the intended "most effective spot" locations more often, rather than just making all your attacks do more damage.

 

"Oh, you only grazed him... meaning you got a very crappy angle, or he side-stepped as you were striking, etc. -- you did not strike as you intended to and got a "bad" hit -- BUT, you're SO smart, that you used your sheer thought power to 'more intelligently' hit him in a really bad way, so you did 8 damage instead of 6! 8D!"

 

Maybe misses could do like 2 damage instead of 0, because you're so smart. I jest, I jest... but, does that not make sense? If Attack Resolution did not exist, and it was just miss or hit (like in other games... minus criticals?), I'd accept that the intelligent application of your attacks was being abstractly represented by a collective "damage" rating. But, with the way the current system works, your being smart suddenly means that, aside from completely missing, there is NEVER a time when your intelligence does not directly translate into a better hit. Literally every single attack action you take that connects is significantly more effective than every single attack action a not-quite-so-smart (not even outright UN-intelligent) combatant can make.

 

That's just... really weird.

 

And finally, as someone else already pointed out, Strength is dangerously close to being a big dumpy for a lot of class builds, what with it only affecting Health (pretty much how often you need to hike back to the last rest spot, in a worst-case scenario) and carry capacity (which, admittedly, is at least more important for Wizards, what with the benefits of grimoire-swapping and such). I mean, in DnD, Wizards already pretty much universally dumped Constitution (at least to an extent) and Strength. Not that they weren't at all useful, but they were significantly less useful the second you picked "Wizard" as your class.

[curryinahurry]

Strength affects your Health and number of inventory slots.  Constitution affects Stamina.  Dexterity affects Accuracy.  Perception affects Critical Damage.  Intellect affects Damage and Healing.  Resolve affects Durations and AoE size.  We may slightly shift these, but this is what we will be working with in the foreseeable future.

 

Each defense (other than Deflection) is equally influenced by two stats.  Aside from level, the attributes that contribute to each defense are the primary determining factors of that defense.  Class (now) rarely has a large influence on a character's defenses.

 

Fortitude - Strength and Constitution

Reflexes - Dexterity and Perception

Willpower - Intellect and Resolve

 

Deflection is the exception to this.  While Fort/Ref/Will share roughly equal time in defending characters, Deflection is the most commonly-attacked defense.  It is not influenced by any attribute and is mostly determined by level and class.  Characters like fighters and paladins have great base Deflection.  Characters like priests and wizards do not.

 

 

Sorry to be posting late, but was travelling.  Looking at this quote and reading some of the reactions and rebuttals hence, there seems not to be a problem so much with what these attributes do, but rather the words that are being used to encapsulate them.  Particularly with the word strength and its juxtaposition with Intellect, there is a counter-intuitive feeling that many poster on this thread are trying to resolve. This may or may not be legacy issues related to attributes in D&D and what they signify to most on this board, or just what some might label, "common sense."  Either way, it is a potential quagmire that I would consider best avoided.

 

When looking at the actual descriptions of the attributes without considering the label words, the concepts seem perfectly fine so why not re-think some of these words?  Instead of Strength, how about Vitality?  That is more accurately what you are describing (the inventory slot issue is minor and could easily be associated with Constitution or resolve, so I'm not focusing on it).  Instead of Intellect, how about Aptitude? Again, more accurate as a descriptor.  That would leave us with this as the attribute labels:

 

Vitality

Constitution

Dexterity

Perception

Aptitude

Resolve

 

Actually, if you just replace Strength with Vitality, that might go a long way to solving the problem.  I would like to see Strength stay in some way, but maybe it could become a skill like Athletics, and investing points could increase damage with heavier weapons, or provide movement bonus in heavy armor, etc.

 

.If it were me, I would do away with all the D&D legacy names and make a clean break, as it will cause less confusion and whining in the long run.  I think something like this:

 

Vitality

Endurance

Agility

Perception

Aptitude

Resolve

[Silent Winter]

I agree that the problem seems to be nomenclature v. expectation (based on simulationism and/or previous RPG experience).

 

Someone suggested (sorry, not enough free time, can't find the quote) that 'strength' in rpgs should be considered 'effective strength' rather than muscle-mass (some body-builders can't move all that quickly as their muscles work against each other).

So the idea of having all new names (at least new from D&D) (and thus making us read the manual/in-game descriptions) would solve the problem for me.

[curryinahurry]

^  I think the key with your "effective strength" paraphrase is that it implies strength as an active attribute associated with work.  Making it a passive attribute associated with a health resource works against most people's common sense expectations.

[Lephys]

As much as I agree that the specific terms used might be a problem, the one that worries me is a separate issue.

 

How did Shakespeare put it...?

 

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," I think?

 

If a measure of your "smartness," to put it quite simply, were called "Purpleness" as a stat name, it wouldn't change the fact that it was still the same measure of the same character attribute.

 

Everything else feels pretty good. Perception affects critical damage, but not all damage ever to exist. Resolve even makes your AoE's that much larger (in a way, more powerful, as it takes more of something to cover a 10ft radius with equal something than it does to cover a 5ft radius with the same amount of something-per-square-foot). If you hit 17 enemies instead of 10, because of the larger radius of your effect, then you're doing 7 more enemies worth of damage or effect. So, that's actually influencing damage (where damage is already present), as well, without outright just globally increasing all damage. Dexterity affects Accuracy... which affects the probability of your dealing full or critical damage as opposed to halved (graze) or no (miss) damage. Thus, even Dexterity affects its realm of damage, without just affecting "damage" in general.

 

Then, we come to Intellect, which affects what? Damage. So it affects crit damage (because more damage x a crit modifier = more crit damage), AND normal hit damage, and graze damage (more damage halved is still more than less damage halved), AND it hurts everything in your greater AoE radius even more. 

 

If Perception, Resolve, and Dexterity are pieces of a cake, Intellect is just icing that covers the whole thing. Then, you have Strength not even affecting anything combat/attack related. So, the absolute strongest person in the world can carry a house instead of a pebble, and can take 50 more slices to the torso before actually dying, but he can't damage something any better than anyone else.

 

*shrug*... Maybe I'm crazy for thinking that's weird, and not just because of names/terminology. If power/might is actually just the power of your soul or something, then why does it simultaneously make you intelligent/clever? The problem isn't that "strength" is called "Intellect" instead. The problem is that Strength is actually called itself, and exists, but simultaneously represents itself AND doesn't affect the amount of force you can transfer into another object at all by physical means, and that Intellect actually represents not-strength, but still solely increases damage values without conditional prejudice.

 

If you pick up a rock and throw it at someone, and you're really strong, it just does 1 damage (regular "rock" weapon damage). But, if you have excellent Perception, and you critical them, it does 4 damage instead of 2, because you hit them in the eye, lets say. But then, if you have excellent perception, and you're really smart, and you get a critical hit, you hit them SO intelligently in the eye that it you made the rock do 3 damage by default, instead of 1, and so now its critical did a whopping 12 damage.

 

See, I dunno... just thinking about that example, Perception affects critical damage... when you DO crit. Intellect could affect critical chance, at the very least. That makes more sense, to me, just off the top of my head. What causes the extra hurt from your cleverness? The exact manner/location of the strike, with whatever amount of force. What do you call a very fortuitous/effective strike technique/location? A critical hit. Whether by chance or by intent. It's still going to be rareish. You don't just go "Intellect! Strip away mine enemy's defenses, and guarantee true flight!"

 

Anywho, that's in isolation, and Dexterity (via Accuracy) already affects crit chance, relatively. Although, Intellect could extend just the crit range, I suppose. OR, something else. It was just an example of an alternative.

[curryinahurry]

Yes, but that is why the health governing attribute should be called something other than strength, because what they are really describing is more akin to vitality.  

 

If Strength were instead a skill (as something developed like athletics or mechanics which is more accurate to how it works in life), then it could effect certain types of damage, movement rates with armor, etc. and the problem is solved.

 

 

And btw, if Strength were a Skill, many of the people who like to play burly melee types could have that additional level of customization that would make them feel like they were getting a character more like those from the IE games.  Especially with melee characters being less "hands on", this could be a nice compromise.

Edited December 21, 2013 by curryinahurry

[forgottenlor]

As much as I agree that the specific terms used might be a problem, the one that worries me is a separate issue.

 

How did Shakespeare put it...?

 

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," I think?

 

If a measure of your "smartness," to put it quite simply, were called "Purpleness" as a stat name, it wouldn't change the fact that it was still the same measure of the same character attribute.

 

Everything else feels pretty good. Perception affects critical damage, but not all damage ever to exist. Resolve even makes your AoE's that much larger (in a way, more powerful, as it takes more of something to cover a 10ft radius with equal something than it does to cover a 5ft radius with the same amount of something-per-square-foot). If you hit 17 enemies instead of 10, because of the larger radius of your effect, then you're doing 7 more enemies worth of damage or effect. So, that's actually influencing damage (where damage is already present), as well, without outright just globally increasing all damage. Dexterity affects Accuracy... which affects the probability of your dealing full or critical damage as opposed to halved (graze) or no (miss) damage. Thus, even Dexterity affects its realm of damage, without just affecting "damage" in general.

 

Then, we come to Intellect, which affects what? Damage. So it affects crit damage (because more damage x a crit modifier = more crit damage), AND normal hit damage, and graze damage (more damage halved is still more than less damage halved), AND it hurts everything in your greater AoE radius even more. 

 

If Perception, Resolve, and Dexterity are pieces of a cake, Intellect is just icing that covers the whole thing. Then, you have Strength not even affecting anything combat/attack related. So, the absolute strongest person in the world can carry a house instead of a pebble, and can take 50 more slices to the torso before actually dying, but he can't damage something any better than anyone else.

 

*shrug*... Maybe I'm crazy for thinking that's weird, and not just because of names/terminology. If power/might is actually just the power of your soul or something, then why does it simultaneously make you intelligent/clever? The problem isn't that "strength" is called "Intellect" instead. The problem is that Strength is actually called itself, and exists, but simultaneously represents itself AND doesn't affect the amount of force you can transfer into another object at all by physical means, and that Intellect actually represents not-strength, but still solely increases damage values without conditional prejudice.

 

If you pick up a rock and throw it at someone, and you're really strong, it just does 1 damage (regular "rock" weapon damage). But, if you have excellent Perception, and you critical them, it does 4 damage instead of 2, because you hit them in the eye, lets say. But then, if you have excellent perception, and you're really smart, and you get a critical hit, you hit them SO intelligently in the eye that it you made the rock do 3 damage by default, instead of 1, and so now its critical did a whopping 12 damage.

 

See, I dunno... just thinking about that example, Perception affects critical damage... when you DO crit. Intellect could affect critical chance, at the very least. That makes more sense, to me, just off the top of my head. What causes the extra hurt from your cleverness? The exact manner/location of the strike, with whatever amount of force. What do you call a very fortuitous/effective strike technique/location? A critical hit. Whether by chance or by intent. It's still going to be rareish. You don't just go "Intellect! Strip away mine enemy's defenses, and guarantee true flight!"

 

Anywho, that's in isolation, and Dexterity (via Accuracy) already affects crit chance, relatively. Although, Intellect could extend just the crit range, I suppose. OR, something else. It was just an example of an alternative.

I actually thiink your problem IS with nomenclature and you don't realize it. You have a problem with the words "Strength" and "Intellect." and not so much with the attributes. What if they are both renamed? Strength implies physical power, or power in general, while intellect implies knowledge, the ability to learn, and mental capacity.

There are many other abstract words which could be used to name carrying capacity and robustness and the abiltiy to inflict damage. I like aptitude, and I think any word which describes either ability or capacity (like aptitude) or someone's strength of personality would be more intuitive for me than the word "intellect." While I also find another word would also work better to describe someone's ability to carry things and sustain permanent damage.

The thing is I think its a lot easier to rename a couple of attributes then it is to change the entire system. We don't know how much the mechanics are embedded in both combat and non combat situations and development so far. It could set development back and lead to all sorts of balancing problems to change the system. I also think, from what I have heard that Josh has done a good job creating a set of balanced attributes that all have an effect on combat and may also have important dialogue options. I, like many other here, though find the names a bit unexpected.

[JerseyP]

If there was an attribute that gave a bonus to melee damage, ranged damage, magic damage, and healing it would be intellect, but I wish it were broken up a bit.

 

Strength having no effect on damage/second in melee combat bothers me.

[Silent Winter]

^  I think the key with your "effective strength" paraphrase is that it implies strength as an active attribute associated with work.  Making it a passive attribute associated with a health resource works against most people's common sense expectations.

Yes, absolutely.

So, as you suggested, making strength a skill (which can add (%?) melee damage perhaps), would be a solution here.  (And then renaming both strength and intellect to be more intuitive).

If it were reasonable and balanced then you could have 'strength','great strength' and 'heroic strength' as progressive skills.

Edited December 21, 2013 by Silent Winter