Attributes

[rjshae]

 

 

 

 

Your argument applies purely to power gaming. Other approaches that make sense are cases where the player wants to play a particular build that isn't tightly wrapped around that narrow power gaming concept. Let's call it "role-playing". Players do play the game that way, and the attribute system makes it viable.

So in other words: you don't want to play a game, you want to play make-believe. You can do that if you want, but don't expect others to take your views on character building seriously if that is your aim.

There has to be a balance reached between the two. Average player (aka majority) is gonna fall in the middle on this. they want to role play and play a character ideal but still want to be effective, gameplay wise, without having to get too deep into (or worry about) the math and mechanics. My point being, what would be some exceptable middle ground changes that arent pure role play or pure power gaming? Thats where I have a hard time thinking what could be changed to make it better overall.

 

Yes, I tend to build based on the character I want to play rather than for power gaming purposes. My geeky power gaming "munchkin" itch has long since been sated and now I prefer flexibility in design. A less optimal but more interesting character is simply more enjoyable to play.

 

Unless one is playing with an entire party of custom characters, creating your PC purely for power gaming purposes isn't going to make a major difference anyway. You're just one-sixth of a team made up of mostly pre-built, non-optimized characters.

 

 

Right, but this is a forum that largely caters to the power gamers, the people that want to know exactly how things tick.  Going "well I don't want to power game!" here is kind of silly.  Who cares what "average" players want?  Give them an "automatically assign stats" button to go with the "level up automatically" option and they can focus on having fun.  Pathfinder is not somehow hostile to roleplaying and "just want to have fun" players that don't obsess over eking 5% more throughput from their attributes, despite being a "Wizards must have Intelligence" system.  You'd simply have an interface that goes "Strength is necessary for Fighters, Dexterity and Constitution are recommended!" and that would make everything accessible and simple for regular players (along with "suggested feats" buttons like we got in KOTOR 2 etc.)

 

I'm not even talking about min-maxing when I say every build needs Might and Intelligence to be good.  I don't min-max any of my characters.  Doesn't make Might and Intelligence any less dominant.

 

 

 

No, this is a General Discussion forum. It's entirely appropriate to discuss how supposedly "non-Power Gamers" want to play. How anybody wants to play PoE.

 

You're also completely missing my point. It's about being able to enjoy PoE with multiple different build types, not how do you build the Wizard who can deal the most dps.

[1varangian]

Big problem with the attributes as they are is precisely that they don't create different build options because they don't have enough impact.

 

Tweaking your wizard's Might and Int a few points up or down doesn't do anything noticeable so you can't really even talk about builds.

 

A battlemage with melee ability would be an example of a build, but in Pillars it's much more about spell choices. The various and abundant protection spells and Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff or Citzal's Spirit Lance define a battlemage 10 times more than anything you can do with your attributes. As a consequence, all serious battlemages fight with the same weapon which again limits your build choice and versatility.

Edited April 20, 2017 by 1varangian

[rjshae]

Big problem with the attributes as they are is precisely that they don't create different build options because they don't have enough impact.

 

Tweaking your wizard's Might and Int a few points up or down doesn't do anything noticeable so you can't really even talk about builds.

 

A battlemage with melee ability would be an example of a build, but in Pillars it's much more about spell choices. The various and abundant protection spells and Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff or Citzal's Spirit Lance define a battlemage 10 times more than anything you can do with your attributes. As a consequence, all serious battlemages with with the same weapon which again limits your build choice and versatility.

 

I partly agree in that the attributes could potentially be re-tuned to have a bigger impact, say by doubling all of the modifiers. It's unclear what sort of impact that would have on the game balance though, and it may put in too much incentive to min-max. Personally I'd prefer that they re-work the skills to allow us to better differentiate the characters.

[Ninjamestari]

Big problem with the attributes as they are is precisely that they don't create different build options because they don't have enough impact.

 

Tweaking your wizard's Might and Int a few points up or down doesn't do anything noticeable so you can't really even talk about builds.

 

A battlemage with melee ability would be an example of a build, but in Pillars it's much more about spell choices. The various and abundant protection spells and Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff or Citzal's Spirit Lance define a battlemage 10 times more than anything you can do with your attributes. As a consequence, all serious battlemages with with the same weapon which again limits your build choice and versatility.

 

The bigger problem is that they tend to balance each other out, so unless you exclusively dump either offensive or defensive stats, they will have little impact on the overall performance. They affect the same things too much. Hell, I'd go so far as having MIG be the stat for melee damage and accuracy, DEX could affect deflection and ranged accuracy, CON does HP, remover PER completely and replace with Willpower to act as the power stat for spells and magic, INT should be the versatility stat (could be renamed Wits), meaning more skillpoints, unlock talents, increased AoE, RES could then handle improving your passive abilities and increasing the duration of both your temporary buffs and debuffs. Fortitude saves would be handled by MIG and CON, Reflex by DEX and WIT, and Will by WP and RES.

 

EDIT: That way all the stats would have definite roles and there would be minimal overlap, and you couldn't really compensate the loss of one attribute by the increase of another.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Ninjamestari

[1varangian]

Intelligence unlocking talents or improved versions of talents is a good idea too so it would be useful for Fighters.

 

Or Int could simply buff martial talents. Knockdown is easier to accomplish if you understand physics.

[Fenixp]

A diminishing returns / point buy system for stats would help a lot if the bonuses become bigger. That would eliminate the problem in my previous post, where maxing Dex and Per could get overpowered. Let's say a stat to 15-16 would cost 2 points and 17-18 3 points like in NWN. Having an even spread of 14's would be very competitive with 18 Dex/Per and 8 in everything else.

Basically, your suggestion is becoming a "Strength will influence your damage unless you're a mage, then something else influences your damage, but your accuracy is actually influenced by Dexterity and Perception, perception is weaker tho. Oh and 1 point in these stats means a thing, unless they are higher than a <number>, in which case it means a different thing. There are also thresholds that you should know in advance because they unlock yet other things."

 

And then a wise man will approach you and say:

"1 point in Might will always increase your damage by 3%, 1 point in Perception will always increase your accuracy by 1 and 1 point in Dexterity will always increase your speed by 3%".

 

One solution is clear and easy to understand. The other is unnecessarily contrived and will have me consulting manual for each use of it. They are both, however, abstractions disconnected from reality.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Fenixp

[Ninjamestari]

Intelligence unlocking talents or improved versions of talents is a good idea too so it would be useful for Fighters.

 

Or Int could simply buff martial talents. Knockdown is easier to accomplish if you understand physics.

 

I don't think direct relationship would be that good; after all, knockdown is easier to accomplish if you understand Newtonian physics, but understanding Einsteins theories don't really provide an additional benefit to that.

[Ninjamestari]

 

One solution is clear and easy to understand. The other is unnecessarily contrived and will have me consulting manual for each use of it. They are both, however, abstractions disconnected from reality.

 

 

Strength is a representation of the character's muscle strength. The way might works now is that it just represents a game mechanic (damage), not a trait of your character. If that is unnecessarily contrived to a theoretical individual then might I suggest that said individual would lack the mental capacity to effectively play a game about different characters and complicated tactical combat in the first place. What you're implying with that statement is that you're stupid as ****, which I have a hard time believing due to you playing a game that actually requires a fair amount of intellect to enjoy, and thus I must conclude that this statement is not completely honest.

[1varangian]

 

A diminishing returns / point buy system for stats would help a lot if the bonuses become bigger. That would eliminate the problem in my previous post, where maxing Dex and Per could get overpowered. Let's say a stat to 15-16 would cost 2 points and 17-18 3 points like in NWN. Having an even spread of 14's would be very competitive with 18 Dex/Per and 8 in everything else.

Basically, your suggestion is becoming a "Strength will influence your damage unless you're a mage, then something else influences your damage, but your accuracy is actually influenced by Dexterity and Perception, perception is weaker tho. Oh and 1 point in these stats means a thing, unless they are higher than a <number>, in which case it means a different thing. There are also thresholds that you should know in advance because they unlock yet other things."

 

And then a wise man will approach you and say:

"1 point in Might will always increase your damage by 3%, 1 point in Perception will always increase your accuracy by 1 and 1 point in Dexterity will always increase your speed by 3%".

 

One solution is clear and easy to understand. The other is unnecessarily contrived and will have me consulting manual for each use of it. They are both, however, abstractions disconnected from reality.

 

No. Strength would also influence your Mage's damage with weapons and the level of armor he would be able to wear. If you want to be able to fight back when something engages you in melee, put a few points in strength. If you want to be a glass cannon who shatters in melee, ignore Strength. That gives you a meaningful choice that creates a real build option. A choice that does not exist in Pillars because the current system flattens the meaning of stats.

 

Your wise man quote applies exactly to my suggestion so you must have misunderstood something. 1 point in a stat would always give you the same benefit. Just when you assign your attribute points in character creation, the cost increases in steps. NWN point buy system is a good reference because it is balanced and you have to make meaningful choices with your attributes. And it wasn't exactly difficult to understand.

Edited April 20, 2017 by 1varangian

[1varangian]

 

Intelligence unlocking talents or improved versions of talents is a good idea too so it would be useful for Fighters.

 

Or Int could simply buff martial talents. Knockdown is easier to accomplish if you understand physics.

 

I don't think direct relationship would be that good; after all, knockdown is easier to accomplish if you understand Newtonian physics, but understanding Einsteins theories don't really provide an additional benefit to that.

 

Lol that's why the "smart Fighter" build could be satisfied at 14 Intelligence instead of buffing it further. :D

[Fenixp]

No. Strength would also influence your Mage's damage with weapons and the level of armor he would be able to wear. If you want to be able to fight back when something engages you in melee, put a few points in strength.

"damage with weapons and the level of armor he would be able to wear." is one problem in and of itself, but let's gloss over that for now - you seem to be missing the implications. Might is +3% to damage. Always. Even with healing spells. It's always the statistic that influences the endurace shift you're going to cause and it always influences it in the same way (well... More or less, Obsidian still has some work to do for the abstraction to work 100%, but they're getting there.)

 

Now... What about Paladin whose meele attacks may be semi-magical? Does the damage buff get split between Strength and Intelligence? What about other abilities of other characters? What about wizard spells that summon weapons? Is the weapon damage fixed? Which abilities and spells are considered intelligence-based, strength-based or combination thereof? Can I tell that at a glance without remembering descriptions for dozens of abilities? To make these work, you're going to have to come up with more "ifs" for your system.

 

There's your advantage of clearly laid-out rules right at the base level of attributes. The more exceptions, limiters and modifiers you add, the more confusing is your system going to become down the line for any reasonably complex system.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Fenixp

[1varangian]

It's effectively the first iteration of a more or less new system, PizzaSHARK. I agree with your points (to an extent, tank with dumped CON isn't particularly effective in my experience), but I want Obsidian to work with it and improve it (in many areas) as opposed to completely obliterating and remaking it into another DnD clone.

The increased Endurance from Con isn't actually at all important.

 

Good DR and especially Defenses are much more important. A single Priest can effortlessly fix situations where you can't avoid taking damage with Consecrated Ground. Also Second Wind makes Con a lot less important since everyone gets a big insta heal that increases with a skill rather than Con.

 

For my first Fighter I played a non-min/maxed Greatsword wielder with balanced stats, 10 Con and a focus on Deflection and the rest of the defenses + Vigorous Defense for emergencies. He tanked just fine while dishing out good dmg.

 

I would also argue that Int *is* a complete dump stat for Fighters. The increased duration is insignificant when a typical duration (Disciplined Barrage, Vigorous Defense) goes from 15 seconds to 18 seconds twice per fight. A constant +4 in Deflection or Accuracy or +12% damage matters exponentially more.

[1varangian]

 

No. Strength would also influence your Mage's damage with weapons and the level of armor he would be able to wear. If you want to be able to fight back when something engages you in melee, put a few points in strength.

"damage with weapons and the level of armor he would be able to wear." is one problem in and of itself, but let's gloss over that for now - you seem to be missing the implications. Might is +3% to damage. Always. Even with healing spells. It's always the statistic that influences the endurace shift you're going to cause and it always influences it in the same way (well... More or less, Obsidian still has some work to do for the abstraction to work 100%, but they're getting there.)

 

Now... What about Paladin whose meele attacks may be semi-magical? Does the damage buff get split between Strength and Intelligence? What about other abilities of other characters? What about wizard spells that summon weapons? Is the weapon damage fixed? Which abilities and spells are considered intelligence-based, strength-based or combination thereof? Can I tell that at a glance without remembering descriptions for dozens of abilities? To make these work, you're going to have to come up with more "ifs" for your system.

 

There's your advantage of clearly laid-out rules right at the base level of attributes. The more exceptions, limiters and modifiers you add, the more confusing is your system going to become down the line for any reasonably complex system.

 

You're misunderstanding the whole thing, or maybe you want to for argument's sake.

 

I'm strongly advocating the removal of all unnecessary modifiers that Pillars currently has that don't really add depth or anything meaningful to combat.

 

There's nothing overly complicated in my proposed system that hasn't been done successfully in other games before. It seems your preferred system would be one where there wouldn't be attributes at all where you could put your points directly into "damage" regardless of class or weapon or spell. To each their own but that's too simplified for me.

 

Obsidian's baggage here is DnD. It has an attribute system. It works well. It lets you create the kind of character you envision and the stats have a lot of weight in combat. Comparisons are inevitable. Obsidian created a system that is really similar to DnD but it has big flaws. And those flaws are not "it's not DnD" - they are about mechanics and expression.

[Ninjamestari]

You're misunderstanding the whole thing, or maybe you want to for argument's sake.

This. He does that a lot.

[Fenixp]

maybe you want to for argument's sake.

To an extent, yes. So how would you solve it? Your strength already influences physical damage. Do you also want to remove active skills from meele characters? And:

 

It seems your preferred system would be one where there wouldn't be attributes at all where you could put your points directly into "damage" regardless of class or weapon or spell.

Also yes, because I feel it leads to very interesting emergent combos in character creation that designers of the game never envisioned (just like all mechanical solutions to problems do.) The biggest issue I've always had with systems like DnD (and a similar trap you're slowly falling into yourself while envisioning your own system) is that designers try to think of all possible combos and create individual exceptions and conditions for what they believe would be good ways for players to play their game (a tendecy you have actually shown yourself by implying that low-Int mages are not a good thing).

 

The thing with systematic solutions, like a +Damage stat encapsulated into some fluff to make sense in-universe, is that designers don't have to do any of that. They just give player a system and player can do whatever he wants with it, and then what players does with it will most likely work if it makes at least a bit of sense. PizzaSHARK is right about balance being poor - but I still adore the sentiment and wish Obsidian to continue in that direction. And ... Well, we already have tons of games with DnD-like systems in place, I really don't think we need another one.

 

Obsidian's baggage here is DnD. It has an attribute system. It works well.

Eeeeeh... We already agreed to disagree on that :-P Anyway, "Let's not try new things" was never much of an argument for anything in my book. Edited April 20, 2017 by Fenixp

[Durgarnkuld]

The lack of imagination and stubbornness in this thread alone is astounding.

And sad.

[rjshae]

The lack of imagination and stubbornness in this thread alone is astounding.

And sad.

 

Sorry you feel that way. It's just a bunch of folks expressing their opinions. Nothing to dump on really.

Edited April 20, 2017 by rjshae

[1varangian]

 

maybe you want to for argument's sake.

To an extent, yes. So how would you solve it? Your strength already influences physical damage. Do you also want to remove active skills from meele characters?

 

 

I didn't suggest anything of the sort and I won't be fueling silly exchanges either. Have a nice day, Fenixp.

[Fenixp]

I didn't suggest anything of the sort

I said you did? But the questions I was asking you in both of my previous posts are actually questions you have to start asking when designing a new system. (Notice how 2nd and 3rd DnD edition's spells and abilities often have their own rules and conditions they play by outside of just their effects) I can guarantee you that Obsidian went through the same process, albeit a longer one. And so far (to my knowledge), majority didn't come up with consistent answers that would always manage to apply in the same manner for all applications. Except for the system devised by Obsidian. Now they have to streamline stuff like attack speed and the way stacking works and the system has the potential to be absolutely amazing. Edited April 21, 2017 by Fenixp

[Guest 4ward]

 

 

There are plenty of spells available that mostly deal damage and/or have effects that last for a short duration. These are going to be least impacted by a low Int. To me it's mainly a matter of tuning your spell selection to your attributes. Low Mig/High Int: go for Aoe spells with long durations; High Mig/Low Int: targeted spells with short durations; Low Mig/Low Int: maybe jack up your Dex and Per, focusing on rapidly spamming a target with damage spells.

 

 

yes, true, though i don‘t like the approach that spells are ‚designed‘ by the player, i feel shoehorned like playstyle and roleplaying are too much emphasized for what happens in combat. I like BG2 better, because there‘s a good amount of spells to choose from and more importantly some spells are designed that you can use them for different playstyles. For example, skulltrap in BG2 can be used as a trap to lure enemies into or for teleporting enemies while it also can be used to simply launch it into an enemy group. So it supports different playtsyles but also gives the player the freedom to choose. If it‘s decided by attibutes then the player is using them the same way no matter the encounter IMO. So i say give me more spells to choose from and design them so i can use them depending on the situation. Also in the old games i could protect my caster without losing speed. In Pillars i have to have high dexterity to offset it somewhat. Arcane veil is one protection, but the protections in BG2 are better and once i decide to use armour i also decide to give a higher DEX score and then i‘m set with that for the whole game, in BG2 it‘s upon me to decide for every battle how well i‘m going to be protected. So, again, less decisionmaking, at least that‘s how i feel about it. Then, melee system, making repositioning harder, then spells hitting/critting/grazing so they don‘t give incentive to counter or that the decision whether to counter or not is rather disregarded by the player (if there actually would even be counterspells as in BG2 in the first place). Much better and clearer for decisionmaking is a spell that either has an effect, has half the effect or has no effect. Health/endurance giving less incentive to heal, in BG2 it‘s more annoying to die so you rather heal there. The list goes on… In BG2 i feel the progress, i get robe of vecna and my casting action is sped up, i get AC3 bracers i get hit less and so on… I‘m not saying there‘s a right or wrong and you‘ll disagree of the above i‘m sure, it‘s just i‘m missing the reactivity of combat as in the old games and i don‘t care if it‘s called d&d or whatever. Btw, in d&d you dual or multiclass if you want more attributes to play a role for your char. Well, whatever, it doesn‘t matter anyway, nothing will change whatever it‘s said here, just killing the time before game release...

[Psychevore]

Resolution is already pretty much an automatic dump stat on pretty much every character I've ever made. Removing the defensive stats from it makes sure I will always dump it on everyone to the absolute minimum.

Except on spellcaster, where'd I'd max it out and dump strength to the bare minimum.

I don't think the proposed changed are any good.

[Ninjamestari]

One thing that could improve all the attributes would be to get rid of the whole Fortitude - Reflex - Will - Defence scheme and instead just have certain abilities introduce attribute checks. The general guidelines could be:

 

Strength - used in checks against knockback and knockdown effects and such

Constitution - used in checks against poisons and diseases

Dexterity - used when dodging attacks

Perception - used to measure reflexes, IE to check if you notice something early enough to attempt a dodge roll

Intelligence - used to combat illusions

Resolve - used to defend against direct mental attacks, such as fear, sleep and charm.

 

Perception is still the problem child, I'd find a replacement for it to represent that spiritual strength stuff. It's too easy to make perception affect absolutely everything. Maybe wits to represent the ability to think quick on your feet and split second decision-making, or something like that

 

EDIT: the point is, there's no need to over-simplify the defensive rolls and not to include several at once when the computer is handling the dice. For example, let's say your character is being strangled; if your strength isn't enough to resist the force applied against your throat, then constitution could determine the amount of time you can go on without oxygen before passing out, or something like that.

Edited April 21, 2017 by Ninjamestari

[Messier-31]

One thing that could improve all the attributes would be to get rid of the whole Fortitude - Reflex - Will - Defence scheme and instead just have certain abilities introduce attribute checks. The general guidelines could be:

 

Strength - used in checks against knockback and knockdown effects and such

Constitution - used in checks against poisons and diseases

Dexterity - used when dodging attacks

Perception - used to measure reflexes, IE to check if you notice something early enough to attempt a dodge roll

Intelligence - used to combat illusions

Resolve - used to defend against direct mental attacks, such as fear, sleep and charm.

 

I see your point, but tell me: what's wrong with this?

 

[Ninjamestari]

You mean besides everything that has already been mentioned a few dozen times?

[Messier-31]

Yes, because the abovementioned graph is a paraphrase of the above-abovementioned attribute checks suggested by You.