SUGGESTION: Stat Changes

[Nail]

 

Strong in Body, Strong in Spirit, Strong in Mind ©

 

[KDubya]

 

Perception having both accuracy and deflection at least makes sense in that being more perceptive makes you better at hitting and at not being hit.

 

The new system will make either Strength or whatever handles spell damage (Resolve is what the devs are proposing) a dump stat, nothing will be changing that fact. Based on that I'd rather have Intellect and the new Resolve switched so that melee can be brave idiots instead of timid geniuses, mechanically that changes nothing but it makes a lot of roleplaying sense to me.

Someone perceptive might not have fast reactions. You might perceptively notice a blow coming and appreciate technique but it probably won’t stop you from being smacked.

 

Resolve is still desirable for melee characters (just like strength could be for casters in certain builds). Resolve will influence non weapon based abilities so it goes beyond cypher/Druid/priest/mage. All classes will have to choose between melee damage (strength), ability damage (resolve) and ability duration (intelligence), accuracy (perception) and speed (dexterity). On paper it looks good but whenever this new division will play well with existing class design and balance remains to be seen.

 

Oh and constitution. Constitution is kinda lame.

 

 

Perception handling the deflection part of stat bonuses makes as much or more sense than the new Resolve which handle spell damage.

 

Plus Perception used to handle deflection in the early versions of PoE so there is a precedent.

 

Nuking Casters will be dumping the new Strength as they will quickly acquire more spells than they can cast in an encounter so auto-attacking will be a rare occurrence. 

 

Melee guys who don't have heals can safely dump the new Resolve. This would be Rogues, Monks, Barbarians (their heal has buffs that overlap with Frenzy so it might not be as great for many builds) and perhaps BleakWalkers who have bad healing already (this'd depend on where Sacred Immolation falls in the power tiers, if its single class only then multi-classers have less use for Resolve).

 

My suggestion to change what the new Resolve and Intellect does is purely to avoid having timid geniuses as Barbarians instead of brave idiots. The game mechanics stay the same besides the swapping of bonuses. 

[Lephys]

Oh, for **** sake.

MIGHT MEASURED THE POWER OF YOUR SOUL GOD DAMMIT

 

... and your muscles simultaneously, or nothing measured the power of your muscles and/or everyone in Eora are just undead vessels that are animated solely (pun intended) by soul power, and they just happen to be all different-sized bodies for no reason at all. *GASP*... THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ANCIENT PEOPLES! They accidentally invented souls, thereby all dying in the process, then immediately repopulating the world with revenants! o_O

 

Seriously though, stats are equal parts "how does this make gameplay interesting" and "how does this make role-playing interesting." So, to every single "who cares!" response to a stat doing something that blatantly makes zero sense, the problem is purely a role-playing one. Want that NPC in the world to react to your character being the strongest human they've ever seen and being a masterful gun user? How do you do that? "Oh, man... if anyone scrawnier would've said they were going to hunt down that dragon with that gun, I'd say that's dumb! But you! With those muscles, you should be able to fire bullets straight THROUGH that dragon!"

 

The world wants to make sense, but the stats rebel like an angsty teenager. Am I saying you can't do that with stats purely because a guy couldn't comment on your muscle gun skill? No. It's just an illustration of the principle behind doing so with stats in an rpg world that yearns to make sense and allow you to roleplay through it.

 

As many have said, however, magic and fiction work the way we want them to (within reason... they still have to hold to their own established bubble of reason, or you don't have a world, fictional or not). So, for example, maybe Intellect does affect magic. But it doesn't HAVE to be in power. Power is but one factor, be it for magic or melee weapons or ranged weapons or guns or class abilities. What if Intellect affects cast time? Boom. Want to be ultra-swift? Get Intellect. Want to be ultra-swift AND powerful? Intellect and Resolve. Want to also use melee weaponry with any effectiveness? Now you need THREE stats. The points are starting to spread thin. That's how it works.

 

In a good attribute system, ideally you wish you could max out all the stats, no matter your character. You're never like "Meh, that only increases sock dryness for my class, u_u...". Granted, this doesn't mean that you could just say "Pssh, I don't care about melee weapons or refraining from getting knocked down!" and say to-hell with Strength. You can't build a character with all the stats high, so you have to pick and choose the type of character you want. That's fine.

 

So, it's pretty simple. If fighting with a melee weapon and fighting with magic spells are two different facets of your character, they should not be the same thing in attributes. If ranged weapons function differently, then figure out how to interestingly make them work with the stats.

 

If it's a separate option for character creation -- a different build/path you can take with your character, then it doesn't need to get neglected in the attribute system. It's pretty much that simple. You start with goals of how you want characters to be able to be played, and what you want to work in the RP aspect of the story and world, then you make attributes accordingly. It's not really a huge mystery as to what attributes you should have and what's the right way to do them. That said, I'm not saying it's super easy to get all the math worked out the way it needs to be. But, in general, it's not like "Oh man, I dunno. What if this is completely the wrong way to do it?" There's not a magical equation in the stars that tells you how attributes should work. And there's not some ease-of-use formula that makes them right, either.

[Lephys]

Would Intellect controlling only Will and Magic Damage not make it a dump stat for most non-caster builds? 

 

Not really, because in a slightly-overly-simplified way, "magic" is just soul-powered abilities. So, technically, even Fighters could have a spectrum from pure physical prowess (18 Strength) to pure soul-powered Fightery super-human abilities (18 Resolve). All classes have the same power source, they just use it differently. But they all ALSO have physical, non-magical capabilities. Thus you have Wizards summoning magical weapons, but still wielding them with their regular, non-fictional fighting capabilities.

[Tanos]

 

 

 

So magic damage coming from Intelligence or physical strength makes sense but from resolve not?

Oh, for **** sake.

MIGHT MEASURED THE POWER OF YOUR SOUL GOD DAMMIT

It’s nice to know that you found explanation which works for you, but:

 

“Might represents a character's physical and spiritual strength, brute force as well as their ability to channel powerful magic. During interactions, it can be useful for intimidating displays and acts of brute force. In combat, it contributes to both Damage and Healing as well as the Fortitude defense.”

 

At no point in the game was it used to represent the “POWER OF YOUR SOUL.”

 

Emphasis mine. It's quite explicit that Might is not just physical strength, but also ones "spiritual strength", which is the power of ones soul as it is, in fact, the power of ones soul that one uses to cast spells, use focus, employ wounds, and even use knockdown as a fighter. It is your soul power *AND* physical strength that is measured by might; the stat measures both things, but those things are separate from each other.

 

Whoever scripted the interactions, though, ****ed it up.

 

Well the problem is that by this definition there is a direct correlation between physical strength and spiritual strength, ergo you cannot be one or the other but both. This means there is but a single way to interpret this, your 20 might orlan wizard use its spectacular 100kg upper body to sling fireballs way harder than other wizards.

 

That said,

i do not think that changing spell damage from might to resolve will change the "no dumpstat issue" since the problem wasn't that might was too powerful but rather that resolve just didn't synergize well with most classes, since it provided solely defensive statistics. With this change physical damage users that keeps out of harms way will remain the same as before in addition to my orlan wizard loosing his sixpack. How does this change solve anything?

Edited December 5, 2017 by Tanos

[lpro]

So will they do anything about CON being a basically useless stat?

One notion: --chars without high constitution should suffer from serious fatigue in the course of a single episode of combat --I know there was a fatigue mechanism in original POE but it didn't seem to kick in unless you never rested. In order to resolve CON being meaningless, fatigue should already be taking effect in the course of a single encounter. It made no sense that my low con paladin tank could keep it up under incredible battering in the original POE while wielding a two handed sword or a sword and shield and heavy plate even though by all rights the frail paladin ought to have been tiring and becoming sloppy--he had 8 con! This could lead to gameplay tradeoffs--high might/lower con melee characters would be able to dish out serious melee damage,  initially, but fatigue in the course of combat, becoming slower, less accurate, and hitting less hard. High CON/average might characters might not be capable of the same feats of incredible damage, but could last longer without suffering loss of performance in the longer encounters. 

 This is ordinary common sense in that your low con rogue could do a lot of dps using 2h weapons  and keep it up but anybody wielding two axes or two sabres would need some more CON to keep laying on the hurt. Perhaps STRENGTH could mean damage but CON should be a prerequisite for sustained exertion in melee combat. 

Of course, you'd have to balance out melee so that making CON work like this would leave melee characters still viable since they would be dependent for DPS on two or even three stats. 

Does anybody else have suggestions for making CON less meaningless? 

[CENIC]

Does anybody else have suggestions for making CON less meaningless?

Give it Deflection.

[rjshae]

 

Does anybody else have suggestions for making CON less meaningless?

Give it Deflection.

 

With the new damage system, I would speculate that Con could weight the types of injuries you can receive. For example: High CON = painful bruise; low CON = internal bleeding. It could also be used to determine cool-down periods, if those are included. I.e. higher CON = shorter cool-down period.

[Lamppost in Winter]

I was thinking putting that incoming buff affliction duration modifier people were suggesting for Res to Con.

Edited December 6, 2017 by Lamppost in Winter

[illathid]

meh, if the change to interrupts made Resolve less appealing any changes to make resolve better should be limited to resolve alone. It breaks existing characters otherwise.

[Lephys]

One thought is to make CON affect recovery time (between actions), and possibly other stats affect the "cast time" of abilities and actions (reload speed on guns, aim-time for ranged attacks, etc.). Obviously the cast-time spectrum is just an optional thing that doesn't have much to do with CON, but I feel it's related.

 

Another thought is to have CON affect duration of Afflictions.

[Lamppost in Winter]

 

 

Another thought is to have CON affect duration of Afflictions.

Ach, this was the thing I was thinking of, turned into buff duration in my brain.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I'd still prefer a return to Might instead of Str/Res. Might was a unique mechanic and it made hybrid builds a lot more viable.

 

The major issue is that if we did move back to Might over str/res, both Resolve and Perception need significant buffs; each point of Might and Dex gives about a 3% dps boost, but each point of perception gives, at best, about a 2% damage increase. And then Resolve doesn't do much of anything. 

 

The solution is to give something to per and res, I think -- maybe hit to crit / crit to hit, maybe something with interrupts and concentration, etc. 

[Ninjamestari]

I think the mistake here overall is trying to make the stat-system act the same for every single class. In D&D certain classes gain special benefits from certain stats, and it adds a ton of flavor and personality to each class. Thus what i'd suggest is that while strength should still determine the power of physical attacks, magical attacks would depend on the class/power source. Wizards could employ Intelligence, Paladins and Priests could use Resolve while a Cipher could use Perception. (Wizards effectively need to figure out more powerful structuring for their spells, Paladins and Priests rely on the strength of their convictions while Ciphers have a direct contact to the 'soul-energies' and thus benefit more from noticing the slight variations in the structure of the enemy soul in order to determine where to apply the 'pressure')

 

Over all, I think the process of making the stats of an RPG should be first to determine the different attributes of the inhabitants of the world, and only after that begin to figure out how they might affect the game mechanically. The game mechanics are supposed to represent the 'reality' of the fantasy setting, not the other way around, and it seems like this whole Soul business kinda began with the idea of making universally homogenous stats and the rationalizations of how this worked from the fantasy side came only as an afterthought.

[Lephys]

Making a certain stat be THE stat for a given class is the most restrictive thing you can possibly do. You can have stats do something a bit different for various classes, but the answer is definitely not "Make it so that if you're a Wizard, you HAVE to want Intelligence, but you can maybe want some other stats if you're bored." The whole point is to get away from "correct" builds. There's no point in saying "here are a bunch of stats to adjust for fun, varied results in your characters!," then adding "Oh, but you're class X, so you need attributes Y and Z as high as possible. Having them lower is never a good idea."

 

You want to be able to build lots of different types of Wizards, not good Wizards and less-good Wizards. Same for other classes. In this way, it's great that every class in PoE has the same power source, so there's no "But wait, my class doesn't have magic, so Stat X is a dump stat for them now!" So now the trick is to build things in such a way that each class can utilize each stat. Doesn't make all the stats necessary, but it makes them all useful. So if you want a high-strength high-con Wizard, you could have one, and be beefy. (I use Wizard as an example because it's so applicable to the problems we see and how classes are differentiated in RPGs). As long as the Wizard has weapon summons and self-augmentation abilities, etc., he should be able to tank, to a degree, and have it play out differently than if a Fighter or Druid or Barbarian tanked.

 

Personally, I'm really sick of seeing RPGs over the last 15 years lock all the roles down for classes. "You're a fighter, so here's what you do, exactly. You have high armor, high health, and you taunt stuff." That's boring. Not that tanking is necessarily boring, but HAVING TO tank is boring. That fighter should be able to do all KINDS of different things, and just do them all in a very Fightery way. While a Wizard would do various different things, but in a very Wizardy way.

[MaxQuest]

I'd still prefer a return to Might instead of Str/Res. Might was a unique mechanic and it made hybrid builds a lot more viable.

There is a common trick that can keep hybrids viable, even with STR/RES. I am speaking of stat overloading.

 

Remember Zen Archery and Combat Insight from NWN2?

Imagine if cipher had a talent that would enable him dealing phys damage with RES instead of STR.

 

Making a certain stat be THE stat for a given class is the most restrictive thing you can possibly do. You can have stats do something a bit different for various classes, but the answer is definitely not "Make it so that if you're a Wizard, you HAVE to want Intelligence, but you can maybe want some other stats if you're bored." The whole point is to get away from "correct" builds. There's no point in saying "here are a bunch of stats to adjust for fun, varied results in your characters!," then adding "Oh, but you're class X, so you need attributes Y and Z as high as possible. Having them lower is never a good idea."

Exactly. And this is what Josh means by:

resolve was already a dump stat for casters unless they planned to be in melee. and remember that no dump stats was a *secondary* concern to no bad builds, which is far more important. in the previous lineup, it was difficult to justify a resolve-based caster.

and again, it's more important that you *can* make a good build with a stat than it is that you can't dump it.

Although this means that we also need:

- good build for ranged constitution-based cipher, wizard and priest

- good build for ranged strength-based chanter and priest

Edited December 18, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Wormerine]

Personally, I'm really sick of seeing RPGs over the last 15 years lock all the roles down for classes. "You're a fighter, so here's what you do, exactly. You have high armor, high health, and you taunt stuff." That's boring. Not that tanking is necessarily boring, but HAVING TO tank is boring. That fighter should be able to do all KINDS of different things, and just do them all in a very Fightery way. While a Wizard would do various different things, but in a very Wizardy way.

I think that would be an ideal situation, and something Obs would probably very much like to do. But it kinda goes against an idea of class based system and makes things much more complicated. Essentially, to really live up to “all builds are valid” promise, Obs would need to design classes within classes with all of them fulfilling at least 4 tank-DPS-Support-healer roles. It might be an interesting approach for something like Dragon Age with 3 available classes, but I am not sure it is realistic in PoE. Maybe if system remained the same through several games and each installement would add skills to every class to expend their usefulness...

[Lephys]

Meh... I don't think it's unrealistic in very many games at all. Maybe the ideal is less heavy-handed on the flexibility in certain games as compared to others (like a Gauntlet-type couch-coop action RPG doesn't really worry as much about flexibility, because of how it's designed... or Street Fighter. The whole point is kind of that the characters are all very, very specialized, but all you're doing is fighting in the same exact duel, over and over and over, so the only parameters that are changing are the character distinctions.).

 

The entire point of a robust stat system is to measure distinctions in stats and their effects on your character throughout a complex world of gameplay as a distinct factor from class choice. Classes are to distinguish your character a bit, but not necessarily to ultra-restrict your role. Everyone still has to survive hits, deal damage, etc. So, to say "your role is to have more HP" is awfully restrictive. There's plenty of room in an RPG's structure to allow for a tank with more HP, and a tank with less HP. To tank, all you really have to do is draw and mitigate damage. That could be via parrying, barriers, CC, etc.

 

I just think people don't think outside the box enough in the over-arching approach to all this. We tend to assume certain things mean certain restrictions, when the necessary restrictions are actually broader than that. For example, you should theoretically be able to "tank" as a Wizard to uses cool spells and stuff to draw enemy fire and simply keep enemies occupied, be it by charming them to attack one another, causing all their attacks to miss you for the most part, CC them to take away their attacks/DPS output, etc.

 

To think "No, we always need someone to stand there, take punishment and not die by way of pure defensive values, and attack people with basic weapon math really well, and also this should be the defining role of this one class" is simply narrow-minded, if you really think about it.

[Ninjamestari]

I think the whole "all builds are valid" mentality sounds more like small children playing make-believe with an overzealous nanny than adults playing a game with rules. I see no problem in the D&D approach what-so-ever; a fighter who is too weak to lift a sword is just as useless as a mage who is too stupid to cast a spell. There's no real benefits to the 'all builds are valid' goal, because the only way to achieve that goal is to make stats effectively meaningless, which in turn will completely butcher any fun one might have in figuring out how to get the most out of a character. The "all builds are valid" is equally retarded to the "only one build is valid", because ultimately the two are the same. "All builds are valid" actually means that "all builds are the same". A game shouldn't try to protect the player from making bad decisions, because when a game does that, the player is no longer playing the game, but the game is playing the player.

[Baltic]

I think the whole "all builds are valid" mentality sounds more like small children playing make-believe with an overzealous nanny than adults playing a game with rules. I see no problem in the D&D approach what-so-ever; a fighter who is too weak to lift a sword is just as useless as a mage who is too stupid to cast a spell. There's no real benefits to the 'all builds are valid' goal, because the only way to achieve that goal is to make stats effectively meaningless, which in turn will completely butcher any fun one might have in figuring out how to get the most out of a character. The "all builds are valid" is equally retarded to the "only one build is valid", because ultimately the two are the same. "All builds are valid" actually means that "all builds are the same". A game shouldn't try to protect the player from making bad decisions, because when a game does that, the player is no longer playing the game, but the game is playing the player.

Isn't it more of a phrase than the exact meaning. As in a wizard tank will be okay but you're making a mistake if you try and make a tank with low constitution (ignoring illusion type tank builds) for example.

[Lephys]

"All builds are viable" is not an attainable or reasonable goal, and I think some of the terminology/wording gets mixed up in these discussions. Most people aren't rooting for that, and the ones who are are either confused or just haven't thought things out very well.

 

All stats should be viable for all classes. What that means is, if I'm a Wizard, I shouldn't be incapable of utilizing Constitution, or Strength. It doesn't mean that ALL Wizard characters should want Constitution. But the class, as a whole, ideally, should have potential reasons to utilize the stats.

 

You should be able to build an inviable Wizard, but it should be pretty difficult, to be honest. Like, if you pump Resolve and dump Strength, then use only summoned-weapon spells, for example. But that doesn't mean Strength or Resolve are bad stats for the Wizard class.

 

Essentially, any character build options should be able to be built around within the rest of the character-customization system.

[Ninjamestari]

I think in case of wizards it should be relatively easy to add in a couple of spells that summon very powerful temporary weaponry and/or defensive spells that utilize constitution. When it comes to magic users, there really aren't any limits to what can be achieved with spells. I still don't think that "all stats should be viable for all classes" should be a goal in an on itself; it's not a bad outcome if it comes naturally from the spells and abilities that fit the classes, but if not, one shouldn't start forcing down new abilities just to make stat x a viable build focus for a class y. What I'm saying is that in order to preserve the feeling of the fantasy, one needs to always begin the design process through a fantasy concept rather than a game-play concept, and once you've got the fantasy concept down and you're satisfied with it, you'll begin to figure out how to make the game mechanically represent it. All in all, i find that in the end, the integrity of the class fantasy is a lot more important than trying to achieve some arbitrarily defined vision of balance/equality.

 

Also, bear in mind that restrictions do not always remove from the experience, they in fact can be a great source of identity for a class (Just like in D&D), which is something that I felt was really lacking in PoE1. When you create an identity for a class or a character, what they *cannot* do is just as important as what they *can* do. Just like any mythical creatures. Take Vampires for example; being unable to withstand exposure to sunlight is an integral part of the whole concept, and it adds a ton to the whole mythos. Similarily the mages inability to cast in armor in D&D is a significant identifying restriction, which makes any exceptions to the rule (Bards, Warlocks, Still Spell) equally significant if you build your character concept around that.

 

The point is, there's no flavor to the strength based wizard if it's just another build, but if it's something unconventional that usually doesn't work, it suddenly becomes significant and special in a way. Overcoming limitations is much more satisfying than there being no limitations in the first place.

[Lephys]

You make good points, Ninjamestari.

 

All I'm really saying with the "a Wizard should be able to utilize Constitution" example (and the points I made surrounding it) are that the approach to the design of both classes AND attributes, and how they will work together from the get-go, is important. Just to illustrate, you said that there's no need to start forcing down new abilities just to make stat X a viable build for class Y. And that's precisely correct. But, all things in moderation. One should not force down an idea such as "well, you're a caster, so the entire idea is that you just aren't going to take hits, while other classes WILL take hits," either. Now you've almost single-handedly rendered Constitution and Health pointless to focus on for a Wizard, because, by design, he's going to die if he doesn't stay the hell away from all combat. Restrictions are great, but that's a rather arbitrary one, if you ask me. Without that, there's not even a need to add in abilities or class-specific factors to try to counter that effect. The easiest thing is just to let Constitution be valuable from the get-go by not deciding that Wizards aren't going to use Health and defense for anything.

 

Imagine if all a Ranger could do was fire arrows. If anything got within 10 feet of him, he just couldn't do anything to them. That's blatantly too much restriction, not because he should be unrestricted, but because it makes him one-dimensional.

 

So, I love restriction, but it needs to be intelligently designed. At a certain point, you're forcing class distinction via the heavy-handed use of restriction. When you restrict merely to distinguish one class from another, you eliminate something that could've been a dimension for that class. Thus, in D&D for example, you wind up with all Wizards having relatively high Intellect, not really caring about Constitution (other than making sure it's not completely dumped), and not really caring about Strength, and not wearing heavy armor because casting in heavy armor amounts to a horrible slot machine. Just as an example, if the armor-casting restriction were, say "the heaviness of your armor modifies your casting time," that would've been a much more interesting restriction than "quite possibly your spells become useless if you decide to go with anything other than cloth armor, which is what basically ALL the Wizards are using.

 

What's cool about a Vampire is not that he can't go out in sunlight, but how it effects him if he does. Using RPG rules, you could say "You know what? I'm gonna boost the crap out of my vampire's Constitution, and I'm gonna fight in sunlight a bunch." And that makes for a really interesting way to interact with your limitations and choices. But if you immediately perish if so much as a makeup mirror's worth of sunlight is reflected at you, then it's just not even worth putting up with that restriction anymore. It's just something you don't do now. I think you touched on an excellent point with the overcoming of limitations. If you make a limitation such that it's not worth overcoming, and it simply herds everyone into a single option, it's not a very good limitation.

[Ninjamestari]

You make good points, Ninjamestari.

 

All I'm really saying with the "a Wizard should be able to utilize Constitution" example (and the points I made surrounding it) are that the approach to the design of both classes AND attributes, and how they will work together from the get-go, is important. Just to illustrate, you said that there's no need to start forcing down new abilities just to make stat X a viable build for class Y. And that's precisely correct. But, all things in moderation. One should not force down an idea such as "well, you're a caster, so the entire idea is that you just aren't going to take hits, while other classes WILL take hits," either. Now you've almost single-handedly rendered Constitution and Health pointless to focus on for a Wizard, because, by design, he's going to die if he doesn't stay the hell away from all combat. Restrictions are great, but that's a rather arbitrary one, if you ask me. Without that, there's not even a need to add in abilities or class-specific factors to try to counter that effect. The easiest thing is just to let Constitution be valuable from the get-go by not deciding that Wizards aren't going to use Health and defense for anything.

 

Imagine if all a Ranger could do was fire arrows. If anything got within 10 feet of him, he just couldn't do anything to them. That's blatantly too much restriction, not because he should be unrestricted, but because it makes him one-dimensional.

 

So, I love restriction, but it needs to be intelligently designed. At a certain point, you're forcing class distinction via the heavy-handed use of restriction. When you restrict merely to distinguish one class from another, you eliminate something that could've been a dimension for that class. Thus, in D&D for example, you wind up with all Wizards having relatively high Intellect, not really caring about Constitution (other than making sure it's not completely dumped), and not really caring about Strength, and not wearing heavy armor because casting in heavy armor amounts to a horrible slot machine. Just as an example, if the armor-casting restriction were, say "the heaviness of your armor modifies your casting time," that would've been a much more interesting restriction than "quite possibly your spells become useless if you decide to go with anything other than cloth armor, which is what basically ALL the Wizards are using.

 

What's cool about a Vampire is not that he can't go out in sunlight, but how it effects him if he does. Using RPG rules, you could say "You know what? I'm gonna boost the crap out of my vampire's Constitution, and I'm gonna fight in sunlight a bunch." And that makes for a really interesting way to interact with your limitations and choices. But if you immediately perish if so much as a makeup mirror's worth of sunlight is reflected at you, then it's just not even worth putting up with that restriction anymore. It's just something you don't do now. I think you touched on an excellent point with the overcoming of limitations. If you make a limitation such that it's not worth overcoming, and it simply herds everyone into a single option, it's not a very good limitation.

 

Your last paragraph is precisely my point. If you can overcome the squishiness restriction of a wizard just by focusing on constitution, it's not really a restriction then. There are other ways to enable tougher wizard builds; for example, perhaps there's a talent they can use to gain the ability to cast properly in armor, light armor first and then medium etc. The reasoning is that there has to be a cost associated with overcoming the limitations of a class, you need to invest in that and build around the concept. Also, making constitution useful for wizards isn't the same thing as making wizards survivable in melee. The vampire who is so powerful that he can even survive short periods of exposure to sunlight is an exceptional vampire, not just another fledgling who invested a little more in constitution. In the same manner, I don't think you should be able to overcome a fundamental class limitation at first level simply by your initial stat allocation. We obviously agree on what we want to see in a game like this, but my point is pretty much just that stat design is the wrong way to try to achieve the versatility. Keep the stat design simple and down to earth, so that it is easily intuitive and grounded in reality, and then design your classes around that system in a way that both creates the natural strengths and weaknesses as well as ways to overcome those weakness, but at a cost and probably over multiple levels instead of immediately at level 1. If a class is too restricted into a certain role, that is not the result of stat design, that is the result of class design.

[Katarack21]

"All builds are viable" is not an attainable or reasonable goal, and I think some of the terminology/wording gets mixed up in these discussions. Most people aren't rooting for that, and the ones who are are either confused or just haven't thought things out very well.

That is a logical fallacy; it's built on the assumption that you *must* be right, and the only reason people don't agree is because they can't see how right you are.

 

In actuality, people have different points of view, different goals, different desires, and different ways of achieving things, and some of them understand the whole thing just as well as you and think you are wrong. It's really that simple.