stat grump

[jinian]

Dexterity is at least two things.

I have heaps of manual dexterity; witness my l33t odd-count peyote skillz. I have a reasonable amount of not-falling-down and putting body parts where I mean them to go, in the main, but I have a hard time learning particular body movements, like in a dance[*]. Once learned, they can be performed with a reasonable amount of finesse. I have a fairly high degree of kinesthetic memory, meaning that for a long time I didn't really remember Wim's mobile phone number and I still double-check it if I'm not sure by remembering its pattern/motion.

So that's, what, four? Okay, I don't know of any RPG that breaks them down that far. I seem to remember one that had at least split out dexterity as in lockpicking and agility as in gymnastics. This just keeps niggling at me whenever I look at the stuff for the D&D game I'm in. I can't be the only one with such different levels of competence within one stat, and I think I ought to be able to customize things more for a character without it being expensive. I guess I can, somewhat, and I guess Where Does It End if we start breaking things out. This just seems like a big one to me.

[*] Yes, I can dance. I have been seen to do it, and I even get to liking it, after the initial period of horrible frustration where I learn at 1/4 speed. Don't be encouraging, okay?

Comments

continued incoherent game talk

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Oh, and what about getting clumsy with PMS? Where is that in D&D? I ask you! Not that I want to be charting cycles all the damned time, of course, but at least then I would have had some defense in my last game when the percentile dice came up 00=pregnant thief character.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

And we might know the moon phase then, which is extremely useful!

Is too. And we can make the GM keep track.

Okay then.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Harnmaster. What else are D28s for? You roll it at character generation to see where you are in your cycle, and thereafter keep track. Or, you don't, and the GM rolls it every time your character has sex...

Harnmaster is insanely complicated. You have a battle that lasts all evening, and you eventually manage to figure out that the result is that you have a slight cut on your upper arm, which gets gangrene and kills you three weeks later.

We used to play it on Mondays, to get over playing WFRP on Sundays.

[kiya]

Chaos -- the gaming system designed by jikharra has dex and agility. I'd file memory stuff as mental rather than a physical stuff, even if it is kinesthetic memory; learning stuff also.

I'm not sure how I'd class myself for dex or agility; I trip over things a lot but I'm really, really good at not falling down. I think that's low agility, good balance . . .

[torquemada.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall that MERP (Middle Earth Roleplaying) had separate Dexterity and Agility, but I could be wrong.

[dave-over.livejournal.com]

*whew*! Glad it was a pregnant thief, and not a pregnant Magistrate! ;) The moon cycles can and are kept track of in some games, but people usually don't like playing the Cycle of Womanhood. Hmm. Perhaps this is something I should introduce in my game. I ahve a couple of female characters. I could see what they think of the whole thing.

As to the dexterity thing? Most art skills are handled differently in D&D. If you are a jeweler, it goes off of the "profession: Jewler" feat. They usually don't end up hitting the stat at all, leaving dexterity itself for only athletic ability.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

But I'm not a jeweler. It's just that if I try to learn something in that area, I can do it, boom. Five minutes or less, sometimes. I don't know of a "learns fiddly things quickly if taught and can probably figure them out within a day or two" trait in D&D. And it seems like it could be really useful at times.

Jeez, don't even say "pregnant Magistrate," Dave. We ended up with something like three babies in my old party (with a polymorphed-to-nanny-goat former enemy feeding them, heh). And yeah, I think people don't usually like playing it. I didn't like playing morning sickness either. :)

[linenoise.livejournal.com]

In AD&D 2nd Edition, there existed a series of books called Player's Option. One of them, Skills and Powers, had a system that divided each of the 6 primary stats into 2 sub-scores (the average of which was supposed to equal the real score, but I suppose that could be optional). The book itself is in NorCal, so I can't check the specifics. But it had, for example, strength-of-maximum-lift, and strength-of-stamina. So your max lift and bend bars and damage adjust was covered by one score, and your encumbrance was determined by another score.

It also had intelligence-of-memory, and intelligence-of-learning. I think Dex was broken into Agility, arrow shots and skills, and Balance, which was walking and running and AC adjust.

[australian-joe.livejournal.com]

Rolemaster differentiates Agility and Quickness. Most skills draw on the average of two or three stats, so Stalk & Hide is modified by the average of Agility and Self Discipline, while Dance (from memory... ok, I had to go and check) uses Agility and Intuition. (Interesting, I would've made a case for Agility and Empathy, myself.)

Even melee combat doesn't solely use Strength, which I like. It uses the average of Strength/Strength/Agility. Missile weapons use Agility/Agility/Strength.

It is complex beyond all reason. I currently have a 7 page character sheet written in a spreadsheet to calculate skill bonuses from skill ranks, stats, level, class, training, items, and any other misc mods that might have crept in.

But I do like that all classes can learn all skills; some just find some things easier. ("But Gandalf used a longsword" I always said for AD&D1.) Plus, I love that morning star is one of the deadliest one-handed weapons (highest fumble range though.)

The campaign I play in is heavily customised - we have, over the last 17 years, written in excess of 900 pages of custom magic. Once in a session with 8 PCs we had a mass battle against a group of enemies. It took us 2 hours to get past the first round! Mind you we were all on multiple actions per round, so it actually was something like 4 actions per PC (and up to 5 for some of the NPCs), but still.