A fellow on ENWorld asked if any OGL supplements offered expansions to the current ability scores.  His major beef was that each of the six scores covered areas that didn't necessarily correlate.  His post inspired me, and I concocted something fast and dirty to pitch to him.  I thought I'd post it here to see what you folks thought.

Take the six core abilities.  Each now has two subabilities.  

Strength: muscle, power.

Dexterity: agility, co-ordination.

Constitution: toughness, stamina.

Intelligence: logic, memory.

Wisdom: willpower, perception.

Charisma: looks, personality.

The ability score modifier for the ability is divided between these two subabilities.  For example, a character with an INT of 18 might have a +3 logic modifier and a +1 memory modifier.  If her CON was 15, she might have a +2 toughness modifier and a +2 stamina modifier.  I could forsee allowing subabilities to have penalties so long as the two subability modifiers added up to the ability modifier (for example, a WIS 11 could have a -1 willpower and +1 perception); however, such a thing would have to be carefully restricted to prevent ridiculous min/maxing.

Skills, saves, and combat rolls would have to be reassigned to subability modifiers.  Knowledge skills would be functions of memory, ranged attacks would be a function of co-ordination, etc.  One thing I would consider is allowing some checks to use more than one subability modifier at a time.  For example, Intimidate is equally a function of a character's personality, toughness, and power.  Jump is a combination of agility and power (sometimes requiring co-ordination, too).  Melee attacks are a combination of co-ordination and power.  So, while all modifiers might seem like they are getting lower by splitting them between subabilities, they are actually gaining further potential through logical combinations.

Not all of these sub-categories make sense to me.  Strength, for example, is pretty much Strength.  Constitution likewise.

I agree that Wisdom combines Perception and Willpower in an odd manner (and calls it something completely unrelated to both - I mean... Wisdom??).  And Charisma seems to gather into its domain the subabilities of Appeal, Charm, and Presence (all of which seem different to me).  However, it's my opinion this was done on purpose, and defines an antiquated method of role-playing game understanding/design.

For example: Strength is very narrow in its application, but also extremely helpful to the character (in the form of combat, carrying capacity, etc.)  In order to prevent the existence of a dozen less-oft-used abilities, the wise old creators of the game categorized lesser-used abilities into what we now have.  However, a lot can be said for the fact that the game began as a tactical wargame.  In such a wargame, separating Appearance from Charm from Presence seemed unnecessary.  Today that's not so.

The problem with separating out subabilities is that they will no longer carry the same weight they previously carried within the scope of the rules.  In addition, if you start getting too specific, then I start to wonder where you stop in specificity.  Perception as a sub-ability or new ability?  Is it different from Instinct, Insight or magical Awareness?  What about the fact that Perception actually has several subabilities relating to individual senses?  Is Appeal its own subability?  What about the fact that active use of Appeal is quite different than just being appealing?  Should that break down into Seductiveness and Attractiveness?  Likewise Dexterity logically breaks down into Agility and Coordination (gross motor skills versus fine motor skills - sounds good to me), but how do I know about a character's general Grace?  Flexibility? Balance?

I don't know.  Despite the fact that the game balance was designed around a flawed concept, I think the system works fine.  The generality of the attributes (other than the ones whose roles are very specific, such as Strength, and Constitution) is intentionally intrinsic to the very delicate game balance that is D&D.  I say let it be.

They did this in S|
Personally, you could probably give everyone an extra 4 ability points and get the same end result.

Quote from: RoudiA fellow on ENWorld asked if any OGL supplements offered expansions to the current ability scores. His major beef was that each of the six scores covered areas that didn't necessarily correlate. His post inspired me, and I concocted something fast and dirty to pitch to him. I thought I'd post it here to see what you folks thought.

Take the six core abilities.  Each now has two subabilities.  

Strength: muscle, power.

Dexterity: agility, co-ordination.

Constitution: toughness, stamina.

Intelligence: logic, memory.

Wisdom: willpower, perception.

Charisma: looks, personality.

I always wanted to try a 9 ability matrix that looked something like this...

          PHYSICAL   MENTAL        SOCIAL  
POWER      Strength   Intelligence  Esteem
FINESSE    Dexterity  Wits          Guile
ENDURANCE  Stamina    Willpower     Composure

    PHY MEN SOC
POW Str Int Est
FIN Dex Wit Gui
END Sta Wil Com
...but never quite got around to it.

That 9-ability matrix looks mighty nifty.

Quote from: CleanCutRogueNot all of these sub-categories make sense to me.  Strength, for example, is pretty much Strength.  Constitution likewise.

I'd agree with this.  Actually, Strength and Constitution seem like they should be the sub-abilities of a larger ability, like Physique or something like that.

And I'm not sure I understand the difference between Muscle and Power in the OPs divide.

Quote from: RoudiThat 9-ability matrix looks mighty nifty.

One of the things I kind of like about it is that you can come up with some funk ability generation methods. For example, instead of rolling for each of the nine stats, roll for the six stats along the two axes and the nine abilities in the matrix are the sum of the modifiers from the two pertinent stats along the axes. Like so...

Roll 1: 6, [1], 1, 6 = 13.
 Roll 2: 6, 6, 6, [3] = 18.
 Roll 3: 4, [2], 6, 5 = 15.
 Roll 4: 6, 5, 6, [1] = 17.
 Roll 5: [2], 2, 6, 6 = 14.
 Roll 6: 4, 2, 3, [1] = 9.

      PHY 13 MEN 18 SOC 15
POW 17 Str +4 Int +7 Est +5
FIN 14 Dex +3 Wit +6 Gui +4
END  9 Sta +0 Wil +3 Com +1


Quote from: CyclotronI always wanted to try a 9 ability matrix that looked something like this...

Code Select Expand


           PHYSICAL   MENTAL        SOCIAL  
POWER      Strength   Intelligence  Esteem
FINESSE    Dexterity  Wits          Guile
ENDURANCE  Stamina    Willpower     Composure

    PHY MEN SOC
POW Str Int Est
FIN Dex Wit Gui
END Sta Wil Com

...but never quite got around to it.

Not that dissimilar to how DC Heroes did their stats.  Three sets of stats (physical, mental, spiritual), each with a attack stat, an effect stat, and a stat to determine how much you can withstand in that category (i.e. Dexterity was the offensive stat for physical attacks, Strength was the effect stat, and Body to determine how physical damage you could take).  Of course, the scale (being logorithmic) for the stats was completely different, but personally anything that reminds me of one of my favorite RPG systems ever can't be a bad thing.

The ability matrix reminds me of Dangerous Journeys. DJ had three "top-level" stats: Physical, Mental, and Spiritual. Each of these had two sub-stats - Physical had Muscular and Neural, Mental had Mnemonic and Reasoning, and Spiritual had Metaphysical and Psychic. Each of THESE in turn had three sub-sub-stats: Power, Speed, and Capacity. Capacity mostly served as a cap on how high the other two could be increased. The stats were summed from the bottom up, so Physical Muscular was equal to PMPow+PMSpd+PMCap, and Physical was equal to Physical Muscular + Physical Neural.

The stat names were a little clunky, since DJ tried very hard to avoid using common RPG terms (like "Strength" or "skills"), in order to avoid being sued by TSR. Fat lot of good THAT did them...

WoD is also like that but with 3 abilities for each trait. Powers and Perils also had 10 abilities: Strength, Stamina, Dexterity, Agility, Intelligence, Will, Eloquence, Empathy, Constitution, Appearance

That in turn reminds me of Ars Magica, which has eight stats divided into pairs:
Intelligence - Perception
Strength - Stamina
Dexterity - Quickness
Presence - Communication

In earlier editions, you rolled stats by rolling d10-d10 four times, assigning each roll to one pair. You then split up the roll as evenly as possible (so if you assigned +3 to Strength/Stamina, one would be +2 and the other +1). There were advantages ("virtues") one could take to boost a stat, which still made things like Int +2/Per -3 possible. I believe they've moved away from this whole thing lately, though.

Quote from: DackeThat in turn reminds me of Ars Magica, which has eight stats divided into pairs:
Intelligence - Perception
Strength - Stamina
Dexterity - Quickness
Presence - Communication

In earlier editions, you rolled stats by rolling d10-d10 four times, assigning each roll to one pair. You then split up the roll as evenly as possible (so if you assigned +3 to Strength/Stamina, one would be +2 and the other +1). There were advantages ("virtues") one could take to boost a stat, which still made things like Int +2/Per -3 possible. I believe they've moved away from this whole thing lately, though.

Oh god I remember that now....:imsorry: :confused:

I'm not saying this to be a jerk or an OGL-cop or anything.  But I think it's worth pointing out that the abilities cannot be extended in this way under the d20 License.

"No Covered Product may change or extend the definition of any Defined Game Term as enumerated in this Guide."  -- d20 SYSTEM TRADEMARK GUIDE VERSION 5.0

Just so you know.


Cheers,
Roger

The question would be, therefore, whether defining subabilities counts as extending the current definition of abilities.

Quote from: RogerI'm not saying this to be a jerk or an OGL-cop or anything. But I think it's worth pointing out that the abilities cannot be extended in this way under the d20 License.

Sure, but that's only if you want to use the D20 trademark... If you're just going OGL, then it's fair game, if I remember correctly.

Besides...

Quote from: Roger"No Covered Product may change or extend the definition of any Defined Game Term as enumerated in this Guide."  -- d20 SYSTEM TRADEMARK GUIDE VERSION 5.0

That doesn't mean you can't come up with new Game Terms, or simply ignore the old ones...  You just can't change the ones that have already been defined.

D20 Traveller, for example, is an OGL game using the D20 trademark license.  It has a grand total of 9 abilities: The original six, plus Education (Edu), Social Standing (Soc) and Psionic Strength (Psi).

So, changing my suggestion above to...

          PHYSICAL      MENTAL        SOCIAL  
POWER      Strength      Intelligence  Charisma
FINESSE    Dexterity     Wits          Guile
ENDURANCE  Constitution  Wisdom        Esteem

...would keep it entirely within the D20 license.