Stats decided during creation?

[da mitey warrior]

A far simpler solution: Subguilds which boost your stats.

So if you absolutely have to have decent strength you can pick the 'strongman' subguild and get +2 strength.  You still have to give up the potential for subguild skills, but you at least get a stat 2 over the racial minimum.

[wizturbo]

Look, in my opinion, that's WAY too much control.

I know it would work, but it's still too much. I use to want the same thing, but now I'm happy with it as it is. You see, this way it keeps everything random. But if you can order all 4 stats, you'll get every guild with exactly what they need to be the best. I like making do what with I get, and not getting pretty much what I want.

But that's just me. I'm for the status quo on this one.

I strongly disagree that you'd have everyone doing what you need to be the best.  What is the "best"?

If you have a pickpocket with agility as their highest, what makes them better then a pickpocket with wisdom as their highest?  The one with wisdom learns faster, the one with agility is more nimble.  Which of those two is superior?  I sure can't tell you.  A pickpocket with strength as their max would hit harder in combat, or carry more loot with them.  A pickpocket with more stamina could take more of a beating, survive poison better, and get tired/recover faster.  All of these things seem equally good to me.

Lets take a warrior.  Agility means your faster.  Strength means you hit harder.  Wisdom means you learn faster.  Stamina means your 'tougher'.  You tell me which one is superior, I sure can't decide.  Sure, if you want to be the best "fast fighter" agility makes sense for you.  But that doesn't mean for a second that a fast fighter is going to beat a really strong fighter.  Or a really smart fighter.  Or a really tough one that can just take a beating and keep on coming.

This works for every class I can think of with some exceptions.

Merchants, magickers/psionicists would probably get more use out of wisdom then any other stat.  But, still, even beyond that there is variation.  People actually DO roleplay, and might make their magicker have wisdom lower down the priority list because its just how their character is.  They were a big dumb gladiator before Krath granted them an inner fire.  Or they were an agile thief until their minds were opened to the great psionic ether of the way!  I really don't think having blind control over stats arrangement would allow people to be 'twinkish'.  It still depends on the luck of the draw with how well you roll for stats.

[wizturbo]

A far simpler solution: Subguilds which boost your stats.

So if you absolutely have to have decent strength you can pick the 'strongman' subguild and get +2 strength.  You still have to give up the potential for subguild skills, but you at least get a stat 2 over the racial minimum.

A good thought, but wouldn't work under current system.  Your stats are generated long after you've chosen a subguild.  And you wouldn't know if you need that 'strongman' training so you can use a longbow until after its too late.

[Angela Christine]

Simplest solution?  10 rerolls!  One of them is bound to be ok.



AC

[Krath]

No offense to anyone on this and do not take it as a flame, but I absolutely hate this idea.
Why should we be able to determine our stats. Why? So we can have that "SWEET" character
with stats. It is all OOC. Later on, stats do not matter anyway, so why do you all care soo
much a bout them. YOu get your one reroll, that should be enough.  Why do you all think
Stats are soo great and important anyways? Can someone explain that to me? You make
it seem like it is the end to all means. Gah, I am just going to stop before this
starts to a flame.
I am just very much so against this idea.

[Kill4Free]

I still like my idea, it is twink proof, simple, and wont interfere with anything

Pick one stat to not have lower then good in, and you are set.

[flurry]

After one of the Imms posted recently that your main guild is already factored into stats, I've kind of soured a little on the idea of ordering stats.  

I think if your concept is ruined by your roll and reroll, and it's not workable at all, it seems reasonable to write to the mud at that point.   I imagine that would be a very rare situation.

[Angela Christine]

Yeah, it isn't necessary.  You can already influence your stats to some degree with your age, size, race and guild.

If you want a big, beefy warrior, then don't make him a tiny teenager or an elven senior citizen.  A 25 year old human warrior in the upper half of the available height and weight range is very unlikly to roll poor strength, much less twice -- that isn't to say he'll have good or excellent strength, but it will proably be at least average.  Make him a dwarf instead and then even if his strength says it is below average for his race, it is probably still pretty good because dwarves are a strong race.

Racial statting has it's limitations because you may not want to RP the other racial traits.  It is also a little odd because all the available races run on a single continum with Strength and endurence on one end, and agility and wisdom on the other end.

Strength & Endurance -------HG---------D-------H-----HE-----E------------ Wisdom & Agility

Why no races that are prone to being Strong and agile, but typically have poor health and wisdom?  Or Wise and Strong, but unhealthy and clumsy?  I don't know, I suppose that is a topic for another thread.



Still, rerolls are cool and character creation is OOC, so REROLLS FOR EVERYONE!


AC

[Agent_137]

I'd rather see more rerolls (not 10) than your idea, witz. I know it's sound logically, and I know what it would do. I used to be a supporter of that idea. But I'm not anymore. I like diversity. FORCED diversity.

Saluti,
Rob

[Kill4Free]

Yeah diversity is cool, I dont mind having bad stats, but I do mind having a bad stat in the one stat that you need it high the most.

[Agent_137]

Yeah diversity is cool, I dont mind having bad stats, but I do mind having a bad stat in the one stat that you need it high the most.

Yea, that sucks, and I've been there. Once I had a guy who's sdesc said he was a pretty big dude. Ended up with below average strength.


Current and viable Solutions:
Don't base a character concept on stats.
Use the reroll feature.
Special app a character that needs a certain stat.
Appeal to the mud account.

[wizturbo]

No offense to anyone on this and do not take it as a flame, but I absolutely hate this idea.
Why should we be able to determine our stats. Why? So we can have that "SWEET" character
with stats. It is all OOC. Later on, stats do not matter anyway, so why do you all care soo
much a bout them. YOu get your one reroll, that should be enough.  Why do you all think
Stats are soo great and important anyways? Can someone explain that to me? You make
it seem like it is the end to all means. Gah, I am just going to stop before this
starts to a flame.
I am just very much so against this idea.

They aren't the end all or be all.  In fact, they're pretty damn unimportant from a roleplaying perspective.  But codedly they are significant in they limit what you can and cannot do.  Archery is a prime example.  If your character is an archer, yet cannot use any bows because they are too weak...that concept is ruined.  If your trying to make a soldier, who can't support the weight of the standard uniform, your going to have difficulty with the role.  If your a scholarly linguist, but cannot manage to learn another language for the life of you, because your wisdom is so poor, your concept is hindered.  

The list goes on.

[Bestatte]

And don't forget some people pick skills in their SUBguild to support their PRIMARY character concept.

If their subguild requires "decent" (meaning - anything better than average) agility, and their primary guild automatically sets their wisdom high and they end up with average agility as a result, they can just toss the idea of being primarily a (insert subguild name here). So much for NOT setting your background around stats.

I usually set my background and skillsets together. They're one in the same. She does "this" for a living BECAUSE her background says she does it. She turned to a life of crime (meaning - the assassin/thief/pickpocket/whatever guild/subguild) because her background supported this.

If the primary crux of your character background revolves around the skillsets offered to us when we create our characters, and it turns out that our stats don't support USEABILITY of that skillset..then what's the point of having the skillset at all? If there exists no bow in the entire known world that I am capable of using, then picking "archer" to support my trading business is gonna be useless.

If my character is a warrior (as in wiz's example) and his daddy was a guard with a noble house and my character plans on following in his footsteps, and he can't even wear the freaking uniform - then so much for THAT idea.

[Agent_137]

No, bestatte, at that point, I would email the mud, and give them your reasoning, and ask to swap some stats around.

If you didn't base your concept primarily on stats, and are good and honest, have non negative account notes, i'm sure the immortals would be willing to adjust some things so you can play your character concept. Honestly, extreme examples are not viable examples and should not be used, especially when there's a -solution- to those examples.

[SRB]

I still like my idea, it is twink proof, simple, and wont interfere with anything

Yeah. It's 'twink proof'.  :wink:

[jhunter]

Pick one stat to not have lower then good in, and you are set.

Ummm no...because you may not even get a "good" stat. This would make it 100% that you would get a "good" stat.

I've stated before and I'm going to do it again.  I'm also 100% against stat ordering of any kind.

Any stat manipulation whatsoever I think promotes a twinkish way of going about things. Too much focus on statistical things rather than on rp.

As Wiz' said, if your concept is entirely dependant on stats (which IMO, it shouldn't be) and it's just completely unplayable you can mail the mud and if the imms deem you worth of not abusing it, then they will take care of it.



To the imms:
I hope and pray that if anything like this is added in that you will keep in mind there are those of us that -don't- want this option and would like the option to have our stats determined randomly kept in the game.

Personally I feel that there should be a cap or something imposed on those that use the ordering option and the reroll taken away.

For those going randomly, just as it is...no cap and one reroll.

[Angela Christine]

An average person should have "average" in all four stats.  Maybe let people choose "average" instead of random stats?  No poor stats that way, but also no way to unbalance the game.  It wouldn't even need a completely new syntax, it could be a reroll option.  Instead of reroll self you could "reroll self average" or "reroll average".  Of course the average stats would be before the modifiers for age, size, and guild were applied, so it might be possible to end up with some stats slightly above or below your racial average, but they would still be average for someone of your age, size, guild and race.


AC

[Angela Christine]

A similar idea would be to allow people to use their single reroll on just one stat, instead of the whole kaboodle.  That way you have a chance of getting rid of the "bad" stat without risking making everything much worse.  Poor strength probably won't be rerolled into AI strength, because you probably had some modifiers to make it that bad in the first place, but this gives you the chance to try for below average or average strength without screwing over your character even worse than they are now.


reroll self = reroll all four stats randomly
reroll average = change all four stats to "average" then apply modifiers
reroll strength = randomly reroll strength, leaving the other three the same
reroll endurance = randomly reroll endurance, leaving the other three the same
reroll agility = randomly reroll agility, leaving the other three the same
reroll wisdom = randomly reroll wisdom, leaving the other three the same

You could only use one option, so if your strength and wisdom were both poor, you could reroll all four together or just one of them, but not both of the poor stats.  So you couldn't get massive stat inflation this way, and there would still be the chance of making your "bad" stat worse, but at least EVERYTHING wouldn't get worse -- it's really a downer when that happens.



OR . . . 10 rerolls for everyone!



AC