Stats and character creation

[Coat of Arms]

I'm kinda tired of describing characters as strong or dextrous or something, and having them come out with below average in the appropriate stat... how about allowing us to pick one stat that will get the highest of the four rolls when we create a character? I don't see it as unbalanced, I think it would rather help, because as it is now, you have to ignore or work around your stats if they come out completely different than how you described a character. It's very hard and annoying to play a tall, brutish guy and have him come out with poor strength and below average endurance. I could play him as if he had a handicap or something, but I don't want to do that, it's not what I pictured when I created my character, so it makes me enjoy playing him less.

So what I'd like to see, is the option to choose one stat to emphasize on, it could happen in the same room where you pick your starting city (your stats are rolled after you pick a city), and that stat then automatically gets the highest one of your four rolls. Either that, or allow us to swap two stats around. I just find it stupid that something as important as your character's physical attributes are completely out of the player's influence. It forces us to either describe our characters vaguely, or play in a certain way that we didn't intend when creating the character, and I can't see anything good about either.

And no, 'reroll self' is not a solution, it's just a second chance for you to hope that your stats actually fit the character you created.

[Xygax]

Lots of other threads discussing this, and Morgenes has code implemented for the staff to experiment with that will at least allow you to designate your skill preference.  You may see something along those lines going in Real Soon Now, if everyone generally ends up being happy with the new functionality.

-- X

[Cyrian20]

Only thing that irks me is sometimes, just sometimes my favorite characters are the ones that totally turned out different. I had a warrior with ba str once and so he wielding daggers. Skill % makes a huge difference when it gets up there so it was a lot of fun, on the opposite hand there is always the great heros with ai everything. I worry that we wouldn't have a chance of getting that one in a million character with an option that lets you pick your stats.

Basically everyone will be the same 30 points (just picked a random number) divided how they want(most common system I have seen). I am sure it is fair, but part of my enjoyment  is that Zalanthas isn't fair.

Now I must go to work and hope I don't fall asleep on the way there. Have fun.

[path]

I still want it to be a random roll, just so as you can pick which order the randoms fall in.

So if strength is your priority, followed by agility, then endurance and then wisdom and you rolled super fab, fab, average jane and you poor bastard they'd fall out in your preferred order.

[moab]

I think there is a direct correlation between high-stats and which pc gets picked on by the wandering gith.  I really do.

Or, a inverse relationship between long-lived characters and high stats.

[John]

I think there is a direct correlation between high-stats and which pc gets picked on by the wandering gith.  I really do.

mwahahaha.

[Morgenes]

I still want it to be a random roll, just so as you can pick which order the randoms fall in.

So if strength is your priority, followed by agility, then endurance and then wisdom and you rolled super fab, fab, average jane and you poor bastard they'd fall out in your preferred order.

The pending system will allow you to do exactly that, you specify your priority 'agility endurance strength wisdom' and your attributes will be rolled and given that priority.  The rolls are still random, and it is possible to end up with stats that aren't that great.  There will still be the ability to reroll your character, so hopefully you should be able to get a lot closer to what you had in mind when you created your character.  

There are other modifiers that are added to your rolled attributes that could slightly change this, but it's nothing major.

As Xygax said, look for this in the coming weeks.

[Maybe42or54]

*drools profusely*

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

*drools profusely*

*does more drooling*

[Nao]

I'd prefer if you could only pick one or two stats for preferences..

Why? Cause you can pick the exact order in SOI, much like you described it and I never liked that system. I can see a lot of people picking endurance as their lowest and maybe agility as their highest stat, or whichever they think makes them get l337 soon no matter if it fits the character or not - I like some randomness.

Picking just one or two stats as preferred should be enough to make your big, beefy warrior not be a sickly cripple and work around those stats that don't fit at all...

And yes, my char with the worst stats lived the longest and the char with the perfect fighting stats was a merchant that I retired soon...  :?  Murphy's law.

[Marauder Moe]

Boo stat ordering!  :x


Sorry.  It's great that you guys are coding so much stuff, but I don't believe the pros of stat ordering outweigh the harm it will do for the game.  I've elaborated my reasons enough in other threads, though.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

If an option exists for you to bypass stat ordering, do you think that everyone will be happy, then?

[Nao]

If an option exists for you to bypass stat ordering, do you think that everyone will be happy, then?

Don't thin so... Like I said, that would lead to a lot of powergaming, exspecially if you can't just put a preference on one stat but give -all- off them an order...

And powergaming sucks a bit when you start to have disadvantages just because you're the one not doing it..
Actualy, this might not become too much of a problem with most of arms playerbase, just a bit more annoying than it already is. That would only be a small advantage, because even there is a lot of possible variation in the stat system, even if you pick out your best roll for strength or agi there's still a good chance to just have it above average or something. So as long as you don't make the range smaller, this should be cool...

Still, I'm for setting a priority on one stat only, so everyone that wants it can have their agile thief and warrior with good str and there will still be some randomness and it won't lad to every merchant/thief/warrior havingthe same order of stat priorities once everyone figures out which combo suits which class best.

[Marauder Moe]

If an option exists for you to bypass stat ordering, do you think that everyone will be happy, then?

I didn't say it would harm me, I think it would harm the game as a whole.

I'm not going to quit the game over it or anything.  It's not the first time I've disagreed with a game change either.  If it's put in, I'll even use it.  I just think it's a bad change for the game.

Not a huge deal, I just disagree with it.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I can agree with either complete ordering or single-stat-prioritizing, but in either case, I am elated that they are giving some form of this a go.

[Halaster]

We discussed this at length about the 'powergaming' aspect of stat ordering.  We decided we're not worried about it and want to put it in (probably) for a couple of reasons.

One, people who are that obssessed with having their stats good are going to suicide characters when they don't get what they want (yes, it happens), anyway.

Two, people who don't care about stats won't care about this and can just ignore it.

Three, while stats play a role, they're not quite as important as you all think they are.  Or another way to put it - they each have their advantages that are all important.  You may think endurance is the least important and so organize it to the lowest - well, we all know it affects how many hps, stun you have - so do you really want that to be your lowest?  I won't get into the details of how each stat affects things, because you shouldn't know, and it doesn't matter as much as you think.  I mean, if a mekillot is eating you, your high str don't mean jack.  If five gith are wailing you from all directions, who cares if you're really really smart.  Get my point?  High-stat people die just as quickly and brutally as low-stat people.  Your stats won't save you.

Four, people want to play a taller, stronger guy and it sucks for them if their strength is "below average".  It doesn't fit their concept, and what's wrong with someone wanting to play a strong character?

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Three, while stats play a role, they're not quite as important as you all think they are.  Or another way to put it - they each have their advantages that are all important.  You may think endurance is the least important and so organize it to the lowest - well, we all know it affects how many hps, stun you have - so do you really want that to be your lowest?  I won't get into the details of how each stat affects things, because you shouldn't know, and it doesn't matter as much as you think.  I mean, if a mekillot is eating you, your high str don't mean jack.  If five gith are wailing you from all directions, who cares if you're really really smart.  Get my point?  High-stat people die just as quickly and brutally as low-stat people.  Your stats won't save you.

Thank you, pal. But this proposed system allows you to make a character like the muscle-etched, brutish man (which, actually, has just been trademarked because I really like the way that looks and sounds), and have a decent chance to get stats that will at least somewhat reflect the idea that you want him to be buff. All that muscle might chop his agility in half and he might be about as smart as a half-giant's nutsack, but Lord, if he isn't muscle-etched, I just don't know what he is.

[Halaster]

the muscle-etched, brutish man

the brutish, muscle-etched man reads better, IMO

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Well, it was going to be the hulking, muscle-etched brute, which I like even better, but I wasn't sure I could get that one through chargen.

[Maybe42or54]

I love my endurance and Agility.

[Incognito]

I'd say that we keep the current system, if, in the new system, after choosing the sequence of stat preferences, you miss out on the chance to get a completely random AI on a stat which your pc might not use or did not expect!

i.e. for example, you pick an elven merchant and he lucks out with AI agility randomly -- I'm thinkin this might not be possible with the new system, coz it'd put more emphasis on the elven merchant PC's primary and secondary stats and possible put a negative effect on the third and forth stats.

I hope I was able to explain that correctly....

[Maybe42or54]

Yes, maybe we can have a choice of which system we use?
If we want to aim for a strong Pc, we'll take the new system.
If we want randomness to be glorified in our inability to lift a sword, then we can sue the current system?

[Morgenes]

I'd say that we keep the current system, if, in the new system, after choosing the sequence of stat preferences, you miss out on the chance to get a completely random AI on a stat which your pc might not use or did not expect!

i.e. for example, you pick an elven merchant and he lucks out with AI agility randomly -- I'm thinkin this might not be possible with the new system, coz it'd put more emphasis on the elven merchant PC's primary and secondary stats and possible put a negative effect on the third and forth stats.

I hope I was able to explain that correctly....

The system does not apply negative or positive modifiers to stats.  It simply makes 4 generic rolls and orders them in the priority order you specify.  I will look at making the system allow you to specify as many (or few) of these as you want, but it'll still use the same rolling system, just your priority choices will be randomized as well.

[LauraMars]

I am for high wisdom and casting glory!

[Angela Christine]

Just for clarity, the stat ordering would occur before the modifiers for age, race, size, and guild are applied, right?

So you could use stat ordering either in the same order that you think the modifiers push you anyway, to try to get extreme stats.  Or you could use the stat ordering in the reverse order that you think the modifiers apply to try to get well-rounded, average stats.  You could pick strength as your half-giants primary to try to get a super-strong guy, or pick strength as his lowest stat and wisdom as his highest stat to try to get more balanced stats.


Angela Christine