While thinking about stats ...

[Lakota]

Qzzrbl is incorrect, on many levels.

[musashi]

...No.

It's mostly up to skill at this point anyway.

Pretty much the only -really- important stat is wisdom.

And it's only important because it determines how quickly you learn up your skills.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I call bullshit.

Have you ever played a dwarf warrior with exceptional strength?

Nope. But I have played a half-elf ranger below the age of 30 (hence ... strength and endurance are automatically regulated to suck-balls) ... so I can safely say stats other than wisdom make a big differece for exactly the opposite reason.

[brytta.leofa]

At character creation, give people the option of "average" stats across the board rather than a roll.

[musashi]

At character creation, give people the option of "average" stats across the board rather than a roll.

Eh ... I dunno ... I doubt anyone would use that.

Generally speaking it does seem like you get the stats you would expect to get according to how you arrange your priorities, with the notable exception of character age. I may be wrong, but I assume most people (like I did) think "hmm ... young adult" and type in 20-23 for their character's age, not realizing just how much that will penalize some stats. So in my mind I was thinking about a physically fit character and described them as such, ended up with below average endurance and strength, and thought ... wtf?

I was just thinking that if I knew the stats before writing the description that would have been helpful in avoiding the small discrepency between his description and his actual aptitude.

I like the fact that stats have a bit of randomness to them and that folks aren't all "awesome" or all "average", it spices things up; but now I'm thinking ... it would at least be nice if when you selected your race, the game was nice enough to give you just a bit more info on the age to development ratio.

I mean to say, instead of just saying: You've picked halfling, please pick an age between 26 and 125 (this is just a fabricated exampled pulled out of arse) ... it could say something like: You've picked halfling (young: 26-50, adult: 51-70, mature: 71-100, old: 101-125) ... or some cleaned up easier to read version there-of ... so folks were not so likely to accidently age their character wrong and end up with that emascualting stat penalty that the game warns you about.

[NoteworthyFellow]

I mean to say, instead of just saying: You've picked halfling, please pick an age between 26 and 125 (this is just a fabricated exampled pulled out of arse) ... it could say something like: You've picked halfling (young: 26-50, adult: 51-70, mature: 71-100, old: 101-125) ... or some cleaned up easier to read version there-of ... so folks were not so likely to accidently age their character wrong and end up with that emascualting stat penalty that the game warns you about.

I like that.

Also, it doesn't really make much sense that an age around 20 or so should penalize certain stats as harshly as it seems to.  I tend to make my characters young so as to explain their lack of skill, yet this has often bitten me in the ass, as it were, when the time comes to roll their stats.

Is this just bad luck, or does age really affect stats this much?

[musashi]

I also like to play young characters ... mostly because I have silly ideals about playing them through their teens into their elder years (like I can really ever keep one alive that long!  ) But none the less ... it super sucked before the code change because their stats were 100% sure to be absolute shit ... and to my understanding had only a chance to adjust as the character grew older.

Now that the code is set so that your stats will adjust as you age, maybe that problem isn't so bad for people who want to play young characters that eventually grow up ... but I'm not sure.

Either way I agree that most people are about their strongest from 18-25, instead of 26-35 like the code seems to think.

[brytta.leofa]

At character creation, give people the option of "average" stats across the board rather than a roll.

Eh ... I dunno ... I doubt anyone would use that.

Well, the main goal isn't for it to be used, but for it to preempt complaints about low stats when we've already got the option of stat prioritization.

[staggerlee]

Either way I agree that most people are about their strongest from 18-25, instead of 26-35 like the code seems to think.

I find that kind of assertion shocking.    Maybe I'm betraying my bias as I'm moving into the second group now, but it's not that old.

Really a lot of professional fighters are in the 26-35 range... there's no reason you should be losing bulk or muscle until after that, it could very easily continue to go up. You might lose some agility and flexibility, tennis players and gymnasts and the like tend to end their career a lot earlier to my understanding.

[musashi]

I believe it's common knowledge that men (not women) reach their physical prime around 18-20 ...

I won't argue that it's possible to hold a very healthy body upwards into your late 30's, but I think men hit their prime much earlier.

[staggerlee]

I believe it's common knowledge that men (not women) reach their physical prime around 18-20 ...

I won't argue that it's possible to hold a very healthy body upwards into your late 30's, but I think men hit their prime much earlier.

I'm not really sure what you're talking about here.   If your body is atrophying any earlier than 30 something has gone wrong.
As I said, flexibility and agility go down and mass tends to go up... but you're talking about muscle mass and endurance right? 

Here's a not particularly awesome quote, but it gets the idea across and I need to get back to more important things:

"According to musclehead Cory Schidler, the owner of LFP Personal Training in Scottsdale, Arizona, "Men hit their peak muscle mass in their 30s. After that, muscle mass declines. That decreases the body's ability to burn calories." Unfortunately, that inability to burn calories means you could soon be sporting more spare tires around your waist than the Michelin Man. Left unchecked, extra weight has the potential to bring about a host of other problems as well, including heart disease, diabetes, sore knees, and bad shoulders. Who knew aging could be so much fun?"

Edit to add: I think you're just confused as to what physical prime means.  It means your body is done developing, which is roughly the same point as sexual prime in males.  That's a lot different from peak, you're not likely to have any substantial muscle mass, you're a long way from atrophy and may or may not have conditioned your reflexes much.    Of course this is all dependent entirely on the individual and other things like diet, hormone levels, lifestyle, etc.  But you see my point.

[Fathi]

I mean to say, instead of just saying: You've picked halfling, please pick an age between 26 and 125 (this is just a fabricated exampled pulled out of arse) ... it could say something like: You've picked halfling (young: 26-50, adult: 51-70, mature: 71-100, old: 101-125) ... or some cleaned up easier to read version there-of ... so folks were not so likely to accidently age their character wrong and end up with that emascualting stat penalty that the game warns you about.

I like that.

Also, it doesn't really make much sense that an age around 20 or so should penalize certain stats as harshly as it seems to.  I tend to make my characters young so as to explain their lack of skill, yet this has often bitten me in the ass, as it were, when the time comes to roll their stats.

Is this just bad luck, or does age really affect stats this much?

No, it does, and it's kind of silly.

I wholeheartedly agree that if you're rolling up a thirteen or fourteen year old character, they should take significant penalties to three of the four stats. But it seems to me like the penalties applied to characters who are eighteen and nineteen are quite severe as well.

I'm all for the new changes (it's good to know that my PCs with poor or below average strength can maybe, possibly become "average"), but I think the time would have been better spent looking at the origins of some of the big stat discrepancies. I freely admit that these are just things I believe are happening, as I don't know the coded reality behind it. But drawing on my experiences...

1. Older teenage characters seem to be penalized very harshly, especially on their strength stat. The body undergoes a lot of changes from thirteen to nineteen, and it seems a little weird to apply the same (or similarly harsh) penalties across the board to all "teenage" characters.

2. Older characters in general (which I define for the sake of my post as 40+ on a human) seem to get completely shafted in regards to all stats but wisdom. If we take 'poor' strength as being the same numerical value (again, for the sake of argument) on a thirteen-year-old character and a fifty-year-old character, I can't fathom why so many older PCs get nothing but poor strength. Have you encountered many forty or fifty-year-olds that couldn't lift more than a thirteen-year-old kid?

I think Arm's defined aging "categories" are too broad, especially when it comes to the younger end of the spectrum. Not all young characters are created equal, and I think categorising the thirteen-to-sixteen crowd in the same spot as the seventeen-to-twenty crowd is inaccurate.

For those of you who have been in school recently, just think of the differences between middle schoolers and high schoolers, as far as body build and ability go.

And again, this is just posting from experience here--for all I know that's Not How the Code Works and I'm wrong about everything. Regardless, these are the problems I have perceived.

[fourTwenty]

lets leave it all up to skill. Skill baby!

Actually Q. This is how it happens in real life. And I'm not pretty sure, I fucking KNOW. Size, strength and speed only matter if you have two untrained people trying to conk each other. As soon as you start to teach somebody a little bit of skill, i.e. Muay Tai, western boxing, or BJJ, it's all down to who has the superior skill. I say this as a relatively undersized dude who has straight up embarrassed some big, buff, thought they were tough motherfuckers. And also two years ago, at 20, got my ass handed to me repeatedly by a 14 year old girl. That bitch was SLICK!

[Riev]

Who here saw Kimbo Slice get punked by a guy of lesser physical stature and less renown?

[fourTwenty]

Who here saw Kimbo Slice get punked by a guy of lesser physical stature and less renown?

Slice is a punk bitch though.

[Qzzrbl]

lets leave it all up to skill. Skill baby!

Actually Q. This is how it happens in real life. And I'm not pretty sure, I fucking KNOW. Size, strength and speed only matter if you have two untrained people trying to conk each other. As soon as you start to teach somebody a little bit of skill, i.e. Muay Tai, western boxing, or BJJ, it's all down to who has the superior skill. I say this as a relatively undersized dude who has straight up embarrassed some big, buff, thought they were tough motherfuckers. And also two years ago, at 20, got my ass handed to me repeatedly by a 14 year old girl. That bitch was SLICK!

Obviously, those pairs of opponents were at vastly different levels of skill.

If they were both at the same level of skill, it would come down to who was stronger, who was faster, and who could outlast the other.

[fourTwenty]

If they were both at the same level of skill

This is actually impossible as told to me by someone who was very knowledgeable in said aspects of fighting. Somebody's always got an edge. And usually, the smaller, slower people become better fighters because they're not able to rely on size or speed.

Edit to add: Fuck it, two words. Royce Gracie. It's ALL about skill baby.

[musashi]

I believe it's common knowledge that men (not women) reach their physical prime around 18-20 ...

I won't argue that it's possible to hold a very healthy body upwards into your late 30's, but I think men hit their prime much earlier.

I'm not really sure what you're talking about here.   If your body is atrophying any earlier than 30 something has gone wrong.
As I said, flexibility and agility go down and mass tends to go up... but you're talking about muscle mass and endurance right? 

Here's a not particularly awesome quote, but it gets the idea across and I need to get back to more important things:

"According to musclehead Cory Schidler, the owner of LFP Personal Training in Scottsdale, Arizona, "Men hit their peak muscle mass in their 30s. After that, muscle mass declines. That decreases the body's ability to burn calories." Unfortunately, that inability to burn calories means you could soon be sporting more spare tires around your waist than the Michelin Man. Left unchecked, extra weight has the potential to bring about a host of other problems as well, including heart disease, diabetes, sore knees, and bad shoulders. Who knew aging could be so much fun?"

Edit to add: I think you're just confused as to what physical prime means.  It means your body is done developing, which is roughly the same point as sexual prime in males.  That's a lot different from peak, you're not likely to have any substantial muscle mass, you're a long way from atrophy and may or may not have conditioned your reflexes much.    Of course this is all dependent entirely on the individual and other things like diet, hormone levels, lifestyle, etc.  But you see my point.

I'm not talking about when your body should start atrophying or when in-game your stats should start going down, and I'm not trying to say that because you're approaching your 30's you must be turning into a pansy boy 

I'm saying that, like you said, men hit their physical prime (ie they are done developing) around roughly the same time men hit their sexual prime, that being 18-20. So if they're done developing ... why penalize strength and endurance to such a heavy degree until the PC hits 26+?

[staggerlee]

I believe it's common knowledge that men (not women) reach their physical prime around 18-20 ...

I won't argue that it's possible to hold a very healthy body upwards into your late 30's, but I think men hit their prime much earlier.

I'm not really sure what you're talking about here.   If your body is atrophying any earlier than 30 something has gone wrong.
As I said, flexibility and agility go down and mass tends to go up... but you're talking about muscle mass and endurance right? 

Here's a not particularly awesome quote, but it gets the idea across and I need to get back to more important things:

"According to musclehead Cory Schidler, the owner of LFP Personal Training in Scottsdale, Arizona, "Men hit their peak muscle mass in their 30s. After that, muscle mass declines. That decreases the body's ability to burn calories." Unfortunately, that inability to burn calories means you could soon be sporting more spare tires around your waist than the Michelin Man. Left unchecked, extra weight has the potential to bring about a host of other problems as well, including heart disease, diabetes, sore knees, and bad shoulders. Who knew aging could be so much fun?"

Edit to add: I think you're just confused as to what physical prime means.  It means your body is done developing, which is roughly the same point as sexual prime in males.  That's a lot different from peak, you're not likely to have any substantial muscle mass, you're a long way from atrophy and may or may not have conditioned your reflexes much.    Of course this is all dependent entirely on the individual and other things like diet, hormone levels, lifestyle, etc.  But you see my point.

I'm not talking about when your body should start atrophying or when in-game your stats should start going down, and I'm not trying to say that because you're approaching your 30's you must be turning into a pansy boy 

I'm saying that, like you said, men hit their physical prime (ie they are done developing) around roughly the same time men hit their sexual prime, that being 18-20. So if they're done developing ... why penalize strength and endurance to such a heavy degree until the PC hits 26+?

Because as I implied, 18 year olds are scrawny and won't hit their peak for musculature for a good ten years.     Buuuut if you want the truth, I'm all for having much less variation in stats according to age, it's currently kind of ridiculous. 

[Qzzrbl]

If they were both at the same level of skill

Somebody's always got an edge.

Aaand that "edge" is superior physical makeup.

[fourTwenty]

If they were both at the same level of skill

Somebody's always got an edge.

Aaand that "edge" is superior physical makeup.

Someone always has en edge in skill. Someone always knows one more trick than their opponent. Read the rest of my post. I'm not saying that size and speed don't matter at all. I'm saying that even a small amount of skill, SMALL, will immediately negate that.

The Kimbo Slice example wasn't that good because Kimbo is a fucking joke. I recommend you look for the Brock Lesnar/Frank Mir fight.


MY POINT ORIGINALLY WAS!
I think giving the stats before PC creation would be a good idea. It may lead me to tone something back or beef something up. For me, it would make me change my body makeup completely. If he gets AI agility and good strength. I'd like to describe him as more lean and athletic. I hate writing up a beefy barrel chested person and then having to emote them fighting in a speed style because that more accurately reflects how they are fighting. Or writing up a lean and wiry person And then fighting like a straight slugger. I love combat emotes. I really get off on describing the action. And I like it to mesh with what the code says is going on.

Of course we would need a way to deter people from scrapping their apps because of a bad role, but let's face it. People who would do that are already doing that anyway.

Knowing more about how the code works now and twisting that to your advantage is not something I would like to exercise. Mainly, because I want to CREATE a PC. I don't want to have to choose a specific Guild/Subguild to try and influence stats. I do like writing up big, beefy monsters, lean, wiry speedsters, and quick and craft technicians. And I would like the code to at least reflect my vision of my PC.

So yes, I like this idea because how my PC performs in battle directly affects how I describe his fighting style which directly affects what I want him to look like.

[musashi]

Because as I implied, 18 year olds are scrawny and won't hit their peak for musculature for a good ten years.     Buuuut if you want the truth, I'm all for having much less variation in stats according to age, it's currently kind of ridiculous. 

Yeaaaah but ... your quote and reference are reffering only to guys who are actively involved in excercise programs. As it says ... if they aren't working out, that extra mass is going to be flab, not muscle ... also since that quote seems taken from a fitness company's website I imagine that the "sell factor" influences the facts just a bit. They want 30 year old guys with money in the gym spending cash so ... yeah ... hell yeah 30 year olds just keep getting buffer, come here and sign up.  

But I think we can both agree that the penalties to younger and older aged characters are a wee extreme.

I admit I have no code knowledge about how the stats are done, but it seems to me like right now ... they work something like this:

You select a young or old age and then roll for stats ...

On a scale of 1-20, you roll an 18 but since you're PC is young the roll takes a -10 to it, giving you a hearty strength of 8.
Later on the age code might boost that to 10 or 13 ... when your character is much much older, but the fact remains you rolled an 18, and ended up with a max of 13 several IC years down the line. Maybe staff might raise it to a 15 or something to give it a "good" rating, but it won't ever be what you actually rolled. While a 26-30 year old PC would just keep their 18, and maybe once they hit 60 it might drop to 15 or 14.

That would really suck (again, if this is somewhat close to how it currently works, I'm not sure).

I would be happier if the age code did something like:

You pick a young age, and roll an 18, the code sets your strength to 18, but then adds an age modifier to it, making is a temporary 8. Then, later on when you move into your later years, the modifier goes away, giving you your 18 back (it would be really nice if the modifier went away year by year slowly). Then as old age sets in, another negative modifier starts to apply itself. So your stat is always what you had first rolled, and age is just a temporary modifier to it.

For all I know, that may be somewhat how the code works now, and I'd be happy if it was. But the general concenses as the moment seems to be that rolling an anything but middle-aged character will assure you crap stats for life.

[Qzzrbl]

If they were both at the same level of skill

Somebody's always got an edge.

Aaand that "edge" is superior physical makeup.

Someone always has en edge in skill. Someone always knows one more trick than their opponent. Read the rest of my post. I'm not saying that size and speed don't matter at all. I'm saying that even a small amount of skill, SMALL, will immediately negate that.

The Kimbo Slice example wasn't that good because Kimbo is a fucking joke. I recommend you look for the Brock Lesnar/Frank Mir fight.


MY POINT ORIGINALLY WAS!
I think giving the stats before PC creation would be a good idea. It may lead me to tone something back or beef something up. For me, it would make me change my body makeup completely. If he gets AI agility and good strength. I'd like to describe him as more lean and athletic. I hate writing up a beefy barrel chested person and then having to emote them fighting in a speed style because that more accurately reflects how they are fighting. Or writing up a lean and wiry person And then fighting like a straight slugger. I love combat emotes. I really get off on describing the action. And I like it to mesh with what the code says is going on.

Of course we would need a way to deter people from scrapping their apps because of a bad role, but let's face it. People who would do that are already doing that anyway.

Knowing more about how the code works now and twisting that to your advantage is not something I would like to exercise. Mainly, because I want to CREATE a PC. I don't want to have to choose a specific Guild/Subguild to try and influence stats. I do like writing up big, beefy monsters, lean, wiry speedsters, and quick and craft technicians. And I would like the code to at least reflect my vision of my PC.

So yes, I like this idea because how my PC performs in battle directly affects how I describe his fighting style which directly affects what I want him to look like.

If you'd go up and read my little example, you don't need to change guild/sguild for a favorable stat roll. It says you need to take all of the bonuses/cuts to stats that those subguilds might offer, and use that knowledge to make your stat prioritization.

If your class offers bonuses to wis and dex, but your character is beefy, prioritize strength, the bonuses to wis and dex will compensate for a lower roll and still come up about average, and the highest roll will go to strength, and will likely turn up higher than average, even though there are no bonuses.

If your class offers megabonuses to strength and endurance, but your character is tiny and frail, then prioritize those two stats last.

It's really not that hard.

Sometimes you just wind up with bad stats.... It happens.

And sure, people will probably scrap characters for better stats as it is, but we don't need to make that any more convenient. Like a few PCs ago, I almost killed him because of less than satisfactory stats. But in those two hours I had to wait for permadeath to kick in, I realized it wasn't worth the trouble and I just played that character and had a blast.

Is your character big and beefy, but has poor strength? RP out an old injury, etc., etc., maybe even get the imms involved and possibly set him on the road to recovery. People will love you because it was a unique idea, and you'll be praised for it years down the road when you post something about a family role in the "player announcements" forum. You'll be that guy everyone will say, "Yeah, take this role, he's a badass roleplayer, this one time he roleplayed this shit out so great, blahblahblah."

And don't throw out a, "But that ruins the concept I had for this character." because your idea does much the same. If you had a big beefy mercenary type in mind, but saw your non-strength and non-endurance stats you rolled, and were forced to write him up as being frail, then that does just as much to kill the concept.

[fourTwenty]

It's really not that hard.

Sometimes you just wind up with bad stats.... It happens.

If it's not that hard then why does it happen?

Choosing Guild/Subguild ta affect stats, which is what you are doing with your whole prioritizing scheme and "Almost killing a PC off for bad stats" strike me as [Word Fathi wishes people would quit using on the GDB].

And yes, IT WOULD RUIN MY CHAR CONCEPT! I work very hard on those.

Do you actually have a reason you do not think this is a good idea? Because as you yourself just proved, (changed your mind in the 2 hour wait or not) players will suicide for crappy stats already. We could just say that if you scrap an app after a stat roll you have to wait 24 hours to do a new one, or something along those lines.

I have never suicided for crappy stats but have come very close to suiciding for really good stats, in the wrong area. Because yeah, It ruined my char concept

[staggerlee]

For all I know, that may be somewhat how the code works now, and I'd be happy if it was. But the general concenses as the moment seems to be that rolling an anything but middle-aged character will assure you crap stats for life.

Yeah, I'd like to see a very organic, gradual stat system.  I'd like to see stats able to shift slightly up and down, and I'd like some room to modify them according to the lifestyle of your character - the region you live in, how active you are and what you eat, as well as age. 

Tragically it's a pipe dream.

And yeah, for the record, I was definitely talking about people who work their ass off.  If you don't exercise the results become more dramatically visible  the further from 18 or so you get.   Or the further from birth I guess.

[Qzzrbl]

It's really not that hard.

Sometimes you just wind up with bad stats.... It happens.

If it's not that hard then why does it happen?

Choosing Guild/Subguild ta affect stats, which is what you are doing with your whole prioritizing scheme and "Almost killing a PC off for bad stats" strike me as [Word Fathi wishes people would quit using on the GDB].

And yes, IT WOULD RUIN MY CHAR CONCEPT! I work very hard on those.

Do you actually have a reason you do not think this is a good idea? Because as you yourself just proved, (changed your mind in the 2 hour wait or not) players will suicide for crappy stats already. We could just say that if you scrap an app after a stat roll you have to wait 24 hours to do a new one, or something along those lines.

I have never suicided for crappy stats but have come very close to suiciding for really good stats, in the wrong area. Because yeah, It ruined my char concept

What if I mess up during character generation, or in the thick of it have a suddenly new idea? Will I still have to wait 24 hours to try again? What if I get my character fresh out of the Hall of Kings and get killed for looking at another PC the wrong way. Alot of stuff like that could happen, and I would -hate- it if I had to bug the Staff every time something like this happened. And I'm sure they wouldn't be too happy neither.

And will you stop saying that my idea is to use guild/funstuff to affect my stats, it's not what I'm doing. I'm using a little common sense to tell me what guild might get a boost or decrease in a stat so that I may prioritize to get my desired, non-sucky stats that don't totally suck balls.

As far as "why does it happen", it's just bad luck. If you roll entirely unplayable stats after the third or fourth try, you're probably doing something wrong.

If you're character is supposed to not be an idiot, but still kinda fast, yet you're still using wisdom as a dump stat for a guild that offers bonuses to agility and endurance, then you're setting yourself up for stats that aren't favorable for your concept. Now of course that's not likely what you're doing, but it's the only way I could imagine you having such bad stat rolls.