Strength

[Lizzie]

You currently have no chance of getting poor in a stat unless you make choices that create that situation.

But as a player, do you know what those choices are, that would give you that chance? I mean, for example:

If you pick a city elf and put strength last in the current prioritization options in chargen, is that one of the combos that could result in a poor strength? What I intend by the question, is are players in conscious, intentional control over the choice of creating a circumstance in which "poor" can be a result?

If not, then my above post is intended to create that conscious decision.

[Brokkr]

Stat ranges are relative to race, so picking elf has no bearing.

Picking strength last just gives a (low) roll in the normal range, so that has no bearing.

Picking a guild can have bearing, but only 2 of the normal guilds will negatively impact strength, and only 4 of the normal guilds have any negative at all.

Which leaves the most often responsible culprit.  Age.  Given that we would likely leave aging alone or only slightly modified, this means your suggestion also doesn't address the typical cause (note that str has a fairly small window where there isn't any negative, and there is no age that doesn't have something negative).

[Greve]

To me it's not so much about the risk of rolling a poor in a stat I care about. That's almost impossible. I've never seen poor in anything but my fourth priority. It's more the fact that when I make a character, it's pure blind chance whether I get awesome stats that will make my character way more effective, or something mediocre that I merely have to tolerate. It's nearly impossible to roll stats so bad that your character is screwed, but it's very much possible to roll stats so great that your character is (or will be) much more competent than most others of the same class and race. And it's not because I must have that, it's simply the fact that it's possible. I don't think it should be.

I think stats should be rolled from a base that's uniform across characters of that race so you can't randomly get one with two exceptionals, an extremely good, and above average as the lowest. I've had some rolls that were unreasonably good and the benefits were frankly excessive. You can usually count on landing one high stat if you didn't do something daft like minimum age with strength first, but if you happen to get three high stats, it's almost like you've unlocked some kind of prestige class.

An actual allocation system sounds a little too gamey for me, but I think every character's combined base stats should come out to the same aggregate sum, before whatever modifiers exist for age and class and whatnot. Leave the randomness within those confines so there's no longer such a thing as objectively superb or awful stats.

[Brokkr]

If you overlay a point buy system in by itself, like many other point buy systems there would almost certainly be optimal (or close to optimal) buys, which tends to be very gamey and encourage min-max behavior.

[titansfan]

Is there more possibility for str/agi to be equal in damage capabilities in melee?

[Lizzie]

If you overlay a point buy system in by itself, like many other point buy systems there would almost certainly be optimal (or close to optimal) buys, which tends to be very gamey and encourage min-max behavior.

That's why I don't suggest a 100% allocation system. Everyone would get the usual random roll to equal a total of 100 points, minus 10 points. That 10 points can be used to flesh out the stats in a way that best suits the character's profile, according to how the player sees that character. It isn't likely to result in an actual bump, and because the base roll is still random, the player won't know what the end result is until he shows up in chargen. Plus the odds of getting either extreme would be minimal, and the odds of getting "average" would be the most common.

[Namino]

If you overlay a point buy system in by itself, like many other point buy systems there would almost certainly be optimal (or close to optimal) buys, which tends to be very gamey and encourage min-max behavior.

I think having a finer tune control over a character's statistics is much more appropriate for a role-play intensive MUD, for a number of reasons. Firstly, if you want to play a big bruiser type character and set your rolls for str, end, agi, wis, there's a chance you get Above Average, Above Average, Good, Average, which doesn't reflect the sort of person you were trying to play, hence your sdesc being 'the giant ass mo'fucker' doesn't make sense any more. You can undercut an entire concept this way. Say you want the quiet bookish type, roll  wis, agi, str, end, and get a totally above-average distribution and suddenly you have dysynchrony between the twiggy nerd you were trying to play and the stats you ended up with. A point buy system allows people a finer control over their character design and allows people to actually plan for the character they want to roleplay.

Point buy is probably a distant second to stat-increase, as that is even more reflective of reality. If you want to get stronger, you go to the gym. More wise, you familiarize yourself with philosophy, et al.

People attempting to maximize a stat isn't 'gamey'. It's realistic. I work out six days a week because I'm trying to maximize my STR. Am I gaming a system IRL?

That being said, a fear of the system being 'gamed' simply loops up back to the beginning of this thread. Brokkr, if you're worried about people leaning to heavily on one stat or the other when you allow point buy ins, then it simply is continued evidence that certain stats (rhymes with 'bength' for people in the back) matter more. If that's your concern, make it so min-maxing has consequences by making other statistics matter on a similar level.

--sorry Namino, I managed to modify instead of quote and toasted your post.  Hopefully this fixes is. -Brokkr

[Brokkr]

Firstly, if you want to play a big bruiser type character and set your rolls for str, end, agi, wis, there's a chance you get Above Average, Above Average, Good, Average, which doesn't reflect the sort of person you were trying to play, hence your sdesc being 'the giant ass mo'fucker' doesn't make sense any more.

You chose the wrong age.  If you had chosen a different age, you could have been fairly close to the big bruiser type.

[Lizzie]

Firstly, if you want to play a big bruiser type character and set your rolls for str, end, agi, wis, there's a chance you get Above Average, Above Average, Good, Average, which doesn't reflect the sort of person you were trying to play, hence your sdesc being 'the giant ass mo'fucker' doesn't make sense any more.

You chose the wrong age.  If you had chosen a different age, you could have been fairly close to the big bruiser type.

Since we now know that the #1 variable with regards to stat rolls is age, might we have a breakout of those ages, so we can more appropriately prepare our character backgrounds to fit what we are hoping to do with our characters?

For instance:

I want my outdoorsy character to have the possibility of becoming a master woodworker.  This means I need my character to have decent strength (not necessarily awesome, but definitely better than "above average"). It means she should have at least reasonable endurance (better than average) since she'll be chopping logs, or possibly just acquiring them from someone else, and need to be capable of hauling 2-3 of them at a time without being completely exhausted after 2 rooms in the city. She'll probably need something better than "below average" wisdom, or she'll be really old (and therefore eventually too weak) and won't be able to carry those logs around anymore by the time she's good enough to master the crafts.

My character is a half-elf.

What age-range should she be?

[Brokkr]

When we introduced the new classes we discussed the possibility of including the stat bonuses each got in the helpfiles.  Ultimately, majority of staff feedback was to not include them.  The prevailing reason is that we do not want folks to focus overly much on min/max of their stats.

Which is the same reason I am not going to give you the information as regards to age.

[X-D]

Interesting, I had a PC not all that long ago who got poor wis....and it should not have been from age as he started where even the docs say you should.

[Heade]

You didn't prioritize your stats and wis was lowest, most likely. That is a decision(not to priotitize), as Brokkr mentioned earlier.

I'm pretty happy with the way stats work right now.

[Armaddict]

I think stats are -okay-, but fine tuning on the upper end (dwarves and muls, not half-giants) could make it a little less wtf.  Elves I'm fine with combat-wise, but think encumbrance needs a look-see.

[Hauwke]

I actually do not mind just how much damage a dwarf can do in a short period of time, it lines up well with what would really happen if a dude that is just about only muscle bashed your face in with a leg bone. Show me a man who can take a smash to the head like that and I will show you superman.

[X-D]

Actually Heade, it was one of the very few PCs where I DID prioritize. Also Brokkr said

You currently have no chance of getting poor in a stat unless you make choices that create that situation.

And he also said putting something last does not by itself get you poor. I am sure it was not age, so leaves only main class. Which IMO would be lame and NOT count as making the choice to create the situation since the docs do not tell you that it can.

That being said, I am still fine with how stats work currently, I was just pointing out that far as I know, poor is or at least was possible within the last year without making bad choices.

[gotdamnmiracle]

I don't think anyone is making the claim that it currently isn't realistic. I think most people are saying it isn't fun and could be improved upon (myself included). If the best way to be good at combat is high strength then why make anything other than dwarf fighters? Especially since we now know the skill plateau is a thing. If your Jman/advanced is the same as mine then who cares if it takes a longer to get there because dwarves are thick skulled and dumb? Don't forget, you're here forever.

Assuming I don't have the karma to play a sorcerer, of course.

[Hauwke]

I actually have a strong desire to play a max strength mul and see just how ridiculous it can get. I assume somewhere between quite ridiculous and ludicrous.

[X-D]

Good luck skilling up a max str mul.  Another race I always had an easy time on with my elves.

[Heade]

Actually Heade, it was one of the very few PCs where I DID prioritize. Also Brokkr said

You currently have no chance of getting poor in a stat unless you make choices that create that situation.

Right, like prioritizing wisdom last.

And he also said putting something last does not by itself get you poor.

I missed the part where he said this. Do you have a citation?

Yes, it could be your class, too. If I had to guess, just logically speaking, at who would get a wisdom penalty, I'd probably say warrior/fighter is a good bet. I mean, how wise is it to make your living by fighting people who are trying to kill you?

[Greve]

I actually do not mind just how much damage a dwarf can do in a short period of time, it lines up well with what would really happen if a dude that is just about only muscle bashed your face in with a leg bone. Show me a man who can take a smash to the head like that and I will show you superman.

Problem is that if you don't have high strength, your damage tends to be laughable. You can score big hits without high strength, but most of the time you're doing nicks and grazes and lightly, even at respectable skill. My last two combat characters, one had above average strength and the other with exceptional. With the first one, it routinely took 10-15 hits to kill anything, sometimes more. I'm talking about things like raptors, chaltons and NPC raiders, not mekillots and bahamets. The second one would kill those same things in 3-6 blows. Both characters were roughly equal in skill.

If we want to start using the realism defense to justify the benefits of high strength, it needs to be said that the damage you do without high strength is unrealistically bad. Now and then you might highroll and score a viciously to the head or whatever, but the rest of the time it feels more like WoW combat where you chop and slash at something for ages. The issue isn't precisely that high strength is too good, it's that ordinary strength is so far behind that it's stupid.

High strength performs pretty much to my expectations of realistic combat. Middling strength does not. Average strength makes you hit like a twelve year old girl. Some of the fights I've had with my mid-strength characters were truly hilarious as I nicked and grazed my way to victory in what amounted to half an hour of in-game time.

If you make a human character with average endurance, he'll have something like 90-100 health. With exceptional endurance, it's about 120-130. Pretty reasonable. If we look at strength, however, and we translate that stat into a similar comparison using the same metric for the sake of illustration, the difference between average and exceptional is more like 50 vs. 200. I would like the difference to be more like that of endurance so that playing a combat character without high strength doesn't feel like such an immense handicap.

[X-D]

Well, to that point....I actually do not disagree. But I do not think str needs be changed so much as agi and skill needs to be bumped a bit to the scoring of crits (head neck etc).

Otherwise, if you are playing a low str high agi human, certain styles are better then others, often not what you would expect either on which ones.

[gotdamnmiracle]

Well, to that point....I actually do not disagree. But I do not think str needs be changed so much as agi and skill needs to be bumped a bit to the scoring of crits (head neck etc).

Otherwise, if you are playing a low str high agi human, certain styles are better then others, often not what you would expect either on which ones.

The other issue is that while agility feels primarily defensive, strength is offensive and defensive from the standpoint that you can wear thicker and thicker armor. It's a twofold boon.

Honestly, it's silly that the wording grazing and such are used with super armored kryl-plated mega-muls. Unless they're dancing around like super heroes you're hitting them square on, it's just not doing much. But realistically speaking when you do hit them it should be vicious gouges to the joints, neck, etc, making armor very polar. If anything the grazings and lightlys should apply more to high agility characters because they can steer the enemies blades to hit them in ineffective or grazing directions (think capoeira).

[X-D]

Oh, BTW Heade.

Picking strength last just gives a (low) roll in the normal range, so that has no bearing.

[gotdamnmiracle]

It appears to me that no one is happy with the current system aside from staff and Heade, our local contrarian. That's bad.

[X-D]

generally I am happy...I just normally agree there is room for improvement.