Wisdom

Started by Dresan, March 02, 2024, 12:24:13 PM

March 02, 2024, 12:24:13 PM Last Edit: March 02, 2024, 12:31:50 PM by Dresan
There are a number of reasons wisdom is a dump stat.

The bonus are either borderline useless. For example learning faster is worthless unless you plan to spam skills. Combat skills plateau and its mostly an issue of finding people to train with at a certain point than how fast you do it. Strong stealth is beneficial to the game so perception bonuses can only go so far. Finally the other bonus are too obscure and situational to even mention.

I want to propose some more bonuses for wisdom to make it useful long term for a character but not in a way that it becomes the new op strength stat. Staff would need to play with the numbers.


1. Wisdom should help negate enemy armor. This idea was tossed around for agility but was dropped so i want to recommend it as a bonus for wisdom. For every +1 bonus from wisdom, one armor will be reduced during sucessful hit.

2. Wisdom should improve critical strike chance. If you do not hit a critical location, your wisdom bonus will give that hit a chance to hit crit location wisdom bonusx2 percent. So +5 wisdom bonus would have a 10 percent bonus to turn a normal strike into a crit location.

3. Wisdom should improve chance of successfully crafting anything. This would not be a skill boost thus allow you to craft anything you shouldn't but just greatly improve your chance of crafting successfully, more so than just holding something in your hand. Wish this existed with the old freaking brew, so hard to craft simple pills. A lot of benefits to this including upping demand for a little something something from you local thug when crafting harder more expensive items.

I was thinking wisdom was more for support skills and abilities and not combat. In particular, our infamous magic users...

I was actually thinking of it today, wondering if it is useful for improving bandaging aptitude. I know it affects Contact skills somewhat, just don't know how exactly. Having a positive effect on crafting is a great idea, as well as, maybe a slight improvement to dodging. I don't know, I was just thinking of D&D's monk class.

But maybe what we might want is more emphasis on the classes and activities that benefit from wisdom, rather than combat and stealth.

March 02, 2024, 03:03:13 PM #2 Last Edit: March 02, 2024, 03:06:40 PM by Roon
I'm leery of copying the unpalatable feature of modern-day D&D where any stat can represent your martial prowess, i.e. "I'm a fighter but I use my charisma for attack rolls because I have the Warrior-Poet perk!" Wisdom shouldn't give direct plusses to combat rolls. Instead, wisdom should be more effective in helping you to learn faster.

The way it is now, it only technically does that, but not really. There's a very limited window of time where a faster skill timer matters. It doesn't take very long to raise non-combat skills, no matter what your wisdom is, and combat skills quickly reach a point where it isn't feasible to raise them fast enough for your skill timer to be relevant. Instead of only affecting the skill timer, wisdom could be made to affect the chance to gain. That'll be helpful forever, or at least until no improvement is possible at all anymore.

There are hidden attributes assigned to each class that determine the chances of increasing certain combat skills upon failure. Wisdom should improve those chances. Then the stat would be valuable to fighters, without resorting to something as videogamey as direct bonuses to combat rolls from a wholly mental stat. The idea of being witty enough to know about striking the gaps in your opponent's armor is just too goofy and not representative of how fighting really works. How many of the world's best boxers are geniuses?

Wisdom is already the second best combat stat behind endurance

Quote from: Lotion on March 03, 2024, 04:15:04 AMWisdom is already the second best combat stat behind endurance

This is not true.

Especially considering the hardest skills to rise, such as combat skills are more about finding opportunity to learn.


Quote from: Dresan on April 13, 2024, 04:15:31 PM
Quote from: Lotion on March 03, 2024, 04:15:04 AMWisdom is already the second best combat stat behind endurance

This is not true.

Especially considering the hardest skills to rise, such as combat skills are more about finding opportunity to learn.

You need far fewer opportunities with higher wisdom.

Stats in general are kinda wack because if you're playing a combat character you basically need all stats nigh equally which makes it hard to prioritise what dump. Crafters on the other hand literally only need wisdom to be good at their job, kinda wish it wasn't that way.
I make up for the tiny in-game character limit by writing walls of text here.

As a crafter, I assure you that there are other important stats. Just not as important to coded survival.
Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on May 20, 2013, 11:16:52 PM
Masks are the Armageddon equivalent of Ed Hardy shirts.

Quote from: Riev on April 14, 2024, 02:55:43 PMAs a crafter, I assure you that there are other important stats. Just not as important to coded survival.
I was mostly being hyperbolic, but I'd like to think my point stands. Yeah strength and agility can help you carry more both in your inventory and overall, but it's not as key as stats for combat. Seeing as you don't die if you can't pick up a fourth short length of bone.
I make up for the tiny in-game character limit by writing walls of text here.

Sorry, the original post wasn't solely about stats being related to combat.

Though I agree, it would be interesting if higher wisdom related to chance to succeed a craft.

Combat-wise, I think it would be interesting if it had a minor effect on critical chance. Give the elves, whose attack damage is already relatively abysmal, a slightly higher chance to get the critical shot that does decent damage. Tough to balance, but an interesting idea.
Quote from: IAmJacksOpinion on May 20, 2013, 11:16:52 PM
Masks are the Armageddon equivalent of Ed Hardy shirts.

playing a crafter with shitty strength is so terrible, you can't carry all your stuff around