Deconstruct it ALL!

[Kintara]

I'm curious about how far people have gone in desconstructing the characteristics. I remember the debate about the figured characteristics; they seem like more trouble than they are worth. But how far can you take this? Pretty darned far.

You can pull Str apart. First, obviously, would be figured characteristics. But you can also pull Str damage away from lifting and encumberence. Although they are usually logical together, they don't have to correspond so directly.

Dex can be pulled from skills entirely, including CV. So Dex could pretty much disappear. If you want high skills, pay for them at the right level. There would have to be an Initiative characteristic, though.

Con is a simple extraction of figureds. Then you make characteristic for health-related things (Health), and another for Stunning Protection.

Int would, hmm, go away, I suppose. It's mostly a skill thing. Just take Perception into consideration. If you want to be smart, buy skills, like Dex.

Pre is another skill extraction thing, just leaving the Presence attack aspect.

I know this has been thought of before, it has to have been. I can understand why it wasn't done officially, it's too abstracted. HERO is already a lot of work for some people. Still, I like the idea of things being highly isolated.

So back to the question: How far have you gone in this direction?

Edit:The major problems in what I laid out seem to be making sure that characteristic rolls are covered by something, and keeping skills point balanced. Skills done like this would be more expensive, if you didn't make changes. The cheapening of Characterisic costs wouldn't alleviate the problem totally, I don't think.

What else needs deconstructing, btw? Any powers you consider too structured?

Also, about skills, I suppose you could make the skill categories their own characteristics. Giving the option might be nice, if it fits into the balance of things. But, on the other hand, that's adding a fair amount of structure. Skills can have many "special effects" after all. In fact, there is often the complaint that skills are based on a combination of factors. Adding categories biases the system in a way that makes it more helpful to conform to a particular conception.

[Snarf]

I think it's a bit unecessary to have regeneration as a form of healing instead of being a seperate power.

You can get effects similar to what you've described by buying characteristics with limitations on them. Such as, 10 STR with -1/4(not for climbing) or -2 (only for climbing). Examples in the books like that could be a good guidline for how much these stats should cost.

You might want to treat drains a little differently. The current cost to drain one characteristic would be the equivalent of draining a whole bunch of these isolated things.

[Zaratustra]

Another option would be to use something akin to Skill Levels for certain characteristic-specific bonuses. Characteristic Levels or the like. so for N points you'd double lifting capacity, for X points you'd get extra CON for recovery from CON stun and so on.

[Kintara]

Well, there are certainly plenty of ways to obtain the specificity. But still, I like the idea of making everything independant of everything else.

I suppose that the major problem with this is that it complicates some powers, like Adustment powers. Of course, it doesn't have to be much of a problem. I think redefining what an expanded effect is covers that problem pretty well.

[Agent X]

Why are you going to all this trouble? One of the reasons that skills have specific characteristics that modify them instead of some complicated formula is because it already takes a long time to build characters. I like Hero because I can represent my character effectively and then I can role play.

[Kintara]

I'm not really going through the trouble. I'm just looking at options.

As for the skills, I wasn't thinking a complicated formula. In fact, I was thinking one formula. You see, HERO already divorced characteristics from skills when you don't invest points in them. As an Everyman skill, you roll 8- (or sometimes 11-). That's it. Why not just forget the whole characteristics tie to skills thing and buy them to whatever level you feel comfortable with? The idea is that you won't be paying for the part of the characteristic that adds to all the skills. You just pay for the skills.

There's no more "package deal" aspect to characteristics. This might make characters more expensive in the end, but maybe it will allow for more variety in character design. There will be no such thing as breakpoints if you do it like this. Every point in a characteristic will mean something, and something very particular.

[Gary]

If you want each characteristic point to count for something, you could try my idea of gradually spreading out figured characteristics and skills instead of giving a whole bunch at each break point.

http://herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3287&highlight=figured