Funny dice

The second in a series of posts combining the points in 6th edition discussions to a single article. Here are the good points and the things I think the 6th edition rules should include in the category of Characteristics:

Retain figured characteristics because they are no more complex than any other game and each makes logical sense. Dropping these would be too great a change from previous editions and would not add anything beneficial to the game - you'd still have all those stats but they would be stand alone when they ought to be attached to other characteristics. All games have figured characteristics, even if they aren't clearly listed as such (armor class, saving throws, etc from D&D and so on). Some stats, such as CON, would become far too expensive for their use and lose much meaning at all if the figured characteristics were dropped

Strength gives an awful lot for its cost, yet some changes suggested would ruin one of the most basic concepts for Champions (the brick). Strength gives lift, damage, leaping ability, physical defense, recovery, stun, and exertion ability (for weapon damage, HKA, and so on). To balance this out would not take a lot: drop leaping entirely from strength - characters who want to be like the Hulk or original Superman and leap huge distances can just buy leaping, which is plenty cheap on its own. Strength also should not affect any figured characteristics, replace its effect on PD and REC with body (BOD/5 for physical defense, and BOD+CON/5 for recovery). Stun could just be CON+BOD.

Make perception a stand-alone ability rather than a roll based on Intelligence. The absent-minded professor and the incredibly perceptive dolt would both be cleaner builds with this change

There was some suggestion of making all stats start at 0 but this would be a mistake: stats starting at 10 is an easy to understand concept for players. Related was the idea of losing negative characteristics which would be a poor choice as well, eliminating some interesting builds and mechanics as well as greatly complicating low strength builds (or just making them a hand-wave).

Once more the suggestion to drop Comeliness from the rules arose, and there's a simple answer: leave them in and ignore the stat if you do not care for it.