Which is Better, Figured Characteristics or No Figured Characteristics?

[Christopher R Taylor]

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Do they give you the long white beard when you graduate from wizard school or do you have to buy it separately? 

 

You have to grow it graduate!

 

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That is pure, unadulterated, absolute stereotyping.  Academic types can't be physical?

 

I didn't say that.  I said the opposite, in fact: it probably would help to be at least somewhat fit.  But given that you only have 24 hours in a day and a finite amount of energy, someone who is highly academic and scholarly has less time and energy to devote to being fit and physically trained than someone who is not.

 

Hero handles this concept with points: you only get so many points to build a character with, so you have to balance out the two, or focus on one or the other.  You can be a great wizard, or a great fighter, or meh at both.

[Scott Ruggels]

6 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

It was only after posting that I realised that Scott might have been talking about reading the rules rather than the extended onversations that went on about them...

3rd edition has fewer pages of rules. 3th edition is still manageable, as the last third of the book is that big adventure.

[unclevlad]

2 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

First off, if the spellcasters get everything the warriors get, plus spellcasting, why would anyone play a warrior? 

 

Of course, but that's still reasoning backwards to justify the in-game aspects.

 

And they didn't always hold.  AU/AE has the mageblade...who can fight, who can cast spells.  Not AS well as a full-time caster or warrior, but well.  In Ars Magica, the notion of "balanced" was tossed RIGHT OUT of the window.  The magi were MUCH!!!! better than the companions overall.  (With plenty of drawbacks of their own, mind.)  The intent was that you'd have multiple characters, sometimes playing your mage, sometimes not.

 

And let's recognize:  in the D&D source material, there are few seriously important warrior types.  The power brokers are the high priests and archmages.  There was no pretense of balance, at higher levels, in 1E or 2E.  This changed somewhat in 3E;  direct damage became far more problematic once Con bonuses applied to all hit dice.

 

3 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

But given that you only have 24 hours in a day and a finite amount of energy, someone who is highly academic and scholarly has less time and energy to devote to being fit and physically trained than someone who is not.

 

Largely false.  I almost never spent any time on math homework, or a non-coding CS assignment.  I didn't need to.  I finished it.  Yeah I was the guy that finished the math exam in 25 minutes with a perfect score.  I had *plenty* of time to be active.  There are plenty of college athletes who are there to try to go pro, and are taking...let's call them less than rigorous classes.  OTOH...there are plenty that are taking serious classes.  AND devoting 2-3 hours every day to their sport.  MIT and Cal Tech play in Division III conferences.  Think their athletes can slack off their course work?

[Christopher R Taylor]

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MIT and Cal Tech play in Division III conferences.  Think their athletes can slack off their course work?

 

um...yes.

[unclevlad]

2 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

um...yes.

 

Try again.  MOST difficult.  Stuff that would melt the brains of most.  Markov chains?  That's the 3rd class in the probability/stats curriculum...the first two are senior-level at UC Boulder.  Computational fluid dynamics?  Found a program at Illinois:

 

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 CFD is used to predict the drag, lift, noise, structural and thermal loads, combustion., etc., performance in aircraft systems and subsystems.

CFD is also a means by which the fundamental mechanics of fluids can be studied.  By using massively parallel supercomputers, CFD is frequently used to study how fluids behave in complex scenarios, such a boundary layer transition, turbulence, and sound generation, with applications throughout and beyond aerospace engineering.

 

The introductory course is senior level.

 

These are also nominal violations, from the story itself.

 

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The NCAA has a rule that student-athletes must be taking a full course load to be eligible. Though Caltech students are studying from the moment they set foot on campus, they don’t officially take a full course load until the end of the third week of every term because they are allowed to shop the difficult classes before making final decisions.

 

By the time you're a junior...at the latest...the classes are taught at graduate levels.  With that kind of intensity, depth, and pace.  Grad programs generally limit the coursework to 9 hours...which isn't a full load by undergrad standards.

 

Also consider the service academies.  NOT ONLY do they have intense coursework, they've got at least some of the physical duties required for cadets.  THEN their sports.  They're training to be officers with peoples' lives at stake.

[Christopher R Taylor]

OK since you didn't click on the link, I'll explain: nearly all college athletes at a high level are either given a pass or someone else does the work or they get a "physics for dummies" variant.  Every YEAR a college is busted for doing this.  Including Cal Tech.  So no, you cannot do the highest level of work in both athletics and academia, because you don't have time and energy to do so.  If you hadn't noticed, studying very difficult and highly challenging materials can be exhausting.

[Cloppy Clip]

@Doc Democracy Sorry, a bit late to the party and the thread's moved on since then, but I like your idea of removing characteristics altogether. It goes against the instinct of a lot of traditional roleplaying games, I think, because there's that appeal of being able to say "yes, I'm X strong", but if you want to make HERO into even more of a toolbox system then being able to pick apart those characteristics would go a good way towards that. I think the real advantage if you did this would be in genre books like Fantasy Hero, where you could make your own custom set of characteristics based on what the setting demanded. An intrigue and court politics game could have characteristics based around social maneuvering and standing, while an investigative game could have more focus on analysing clues and making deductions as characteristics. Essentially, you'd have much more power to highlight what a given game was aiming to do, which I think is pretty cool.

[Doc Democracy]

2 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

3rd edition has fewer pages of rules. 3th edition is still manageable, as the last third of the book is that big adventure.

 

I think one thing we can ALL agree on is that the rules have grown significantly edition by edition.  🙂

[unclevlad]

2 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

OK since you didn't click on the link, I'll explain: nearly all college athletes at a high level are either given a pass or someone else does the work or they get a "physics for dummies" variant.  Every YEAR a college is busted for doing this.  Including Cal Tech.  So no, you cannot do the highest level of work in both athletics and academia, because you don't have time and energy to do so.  If you hadn't noticed, studying very difficult and highly challenging materials can be exhausting.

 

Oh, I DID click on it, and read it.

 

You clearly misunderstood what was in it.  

 

And while, yes, LOTS of athletes DO take that level of coursework, NOT ALL OF THEM.  There are plenty who take top-level, difficult classes AND participate in high-level sports.  

[Christopher R Taylor]

OK you can believe whatever it is you wish.  Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, we all recognize that limited time, resources, and energy prevent people from "doing it all" and "having everything" like, say, Batman.

[Grailknight]

30 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

OK you can believe whatever it is you wish.  Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, we all recognize that limited time, resources, and energy prevent people from "doing it all" and "having everything" like, say, Batman.

 

Isn't this a game where we're playing as Batman or Hank Pym or Tony Stark or John Henry Irons? We play the real world 1% exceptions not the 99% rule. And in the real world there are athletes who are Rhodes scholars. Granted they're not as common as in genre, but they do exist.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Grailknight

[Gauntlet]

I would have to say that in most cased I think the difference between 5th and 6th edition is like 6 one way and a half-dozen for the other (both have their advantages and disadvantages). But I do like being able to purchase base OCV and DCV. Problem was that when surprised a character with a low DEX had a very low DCV no matter how many skill levels he/she had. If you had a 10 DEX character with 25 skill levels your surprised DCV was always 2 while if you were a 20 DEX character with no skill levels your surprised DCV was always 4. But with 6th edition I can have that low DEX character that is extremely good in combat still have an okay DCV even when surprised in combat.

Edited August 23, 2023 by Gauntlet

[Christopher R Taylor]

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Isn't this a game where we're playing as Batman or Hank Pym or Tony Stark or John Henry Irons? We play the real world 1% exceptions not the 99% rule.

 

Depends on the genre and setting.  Fantasy generally tends to treat people as real, if heroic, people who train to gain their abilities and have limitations.

[unclevlad]

2 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Depends on the genre and setting.  Fantasy generally tends to treat people as real, if heroic, people who train to gain their abilities and have limitations.

 

Not most of the fantasy I've read.    

[Duke Bushido]

I have had no reason to contribute to this thread as I still play 2e, but I did want to contribute  this:

 

Even I, essentially an absolute rule Luddite, who, while I don't hate anything Steve has from all the way back in 4e, I haven't particularly loved any of it, either--

 

Even _I_ appreciate the breaking of the DEX /SPD connection.  I mean, heroic level _obviously_ doesn't support a lot of DEX  in the 20+ range, and when you look at the comic book super heroes, there isn't tons of support for DEX much higher than that, either, or SPD.  Granted, I know precious little about comics except what my players and Google teach me, but it seems the overwhelmong majority of supers get their general agility defined ad "highly-trained acrobat" or "Olympic-level gymnast," all of which I suspect falls near or  not far over NCM, but they (and even agents) still have the combat know-how to score hits on genuine godlike beings.

 

So yeah-  I am glad of that one, at least.

 

 

[Gauntlet]

I believe the major change between 2nd and 5th edition is the difference between heroic and superheroic characters.

[Doc Democracy]

35 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Even _I_ appreciate the breaking of the DEX /SPD connection.

 

I think one of the problems with SPD is that it is a game mechanism masquerading as quickness.  It essentially tells you how many game actions you get in a game turn. 

 

There is a general feeling that a fast character should have higher SPD.  Even just saying it feels like it makes absolute sense.

 

However, like many common sense things, it isn't actually true.  When Flash is in the comics he tends not to get more panels devoted to him than any other character, not even more than poor old Green Arrow who just fires a bow.

 

That suggests their SPDs are pretty similar regardless of what velocities they might be able to achieve.  Speed should be an SFX, not a characteristic.

 

Doc

[Gauntlet]

Woah!!! Didn't think this Forum would have this many responses.

[unclevlad]

Yeah, there's certainly cases where linking SPD to DEX generally meant you'd buy BACK the SPD to 2.  

 

But that isn't the major problem.  It's tying CV to DEX, because CV is critical for the game mechanics, for most, and it's expensive.

 

There's a classic dissonance, IMO, about what "Olympic level gymnast" means.  Because to me, it's NOT!! related to DEX, per se.  It's related to skill roll.  

 

Competent: The character can perform routine tasks easily, and difficult tasks with a little effort. He’s qualified to get a job using the Skill.

 

Skilled: The character is well-versed in the Skill. Routine tasks are easy, and more difficult tasks are well within his abilities. He’s qualified to manage or assist less-skilled workers as they use the Skill.

Very Skilled: The character is a master with the Skill. Easy tasks are a breeze, and he can perform more difficult or unusual tasks without too much trouble.

 

Highly Skilled: The character is one of the very best people in the world with that Skill. Unusual or difficult tasks which give lesser masters pause are matters of routine. He often works on cutting-edge applications of the Skill.

 

So is an Olympic gymnast Very or Highly skilled?  Highly is 16-, so we're talking 18 DEX and 3 levels.  Is Simone Biles highly or extremely skilled?  She's had 2 or 3 moves named for her, which clearly gets into the "new uses for the skill."

 

Remember that an 18 DEX means a 13- in any DEX-related skill into which the person invests some effort...and that's true whether it impacts SPD and CV or not.  I think levels in specific skills is significantly undervalued for NPCs.  We go, oh, well, all those skill levels get too expensive!!  Well, we're not gonna buy that many different skills for them.  

 

This is, for me, even more dramatic when talking about INT...in part because NCM is bogus for INT.  The greatest geniuses BLOW THROUGH a 20...look up "modern polymaths" to see what I mean.  This isn't the greatest of links, but it does start giving a flavor.  Read where von Neumann contributed.  The paradigm polymath in history was Da Vinci.  I've seen lists of some modern polymaths I can't find right now, but with IQ estimates WELL over 200.  By contrast?  I don't believe Einstein was.  He was a genius physicist, but I don't *think* he had the breadth.  So with someone like Reed Richards or Tony Stark...38 INT, or something like a 28 and lots of skill levels?  (Yes, this is a pet peeve of mine.  Levels with INT do not apply, under the rules, to background skills based on INT per RAW.)

 

[Doc Democracy]

8 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

But that isn't the major problem.  It's tying CV to DEX, because CV is critical for the game mechanics, for most, and it's expensive.

 

I am in complete agreement with this and everything that came after it.

[Hugh Neilson]

6 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Of course, but that's still reasoning backwards to justify the in-game aspects.

 

And they didn't always hold.  AU/AE has the mageblade...who can fight, who can cast spells.  Not AS well as a full-time caster or warrior, but well. 

 

Emphasis added.  D&D characters can multiclass - not as good as a full-time caster or warrior.  With newer editions, we also see classes that can do both, but not as well as a Fighter or a Wizard.

 

6 hours ago, unclevlad said:

In Ars Magica, the notion of "balanced" was tossed RIGHT OUT of the window.  The magi were MUCH!!!! better than the companions overall.  (With plenty of drawbacks of their own, mind.)  The intent was that you'd have multiple characters, sometimes playing your mage, sometimes not.

 

So sometimes you play the superior character and sometimes you don't.  What if everyone wants to play their Magi character on this adventure?  Can they?

 

6 hours ago, unclevlad said:

And let's recognize:  in the D&D source material, there are few seriously important warrior types.  The power brokers are the high priests and archmages.  There was no pretense of balance, at higher levels, in 1E or 2E.  This changed somewhat in 3E;  direct damage became far more problematic once Con bonuses applied to all hit dice.

 

In 1e and 2e, "balance" meant casters suck at low levels and non-casters suck at high levels.  So if you are good enough to get your casters through the low levels (with the support of player agreeing to play the characters that will suck at high levels), you get to lord it over everyone at high levels.

 

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

There's a classic dissonance, IMO, about what "Olympic level gymnast" means.  Because to me, it's NOT!! related to DEX, per se.  It's related to skill roll.  

 

Competent: The character can perform routine tasks easily, and difficult tasks with a little effort. He’s qualified to get a job using the Skill.

 

Skilled: The character is well-versed in the Skill. Routine tasks are easy, and more difficult tasks are well within his abilities. He’s qualified to manage or assist less-skilled workers as they use the Skill.

Very Skilled: The character is a master with the Skill. Easy tasks are a breeze, and he can perform more difficult or unusual tasks without too much trouble.

 

Highly Skilled: The character is one of the very best people in the world with that Skill. Unusual or difficult tasks which give lesser masters pause are matters of routine. He often works on cutting-edge applications of the Skill.

 

So is an Olympic gymnast Very or Highly skilled?  Highly is 16-, so we're talking 18 DEX and 3 levels.  Is Simone Biles highly or extremely skilled?  She's had 2 or 3 moves named for her, which clearly gets into the "new uses for the skill."

 

Why should we have to build NPCs inefficiently rather than just giving NPCs fewer points.  Do you find that an 11- skill feels all that "competent" in-game?  Does a "very skilled" 14- or so roll feel like a "master"?  What's the penalty for a "difficult or unusual" task?  Is a 16- enough to make a -5 penalty "matters of routine" in-game?

 

And a standard Super is "very skilled" with any DEX skill he spends 3 points on. Is that true of every character in the source material?  I don't believe that it is.  Nor do I believe that every comic book superhero is more agile than 99.9% of the population.

[unclevlad]

Ars Magica was set in the early part of the millenium...15th century maybe?  Possibly earlier, it's been forever.  So with things like travel times, and projects that took months...generally, no.  Not all the magi would be in play at one time.  

 

12 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Why should we have to build NPCs inefficiently rather than just giving NPCs fewer points.  Do you find that an 11- skill feels all that "competent" in-game?  Does a "very skilled" 14- or so roll feel like a "master"?  What's the penalty for a "difficult or unusual" task?  Is a 16- enough to make a -5 penalty "matters of routine" in-game?

 

And a standard Super is "very skilled" with any DEX skill he spends 3 points on. Is that true of every character in the source material?  I don't believe that it is.  Nor do I believe that every comic book superhero is more agile than 99.9% of the population.

 

Why should we care about a few points on an NPC?  What difference does it make?  When it's NOT spent on combat, anyway.  

 

The scale and those descriptions are straight RAW.  The descriptors mean a LOT more to me than the rolls...because what they're also talking about is when you *don't* need to roll, by giving a general, convenient translation of a scale that otherwise has none.  What's a 14- Chemistry roll...AP high school, undergrad degree, masters, doctorate?  

 

The source material is, as always, useless for these arguments.  Writers write what they want to write...and don't write what they don't want to write.  We don't have the character sheets.  Hey, maybe those guys ARE 13 DEX and Lightning Reflexes 10.  We don't know.  We don't see many of em trying to execute DEX skills, either...unless it's Beast, or Spidey sometimes, where it's something to be highlighted.  And the standard of comparison is generally...other supers.  If the average STR is 50, then someone with a 40 is gonna look puny.  To borrow a useful aphorism:  absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  We all can, all too easily, impute what our innate prejudices believe because what's presented is totally subjective, and we'll shape it to fit our preconceived notions.

I personally have no problem with the vast majority of comics supers having a 23+ DEX.  I DO buy starting from a position that, generally...Supers Are Better.  To be sure, I'm not talking street-level or Golden Age here.  That's always a massive disconnect.  You say Supers, I say Supers, but what we're talking about may be 200 points different.

[Hugh Neilson]

12 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Ars Magica was set in the early part of the millenium...15th century maybe?  Possibly earlier, it's been forever.  So with things like travel times, and projects that took months...generally, no.  Not all the magi would be in play at one time.  

That's just scenario construction, another form of "balance that is not balance".  Sometimes, you get to play the powerful character (but you don't get to express that power with abilities that cut down travel time).  Other times you get stuck playing the grunts.  One more variant of "powerful sometimes; weak others" like sucking at low levels and becoming godlike if you can survive to high levels.  A D&D game could have multiple characters for each player and multiple scenarios played at the same time too, requiring splitting into multiple parties.

 

12 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Why should we care about a few points on an NPC?  What difference does it make?  When it's NOT spent on combat, anyway. 

 

Because we compare our characters to normals, skilled normals, etc.  If my character is an Olympic gymnast who gains powers, logically my character would have a similar build to that NPC gymnast, plus superpowers.  If those superpowers don't relate to physical agility, why would my character become better at gymnastics?  Barry Allen didn't become a better forensic investigator outside being able to do things faster, and becoming The Thing didn't make Ben Grimm a better pilot.

 

12 hours ago, unclevlad said:

The scale and those descriptions are straight RAW.  The descriptors mean a LOT more to me than the rolls...because what they're also talking about is when you *don't* need to roll, by giving a general, convenient translation of a scale that otherwise has none.  What's a 14- Chemistry roll...AP high school, undergrad degree, masters, doctorate? 

 

Here we have some agreement - the Hero skills system needs an "auto-roll" rule so that what should be routine for the character actually is routine. Clearly being able to make a living with an 11- roll can't mean you mess up your routine job functions 37.5% of the time.

 

12 hours ago, unclevlad said:

The source material is, as always, useless for these arguments.  Writers write what they want to write...and don't write what they don't want to write.  We don't have the character sheets.  Hey, maybe those guys ARE 13 DEX and Lightning Reflexes 10.  We don't know.  We don't see many of em trying to execute DEX skills, either...unless it's Beast, or Spidey sometimes, where it's something to be highlighted.  And the standard of comparison is generally...other supers.  If the average STR is 50, then someone with a 40 is gonna look puny.  To borrow a useful aphorism:  absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  We all can, all too easily, impute what our innate prejudices believe because what's presented is totally subjective, and we'll shape it to fit our preconceived notions.

 

What we are trying to simulate is useless for evaluating how well the game succeeds in simulating it? Sorry, no.  The Human Torch doesn't pick up a car because "all Supers have a 30+ STR".  We don't see many Supers trying to execute superhuman feats of agility because not many of them are superhumanly agile, and can treat 14- DEX rolls as a routine matter, no real risk of failure.  We don't see bystanders gasp as Green Lantern manages feats of agility far beyond those of ordinary mortals. Because he's not markedly more agile than ordinary mortals.  His power suite doesn't include legendary to superhuman agility, any more than he hefts a Buick with raw strength, rather than his amazing ring.

 

The fact that we do not see most Supers perform great feats of agility is not a "lack of evidence" - their abilities are highlighted, not shielded from view.

 

Supers can be "better" by having stats of 13 - 15.  You are willing to abide by the description of the skill rolls, but not characteristics?  15 is "twice as good as a normal person", and 23 is into "Legendary" territory.  I don't believe every Super has Legendary agility - the ones whose Agility is truly remarkable are moving into Legendary territory, and some few are Superhumanly agile (which, again, the game defines as over 30).

[Ninja-Bear]

On 8/20/2023 at 1:42 PM, Chris Goodwin said:

Even in Fantasy Hero back in the day, you had to have 18 DEX and 18 CON (for the Figureds), and 4 SPD (because everyone else was 4 SPD), it seemed.

 

Someone years ago, I can't remember where or when, said "SPD equals fun".  I'm not sure I agree, fully, but they had at least somewhat of a point.

 

(Also, why do we expect wizards to be rickety old grandpas with long beards?  Why can't wizards be in at least reasonably decent shape, especially if they're spending their own END for spells?  And we know that people who don't maintain a healthy lifestyle into the years that more and more of us are starting to see don't live as long.)

I figured the characters were SPD 4 because most monsters were SPD 3. That extra Phase can be a big game changer.

[Ninja-Bear]

@Hugh Neilson, the Auto-Roll rule., I like. I heard Matt Colville express something similar but he didn’t have a name for it. When I remember, I do try to use something like it.