Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

[Utech]

Purely out of curiosity, has anyone tried removing Characteristics from the game entirely?

 

I began to wonder if this might be possible -- even desirable -- after the latest thread(s) griping about Strength.

 

I wonder how this might work. A couple thoughts:

 

Skill Bases

Naturally, no Skills could be based on Characteristics. Still, you might group them together for the purposes of Skill Levels.

 

Strength

Replace damage component with Blast at No Range.

Replace lift component with a new Lift Skill (or move it into Hoist). Give heavy objects a penalty to Lift Skill Rolls.

Replace throw component with a new Throw Skill. Give heavy, unaerodynamic, and/or unbalanced objects penalties to Throw Skill Rolls.

 

Dexterity

Replace combat initiative component with Initiative Skill.

 

Constitution

Replace stun check component with Daze Defense. Daze Defense can be purchased separately against physical, energy, and mental attacks. Daze Defense does not stop STUN or BODY damage. Any STUN damage that exceeds defenses and Daze Defense will Stun the character.

 

Etc.

 

Thoughts?

[Blue]

Re: Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

 

I come to hero for the crunchy goodness. Can't even envision this.

[Utech]

Re: Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

 

I come to hero for the crunchy goodness. Can't even envision this.

Fair enough. Could you let me know what crunchy goodness you're getting from Characteristics?

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

 

I did suggest this in the 6th edition forums. I think that various aspects of the characteristics skew the costs of powers and skills. The current move has alleviated some of that tension, getting rid of characteristics would remove it completely and remove one of the character building triad that people have to understand before building a character.

 

I don't think that removing characteristics removes crunchiness, in fact it probably increases it slightly as it requires people to think a bit more about the core character rather than relying on stuff just being there.

 

Doc

[Blue]

Re: Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

 

Granularity mostly. When you remove numbers and go to categories (Lift small, lift medium, lift large, etc) one strong-man is pretty much the same as the next. When I have the THING battle it out with THE HULK I don't want them even. THING should probably be as strong or slightly stronger before hand and Hulk should be stronger as it goes on. Dice of damage shift upwards, capacity raises, etc.

 

Likewise, having two speedsters dualing it out, they'd for most purposes be equal unless they use stats to reprsent themselves. A superhero games is virtually the only place where i feel this is necessary. A fantasy game, spy game, etc., migh tbe able to get away with this.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

 

I don't think that Utech was suggesting a move from numbers to categories, just a shift to using powers or skills for those things that we currently use characteristics for. It would follow the trend in removing figureds to removing the black box multi-power-skills that are characteristics.

 

 

Can you spot my bias??

 

Doc

[Sean Waters]

Re: Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

 

I think you can do without characteristics well enough, certainly S/D/C/I/W/C...er, sorry...S/D/C/I/E/P. The rest you pretty much need, in that they would be far too complicated to replace. Well, combat values wouldn't - you could do it all with skill levels, but the rest would.

 

The only thing that is really a bit awkward with removing characteristics is that it makes adjusting them with Aid and Drain and such a right mess.

 

STR...we'll do that last...

 

DEX - Agility skill levels and lightning reflexes

 

CON - Toughness skill? You roll it when you'd roll against CON and, well, if you take more damage than 5x(Skill-9) you have to make a CON roll at -(damage through defences/5) or you are stunned. Make it exactly and you lose 1/2 phase and an additional 1/2 phase per point you fil by. Cool. See - more granularity.

 

INT - well, I've been agitating to get rid of that for years - Intellect skills and PER skills.

 

EGO - various relevant skills and skill levels pertaining to the various aspects of EGO - and, for that matter PRE.

 

PRE - skills and skill levels again. And we could, you know, ditch Presence attacks. Win-win!

 

STR - No range EB, cool, lift....lift....hmm...I'm not so cool with a lift skill because, well, how does that work? I roll a 17 and I can't lift the refrigerator - yesterday I rolled a 4 and lifted nearly seventeen tonnes of lead filled Morris Minor. And you had no idea you could get that much lead in a Morris Minor, did you? This is why we're doing this last...it is hardest. I don't know - a simple number is the easiest way to do that IMO.

 

Anyway...

[Ice9]

Re: Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

 

Strength is indeed the tricky one, because there are a lot of components, and some of them are rarely used for some characters while being primary for others.

HTH Damage: Blast, done. This one is easy enough because you just buy however much of it you need.

Lifting/Throwing: Just make a "Lift" power/talent. The problem is pricing - for many characters, being able to lift a large amount is primarily flavor - they're combat ability is based more around HTH damage - so for them, it should be priced low. However, because you can drop/throw heavy objects for significant damage, and some characters might even use that as a primary combat ability, maybe it should be priced high. Whatever price you set, it's not going to fit everyone.

Grab/Disarm/Shove: And any other combat manuevers where you roll Strength. Should these all be separate skills/powers? A single one? And how much should it cost?

 

The problem is that HTH attack, throwing, and strength-based combat manuevers are all potential combat abilities, and someone with only one of those should be paying as much for it as they would a Blast of the corresponding damage. However, many characters will only really be using one of the above for combat, but have the others to fit the concept - Captain Hercules should be able to lift a train or wrestly a runaway elephant to the ground, even if he relies solely on his mighty fists in combat. Putting them in a Multipower is the right cost structure, but doesn't really work in play - you don't want to get crushed by the bus you here holding because you switched slots to resist a grab/shove.

 

I feel that to get the right results, you'd need to allow some kind of custom framework, like a Multipower but usable simultaneously to an extent - which is what the Strength characteristic already does. Or make them all skill-based, with a custom pricing where ranks in the individual skills cost almost as much as ranks in the entire group - but skills generally provide more variability than you want for things like lifting, and are an unwieldy way to do HTH attacks.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

 

STR - No range EB' date=' cool, lift....lift....hmm...I'm not so cool with a lift skill because, well, how does that work? I roll a 17 and I can't lift the refrigerator - yesterday I rolled a 4 and lifted nearly seventeen tonnes of lead filled Morris Minor. And you had no idea you could get that much lead in a Morris Minor, did you? This is why we're doing this last...it is hardest. I don't know - a simple number is the easiest way to do that IMO.[/quote']

 

I didn't think that skills would be the way each time - for STR you have already gone to powers to get the attack, why not a new lift power? You could then have DCs of lift that represent the ability to lift weights...

 

Again you could probably do this in a way where you would achieve more granularity than the current system and it would not be all or nothing as far as being tied to the capacity to inflict damage...

Doc

[Sean Waters]

Re: Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

 

I didn't think that skills would be the way each time - for STR you have already gone to powers to get the attack, why not a new lift power? You could then have DCs of lift that represent the ability to lift weights...

 

Again you could probably do this in a way where you would achieve more granularity than the current system and it would not be all or nothing as far as being tied to the capacity to inflict damage...

Doc

 

I would like to split strength up into the ability to apply force in a crushing/rending/lifting/pushing/moving manner and the ability to hit hard (which is the easy bit) with throwing stuff being a sort of hybrid between the two. Every time I've thought about it though I come up with something that basically gives you a STR like number anyway, so I remain to be convinced that there is a better way to do strength than STRENGTH.

[Egyptoid]

Re: Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

 

>>> Sean Waters.

 

I was waiting for you to find this thread.

 

at first I double checked the OP 4 times cause I thought it had to be you.

 

carry on. don't mind me.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

 

I would like to split strength up into the ability to apply force in a crushing/rending/lifting/pushing/moving manner and the ability to hit hard (which is the easy bit) with throwing stuff being a sort of hybrid between the two. Every time I've thought about it though I come up with something that basically gives you a STR like number anyway' date=' so I remain to be convinced that there is a better way to do strength than STRENGTH.[/quote']

 

Well, why not dice of Force? The number of dice gives you the lifting range and every BODY higher than the number of dice increase you a measure above the midpoint and every BODY lower lowers you a measure below the midpoint. You use HIT HARD to do punching, you use FORCE to do crushing and throwing is so many metres times the BODY rolled on the average of HIT HARD and FORCE?

 

 

Doc

[Lucius]

Re: Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

 

Hel-lo - Telekinesis, anyone?

 

The game already has a lift/throw power.

 

I've considered eliminating a lot of Characteristics, but I don't know that elminating all of them is a good idea.

 

As far as being a Skill Base goes, we need one tweak on how Skill Levels work now. Either some kind of Advantage, or Adder, or just a little extra granularity in how they're categorized, to account for a Level that can apply to more than one Skill at once. Eliminating some Characteristics would even encourage new ways to categorize skills for such levels.

 

Way back when we were hashing out ideas for the New Dispensation, I suggested replacing PD and ED with an Everyman Power, DEFense.

 

END, BOD, and STUN are "counters" and I'm not sure they can be replaced without truly massive changes to how the game works. I'd say it's something that could possibly be done in theory, but in practice I wouldn't bring it up if we started talking about 7th Edition tomorrow.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

House of the Palindromedary

[Blue]

Re: Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

 

I don't think that Utech was suggesting a move from numbers to categories, just a shift to using powers or skills for those things that we currently use characteristics for. It would follow the trend in removing figureds to removing the black box multi-power-skills that are characteristics.

 

 

Can you spot my bias??

 

Doc

 

Now I see what you're saying (sorry for being obtuse). Still unlikely to ever do such a thing myself because it feels like extra work with a payoff that won't improve upon the current system. But feel free to keep convincing

[Beast]

Re: Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

 

about the only one I can see going is Int

all the rest are needed is 1 fashion or an other that makes it more trouble than it is worth

having all skills at a base of 11-(perception 11- would be an everyman skill)when you buy then and then you just buy int skill levels would be a seamless change

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Anyone try removing Characteristics completely?

 

END' date=' BOD, and STUN are "counters" and I'm not sure they can be replaced without truly massive changes to how the game works. I'd say it's something that could possibly be done in theory, but in practice I wouldn't bring it up if we started talking about 7th Edition tomorrow.[/quote']

 

Yeah. Some characteristics are fundamental to the game system - they demonstrate the variety of functions characteristics combine. I would not be in favour of removing the counters either.