I've complained about the D&D attributes for Elemental before and was probably a little too caustic. But, I've been thinking and I thought up a new set that would fit a lot better and have better balance between each other.
Body: Damage from melee weapons and hit points. (combines part of strength and constitution) When requirements to use certain weapons and armor is added...Used to resist spells that transform or directly attack the physical essence of the character.
Agility: Melee and missile hitting and avoidance. (combines dexterity and part of strength) Used to dodge physical spells.
Psyche: How complex the spell you can learn and used as a bonus depending on profession or talent. A merchant would gain more gildar while a brilliant scholar would be more able to research effectively. Used to resist spells attacking the mind.
Creativity: Magic flows from the imagination and creativity of channeler. The potency of a spell plus the amount of mana/essence the channeler can put out. Bonus for some types of professions or talents like Artist or Bard. Used to resist spells attacking the soul.
Charisma: The leadership and likability of the character. For sovereigns or war leaders it effects morale and can turn the tide of a battle. For bards it makes performances more lively while creativity would be used to create the art the performance would lie under charisma. For sovereigns it is a probable fact that charismatic leaders have a more productive populace...people are also more likely to want to join your team. It might even be interesting for cities to have morale and your sovereign and maybe your local governor NPC might impact that. Siege's would be more successful if the people have a low opinion of their government. It should be obvious that charisma is a hugely important trait for someone trying to create a nation after a cataclysm. As it stands now the only thing I know it does is make hero recruitment cheaper. Used to resist spells attacking the reputation.
Thus a low psyche channeler with a lot of creativity might not be able to cast the spell brilliance on a city because he's simply not smart enough to figure out the spell while his ability to fling a rock boulder and crush the bejesus out of the troll would be much better than the erudite Scholar who is trying to tutor him who could easily cast brilliance on a city but his boulder spell would just annoy the troll.
That way you have two types of specialist casters you could make. Warrior mages and scholar mages.
