[suggestion] New attributes design

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.

6,101 views 4 replies
Reply #1 Top

I think that the ones we have now are workable.   Maybe add advantages to some attributes suh as Charisma... which can right now be dropped to 5 with not much of a hindrance..  And Clarfiy Change Wisdom To Essence ... since the only place its called wisdom is during Sovereign  creation. 

 

You might want to look at this post https://forums.elementalgame.com/394749   Shameless plug for my own post...  

Reply #2 Top

https://forums.elementalgame.com/385558

 

That was the original arguments I had made with some other input from players. One of the ideas was just to change Wisdom to Essence. I'll take a look at yours since you were kind enough to leave one for me.

 

I really do think it is cheesy and lame to use D&D attributes. It is the most basic and plebian of the pen and paper rpg's and one of the worst systems as a consequence of legacy issues. I played the hell out of 1st Edition and played Against the Giants and Queen of the demonweb pits at the early cons as a kid but then I grew up along with the gaming industry. I remember having to explain Thac0 so many times ha!

Lately I haven't done any work in the PnP world though I passed on some advice on the Dresden Files which is just a great world to game in. From a rigor point of view of well thought out systems GURPS is probably the best and SJ is about the only game company to make good money at unless things have really changed. TSR was weaselly and White Wolf became pretty political and cliquish though I have high respect for Jon Tweet plus they had a big problem with not paying their artists and contributors what they said they would or giving credit were it was due. I'd love for someone to redo Amber and would do it myself if I had the money and time. 

Reply #3 Top

And I still think a level 1 channeler naked and armed with a twig should be able to casually crush a peasant in full plate with a warhammer.

A character should always be more important than the gear they use. You should be more than just a platform in which your +5 sword plays center stage.

Reply #4 Top

Two new ideas for character talents/professions or unit abilities:

 

Spy: Character can move about the map while being invisible to nations but visible to monsters.

Ranger: Character can move about the map while being invisible to monsters but visible to nations.