[crossfire] Attributes/Stats

[Mark Wedel]

On 05/12/10 10:11 AM, Nicolas Weeger wrote:

>>    If one looks at these descriptions, one can see that spellcasters have a
>> tougher time on stats than fighters - for fighters, pretty simple - Str,
>> Con, Dex, Cha, Wis, Int, Pow, and the last 4 could be 1 and it wouldn't
>> hurt the fighter much.
>>
>>    For spellcasters, this is tougher - there are more stats they care about.
>>   For a wizard, Pow, Int, Con, Str, Dex, Wis, Cha is probably the order.
>> But because of penalties, a 1 Dex is a bad idea.
>
> What about rebalancing by making Wis or Int more useful for fighters?
> Something like 'your armor will communicate to you if you're intelligent
> enough, to help you more'.
> Or some way to make fighters "pay" if they have too low Wis or Int or Pow.
> Use Pow to resist some attacktypes?

  it is perhaps interesting to note that AD&Dv1 pretty much had same issue - 
fighters could care less about int, wis, cha.

  AD&Dv3 fixed a some of that by adding a bunch of minor skills, which get base 
bonus from those stats.  So a low int means few skill points, and any int based 
skills have a penalty.  Wis is used for some saving throws, so penalty there is 
bad.  Cha is really only used for some skills.

  That doesn't quite work in crossfire, but one thought I had is to give 
fighters some abilities (really just like spells) that need grace/sp.

  This goes with giving special abilities at certain levels for skills.  But 
imagine that for fighters, at 5th level of swordmanship, they get something like 
'holy weapon', which gives them a holy attacktype + slaying of their gods enemy. 
  However, to use that ability needs 25 grace.

  A character with average stats (no penalties, no bonuses) would have 25 grace, 
and perhaps a bit more.  But if a character had put 1 in wis and pow, his grace 
is probably going to be <5, so won't be able to use that nice ability.

  Could also have things like 'flaming sword' which use mana instead.

  In a sense, you are giving fighters some need to have some sp and grace at 
average values at least.

  I'm not sure how to do that, but certain other skills could be affected.  For 
example, I believe it is either Wis or Int which changes odds for finding traps 
for search.  The problem right now is that you just search the door/chest 10 
times, and just by random rolls, if you have a chance of finding the trap, you 
probably will.  But would be better to somehow limit that, so if you have a bad 
Int, you won't find the trap and you can't search 10 times until you do.

  Another thought is to add stat requirements to use items.
For example, you need a 10 pow to use a wand or rod.
You need a 15 pow to use a scroll

  So once again, not a requirement for fighters to have a 10 pow, but not being 
able to use wands at all could be pretty annoying.

Conversely, one could add strength requirements for certain items, eg, need 
strength 25 to wield boncrusher, strength 15 to wear plate armor, etc.


>>    The other thing to note is the relative unimportance of Cha here.  For
>> most characters, only real effect is on shop pricing, as a lot of
>> characters probably do not use singing/oratory.  Other than making some
>> other skill use Cha as its key value, I'm not sure what can be done there
>> - I'd almost be tempted to just drop Cha.
>
> I'd keep it for singing, oratory and other things :)
> Granted, shop prices should be less unbalanced for cha. But it's an
> interesting concept, that could be used for instance to convince NPCs to do
> something - imagine a quest where if you're lucky the NPC has a crush on you
> and doesn't ask for some artifact, if you're unlucky you need to find some
> powerful thingy.

  I know there has been talk in the past about reputation/fame type of idea. 
That could also play in with Cha - it acts as a modifier to that.  If you are 
moderately famous but still annoying (low Cha), folks still don't want to talk 
to you.

  The shop pricing is a bit harsh - that should probably be smoothed out - maybe 
at worst, you pay triple the best price you can ever get.  And maybe it should 
really only affect selling of items, and not buying - after all, little enough 
stuff is bought from shops, the shopkeepers should be happy to find one that 
actually wants to buy something.

  There should probably be some skill to get certain NPC's to do something for 
you (for example, convince the gatehouse guards to open the gate for you, even 
if you don't know the password).  Things like that would require map changes, 
but if done consistently and often enough, could make a high charisma useful.

  The counter to that could be that with a really bad charisma, the guards won't 
open the gates even if you do know the password, and only way through is with 
the gatepass.