Thread: No Attributes? (Houserules)

My players wanted to build custom races for a setting we came up with, so we've been working on a pricing scheme that calculates the value of various options in Legend; and then I give them so many points to build a race with. This involved a combination of rating the power of various options & calculating the power of others, which in turn calculates the value of attributes.

Of course, this approach throws out the assumption that attributes are equal, and skills are equal; as some attributes do much more than others, and some skills are useful far more often than others; or useful to a much greater degree.

This makes me wonder; What if I eliminated the attributes and dice rolls completely?

We have price values on the various parts that the attributes are made up of, that gives them point-costs, and extra points at character creation could be given out based on average attribute rolls.

Then raising things like HP & Strike Rank and Combat Actions could all be done independently just by spending points (with maximums imposed so it should be equivalent in power to what you can get with attributes). Maximum points per skill would be bumped up to 66 (30+18+18). In theory it would be harder to minmax, based on the more valuable things having a steeper pricetag; Maxing out Dex and Int (or the things that dex & int do) would be trickier (more expensive) than maxing out Cha & Con, as dex and int do more things, and more important things.

It would basically be a small collection of houserules on how things are calculated, and it would involve/include an alternative character creation system.

I imagine this would make starting characters with more comparable power levels. Attributes aren't strictly speaking necessary, right?
Just an idea that came to me a few minutes ago. I've yet to do anything with it yet. Does anyone think it would be worth the effort?

In case anyone was wondering, my Race Creation system is still a work in progress, and a few things would have to change to be priced for regular Legend (we are playing with no magic whatsoever, only the alchemy ebook, which makes willpower less useful than it would otherwise be).

I am not sure whether you mean "no characteristics" or "no attributes" ?

If you mean characteristics, please keep in mind that they are quite useful to
determine a character's abilities whenever the situation is not covered by any
skill, and that there are spells which influence characteristics.

Sorry, I meant Characteristics.

In many other games the same things have different terms; Attributes, Ability Scores, etc.

Our Personal games are no-magic, as the players decided that it was impossible to keep up as a non-magic character (They universally decided they didn't like how powerful the MRQII magic system was, and how hard it was for non-mages to keep up, and as a result we have been playing without any magic being available, just poisons and the occasional alchemical potion of some kind that I introduce as a consumeable); so the spells complication wasn't something I had even thought of.

I don't have the book in front of me right now; can you remind me, when do characteristics get used directly, as opposed to aiding in the calculation of something else?

Originally Posted by Darkholme

I don't have the book in front of me right now; can you remind me, when do characteristics get used directly, as opposed to aiding in the calculation of something else?

Just a few examples:

Improvement Roll Modifier (based on CHA)
Ageing (modification of characteristics)
Asphyxiation/Suffocation/Drowning (based on CON)
Death (minutes equal to CON)
Falls (distance based on SIZ)
Falling Objects (damage based on SIZ)

Hmm. Okay. So there are a few.

The Improvement Roll Modifier is calculated by CHA though, it's not just your CHA score, or it would be ridiculous. Its one of the things I was proposing be bought up separately with points.

I forgot about Ageing, Asphyxiation, Death, Falling, and Falling Objects.

Asphyxiation and Death could likely be adjusted to be bought up independently as well.

Though Ageing and Falling would be more difficult. Hmm.

I was thinking it might be good to take a more mutants and masterminds approach to character creation or having everything be bought with points, and maybe drop the characteristics and instead allow everyone to buy up each of the things the characteristics affect separately; so you could for example have a high rating for the death section, but a low rating for asphyxiation (or what have you)

Perhaps simply make the buying of Characteristics be done like with your 250 point pool, but add a separate pool where so much has to go into attributes and a small amount of leftovers can go into skills if there are any. In this second case it would simply be replacing the die rolls with an equivalent point-buy system.

Just tossing around a couple ideas.

You could replace characteristics with skills, rather than doing away with them entirely. Then your luck roll would simply be your luck skill, with no need to multiply CHA x 5.The advantage would mainly be one of simplification and streamlining - and you'd be a step closer to the true D100 system. You'd have to do something other than the conventional hit points and damage system, though.

Hmm.

I was thinking keep hit locations, hit points, and damage, and just assign point costs to "hit point chunks" and damage modifiers; and then let the players buy with their starting pool of points.

But yes, so far I'm liking this idea.

It sounds useful and modular, and so far I'm not seeing any drawbacks.

Originally Posted by Darkholme

I was thinking keep hit locations, hit points, and damage, and just assign point costs to "hit point chunks" and damage modifiers; and then let the players buy with their starting pool of points.

Another alternative I've contemplated is a "wound" system like D6 or True20. I haven't thought it all the way through, but here's a first attempt.

1. Weapons have a "survivability" rating, perhaps based on RQ6 difficulty grades: Very Easy, Easy, Standard, Hard, Formidable, Herculean.

2. Characters have five (or so) wound levels. Stealing from D6, these are Wounded, Severely Wounded, Incapacitated, and Mortally Wounded, plus Dead. Each has a checkbox next to it. Successive Wound Levels impose increasing penalties to skills and movement. Incapacitated restricts the character to one AP a round and Endurance rolls every combat round to stay conscious. Mortally Wounded permits no actions and Endurance rolls every minute to stay alive.

3. When hit, characters make an Endurance roll at the weapon's survivability level. A Critical Success means that the character takes no damage. Success means that the character checks off Stunned or worse, Failure means Wounded or worse, and a Fumble means Incapacitated or worse.

4. If a checkbox is already filled, characters check off the next worse level. For example, if a character is Wounded but not Stunned, and succeeds a survivability roll, he will still be Wounded. The next time, though, he will take Severely Wounded whether he succeeds or fails; a critical will mean no damage, a fumble goes directly to Incapacitated.

5. Armor increases the survivability rating by one to three levels. Unusually large or deadly weapons might add directly to minimum wound level, e.g. critical success means Stunned or worse, Success means Wounded or worse, etc.

Again, I haven't thought this through completely. I'm borrowing from roll-over systems with unlimited degrees of failure which are hard to translate to a roll-under system with exactly two degrees of failure. As written, for example, there's no way to kill someone with one blow, and being Incapacitated is a 1 in 100 chance. This system emulates Total Hit Points and obviously doesn't accomodate hit locations or RQ6 Special Effects (MRQ2/Legend Maneuvers).

Originally Posted by Darkholme

Hmm.

I was thinking keep hit locations, hit points, and damage, and just assign point costs to "hit point chunks" and damage modifiers; and then let the players buy with their starting pool of points.

But yes, so far I'm liking this idea.

It sounds useful and modular, and so far I'm not seeing any drawbacks.

Some friends of mine have been playing BRP sans Characteristics for some time now. They seem to like it.

I never use the Improvement Roll Modifier and I thought everyone ignored the aging rules.