Quote:
Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi
I like the idea of greater/broader "aptitude" talents to represent subsets of IQ and DX. I was thinking the other day about just what those two attributes represent, and how they could be broken down into secondary attributes. It would certainly be nice to be able to buy them up or down independently.
IQ: Perception, Will, Reasoning (problem-solving), Social (social intelligence), Memory, Cunning, Wits (quick-thinking), Spatial (spatial reasoning), Experience (breadth and depth of life experience, education)
DX: Agility (gross motor skills, whole-body dexterity), Reflex (raw speed, not endurance speed), Dexterity (manual dexterity, fine motor skills), Flexibility
|
In Sagatafl, my attempt at "GURPS done right", in much the same way as Multiclass RPG is my attempt at "AD&D done right", and Modern Action RPG started as an attempt at "Feng Shui done right" (but eventually got aborted, with most of the nifty concepts folded into Sagatafl - Flaws, Veteran Traits, Action Points), I've opted for a large number of Primary Attributes, with sub-Attributes as needed (and also some Secondary Attributes, of which only a few are relevant here).
GURPS' DX has been split into Agility and Dexterity.
The Dexterity Attribute has further been split into Combat Dexterity and Manual Dexterity: Combat and everything that
isn't combat.
I also have a Balance derived stat, and a Reflexes derives stat.
And a Fleetness stat, which starts as the ratio between Leg Strength and Frame, and is then modified by encumbrance. A sort of effective Agility. If you want to use highly Agility-dependent Skills such as Jumping, Acrobatics, Karate, Dodge or Stealth, you're better off not encumbering yourself with fat, or armour or other heavy gear.
GURPS' IQ has been split into Will, Intelligence, Perception, Charisma, Psyche and Faith.
Psyche is the aptitude for "arcane" magic. Faith is the aptitude for "divine" magic and also affects Luck (if you buy Luck, you get a number of Luck Points based off Faith).
Those two, and Charisma, have no sub-Attributes (Appearance is a separate Secondary Attribute).
Will has sub-Attributes of Resist Pain, Resist Control (i.e. for mind control spells), Resist Manipulation (for resisting social skills) and Resist Fear.
Resist Pain will probably be split out into its own more coarse-grained "tiered" train, tiers such as Low Pain Threshold, Normal Pain Threshold, High Pain Threshold and Very High Pain Threshold, with cost based on Will, but that hasn't happened yet (the idea is that it then simply defines a degree of pain that you can ignore, e.g. you might be able to ignore +1 RD worth of Pain, but anything above that affects you fully, or you might be able to ignore +4 RD worth of pain, but +5 or worse affects you fully - simpler and more elegant than having to make a crapton of Resist Pain rolls to see how much the ongoing pain impairs you right now).
Resist Fear can have sub-
sub-Attributes pertaining to resisting specific kinds of fear-inducers, such as Dragons or Undead. Those are acquired traits, however, meant to be the result of previous exposure, rather than something biological that you were fortunate enough to be born with.
(Constitution also splits up into the main sub-Attributes of Resist Disease and Resist Poison, and these too can have sub-sub-Attributes when necessary, e.g. if your character has become almost completely immune to one or more major (or trivial) diseases due to past infection, or if he has built up resistance over time to a particular substance, such as alcohol or a common assassin's poison. There's also a Recovery sub-Attribute, representing healing speed, which does not have any "sub-subs" (although it's theoretically possible to add them, e.g. if one species recovers particularly quickly from bone fracture type Wounds, or if another species recovers particularly slowly from burn damage). Strength, a Secondary Attribute (since it's trainable) naturally splits up into Arm Strength and Leg Strength.)
Perception has some fairly predictable sub-Attributes, one for each Sense that the character has (Touch is one sense, but has 3 sub-Senses of Temperature, Pressure and Pain, since some types of beings may lack any one or two of those, and also in order to make it more difficult for Illusion Spells to create Touch Sense illusions, and Colour Vision is its own sense - and Night Vision too although that's a bit wonky so I'm not sure what to do with that).
Sagatafl happens to have a mechanic that allows for the simulative distiction between sensory acuity and perceptiveness, but I won't go into that here.
Intelligence, Charisma and Perception each have a special sub-Attribute, called Casual Attribute.
Casual Intelligence and Casual Perception are what's rolled for when the character
isn't alert and hasn't got reason to be suspicious. When the character feels safe and doesn't
know that he's adventuring.
Casual Charisma is what you use when you first meet someone and an Impression Roll is made, but where you don't want to be seen to be too friendly, e.g. because it could cause an unfavourable Reputation if you are seen treating slaves as Human beings. Or as being nice to pagans or Orcs, or whatever. When making an Impression on people whom you are not afraid to smile to and so forth, you use full Charisma.
Normally Casual Attributes are 2 lower than the "base/parent" Attribute (the equivalent of 5 lower in GURPS, or maybe 4), but each of them can be 1 higher if the character is born with the relevant Genius Trait, and can also be 1 higher if the character has had the relevant binary training skill.
So ignoring sub-Attributes of Intelligence, which I'll get to shortly, you can have one character who has Intelligence 6 but Casual Intelligence 4, and another who has Intelligence 5 and Casual Intelligence 5. The first will seem smarter when he applies himself, but the second is a bit harder to fool by con artists and other tricksters.
There's also two less important Secondary Attributes, Face Control and Vocal Control, representing fine control over the facial musculature (avoiding to show "tells", and actively projecting the mood that one wants to fake), and the ability to produce precise sounds and noises.
Intelligence has a lot of sub-Attributes, and like all the ones above, they always pertain to a function, to the potential for a function (doing general thing X, or understanding objective phenoemon Y), rather than to some more or less arbitrary category (Plants):
Interpersonal-, Linguistic-, Logical-, Mnemonic-, Musical-, Mystical-, Spatial Intelligence, and also Thinking Speed.