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I feel most people are likely going to be aware of the alternative scores variant rule, but for those that aren't aware of its existance, its a variant rule that changes the current six attributes to Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Charisma, Wisdom, and Intelligence, with Constitution being merged into Strength and Charisma applying to Will saves. I think its widely accepted that this variant rule solves a few problems (it takes an arguably boring attribute like Constitution and merges it with Strength that, while strong on its own, its arguably limited in its scope, plus make Charisma not an automatic dump stat for non-Charisma based characters) but creates new problems as well (it makes Agility take the place of Constitution since it mostly applies to defenses and that's it) which kinda defeats the purpose of the variant rule in the first place since we pretty much end up in the same place as before.
I had an off-topic discusión on another thread about how the six attributes could change in a future edition, so I thought about it more in-depth and...what would be the stat distribution most people would want ina future edition or as a new variant to replace the alternative score variant rule?
I'll provide a few examples I came up with, but I would want to see what the community thinks about it too.
I also want to note that this is more like a thought experiment than something I'm seriously expecting to happen, so have fun with it.
5 Attributes; Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma: I think this would be the simplest one to implement to PF2e since it pretty much takes the good parts about the alternative scores variant rule (merge Constitution into Strength, use Charisma for Will saves) while keeping stuff like the Dexterity/Agility split out. I ironically think this one would be more of a buff for Dexterity than Strength since it would allow them easily get +4 Dex and +3 Str with ease (explaining why the Dexterity/Agility split was possybly added to the variant rule) but its also huge buff for Strength-based characters too and specially for those with access to heavy armor and the bulwark trait because they can get a decent mental attribute modifier for stuff like skills, Perception, or Will saves.
4 Attributes; Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma: This one is a follow-up of the previous one but also merging Wisdom into Intelligence too. I think its agreed upon the benefits of a high Intelligence modifier are arguably the weakest in the system since languanges rarely have an impact on most campaigns and a few additional trained skills barely matters when its so easy to cover the basic skills you actually want without it with ease. This change would also make Intelligence the universal RK attribute again like in older editions since Nature and Religión would now be Int-based too. As I said in the thread I mentioned earlier, these 4 attributes also have some nice symmetry with Fortitude, Reflex, Will, and Perception since each applies to one of them. A simpler variant of this, well, variant could made by decoupling Strength into Strength and Constitution again while keeping Charisma being used for Will saves if people would think both changes would be too much.
0 Attributes; proficiencies take their place: This one would certainly require the biggest overhaul to the system since it would require not only to change the math of the system but possybly adding more in-between proficiency tiers to have a bit more granularity. It would also probably require the introduction of a new system to kinda replicate the role that attributes used to have, which is to glance at the attributes of a PC or monsters and immediately get an idea of what they are all about in general terms. In the case of PCs, backgrounds will likely need to be buffed with something that makes you better at certain skill over others, like a reroll, auto-scaling proficiency, or free access to certain line of skill feats over the course of your career. I find this proposal to be the most likely one for a future edition, since merging or removing certain attributes while keeping others is always going to feel weird for some, so ditching them entirely is probably the easiest and best thing to do.
I'm curious to see what people think about the possibility of attributes changing in the future.
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I think I would be fine with Int if it just had a more tangible combat skill action tied to it other than RK.
IMO if intelligence bonus were be able to increase the number of skills that you increase with Skill Increases this would make intelligence way more interesting keeping these high intelligence characters so skillful like they were during level 1 and 2 without break the game. What will happen is that high intelligence characters would be skill monkeys like rogues and investigators but these two still more skillful due same reason and due access to more skill feats.
This also a thing that anyone can homebrew easily without big consequences for the game balance beyond the party have higher chances to pass in different skill checks. However, this already happens when a party is balanced with 4 different key stat characters.
4 Attributes; Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma: This one is a follow-up of the previous one but also merging Wisdom into Intelligence too. I think its agreed upon the benefits of a high Intelligence modifier are arguably the weakest in the system since languanges rarely have an impact on most campaigns and a few additional trained skills barely matters when its so easy to cover the basic skills you actually want without it with ease. This change would also make Intelligence the universal RK attribute again like in older editions since Nature and Religión would now be Int-based too. As I said in the thread I mentioned earlier, these 4 attributes also have some nice symmetry with Fortitude, Reflex, Will, and Perception since each applies to one of them. A simpler variant of this, well, variant could made by decoupling Strength into Strength and Constitution again while keeping Charisma being used for Will saves if people would think both changes would be too much.
This looks like DC20 playtest stats.
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4 Attributes; Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma: This one is a follow-up of the previous one but also merging Wisdom into Intelligence too. I think its agreed upon the benefits of a high Intelligence modifier are arguably the weakest in the system since languanges rarely have an impact on most campaigns and a few additional trained skills barely matters when its so easy to cover the basic skills you actually want without it with ease. This change would also make Intelligence the universal RK attribute again like in older editions since Nature and Religión would now be Int-based too. As I said in the thread I mentioned earlier, these 4 attributes also have some nice symmetry with Fortitude, Reflex, Will, and Perception since each applies to one of them. A simpler variant of this, well, variant could made by decoupling Strength into Strength and Constitution again while keeping Charisma being used for Will saves if people would think both changes would be too much.
I really like this a lot with a couple of tweaks:
1. I'd use the name "Wisdom" instead of "Intelligence". Purely personal preference, but I find "Intelligence" is a loaded term in some circles and people take it to mean a lot of different things. Mechanically it's as you describe and moving Will to Charisma makes this an interesting split.
2. HP doesn't scale off an ability score at all. In addition to everything else STR is doing here, having it also boost HP basically means a "low STR character" can't really exist without it being extremely fragile. I don't like that because it's an interesting kind of character to play as it stands, but mechanically this makes armor proficiency really strong because getting your AC from armor (and thus STR) means you're also getting more HP than if you get your AC from DEX (and you still need STR for HP). This is going to make archetypes that grant armor proficiency even better than they already are.
So not scaling HP off STR leaves it and DEX pretty competitive IMO.
This looks like DC20 playtest stats.
I didn't know that, but when trying to solve the same problems folks will often come to the same solution. :)
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You are basically arguing to add Constitution into Strength, and to split Wisdom between Intelligence and Charisma. For sure it can work.
I don't think it is an important part of the game to simplify. It is very well known amongst gamers and while its not perfect I can't see that it makes enough difference to want to change.
I prefer to keep attributes as they help me describe my character and set my expectations about how they will play.
I've suggested in the past to "simplify" down to three ability/attribute scores: Body (merge Strength and Constitution), Energy (merge Dexterity and Charisma), and Mind (merge Intelligence and Wisdom). This would 1) align each of the new scores with a saving throw (Body to Fortitude, Energy to Reflex, and Mind to Will) so as to severely reduce the motivation for a "dump stat," 2) allow differentiation between the strong/tough (Body) and nimble/trickster (Energy) tropes, and 3) possibly allow casters to more easily separated by prepared (Mind)/spontaneous (Energy) instead of being all over the place.
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I'd use the name "Wisdom" instead of "Intelligence". Purely personal preference, but I find "Intelligence" is a loaded term in some circles and people take it to mean a lot of different things. Mechanically it's as you describe and moving Will to Charisma makes this an interesting split.
Oh, I'm using the current names for ease of reference. I would probably use something like "Insight" to describe both Intelligence and Wisdom.
2. HP doesn't scale off an ability score at all. In addition to everything else STR is doing here, having it also boost HP basically means a "low STR character" can't really exist without it being extremely fragile. I don't like that because it's an interesting kind of character to play as it stands, but mechanically this makes armor proficiency really strong because getting your AC from armor (and thus STR) means you're also getting more HP than if you get your AC from DEX (and you still need STR for HP). This is going to make archetypes that grant armor proficiency even better than they already are.
Funnily enough, I thought I wrote this but its seems I didn't lol. Yeah, it would be for the better if Strength didn't contribute to your HP in such a system.
I've suggested in the past to "simplify" down to three ability/attribute scores: Body (merge Strength and Constitution), Energy (merge Dexterity and Charisma), and Mind (merge Intelligence and Wisdom). This would 1) align each of the new scores with a saving throw (Body to Fortitude, Energy to Reflex, and Mind to Will) so as to severely reduce the motivation for a "dump stat," 2) allow differentiation between the strong/tough (Body) and nimble/trickster (Energy) tropes, and 3) possibly allow casters to more easily separated by prepared (Mind)/spontaneous (Energy) instead of being all over the place.
Well, that's pretty much my 4 stat proposal except for the names. While writting this post I thought about a 3 attribute variant too, but when I thought were to put Perception I wasn't sure how to do it. I was thinking about a Fortitude / Reflex / Will split kinda similar to your Body / Mind / Energy or Spirit idea, to which Perception likely would be baked into Will. This would mean Will would grant more skill increases, a bonus to Will saves, a bonus to all mental skills, spell DCs and spell attack rolls, and Perception. In your proposal, Mind wouldn't be as strong as in mine but it would still be a bit too much IMO.
IMO if intelligence bonus were be able to increase the number of skills that you increase with Skill Increases this would make intelligence way more interesting keeping these high intelligence characters so skillful like they were during level 1 and 2 without break the game. What will happen is that high intelligence characters would be skill monkeys like rogues and investigators but these two still more skillful due same reason and due access to more skill feats.
I feel this is a though thing to balance. I don't know you but while playing a rogue or investigator I often struggle to choose which skill to take increases in after the first few, and the possibility of having a rogue with two times or three times the amount of skill increases kinda dreads me (not to mention that you are likely going to run out of skills to increase really fast too). I feel an extra skill feat per modifier would be much more appropiate and more balanced.
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I really don't like going in the direction of less core attributes.
I would rather see slight tweaks to better balance the existing 6.
Just to add. There are a lot of classes and there will be more. I like the idea that there can be space to make them feel different through the attributes they utilize like with kineticist utilizing constitution for example.
Having no attributes is a different beast as all together from just moving to less attributes.
A system with no core attributes can feel as though it has no polish leaving the mechanical parts more bare and meaningless.
If I were doing attributes, how would I change them? So many different games have played around with this. I'd have to think about what a stat should affect.
Strength: Melee damage. Grappling. Carrying capacity. Some kind of physical damage resistance as muscle provides protection to physical attack.
Dexterity: Ranged damage as I think where you place the hit is far more important than how hard you hit for ranged.
Melee and ranged attack rolls. I've never understood why strength is used for hit rolls when in no fighting I've ever seen does strength have much to do with strength. It has a lot to do with how much damage you do if it you hit, but not actually landing the hit.
AC for dodging.
Reflex saves
Constitution: Hit points. Endurance. Fort saves.
Intelligence: Skill points. Additional skill proficiency increases. Can replace Dex for Reflex saves as reacting mentally to an AOE attack calculating movement. Arcane spell damage.
Wisdom: Will saves. Perception. Divine spell damage.
Charisma: Spell damage for charisma casters. Social skills. Can replace will saves as your ego and force of personality help you resist mental attack.
That's some of the direction I would take stats. I like more meaningful caster stats for damage. I'd like to move away from strength for to hit.
Ever since I started lifting weights a long time and becoming very strong, I learned strength does very little to make you a more accurate striker. It does a great deal for grappling where once you've got a hold of someone, you can control them. The physical size muscle adds is protective. It's much, much harder to hurt someone that is heavily muscled, but muscle does little for cardiovascular endurance for movement. In fact, heavier muscle is more taxing on energy systems including the cardiovascular system to move around.
That's why I'd like to see strength for the heavy armor as PF2 did, but also providing protective resistance against physical damage to balance it against dexterity for attack avoidance.
That's some of the direction I would move the game for stats.
If I were doing attributes, how would I change them? So many different games have played around with this. I'd have to think about what a stat should affect.
Strength: Melee damage. Grappling. Carrying capacity. Some kind of physical damage resistance as muscle provides protection to physical attack.
Dexterity: Ranged damage as I think where you place the hit is far more important than how hard you hit for ranged.
Melee and ranged attack rolls. I've never understood why strength is used for hit rolls when in no fighting I've ever seen does strength have much to do with strength. It has a lot to do with how much damage you do if it you hit, but not actually landing the hit.
AC for dodging.
Reflex saves
Constitution: Hit points. Endurance. Fort saves.
Intelligence: Skill points. Additional skill proficiency increases. Can replace Dex for Reflex saves as reacting mentally to an AOE attack calculating movement. Arcane spell damage.
Wisdom: Will saves. Perception. Divine spell damage.
Charisma: Spell damage for charisma casters. Social skills. Can replace will saves as your ego and force of personality help you resist mental attack.
That's some of the direction I would take stats. I like more meaningful caster stats for damage. I'd like to move away from strength for to hit.
Ever since I started lifting weights a long time and becoming very strong, I learned strength does very little to make you a more accurate striker. It does a great deal for grappling where once you've got a hold of someone, you can control them. The physical size muscle adds is protective. It's much, much harder to hurt someone that is heavily muscled, but muscle does little for cardiovascular endurance for movement. In fact, heavier muscle is more taxing on energy systems including the cardiovascular system to move around.
That's why I'd like to see strength for the heavy armor as PF2 did, but also providing protective resistance against physical damage to balance it against dexterity for attack...
By that line of thought you might need to have strength and constitution to really use heavy armor and shields. Shields are exhausting to use as they are meant to be used and would require cardio and strength.
By that line of thought you might need to have strength and constitution to really use heavy armor and shields. Shields are exhausting to use as they are meant to be used and would require cardio and strength.
and bows of any significant poundage to actually deal damage, particularly to armored targets, would requires a whole hell of a lot of strength... Lol
Bows are not realistic in this game anyway. It is far harder to fire a real English longbow with accuracy. The shortbow is far easier to fire, but it doesn't have a hard pull. Any bow with a sufficiently difficult pull would be heard to use with any quickness.
That's why for fantasy, it should be about where you place the shot. Huge muscle guys in fantasy books and movies are not the best archers.
This is a fantasy simulation. That's why I kept the rules real loose.
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By that line of thought you might need to have strength and constitution to really use heavy armor and shields. Shields are exhausting to use as they are meant to be used and would require cardio and strength.and bows of any significant poundage to actually deal damage, particularly to armored targets, would requires a whole hell of a lot of strength... Lol
That's the entire idea behind the Propulsive trait... Instead of gating it behind needing to spend extra money for a specific value the way 3.x/PF1 did.
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Maybe, attributes could be tied to four magic traditions. Like, Mind (Intelligence), Soul (Wisdom + Charisma), Matter (Strength + Constitution) and Life (Dexterity???).
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Oo, I like this discussion!
My take on this is: my ideal system would involve no attributes at all, but that is likely to only happen in 3e. I don't want attributes because nearly everything they do is either covered by proficiencies already or taken for granted (e.g. HP from Constitution), and taking those out would simplify character-building while taking out a lot of restrictions. I also think it could actually help simplify monster stat blocks by quite a bit, and if we're keeping the big 3 saves those could be used as a direct indicator of whether a monster's brawny, agile, or smart. However, I don't think it's really possible to take attributes out of 2e's current math without creating more disruption than would be worth it, so that's something to wait until the next edition.
As for 2e, and for similar reasons, I don't know how much can change with current attributes without inducing significant amounts of disruption. Merging Constitution into Strength turns Strength into a mega-stat that everyone will want to pick and end up with meaty melee attacks in the process, and although the 4-attribute version presented in the OP would look really clean, it also means either everyone would be able to boost every attribute if we keep the same number of attribute boosts as now, or a great deal many characters would end up having no real knowledge skills and poor Perception when building towards their defenses. For all its imperfections, the current system of attributes means every character can boost their defenses and still have room for a subset of skills and other benefits, which in my opinion lets characters feel complete.
I'm not a fan of no attributes. Call of Cthulhu does something weird where you have your main attributes that generate some stats, but don't impact your skills. You could play an athlete with amazing DEX, but your Jump skill would be just as good as anyone else's. That feels weird to me.
While it's very easy to make Strength govern both damage and HP, like others have pointed out, I feel that would make other stats obsolete for martials. If it governs both their damage output and their HP, they don't need anything else. And conversely, any d6 caster investing in HP would suddenly be really good at punching as well.
Ideally, I think I'd go more MMO-like with armour, with not just giving penalties for not having the minimum STR investment, but having a STR requirement. I think it wouldn't work as you'd need a more granular division, and maybe more armour types (or more "tiers" within the same type). But this would give Strength more importance than just the "attack stat," especially over time. You'd need to invest in Strength, otherwise your AC will fall behind.
Right now, all types of armour/DEX combinations give the same AC equivalent, with heavy armour being 1 ahead. With ideal stat distributions, a Rogue in light armour and a Fighter in medium armour have the same AC. With a STR requirement, you'd get that "MMO effect" where people in medium armour get less damage than those in light armour. This obviously won't work with the current crit rules, but I'd like to see more of a difference in AC in the game. It just feels so.. homogenous.
I'm tinkering around with a homebrew where INT is your default magic attack stat and WIS is your default magic defense stat. It does a few interesting things, where magic users aren't by default at least decent at Will saves. I've removed Expert proficiency in Will saves from spellcasters by default, so now you can have a magic user who has a crap Will save. And now you have a "physical tank" and a "magical tank" who can take hits in different situations, depending on the enemies. One targets AC and Fort saves, the other targets Will saves.
Heck, the way I've set this up it's interesting how you don't have the "class familiarity" anymore: before, you could guess that a Rogue-type character would have great Reflex, but poor Will saves. That wouldn't necessarily be the case in my homebrew, where a speedy character can also have a decent Fort or Will save.
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I think this is a case of "if it isn't broke, don't fix it."
I strongly feel that less attributes would only serve to make characters more homogeneous and less interesting.
I also think that the current terminology is quite clear in describing a character's various qualities. Many of the alternative names proposed above would require more explanation to come with them as they don't strike me as being as intuitively appropriate.
IMO if intelligence bonus were be able to increase the number of skills that you increase with Skill Increases this would make intelligence way more interesting keeping these high intelligence characters so skillful like they were during level 1 and 2 without break the game. What will happen is that high intelligence characters would be skill monkeys like rogues and investigators but these two still more skillful due same reason and due access to more skill feats.
This was about to be my suggestion. If having +1 int gave you an additional skill that would increase...up to master only maybe and maybe a few additional skill feats increasing int could be attractive to classes outside those that require INT for their abilities to function. And by limiting the proficiency increases from INT to master instead of legendary and by controlling the number of additional skill feats we can make it interesting and useful, without eradicating the niche of the rogue as "good at skills". But also I'm not sure how much that niche needs protecting since rogues are good at combat in this edition and are good at skills, they could probably stand to not be the undisputed skill king while still being good at skills.
Edit: A little more thought:
Maybe a +1 int allows you to select 1 skill that will automatically increase to expert proficiency at 3rd level, increase to master at 7th level.
And maybe a +2/+3 int gets you a second skill that does the same.
And a +4/5 int gets 3rd skill, a +6 int gets you a 4th.
And maybe an extra skill feat every time you get the bonus proficiency increase as well.
This was about to be my suggestion. If having +1 int gave you an additional skill that would increase...up to master only maybe and maybe a few additional skill feats increasing int could be attractive to classes outside those that require INT for their abilities to function. And by limiting the proficiency increases from INT to master instead of legendary and by controlling the number of additional skill feats we can make it interesting and useful, without eradicating the niche of the rogue as "good at skills". But also I'm not sure how much that niche needs protecting since rogues are good at combat in this edition and are good at skills, they could probably stand to not be the undisputed skill king while still being good at skills.
Investigator needs "being good at skills" niche protection more than Rogue does, IMO. But it's an interesting idea for sure. Even if extra INT only gave you an expert skill it would still be a nice boost since the difference between expert and trained isn't nothing (and it enables a lot of skill feat options).
Investigator needs "being good at skills" niche protection more than Rogue does, IMO. But it's an interesting idea for sure. Even if extra INT only gave you an expert skill it would still be a nice boost since the difference between expert and trained isn't nothing (and it enables a lot of skill feat options).
This was about to be my suggestion. If having +1 int gave you an additional skill that would increase...up to master only maybe and maybe a few additional skill feats increasing int could be attractive to classes outside those that require INT for their abilities to function. And by limiting the proficiency increases from INT to master instead of legendary and by controlling the number of additional skill feats we can make it interesting and useful, without eradicating the niche of the rogue as "good at skills". But also I'm not sure how much that niche needs protecting since rogues are good at combat in this edition and are good at skills, they could probably stand to not be the undisputed skill king while still being good at skills.
I agree you're right that Investigator needs something.
Since Invesigator is intelligence based, it would get the full benefit of whatever we propose though. What Investigator actually needs is a better class chassis to utilize its INT. The core mechanic of devise a stratagem probably just needs to be revised.
Possibly letting the player choose to replace the roll instead of requiring it. Possibly letting the character always use INT instead of dex or strength (with the appropriate weapon types) regardless of whether they've used devise a stratagem. And possibly letting devise a stratagem uses per turn scale. Maybe let it scale up to 3 rolls they can bank per turn. And modify the Skill Stratagem to not restrict melee attacks, allowing you to reach a point where you could have 3 roll substitutions, choosing between attack or skill checks as desired. It could allow you to do things like attack twice and then intimidate, and kind of have a fortune effect thing going on allowing you to choose your rolls. Maybe it is a fortune effect, and Devise A Stratagem allows you to roll twice and take the better up to 3 times per round. And could be used as a reaction against someone already targeted by devise a stratagem that round. And the action cost of devise a stratagem would need to be changed to 1 action if not someone you're aware of that could answer questions to your investigation, free if they are, or free if they've been targeted this round or last by Devise A Stratagem.
Anyways, the Investigator's problem is that its core mechanic is really hard to use.