Aetrimonde

Today’s entry in the Unified Mechanics series will cover ability mechanics, which are used to quantify a character’s raw, well, abilities. I’ll also touch briefly on some of the major character stats that will derive from abilities.

I found there to be a couple of silly things about D&D’s ability mechanics, even in 4e, and so I’m going to try to improve on them.

• Dexterity and Intelligence seem like the odd abilities out. The other four abilities can be paired up in “active/passive” pairings: Strength and Constitution fit well as a Physical pairing, and Wisdom/Charisma fit well as an Emotional or Social pairing. But Dexterity and Intelligence don’t go together, and it’s hard to fit them into a group with the others.
  • This is especially apparent in 4e, where Strength and Constitution can quite reasonably both be used to affect the Fortitude defense, and Wisdom and Charisma can both be used to affect Will. But Dexterity and Intelligence are paired together to affect both AC and Reflex defenses, and the explanation for this (that Intelligent characters can predict attacks better and have more time to dodge) has never sat right with me.
• Dexterity and Intelligence are also doing a lot of heavy lifting, and are stretched thin to cover multiple areas that might be better served by distinct abilities. Dexterity covers both fine-motor skills like picking locks and full-body skills like acrobatics and stealth that might be better captured by an Agility stat. Intelligence is stretched to cover both scholarly knowledge and arcane magic, and (in many editions) sneaky tricks and tactical acumen that could instead be captured by a Cunning or Wits stat.
• In many editions of D&D, since ability modifiers increased only at even values, there was little point in having odd abilities. In some editions, odd abilities might be useful to meet feat prerequisites, increase carrying capacity, or gain extra spell slots, but these were exceptions to the rule. I largely think that the main reason ability scores continue to be used in later editions is so that it was easy to roll 3d6 for abilities if a group didn’t want to use point-buy generation.
• Since 3e, characters have gotten to increase their abilities as they gained levels. This results in high-level characters becoming superhuman, with ability scores well beyond what should be possible without magical assistance. This doesn’t fit with the kind of pulp-adventure genre I want to support.

So here’s what I’m doing with Aetrimonde’s abilities:

Firstly, Aetrimonde will use four pairs of abilities, adding Grace as a counterpart to Dexterity and Cunning as a counterpart to Intelligence. Each will absorb some of the things their counterpart would otherwise do.

Secondly, Aetrimonde will do away with the score/modifier distinction. Players will pick their characters’ abilities through a point-buy system, and if they want to roll for abilities instead the GMH can include mechanics or a table that lets them do so.

Thirdly, in the interest of fitting into the pulp-adventure genre (and of having Solid Level Scaling, I will add), characters will never increase their ability scores: what they have at character creation is what they will keep.

To give a quick preview of what each of the eight abilities will influence:

Up Next

This will be the last of the Unified Mechanics posts–for now. I think that I may revisit the subject later on, but now that I’ve set up these basic mechanics, I want to show off how they work in practice, and it seems o me the best way to do that is to walk through how an Aetrimonde character is built. So, starting in my next post, I’ll be building Ragnvald the Dwarf Fighter, and discussing along the way how the implementation of the various parts that go into a character fulfill my design goals.