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Skills affected by several attributes

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I'm curious if there is a RPG system (CRPG or tabletop, doesn't matter) where skills affected by more than one attribute. Basically, like it was in Fallout (Base Lockpick = 20% + (.5 x PE) + (.5 x AG)) but something more complex. For example, Guns skill dependent on Dexterity, Perception and Strength. The more points you have in those attributes, the less the cost of dependent skills or the more effective they are.

I noticed that in most games skills are usually rely solely on one attribute. Maybe you could point me in the right direction or explain why no one (or not many) has tried that.
 
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haraw

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Realms of Arkania series comes to mind. I think every skill and most of the spells had three contributing attributes. Those are old games and the Dark Eye system they were based on might be very different today tho.
 

Wysardry

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I vaguely remember playing an RPG that had two or three attributes that affected each skill, but I cannot remember what it was. I do remember that Diablo had multiple attribute requirements on some of its items and weapons (such as strength and dexterity for certain bows).

I would guess that it isn't done more often because it could cause certain characters to be more generalised in their attribute distribution.
 

Latelistener

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I would guess that it isn't done more often because it could cause certain characters to be more generalised in their attribute distribution.
I'm thinking about a system where you would have two attributes attached to each skill, primary (higher bonus) and secondary (lesser bonus). For example, Melee dependent on ST (primary) and DX (secondary). Obviously, this would be only a secondary effect, so fighters will still need high ST to be able to carry heavier types of weapons and deal more damage.

I found out that Tyranny uses something similar, but not quite what I have in mind: Skill level = (Primary Attribute*1.5) + (Secondary Attribute*0.5) + Other modifiers

I'm looking for inspiration because I'm not that smart to create something new and I'm also afraid of outsmarting myself by creating something overly complex that just won't work.
 
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Wizardry 8. Most (all?) skills had two governing attributes. I believe these were further separated by a primary and secondary attribute. The attributes affected how quickly a skill would increase by use.
 

redactir

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I had a dream that skills and attribute investment affected the look of armor. redacted.
 

Wysardry

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You'd likely need to create a prototype and playtest your system to see if the added complexity has any advantages to it.

Personally, I would find it more interesting in a skills usage system, where you could gain both attribute points and skill points from using your skills. You could gain more primary attribute points than secondary ones for each skill use. For example, using large swords would give you more strength points than dexterity ones, but for dagger usage the opposite could be true.

You'd need to balance it carefully though.
 

Latelistener

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You'd likely need to create a prototype and playtest your system to see if the added complexity has any advantages to it.
The idea is to let characters learn quicker instead of giving them a starting boost. Essentially it's the same thing, but with a different perspective. A prototype will be definitely needed at a later date, once I figure out formulas.

Personally, I would find it more interesting in a skills usage system, where you could gain both attribute points and skill points from using your skills. You could gain more primary attribute points than secondary ones for each skill use. For example, using large swords would give you more strength points than dexterity ones, but for dagger usage the opposite could be true.
It seems to be a nice idea on paper, but it usually all comes down to you finding a way to outsmart developer, i.e. finding a punching bag with infinite hp and using macros for an attack button (and do something more entertaining instead).

You'd need to balance it carefully though.
I already see some issues with DX and IN being the most important attributes. It's not really surprising, considering how many games actually suffered from this: Arcanum had 8 attributes and 16 skills while 7 of them were assigned to DX. If I remember correctly, GURPS 4E doubled the cost for these.
 

Wysardry

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If the only reason for having this feature is to allow characters to learn more quickly, you could adjust the levelling requirements instead. For example, instead of needing to use a sword 50 times to gain a skill point, they could only need to use it 40 times instead.

Daggerfall used to discourage players from levelling up skills without being at the keyboard by only allowing characters to gain a skill point when they rested or fast travelled. IIRC, it also only allowed characters to gain levels one at a time, with skill advancement being suspended until the player had used the levelling menu.

This wasn't a big deal to most players as the character would usually rest or fast travel fairly often anyway.
 

Latelistener

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If the only reason for having this feature is to allow characters to learn more quickly, you could adjust the levelling requirements instead. For example, instead of needing to use a sword 50 times to gain a skill point, they could only need to use it 40 times instead.
Learn quicker depending on their respective attributes of course, so while some skills will be gained faster, others will be gained slower. High PE will help your character with firearms, but points relocated from, let's say, IN, will make scientific skills harder to gain.
 

DraQ

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Skills affected by only single attribute are a waste of attribute system, because they make attribute system redundant.
Ideally, attributes should reflect character's basic, organic, well, attributes, while skills should reflect learned stuff.

So, take archery skill - it should reflect a number of things - a knowledge how to hold and draw your bow properly, understanding of arrow's trajectory, skill to use your strength effectively to draw bow, knowledge how to conserve your stamina when shooting, knowledge how to manage your breath to keep still while releasing, knowledge how to take care for your bow to avoid damaging it, etc.

At the same time your strength should be what allows you to actually draw the bow, your perception what allows you to aim accurately at distance and pick small targets, your dexterity what allows you to still your hands when releasing, quickly nock fresh arrows and combine other complex actions with shooting (like horse riding), and your endurance what allows you to keep shooting.

So it's not as much multiple attributes controlling a skill, but trying to find a way for as many attributes as possible to affect every skill in a sensible manner.

Notice how much does it expand build variety - you could have an endurance based guy pelting enemies with lots of arrows, dextrous guy with light bow but able to hit an unexpected target or multiple targets in quick succession (or firing from horseback), strong guy with longbow that can just send an arrow through someone's breastplate and perception based marksman. And that's just with one skill, choice of one attribute to focus on and one weapon type.

If you can focus on two attributes, you can, say, combine strength and perception yielding a true sniper - an accurate guy with heavy, long range bow.
 

Latelistener

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Notice how much does it expand build variety - you could have an endurance based guy pelting enemies with lots of arrows, dextrous guy with light bow but able to hit an unexpected target or multiple targets in quick succession (or firing from horseback), strong guy with longbow that can just send an arrow through someone's breastplate and perception based marksman. And that's just with one skill, choice of one attribute to focus on and one weapon type.
That's the idea anyway and I think most games actively use that system. I'm still on the fence regarding giving more time units through attributes though, since everyone will want to max that.
I was more interested in skill progression directly influenced by attributes - the higher the number - the quicker you'll learn a skill affected by that attribute (or attributes in this case).
 

DraQ

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Notice how much does it expand build variety - you could have an endurance based guy pelting enemies with lots of arrows, dextrous guy with light bow but able to hit an unexpected target or multiple targets in quick succession (or firing from horseback), strong guy with longbow that can just send an arrow through someone's breastplate and perception based marksman. And that's just with one skill, choice of one attribute to focus on and one weapon type.
That's the idea anyway and I think most games actively use that system. I'm still on the fence regarding giving more time units through attributes though, since everyone will want to max that.
I was more interested in skill progression directly influenced by attributes - the higher the number - the quicker you'll learn a skill affected by that attribute (or attributes in this case).
That sounds like point-buy tedium reduction, though, which is almost always wrong.
 

DraQ

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That sounds like point-buy tedium reduction, though, which is almost always wrong.
What's wrong with reducing cost of skills influenced by birth (attributes)?
Depends:
  • Is the system use or XP based?
  • Are XP a finite resource?
  • How much XPs is player "meant" to get VS how much are there in total?
  • etc.
And it still presumes that skills are sort of proxies for attributes or vice-versa - you have redundancy built into your system by definition.
Ideally you should strive to keep your attributes and skills systems as orthogonal as possible to each other - this gives the most build variety and gameplay complexity for least development effort.
The only attribute that could justifiably affect the pace at which you acquire skills - in other words: learn - is intelligence.
Coincidentally intelligence seems to be the one attribute that probably shouldn't be present in any game without GM's arbitration, which happens to encompass vast majority of cRPGs.
 

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Is the system use or XP based?
XP, but not XP in its classic definition. Rather than, you will get skill points which you can spend on skills.

Are XP a finite resource?
Of course.

How much XPs is player "meant" to get VS how much are there in total?
That's too early to tell, unfortunately.
rating_sawyer.gif


And it still presumes that skills are sort of proxies for attributes or vice-versa - you have redundancy built into your system by definition.
Ideally you should strive to keep your attributes and skills systems as orthogonal as possible to each other - this gives the most build variety and gameplay complexity for least development effort.
It's not like someone is reinventing a wheel here. As far as I'm aware of GURPS has an attribute-based skill system (the higher your DX - the less the cost for Guns of Beam Weapons, for example). Among CRPGs I know that at least Arcanum did that even in a more stricter way. You can't actually raise skills until you get a specific value of an attribute (6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 for each level of a skill). You're saying that their approach is wrong or at least inefficient?

The only attribute that could justifiably affect the pace at which you acquire skills - in other words: learn - is intelligence.
Coincidentally intelligence seems to be the one attribute that probably shouldn't be present in any game without GM's arbitration, which happens to encompass vast majority of cRPGs.
That's why I don't think that centering learning abilities around intelligence is a good thing, since everyone will want that. That and dexterity to get more shots per turn.

But if you'll make attributes and skills completely separate, it will mean that characters with 3 points in each attribute will learn as fast as character with 10 points in each attribute.
 
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DraQ

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How much XPs is player "meant" to get VS how much are there in total?
That's too early to tell, unfortunately.
rating_sawyer.gif
And yet you want to make a decision which consequences will largely depend on that.

It's not like someone is reinventing a wheel here. As far as I'm aware of GURPS has an attribute-based skill system (the higher your DX - the less the cost for Guns of Beam Weapons, for example). Among CRPGs I know that at least Arcanum did that even in a more stricter way. You can't actually raise skills until you get a specific value of an attribute (6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 for each level of a skill). You're saying that their approach is wrong or at least inefficient?
I am mainly saying two things:
  • Game designers are often surprisingly clueless and game design in general resembles a recursive clusterfuck of cargo cults. Not meaning to piss on GURPS here, but it's worth remembering whenever you start thinking along the way of "X does it like this" - that doesn't mean it's any good.
  • PnP RPGs and cRPGs are very different beasts dealing with very different sets of strengths and limitations. The two are not interchangeable as far as systems are concerned - what's good for one is actually likely to be awful for the other - no matter what the "enshrine The Holy PnP Mechanics" denomination cargo cultists think.
The approach you mention *might* be worth it IF:
  • You have a massive variety of skills.
  • You can get a lot of use from each and every skill and can use pretty much all the skills to progress through situations on the critical path, but at the same time it's never anywhere as simple as "kill the guard for combat solution, go through the vent near the guard for sneaky solution, talk to the guard for diplomatic solution" - PnPs usually handle this using GM.
  • You can reasonably ensure that player won't be able to predict what skills will be useful - is your game randomly generated in regards to the above?
Then, a system that essentially has the player weigh their potential to do different things against their realization of this potential might come to shine.
If not, it WILL suck.

OTOH maximum decoupling of different aspects of character building is a no-brainer from mathematical POV as it maximizes your build variety and resulting gameplay variety effectively for free, without assumptions regarding you'r game's style, quality or cuts you'll have to make to not go over time or budget, and most likely will mix better with cRPG's mechanics as implemented.

That's why I don't think that centering learning abilities around intelligence is a good thing, since everyone will want that. That and dexterity to get more shots per turn.
Intelligence is yet another example where cRPGs and PnP RPGs differ. It's a good attribute to have in PnP, but pretty much impossible to implement in any but half-assed manner in a cRPG with any sort of decent mechanics.

But if you'll make attributes and skills completely separate, it will mean that characters with 3 points in each attribute will learn as fast as character with 10 points in each attribute.
Ask yourself if and why it is a bad thing.

Those characters will still perform very differently - moreso, a character with 10 STR will perform very differently than one with 10 DEX when using the same skill, even though you might not be able to tell which one is better overall. That's free build variety.

And if you find yourself with a skill on your hand that should heavily depend on a single attribute, then maybe consider possiblity of merging this skill into the attribute?
If it is heavily dependent on two attributes, then maybe see if you can't split it into two aspects and do the above with each.
Etc.
 

Latelistener

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And yet you want to make a decision which consequences will largely depend on that.
It can be balanced at any point. The overall "cost" of a developed character is more or less the same - you just pay more for some skills and less for others.

Game designers are often surprisingly clueless and game design in general resembles a recursive clusterfuck of cargo cults. Not meaning to piss on GURPS here, but it's worth remembering whenever you start thinking along the way of "X does it like this" - that doesn't mean it's any good.
I don't think it can be done in any other way for me. As I said, I'm not the brightest guy in the room and I'm looking for working concepts.

PnP RPGs and cRPGs are very different beasts dealing with very different sets of strengths and limitations. The two are not interchangeable as far as systems are concerned - what's good for one is actually likely to be awful for the other - no matter what the "enshrine The Holy PnP Mechanics" denomination cargo cultists think.
Of course the more PnP mechanics replaced with gameplay mechanics - the better for CRPG, but it also means more money involved. Creating a whole separate mechanics for hacking and lockpicking is more taxing than just introducing a couple of skill checks.

You have a massive variety of skills.
So far I'm looking in the opposite direction. More skills means more dump skills. That is of course depending on what do you call "massive". I'd rather have less skills that do more than more skills that do less. The prime example of this are speech skills, which are usually separated into persuasion, haggle and intimidation and two latter tend to be useless. Why not just combine it into into one skill (persuasion) and make others (haggle and intimidation) as perks for the main skill?

You can get a lot of use from each and every skill and can use pretty much all the skills to progress through situations on the critical path, but at the same time it's never anywhere as simple as "kill the guard for combat solution, go through the vent near the guard for sneaky solution, talk to the guard for diplomatic solution" - PnPs usually handle this using GM.
Not sure if this will ever work or even need to. All skills can be equally useful, but you can't solve all problems by using only one.

If "fight, sneak, talk" are simple solutions I'd like to hear what is complex. So far modern "CRPGs" tend to forget even this.

You can reasonably ensure that player won't be able to predict what skills will be useful - is your game randomly generated in regards to the above?
I want to ensure player that any skill will be useful, but also that he cannot solve everything by using only one. Some situations are unavoidable.

Intelligence is yet another example where cRPGs and PnP RPGs differ. It's a good attribute to have in PnP, but pretty much impossible to implement in any but half-assed manner in a cRPG with any sort of decent mechanics.
But it doesn't have to be realistic as long as it works in a game.

Ask yourself if and why it is a bad thing.

Those characters will still perform very differently - moreso, a character with 10 STR will perform very differently than one with 10 DEX when using the same skill, even though you might not be able to tell which one is better overall. That's free build variety.
That's the main idea anyway. I was thinking about a connection between skills and attributes as a sort of a side effect.

And if you find yourself with a skill on your hand that should heavily depend on a single attribute, then maybe consider possiblity of merging this skill into the attribute?
If it is heavily dependent on two attributes, then maybe see if you can't split it into two aspects and do the above with each.
Etc.
If it will really come that, I'd rather leave skills and remove attributes. It's easier to just severe the connection though.
 

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So far I'm looking in the opposite direction. More skills means more dump skills. That is of course depending on what do you call "massive". I'd rather have less skills that do more than more skills that do less. The prime example of this are speech skills, which are usually separated into persuasion, haggle and intimidation and two latter tend to be useless. Why not just combine it into into one skill (persuasion) and make others (haggle and intimidation) as perks for the main skill?
:decline:

If it will really come that, I'd rather leave skills and remove attributes.
thinking.png
 

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The ideal solution for skills for CRPGs would be to do it backwards.

Instead of coming up with a bunch of skills and trying to jam it into the game come up with the mechanics, situations and challenges first and then derive the skills you need based on that. If you have a variety of situations where a skill check applies then keep it, if not cut it.
If you need attributes or not or how they are linked with the skills depends on your mechanics.
For example if your game has choices and consequence you might leave that up to the player to persuade characters through dialogue and investigation. You don't have to jam in persuasion,charisma and intelligence if you can leave that to the player as "real" skill.
It is pointless if you have a 20 intelligence character that plays like a idiot or mental retard that is a tactical and strategic genius.

Furthermore the Role in RPG is playing a character. The skills available can reflect that. In The Witcher you aren't playing a scholarly mage so the skills you can develop reflect that.
If you have a world of Samurai and Ninjas the skills can be narrowed down to what is relevant with the rest left to the player.
 

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I'm not a big fan of skill point reward systems that allow you to spend them manually, as that generally means that what the character does can be unrelated to which skills are raised.

For example, if a character spends two weeks of game time sneaking around, backstabbing goblins and picking locks in dungeons, their bow skill shouldn't be able to be increased just because it is based on the same attribute(s), or even worse because points can be spent anywhere.

I'd be fine with spending time and money on training with an NPC though, as the PC would likely be using their skill during that.
 

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And yet you want to make a decision which consequences will largely depend on that.
It can be balanced at any point. The overall "cost" of a developed character is more or less the same - you just pay more for some skills and less for others.
I have played enough of such "balanced later" games. The result is usually terminally dull cavalcade of nerfs and arbitrary restrictions.

I don't think it can be done in any other way for me.
I have listed one.

Of course the more PnP mechanics replaced with gameplay mechanics - the better for CRPG, but it also means more money involved. Creating a whole separate mechanics for hacking and lockpicking is more taxing than just introducing a couple of skill checks.
The difference is much more fundamental. PnP mechanics is about a bunch of disjoint, lightweight (they need to be worked out fast by just a bunch of nerds with a pencil) arbitration mechanics stuck into flexible, human driven narrative (it is comparatively flexible and human driven even in a canned dungeon adventure, DMs don't throw syntax errors if you do something they didn't predict and you can attempt to do anything communicable in the language).
cRPG mechanics can be almost arbitrarily computation heavy, but must be well integrated and all-encompassing - what isn't accounted for by either basic mechanics or specific case-by-case scripting doesn't exist. For that reason they are also best built of possibly basic building blocks interacting with each other.

You have a massive variety of skills.
So far I'm looking in the opposite direction. More skills means more dump skills. That is of course depending on what do you call "massive". I'd rather have less skills that do more than more skills that do less. The prime example of this are speech skills, which are usually separated into persuasion, haggle and intimidation and two latter tend to be useless. Why not just combine it into into one skill (persuasion) and make others (haggle and intimidation) as perks for the main skill?
Then you should go the opposite direction regarding basics of your system as well. Coarse attributes controlling fine-grained skills is good when you can force player to commit to a rough build without knowing exactly how they will want to fine sculpt it in the end. If build variety is low because of few skills comparable to the number of attributes (or for n attributes per skill - number of attributes to the n-th power), your build system instead becomes an exercise in looking up optimal build(s) in the wiki - in other words shit.

OTOH making a good build system is effectively an exercise in leveraging combinatorics (possibly few attributes/skills/etc. AKA work in, possibly many differently playing builds AKA gameplay out), and making individual components of a build as orthogonal to each other as possible achieves just that and scales down to low number of skills just as well as up.

Merging or splitting skills/attributes depending on their relative utility is good practice but be aware of its impact and maybe try to minimize it.

Not sure if this will ever work or even need to. All skills can be equally useful, but you can't solve all problems by using only one.

If "fight, sneak, talk" are simple solutions I'd like to hear what is complex. So far modern "CRPGs" tend to forget even this.
Then your system is poorly suited to what you think you can do. Also, most modern and classic cRPGs are irredeemably shit. Even good ones are often floated by 1-2 elements, often created by accident and usually undermined by all the awful ones.

I want to ensure player that any skill will be useful, but also that he cannot solve everything by using only one. Some situations are unavoidable.
That's good, but if player can decide their final build just as they distribute their initial attribute points, then the extra gameplay provided by having to refine your build as the game progresses goes out of the window.

But it doesn't have to be realistic as long as it works in a game.
So what you say is that you wouldn't mind having attributes and things they control randomly (say, intelligence determining carry weight), because it's just a game?

At the very least attribute names are a way of communicating concepts to the player. It pays off to communicate clearly.
Games, especially modern ones tend to forget that and spew oceans of non-meaning through their stat screens and combat logs.

That's the main idea anyway. I was thinking about a connection between skills and attributes as a sort of a side effect.
This is a side effect that will require extra work to implement, extra work to test and likely end up reducing gameplay variety - are you sure you want it? What is it that offends you so in not having it?

If it will really come that, I'd rather leave skills and remove attributes.
That's also a valid solution but it gives up all the combinatorial potential behind having both.
Merging single skills into attributes or other way around is definitely worth considering in some cases, just like merging skills.
 

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I'm not a big fan of skill point reward systems that allow you to spend them manually, as that generally means that what the character does can be unrelated to which skills are raised.

For example, if a character spends two weeks of game time sneaking around, backstabbing goblins and picking locks in dungeons, their bow skill shouldn't be able to be increased just because it is based on the same attribute(s), or even worse because points can be spent anywhere.

I'd be fine with spending time and money on training with an NPC though, as the PC would likely be using their skill during that.
Use-based systems can potentially be better and scale better, but making a good use-based system is evidently hard and requires a lot of work.
For a relatively small, non-procedural projects doling out XPs manually may simply be a better option.
Notice that I said "doling out manually" - kill based XPs are in all regards inferior to even shoddy use based system.
XPs should, of course, be goal based.
 

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