Hacking LOTFP Classes Part 3: Ability Scores

This is the third part in an article series examining the LOTFP classes in order to design new ones. Part 2 is here.

For the next stage in examining and deconstructing classes I’m going to associate an ability score with each encounter. This may seem strange and a bit contrary to the idea of ability scores, as to many they are supposed to represent the abstracted range of human ability. Where they are supposed to be the base scores from which everything else is derived and allow the Referee to adjudicate the success or failure of anything the characters may attempt. However, while great in theory I think this is often a bit of a red herring in game design for two reasons.

The first is that once you move away from a highly abstracted ability score system like body/mind, you invariably end up describing the types of activities the character can do through the ability scores. Where the more divisions you make, and the more ability scores you add, the more you describe specific actions rather than broad abstractions. Like if you added a ‘creativity’ score, you’re kind of making the assumption that the characters are going to be commonly involved in creative pursuits such as painting, and that intelligence covers academic book knowledge or something to this effect. I do think the six ability scores, Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, are a good amount without being too specific. But I do think that even though they try to be abstract in definition they tend to suggest what kind of activities are important in the game. Where there is no ‘creativity’ ability score, precisely because most characters aren’t going to heavily involved in creative pursuits like painting or piano playing in your average dungeon crawl.

The second reason I think ability scores should be associated with various encounter types is that, as per our second design ideal, each ability score should be important. Further scores are going to be derived from them and they are going to influence the end activities that the class is performing. Such as having a low strength result in a low base attack bonus which results in faring poorly in combat. If a fighter is going to be good at combat, it’s going to be associated with a high strength. In this way the Fighter class is naturally associated with Strength, just due to how other scores in the game are derived from Strength. I think it’s important to recognize this association.   

In this manner if we associated each ability score with our list of the six encounter types and stereotypical D&D classes we get the following:

Encounter Type	Class	Ability Score
Combat	Fighter	Strength
Trap	Thief
Hazard	Ranger
Trick	Wizard	Intelligence
Anomaly	Cleric	Wisdom
Social	Bard	Charisma

As you can see I have left out dexterity and constitution. The reason I have done so is because historically dexterity has been important to both the Ranger and the Thief. Additionally if you look at the encounter types associated with each:

Trap: the players encounter a surprise danger embodied in a mechanical device, usually requiring some skill rolls or careful thinking to disarm, and a saving throw if triggered.

Hazard: the players encounter a feature of the surroundings or terrain that pose a threat or problem. An example of this would be a cliff they have to climb, a narrow ledge they have to cross. Generally the obstacle is obvious and the players will have to either contrive some means to overcome it or delicately attempt to navigate it.

Both these encounters involve a high degree of kinesthetic intelligence and I think an argument could be made for both that dexterity fits them as dexterity is generally defined as “skill in performing tasks, especially with the hands.”

However if we rethink of constitution as not just with physical size and stature (something I think is probably better associated with strength anyways), but more as physical endurance, or general toughness or hardiness, I think it fits very well with the Ranger class. The Ranger is the outdoor wilderness orientated class. Surviving in the wilderness is often a test of mental and physical endurance, more so than strength or quickness. When viewed in this way, the Ranger is the hardy outdoorsman who is able to make their way in any weather, in any terrain, and survive with minimal effort. This aligns the Ranger very nicely with the Hazard encounter type. Once we rethink of the Ranger in this manner and associate all the base ability scores with classes and encounters we get the following:

Encounter Type	Class	Ability Score
Combat	Fighter	Strength
Trap	Thief	Dexterity
Hazard	Ranger	Constitution
Trick	Wizard	Intelligence
Anomaly	Cleric	Wisdom
Social	Bard	Charisma

I think this matches up nicely and provides a class for all of the encounters and main ability scores. This will work well in having each ability score be the source of each classes’ mechanical bonus. Like the Fighter in LOTFP, I think each classes associated ability score should feed into a derived score that all characters can access. But only the associated class has it rise in level.

For example all characters can fight and get to add their strength ability modifier to their attack, but only Fighters get better at it as they level and so get to add their strength ability modifier and their level to their attack, etc.

I think every class should have an associated score function like this. This will ensure that the class has something they are good at and yet if that class is missing, other characters can still overcome the challenge instead of the game grinding to a halt. In my next post I will discuss the unique gameplay subsytem that will be associated with each class. This, like the Magic-Users ability to cast spells, is a sub-system of the game that is unique to a class and makes it really interesting to play.





Continued in Part 4: Gameplay Subsystems.