Fantasy Classes Breakdown And Recreation: Part One - Core Character Stats

So in this post I'm going to be tackling something that I'm probably wildly unqualified to do: design RPG mechanics from scratch. Woo! 

Basically for the next few posts, we're going to be breaking down the logic of so called 'standard' fantasy RPG mechanics and classes and building them back up again.

It bears mentioning that I have never played a tabletop Role-Playing Game in my life, and at this rate I probably never will. But it would be remiss to not mention them in a post on RPG mechanics, even though I usually approach and think about RPG elements in a video-gaming context as opposed to a table-top one. 

For this first post, we're starting with with character statistics. Character classes are defined by their abilities, therefore what they are good or bad at and therefore: basic stats. 

Standard D&D Stats

This is literally the first image that pops up if you image search, D&D. 
... is it bad that I keep forgetting that there are dragons in it?

So let's talk first about the grand-daddy of RPG stat determination: Dungeons and Dragons. 

The basic D&D characters stats are as follows (sourced from here):

Strength, measuring physical power.

Dexterity, measuring agility.

Constitution, measuring endurance.

Intelligence, measuring reasoning and memory.

Wisdom, measuring Perception and Insight.

Charisma, measuring force of personality.

These stats work perfectly darn well for a Table-Top RPG, and have done so for years. But upon further reflection, they are limiting in some ways: primarily in how it forces classes into specific archetypes. There are three main examples of this: 

    - The 'Dumb Fighter' stereotype of modern fantasy was perpetuated partially by these stats, given how a D&D melee fighter build will usually focus on Strength and Constitution and regard everything else as a dump stat. 

    -A classic D&D wizard will usually focus on Intelligence at the expense of everything else, encouraging the 'Squishy Wizard' archetype. 

    - Classes like the Bard that tend to focus on Charisma or on balanced stats tend to be a bizarrely useless 'Quirky Bard', being theoretically good at anything but outplayed in practice by more specialised classes. 

This bothers me because (as tends to be the case for things that bother me) it is not an accurate reflection of reality, or even of the folklore and literature that modern fantasy games are inspired from. The fighter heroes of epic poems like Beowulf and were not brainless muscle-bound goons, they were renowned as much for cunning and problem-solving ability as well as raw physical prowess. Wizards like Merlin from Arthurian legend and Gandalf from Lord of the Rings were barely described as weak and frail, despite having the appearance of old men. As for Bards? In real life, people with a good balance of charisma and intellect (EQ and IQ) tend to be far more successful than people that only have one or the other. As noted by the popular D&D webcomic The Order of the Stick, bards should logically rule the whole world with their high charisma and deep knowledge of storytelling (no spoilers for when that bomb gets dropped, yer going to have to read it).

For simplicity's sake and to keep the word length of this post down, our new-ish character classes will still fit into the triumvirate of fighter, mage and rogue (if nothing else because it's almost impossible to avoid those archetypes). There will be a whole mob of sub-classes depending on role, though, so new stats we need. We probably will also need new rules for determining them. 

Oh, who am I kidding, it'll probably be random number generation for everything. 

Basic Stats

In order to keep our new stats interesting, there's going to be a lot more of them: five physical, five mental and five mystical stats for a grand total of fifteen, as opposed to the three physical and three mental stats of classic D&D. One of the aims here is to avoid falling into fantasy archetypes that are too traditional: thus, every single stat can be potentially useful for any class. 

To go along with this, there are two basic stats that are affected by some of the character stats:

Health - As you could probably guess, this is how many hit-points a character has. In a similar manner to D&D, when it reaches zero, you're unconscious. When it drops to negative ten: you're dead. Health is increased by a higher Endurance stat, and to a slightly lesser degree by Strength. Health slowly recovers over time, but very slowly: more expedited healing requires rest, medical care and healing spells. 

Stamina - Determines how much stuff your character can do. Stamina is used for basically every kind of activity, from fighting to thinking to spellcasting. Stamina is recovered through rest and consumption of food and drink. If Stamina is low, a character is unable to recover health or cast spells and takes a massive penalty to doing any form of physical activity. If Stamina is completely drained, a character will start losing health: slowly at first, but with increasing rapidity until they can recover or until they are dead. Most forms of attacks drain stamina as well as health, and certain ones target Stamina specifically. 

Already this looks like it's going to be too complex to be fun for a tabletop RPG, so from here on we can assume that it's for either a turn-based or real-time video game. 

Physical stats

Physicality is a core part of any adventuring career if you think about it. Regardless of character class or occupation, every adventurer needs to walk, run or jog around all day in rough terrain. That's a lot of physical exertion, so pretty much every character class should have a decent amount of points in the physical stats. I suspect classic D&D and other RPGs just assume that your character is fit enough to run around all day without complaint, because let's face it: who wants to role-play a character who is so unfit that they can't even walk to the dungeon, let alone fight the dragons in it?

Actually, that could be a lot of fun. 

 Our new stats are as follows:

Strength - similar to how it is in D&D, Strength is a measure of raw physical power and how much force the character can exert with their muscles. Unlike D&D though, strength is a more important stat for using bows than it is for swords: a decent archer actually needs a very strong build to effectively wield a 300 pound longbow, whereas effectively wielding a one-handed sword requires just enough strength to manoeuvre it around properly. Also has a moderate positive effect on a character's Health stat. 

Dexterity - A measure of a character's more subtle movements, ability to work with their hands and to change their path of motion quickly. Essential for decent sword-work, only slightly less essential for all other melee weapons and vital for sleight-of-hand tasks. Also required for being stealthy, as being quiet and unseen requires good bodily awareness and fine motor control. Absolutely essential for Rogues and very important for Fighters that mean to use swords and knives as their primary weapons. 

Reflexes - Reaction time, ability to react to stimulus and effectively block, parry, dodge and hide. Essential for both Fighters and Rogues, only slightly less useful for Mages. Arguably this is more of a mental skill than a physical one, but one so closely tied to physicality that I'm considering it a physical stat. In order for a character to utilise this stat most effectively, they also need to have a decent Speed stat. 

Endurance - The measure of a character's stamina and health pool: the higher the Endurance, the more Stamina and Health a character has and the faster both Stamina and Health regenerates. Higher Endurance also reduces the drain of stamina from doing physical activities, but higher Endurance does not reduce the stamina drain from spellcasting. The 'Squishy Wizard' archetype is rendered untenable by this stat: Mages benefit greatly from being physically able to cast multiple spells and resist the magic they channel. 

Speed - A character's rate of movement: essentially, how fast they can move their body and accomplish large physical actions. This stat affects how fast your character can walk, run, climb and swim. If Strength is a measure of large, bulky muscle and Dexterity is fine motor control, then Speed is a measure of twitch muscles. All classes need a degree of Speed if only to keep up with each other, but Fighters have the greatest need for it since they need to physically manoeuvre and respond quickly to threats as they come on the front line. It is closely linked to Reflexes when it comes to dogging, parrying and blocking: in order to successfully react to something, a character needs to be able to see it coming in time and also have the speed to do something about it. 

Physical stats (or 'physicality' as we could call it) would be favoured by our three class categories in the following order: 

1. Fighters, as you might expect, need top physical stats across the board in order to do everything they need to do: run around, hurt people and break things. 

2. Rogues still require a degree of physical prowess in order to do what they do, just to a lesser degree than a Fighter. By far their favoured Physical stats is Dexterity and Speed, in order to do fiddly things like making and disarming traps, lock-picking and gouging someone's eyes out without warning. 

3. Mages have the least need for physical stats, but high Endurance, Speed and Reflexes allow them to position themselves where they need to be and counter physical threats more easily. A few Mage classes have a greater need for Physical stats than others (more on that in a later post). 

Mental stats

Ah yes, the brain stuff. If you think about it, pretty much every stat is informed by what a character's brain is good at. Keeping this in mind, Mental stats (or Mentality) are essential across the board because it is directly linked to a character's potential to improve all their other stats and skills. The five Mental skills are as follows:

Intellect - Determines the rate of experience gained and character's observational and logical skills. It is very important to invest in this stat early, as it allows greater stat growth further down the line. It also makes the 'Dumb Fighter' archetype untenable, as a Fighter who lacks a decent Intellect stat will quickly be out-levelled by a Fighter that does. 

Wisdom - Determines the number of experience points earned per level and unlocks extra skills. The skills in question can be useful to all classes and often provide boosts to other Mental and Mental stats, so this stat can be useful for virtually any character class. 

Wit - A character's creativity, puzzle-solving ability, and needed to unlock extra dialogue options with NPCs. This stat works at its greatest efficiency when levelled along with either Cunning or Charisma. 

Cunning - The ability to score critical hits in combat and find alternative solutions to a problem. Very useful for Fighters as it gives them a greater ability to end fights quickly and outmanoeuvre their opponents, and very helpful for Rogues as Cunning also improves a character's ability to be stealthy. 

Charisma - A characters ability to persuade, motivate and lead others. The party leader needs a decent amount of Charisma in order to keep the group functional and in top form. This subverts the uselessness of the 'Quirky Bard': in order for the rest of the party to be at their best, their leader needs to be able to persuade and reason with all of them. When levelled with Wit and Cunning, can often make information and avenues of approach available that would otherwise be unnoticed or impossible. 

Mentality is needed by all our three class categories, but primarily in the following order: 

1. Rogues are the character archetype that favours varied, underhanded and clever solutions to problems. This requires a very broad range of skills and investment in multiple stats in order to be effective, so their need for Mental stats outstrips the other two classes by a fair margin. 

2. Mages also need access to a broad range of skills and stats in order to do their best work, so they benefit greatly from heavy investment in Intellect and Wisdom. 

3. Fighter Classes arguably have the least need for Mental stats due to their specialized nature and focus on Physical stats, but if the party leader is a Fighter then they better have the Charisma to lead. Fighters also greatly benefit from Cunning, as it allows them to outwit opponents they can't necessarily overpower. 

Mystical stats

This is where things get weird. Magic and mysticism is always tricky because there's no direct real-life physical equivalent to draw inspiration from: we're kind of stuck with folklore and other things that people have previously made up. We also have the problem of avoiding traditional class-stat archetypes again: magical stats are at first glance only useful for classes that use magic, so why would Fighters and Rogues ever need to invest points into these at all? 

So in order to have a logical-ish base to start from, magic in this game setting at its most basic is like Extra-Extra-Sensory Perception: a non-physically based way for a character to sense the world, but also manipulate the world around them. We can also roll with a logical progression of how people move energy around their bodies (like how traditional East-Asian martial arts have theories of chi or ki) plus the general body of supernatural abilities we all occasionally wish we had. So with that in mind, here are the five 'Mystical' or magic stats.

Sensitivity - A character's ability to detect magic. This is the Mystical stat that can be most useful for any class, as this enables better detection of magical traps, the nature of an object's enchantment or the magical fireball coming at you from behind. It's kind of like a Mystical equivalent of the Reflex stat, except with more utilitarian uses as well. 

Channelling - The stat that boosts the speed of spellcasting, but also boosts stamina recovery to a greater degree than Endurance does. Essential for Mages, but still useful for the other classes. 

Magnitude - A measure of the raw power of spells a character casts, their spell resistance and also reduces how much stamina spells cost. This one is particularly useful for Fighters as they are generally at higher risk of getting hit full in the face with enemy spells. 

Control - The stat that determines the maximum duration of spells and transformations, and slows stamina drain. This is useful to all classes because it reduces the cost of all stamina-draining activity to a greater degree than Endurance does. 

Projection - Improves the range of projectile spells and runes, but also boosts the damage that a character does across the board. It can be useful for Fighters to invest in this stat as it allows them to deal damage more efficiently with enchanted weapons.

As you could probably guess, Mystical stats are used primarily by Mages, but the other classes can still make use of them. 

1. Mages need good Mystical stats across the board in order to cast and counter spells efficiently. 

2. Fighters are well-advised to drop a few points into Magnitude and Projection at the very least in order to resist hostile magic better and deal more damage with enchanted weapons. 

3. Rogues need a decent Sensitivity stat in order to circumvent magical traps and avoid getting hit by spells. Control is also a good stat for them as it makes a prolonged, stealthy approach to a situation more tenable. 

So that's the basic stats out of the way. Next post? Character classes, part one!