Intellect vs. Skill Improvement

[Athon]

As it stands right now, intellect is used to determine the rate at which one improves at an ability.

I am proposing a change to this: The rate of improvement for an ability is based upon the primary or secondary stat of the selected ability, with intellect having zero or lesser impact on the rate.

For example: Swim's primary stat is constitution. So instead of intellect affecting how quickly I improve at swim, my constituion will affect it. This makes sense, too, because no matter how smart someone is, you're not going to be a better swimmer if you can only last for five seconds.

I think this would help out tremendously in the game. No longer would every class in the game be stacking to at least 16+ intellect just so they can be better, quicker. It would make it so classes like rangers and fighters don't need to worry much about intellect like they do in tabletop. Instead of every fighter walking around with genuis intellect, we can see more fighters with average-smart intellects as expected?

Overall, I hate being tied down to this stat on EVERY single character that I play. Changing this requirement would open up many more possibilities for other characters (like increasing charisma!).


Some alternatives: If a change isn't made exactly like this, maybe make it so the primary stat affects improvement by 50%, secondary stat 25%, intellect 25% or something along those lines. Also, a lot of stats have luck as a requirement - intellect would be a perfect filler stat in those situations.

Feedback and constructive critcism are highly encouraged!

[Nysan]

It does make more sense for skills to depend on their primary/secondary stats for improvement more than a universal stat. Intelligence should play a role in learning, but not a dominate one. If the sword is too heavy to lift, knowing the proper place to strike your opponent doesn't mean much.

EDIT: Many skills that require luck fit with luck. I don't see a reason to change many, if any, of them. Luck is a big part of mining, for example. I woudn't want to see luck replaced with int.

[Athon]

It does make more sense for skills to depend on their primary/secondary stats for improvement more than a universal stat. Intelligence should play a role in learning, but not a dominate one. If the sword is too heavy to lift, knowing the proper place to strike your opponent doesn't mean much.

I was thinking about that on my drive home from work, actually. I mean, the actual definition of intelligence is your "ability to learn." However, when it comes to doing tangible/physical things, it can only play a limited role - an intelligent person would be limited by their physical capabilities.

That's why I think that a primary/secondary/intellect allocation of something like 50%/25%/25% (these are purely arbitrary numbers, just to show effect) would make the most sense.

[Brar]

For me intelligence matters on how fast you learn, physical abilities matters on putting the known in application.
Which is already the case in the current system if I am correct.

You can be as sturdy as you want, it will not make you learn how to swim properly faster, only to swim longer.
It is your intelligence that helps you understand why it is better to put your hand that way and move your feet this way.

Just my thought,

Brar

[Athon]

For me intelligence matters on how fast you learn, physical abilities matters on putting the known in application.
Which is already the case in the current system if I am correct.

You can be as sturdy as you want, it will not make you learn how to swim properly faster, only to swim longer.
It is your intelligence that helps you understand why it is better to put your hand that way and move your feet this way.

Just my thought,

Brar

I rescinded in my second post that I agree that intelligence play a role no matter what, seeing as that is the definition of intelligence. However, it's more than just intelligence.

For example, I am a fairly avid bowler. Yet, my intelligence only plays a small role in how well I bowl. The good majority of "skill" comes from being able to execute a perfect swing on every ball. When I throw a bad ball, it's usually because I messed up physically some how - didn't get my shoulders squared, didn't follow through, crossed over, etc. Good bowlers are good because they are able to execute on every ball and learned torepeat their motions.

Pretty much what I'm saying is that intelligence shouldn't be the only factor in determining the rate at which an ability is learned. Physical abilities should require some amount of physical skill to learn from as well. Obviously, for spells, intellect and wisdom are going to play the primary role as expected.

Pretty much, I'm aiming for classes being able to improve at what they should be good at. Why should a priest be able to improve at second and third attack faster than a warrior? In a game where players are able to increase in ability and power, there should be a way to encourage a balanced rate of improvement for all classes without forcing non-caster classes to max out their intellect.


For Nysan: I did not mean to replace the luck stat as a primary or secondary stat. My suggestion was that intellect would be good for determining the rate of improvement in place of luck. For example, luck is very important with mining but perhaps someone can use their intelligence to "learn" from their luck?

[Kallias]

I believe it's a loose representation of how intelligence provides bonus skill points in pnp. If you're willing to put in the time - it is legitimately a dump stat...especially now that stat points are much more restricted without glory purchases.

[Brar]

For example, I am a fairly avid bowler. Yet, my intelligence only plays a small role in how well I bowl. The good majority of "skill" comes from being able to execute a perfect swing on every ball. When I throw a bad ball, it's usually because I messed up physically some how - didn't get my shoulders squared, didn't follow through, crossed over, etc. Good bowlers are good because they are able to execute on every ball and learned torepeat their motions.

That is a good example. Let's say the skill would be Bowling (Dex, Str).
Your dex, and in a lesser way you str, decide how well you bowl (as in how well you use the skill) but what makes you becoming better is your ability to analyse your past move and see what to correct, hence your intelligence.

You can have a mage grandmaster in second attack because he have the intelligence to learn all the moves and tactics, but he will still sucks because he doesn't have the str and dex to use the skill effectively and in the end be less effective than a fighter who is apprentice. (that is my knowledge of the system... I could be wrong and if I am then it is how I think it should work).

For me, skill levels shows how well you know the skills, but how well you use it depends on the associate stats.

Brar

Edit: Just to be sure for people to understand what I am saying this time... I think the system is good as it is now with intelligence monitoring how fast your improve.

[Keltorn]

Kallias has the right idea here. In tabletop D&D, a high INT score gets you more skill points. There's no way to train up your skills in D&D without the use of skill points, so none of that grandmastering-every-skill-on-the-list nonsense.

Intelligence should always play a big part in skill progression. Even in the real life examples being provided, I can only see more reason to keep things the way they are.
In the case of swimming, constitution is great and all and should play a part in the use of that skill, but if you're flailing around like an idiot because you don't know how to swim, then you're just going to tire yourself out and wind up dead. Something that might help you survive in the water is, you guessed it, swimming lessons. As someone that's never really figured out how to swim correctly, I can say that such knowledge makes a considerable difference.
The bowling example did a nice job of never saying that one has to learn the throw before they're able to execute it, but Athon did say that successful bowlers have "learned to repeat their motions." You need to know how it's done if you want to consistantly bowl strikes, but if you can't physicially move the ball, then you're still screwed.

The attributes associated with each skill should always be important to the success of that skill, but intelligence determines whether you improve at it or not. If you're smart, then you're learning from your mistakes. If you're dumb as a rock, then you'll probably just keep repeating the same motions without ever thinking that you could be doing something better, more efficiently, faster, etc.

[Athon]

Remember, at the "lowest" extreme, a character has an int of 'average,' barring certain RP exceptions. Even a person of average intelligence can pick up skills fairly quick.

It doesn't make total sense that a GM warrior also needs to be a "genius." As I've been saying, I've changed my position that intelligence should play a role, but it shouldn't be the dominant, 100% factor.

And as for bowling, I don't want to sound rude or insulting, but the overwhelming majority of the good bowlers are of average intelligence, at best. I didn't pick it up a single bit quicker just by being intelligent.

[Eltsac]

I think there are mixing between being good at a skill and learning speed.

And as for bowling, I don't want to sound rude or insulting, but the overwhelming majority of the good bowlers are of average intelligence, at best. I didn't pick it up a single bit quicker just by being intelligent.

That might be true, but the bowlers that learnt faster than others are the ones with more intelligence.

Intelligence won't make you better at something than others, just help you learn faster. What will make you better at the skill is the main caracteristics associated to the skills....
You don't have to be a Genius to be a GM warrior. You will be the best when you will master your skill, you will just need a little more time to learn them.

Don't know if I make things more clear in fact :p

El & co

[Kallias]

It's spot on representation of pen and paper. Class is #1 (gives you the skills you can learn), Int #2.

If you want to GM anything besides your primary weapon and attacks (these are natural) - you have to work at it, and you have to work at it a ton. That goes for genius' all the way down to fat smelly orcs. If I was giving character creation stat allocation advice for any non Int caster, it would be to use int as a dump stat. Every bonus it gives can be made up with time training (besides expertise - so 13). If you have any intention on making the PC a primary (sans wizards), Int should be dump. *disclaimer* purely from a mechanical view

Intelligence actually plays a smaller role in FK than it does in table top in regards to skills.

[Brar]

It doesn't make total sense that a GM warrior also needs to be a "genius."

You don't have to be a Genius to be GM at anything, INT doesn't cap your max level in a skill, it only makes you learn faster.

I know of at least one fighter who never ever raised her intelligence (and still have I think 6 unused stat points at level 50 ) and she GMed a few skills.

In any case, I think that stats should be coherent to the character and hence there should not be "dump stats" other than stats your character should not have ICly.

It bothers me when I look at a character and his description says he's skinny and all feeble and he carrys more packs than my horse ever could.... Please please, let us get a bit of coherence between the stats and the character, it is not only numbers after all.

Brar in his coherent RP nazy mode again....

[Briek]

Personally, it could be possible to have Skill progression as a mixture of Int and Wis because as someone pointed out to me a fighter can be excellent and be a total idiot at the same time. He may make more mistakes because of his intelligence but that doesn't mean he won't gain wisdom and not repeat them.

Also a priests prayers I'd say really has nothing to do with intelligence so divine prayers as a whole should progress based on the wisdom you gain in casting them.

Just think both stats could play a part.

I don't think Str or Dex etc should play a part in skill progression stats are just numerical representations of the characters natural ability in each area, only wisdom and intelligence would affect learning you can be the most natural fighter in the world but if you don't hone those skils you'l still be toast.

[Cret]

Intelligence is knowing you can do it.
Wisdom is knowing when you can do it.