Hi all, Happy New Year
I’m considering dusting off a few games in 2023 and 2nd ed is included in that list.
I forgot that Dex was removed and amalgamated into Ag in 2nd ed.
Has anyone tried to put it back in? What would be the pros / cons? Would it be ultimately worth the time and effort?
I would love to hear your thoughts.
Putting Dex back into 2nd ed
First off, you need to define what is Dex vs what is Ag. Perhaps Dex is "fine motor skills" whereas Ag is more "gross body movement".
Secondly, you're going to need to re-categorize what skills fall under which attribute.
For example, does the RangedCombat skill now require Dex instead of Ag? Or 50% of each?
It's an open question whether you can have one without the other.
Pros: it allows for greater differentiation between careers, since you can have Jeweller (with high Dex) vs Blacksmith which may have all the same stat advances but one is Dex vs Ag.
Cons: It can lead to some silly situations where there is a disagreement over which attribute should be tested against.
Secondly, you're going to need to re-categorize what skills fall under which attribute.
For example, does the RangedCombat skill now require Dex instead of Ag? Or 50% of each?
It's an open question whether you can have one without the other.
Pros: it allows for greater differentiation between careers, since you can have Jeweller (with high Dex) vs Blacksmith which may have all the same stat advances but one is Dex vs Ag.
Cons: It can lead to some silly situations where there is a disagreement over which attribute should be tested against.
I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.
I would say that ranged combat is covered by Ballistic Skill
But I agree with your main point, that it will need some work.I personally would like to bring Perception back as an attribute. That could be done quite easily, I think, since it now is a skill. So I can lift the description of what it is and when to test against it from there. The advance schemes can be done easily; each career that now has the skill gets advances to the attribute. +10 for basic characters, +20 for relatively advanced characters (those that can be reached directly from basic characters), +30 for really advanced characters (those that can only be reached from other advanced characters).
The main reason why I would want to do that is that Perception is now grouped under Intelligence, and I think that the two are very different things. Characters can have good perception but be dumb as a brick, or the other way round. It also leads to things like the Keen Senses talent - after getting rid of perception as an attribute, the designers considered that certain animals, like guard dogs, could be very perceptive but not very intelligent, so they developed Keen Senses as a kludge to a problem they created themselves. Which then led to fans creating new careers, who didn't realise that the talent should only be used for animals, to repair a problem with the system, and thus gave their careers a possibly game-breaking +20 talent.
A year later, but I now have a booklet with more than 250 careers (all careers from the Compendium, plus twenty-four fan-made ones), with Dexterity and Perception as added attributes. Careers are a bit less balanced now. I changed the attribute for a few skills, deleted Perception as a skill, since it's a stat now.
What still needs to be done is go thoroughly through all the career entries and exits. Mainly because the fan careers need to be included. And I want to make a set of starting career tables per background, like what we have done in Liber Fanatica 1.
And before you ask: No, at this moment I don't want to share or put it up for download. For a large part because I'm using copyrighted material in the description of the careers, and I don't have permission yet to share that. And for an equally large part because, as I said, the thing is not finished yet.
I mainly wanted to react to this thread. Leonpoi started it a year ago, I wanted to reply.
Back then, Leonpoi asked if it was worth the effort. Perhaps it is, if you take the opportunity to do several things at once. I added Dex, added Fel, and added fan careers (still have to do a bit of integration on those). In doing so, I customised the game more to my liking. Whether that is worth it, depends on whether I can find a group to start a new campaign.
What still needs to be done is go thoroughly through all the career entries and exits. Mainly because the fan careers need to be included. And I want to make a set of starting career tables per background, like what we have done in Liber Fanatica 1.
And before you ask: No, at this moment I don't want to share or put it up for download. For a large part because I'm using copyrighted material in the description of the careers, and I don't have permission yet to share that. And for an equally large part because, as I said, the thing is not finished yet.
I mainly wanted to react to this thread. Leonpoi started it a year ago, I wanted to reply.
Back then, Leonpoi asked if it was worth the effort. Perhaps it is, if you take the opportunity to do several things at once. I added Dex, added Fel, and added fan careers (still have to do a bit of integration on those). In doing so, I customised the game more to my liking. Whether that is worth it, depends on whether I can find a group to start a new campaign.
