Putting Dex back into 2nd ed

[leonpoi]

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.

[Hyarion]

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.

[Whymme]

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?

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.

[Hyarion]

I think I meant Aiming, but you are absolutely correct.