Statistical Anomalies

[Kaerli]

1) Agility.
In my mind, two things are described by this statistic: flexibility and explosiveness.  Flexibility gives your character the ability to do fancy gymnastic and acrobatic maneuvers, while explosiveness determines the speed of blows, running agility, and jumping ability.  First, if I am correct, then shouldn't agility influence attack strength?  (a blow coming in quickly hits harder than a blow coming in slowly)  Second, what do you folks think agility describes?

2) Intelligence.
Multiple Intelligences theory is quite clear: there is more than one way to be smart.  Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Visual/Spatial, and Math/Logic are just a few categories.  Again, what does intelligence describe to you?

3) Charisma.
The last of the two-faced statistics, it describes both physical appearance and interpersonal (social) intelligence and ability in my mind.  Am I right in saying that a smooth-talker should have high CHA, no matter his/her appearance?

(BTW: the reason this is in wishlist is because I want agility to influence attack strength)

[edit:  i find it better suited for the general discussion area -- neko]

[Socius Rockus]

Hmm, I would say Agility doesn't influence the attack strength, nor the speed. Both are managed more by strength, If you have a weapon a weak person would swing it slower (perhaps even clumsier) then a strong person.

Your STR measures the muscular power of your body. Training this stat will increase the damage you deal in combat, increase your carrying capacity and to increases your ability to break things.

I Think that Agility increases the changes of a (good) hit, It makes you ajust better when your opponent moves so you don't hit air. Reflexes is thw word I was looking for I think  

This stat represents your ability to control your bodies movement: it's a mixture of balance and precision. AGI is used to perform complex physical tasks such as climbing walls, walking on ropes, dodging hits in combat, etc.

I don't really know if AGI already increases the change of hitting, but the dodging is there ^^

For Intelligence and Charisma Check the Player guide yourself http://pswiki.xordan.com/index.php/Players_Guide/Character_Statistics

[Ravenguard]

I would disagree that agility would alter the umph of a weapon.  In order to get the weapon moving, one needs strength.  The more strength, the more momentum one can put behind it, and really, that's where I think the power comes into for axes and hammers.  It doesn't matter how fast you move if you can barely lift your weapon.

Agility is more finesse.

As far as this game goes, intelligence to me means how capable am I of understanding things.  Generally, magic and whatever I'm taught.  It's not learning those specific things, but the capability to do so if one is smart enough.
It's like people who are innately intelligent; if a 'normal' person were to work harder and understand a certain topic, while the intelligent person whiled their time away, they could know more, but not necessarily be as intelligent (a measurement of their potential).

Hmm... as far as Charisma goes, I see what you're talking about.  You can be drop dead gorgeous, but have the social ability of the three week old Chinese food I threw away last night.  For simplicity's sake, I like them being lumped into one, but, would not oppose having a 'Looks' and 'Personability.'

[Socius Rockus]

Some Drop dead logic:
I can't train my Looks
I can train my Charisma
Looks aren't equal to Charisma

Charisma (CHA)

    Represents the ability to convince an audience of your ideas, to lead your soldiers in battle or to attract followers. It is used in casting spells of the Crystal and Dark Ways.

It would be (I think) Silly to say that if one is beautiful one is better at healing themselves with magic  and Mel Gibson wasn't that gorgeous in Braveheart either.
 
  I'm smooth

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

If one is charismatic they get more from the universe.

[Under the moon]

Agility should directly affect the damage you can do. A weaker person with high agility is far more dangerous than a stronger person with little.

As for the other two stats:

Intelligence (INT)

Indicates how quickly you can solve a riddle, make complex calculations and make logical connections between your past experience and your current situation to find a solution. It is used in casting spells of the Blue and Brown Ways.

Charisma (CHA)

Represents the ability to convince an audience of your ideas, to lead your soldiers in battle or to attract followers. It is used in casting spells of the Crystal and Dark Ways.

Those are player abilities, not character stats, and the 'spells' are just shoed in to make them look useful. I stand by this in regards to them: http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=29481.0

Replace them with actual magic stats and be done with it.

[Pizzasgood]

I can't train my Looks

That's true for some aspects (facial structure, bone-layout, etc... no plastic surgery in medieval times), but unless you have a severe medical condition you can indeed train your looks, in multiple ways.  The most obvious would be weight control and muscle mass.  But there are more subtle areas too, such as fashion, posture, facial expressions, makeup, tan, bruises, scars, hairstyle, etc.  Those all take skill to handle properly.

[emeraldfool]

I can't train my Looks

That's true for some aspects (facial structure, bone-layout, etc... no plastic surgery in medieval times), but unless you have a severe medical condition you can indeed train your looks, in multiple ways.  The most obvious would be weight control and muscle mass.  But there are more subtle areas too, such as fashion, posture, facial expressions, makeup, tan, bruises, scars, hairstyle, etc.  Those all take skill to handle properly.

So... everyone starts out ungodly ugly? (If not, you'd really need a negative score for the people who want ugly characters...)

[Socius Rockus]

WARNING, I can for see that i might be wrong, but here it goes:

Agility should directly affect the damage you can do. A weaker person with high agility is far more dangerous than a stronger person with little.

Yes to the last, no to the first.

Because When you have two people, one weak (Barely capable of handling it's weapons) high AG and one strong low AG, both carrying a Longsword (or any other weapon, but LS works better in my example), have both the same training in LS fighting and Give them the order to De-Head (or un-head ) A Kran that for some reason isn't able to move.

I would say the Strong one wins with one blow, while the weak one does it in 2-3 blows (or something like that). When we repeat this at other spots of the poor Kran we'll see that the strong one wins all over.

Agility was no win for the weak one, He could maybe perform a nice flip-flop-over before it's hit but that wouldn't take away that he hasn't got the strength to do it.
[I did this once in a selfmade training space in Oblivion ^^ Only you can't De/Un-head someone :/ ]

Now with a Moving poor Kran, like in most battles, the damage of a strong person doesn't decrease nor does the damage of the weak one increase.
BUT  the weak one can move around more smooth and dodge some attacks so it can get close and stab an eye out, or hit a vital well defended part of the body. Its damage/strength behind the attack is the same, but the change of hitting a 'nice spot' is higher.

As for the Strong one, it can probably only attack some hands/arms/legs ect. (if he doesn't want to get hurt) Or do a Kamikaze attack with the change of dying with it.

So the Damage you CAN DO depends on strength, not on AG (and weapons skill, but those are both the same in my example) But the Damage you DO is depended on your AG and strength and weapon skill and perhaps just luck.

[Kaerli]

Socius: you obviously don't get what I meant by explosiveness versus flexibility.  Flexibility governs your ability to perform those "fancy-flip-flop" moves you spoke of (and is what most people think of when they think of agility as a concept), while explosiveness governs how quickly you can move.  How much should each (as well as body control) influence the target for a character's AGI stat?  BTW, what would an "average" person have for their stats?

UtM: I understand where you come from about CHA and INT.

Socius: Also, reading the PSWiki piece brought up a couple of things.  INT in the PS sense corresponds most closely to Math/Logical intelligence in MI theory, and Agility also includes body control (the ability to, say, get both feet to land inbounds on a sideline catch in American football).  CHA I don't think we need any more debate about, though.

[Zan]

What I'd like to see with regards to agility is that it is a bit opposed by strength.

The way muscles are made you get two choices, either keep them fast and lean but never reach their maximum strength potential. Or train them until they can crush a Kran's head but sacrifice speed and maneuverability. So by that rule strength and agility can be trained together until a certain level, after that increasing strength means decreasing agility. This gets rid of the mindless grinding and leveling .. instead it becomes important to have a good balance between the two to be a succesful fighter.

As for agility and damage. It depends on the situation and weapon. When you're wielding a heavy battle axe you won't have much use for agility but if you fight with daggers, being strong won't get you anywhere. Light nimble weapons benefit more from agility than from strength, while powerful weapons will benefit from strength. If you wield a claymore, your strength stat should determine your damage and ability to penetrate armor. If you wield a dagger, your agility stat should do the same. That is not including the opponent's stats of course.

About Intelligence and Charisma, I agree fully with UtM there. The stats make no sense since they determine player influenced traits. I'd say change them, and Will as well, with a single stat: Magic or something ... which determines your amount of mana, your magical abilities and your ability to resist spell effects.

[Socius Rockus]

1) Agility.
explosiveness determines the speed of blows, running agility, and jumping ability.

Hoping you mistyped Ability (running agility --> Running ability) I thought of Explosiveness All being strength thingies
  And I forgot to mention that 
Comming to think of it... We miss a Stat in Planeshift. The Speed Stat!
Mostly used for Athletics, Aerobatics and Light armor 
But Now I'm not that sure if the Agility stat in PS also governs the missing Speed Stat..  Question!

[Rongar Elani]

Some quick examples of explosiveness and speed.

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=qhrTbYRMjeQ&feature=related

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=tkpW4vy4wRw

Quite amazing. Those guys aren't incredibly strong, but I wouldn't want to piss them off, really.

[Zan]

The first one is more an example of using your entire body well and locking your joints, not so much explosiveness. Second video is exactly what Kaerli meant methinks .. and now imagine a bulked up Arnold Schwarzenegger doing that. Then you get my point