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attributes

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Attributes

When it comes to adventuring, especially adventuring in Dice Mob, characters are summed up using Attacks, Defenses, Attributes, Knowledge, and Special Abilities. Attributes are a way to group a character's non-attack and non-defense abilities into ten distinct categories: Strength, Speed, Coordination, Stealth, Stamina, Insight, Perception, Intimidation, Performance, and Persuasion. Each of these categories provides a non-exclusive group of skills that a character can perform based on their abilities in these categories, assuming, of course, that they also have the knowledge and ability to perform such.

The best way to talk about the ten attributes is to take each of them one at a time and describe what they can do by themselves, but it should be mentioned that they are also important when it comes to Knowledge that requires minimums in certain attributes to perform correctly.

Dexterity

Dexterity is a combination of hand-eye coordination, balance, and agility. Balancing on a tightrope or a rickety bridge, climbing hand-holds on the side of a treacherous wall, putting together the intricate pieces of a clock or mechanical trap, disarming said trap, and aiming a bow or crossbow are among some of the activities that Dexterity measures. Success in most of these activities are simply measured with a successful skill check.

Ranged Weapon Advantage

High dexterities grant advantages in wielding ranged weapons and firearms effectively. Every four dice of Dexterity grant an additional die to ranged weapon and firearms attacks.

Nimble Defense

High dexterities allow unencumbered creatures greater advantage against force attacks. If a character is wearing light armor or no armor at all, every four dice of Dexterity grant an additional die of defense to Blunt, Slashing, and Piercing.

Insight

Insight describes the character's ability to read people including verbal cues an ally or opponent is giving off. A skill check in insight could give you a good idea of someone is lying or hiding something. You could use it to figure out if they might have committed a crime or what they might do for a living based on what they're wearing, their mannerisms, and how they talk.

As a good rule of thumb, use the Insight attribute when the character is trying to determine something about a person or other sentient creature, use the Perception attribute when a character is trying to determine something about the environment, including investigating a crime scene, following a trail, or determining if some food might be poisoned.

Increased Emotional Awareness

Creatures with high insight are more able to realize if they are being emotionally manipulated by another creature. Every 4 points of Insight increases Emotional Defense by 1.

Intimidation

Intimidation describes a character's ability to invoke Fear, Bravery, or Anger in allies or opponents. Because these are directed against another creature, intimidation checks are all rolled as attacks vs the creature's emotional defense. If the other creature desires the affect, they can choose to fail.

Intimidation Attacks

Once per battle, intimidation can be used to cause someone to run in fear, fight tentatively, or to provoke a creature to attack the taunter rather than a weaker member of the party. This intimidation attack is treated as a non-combat action against the creature or creatures' emotional defense. Based on what the character is trying to accomplish, the creature failing the attack is forced to attack the taunter, runs in fear for two rounds, or has a two dice penalty on attack rolls for the round.

When used to cause Fear, an intimidation attack can prevent an attacker from attacking if they fail their Emotion Defense roll, instead running or cowering in fear for two rounds or fighting tentatively with a two dice disadvantage on all attack rolls, whichever the taunter prefers. Likewise, when used to provoke Anger, a creature failing their Win-Loss check must attack the Intimidating creature, whether or not it makes logical sense to do so.

Intimidation Attacks generally affect all enemy creatures who can see or hear the Intimidator, so all of them would have to make the Win-Loss defense roll, though potentially one creature could be singled-out if that is the Intimidator's intent. Per the GM's discretion, this could automatically fail if there is no way the defending creatures could understand the Intimidator.

Pep Talks

Although it may seem strange, but because Fear, Bravery, and Anger are all in the same family of emotions, intimidation is also used to stoke up the bravery of a group before battle, to give them a pep-talk, so to speak–to build up their morale.

Pep Talks generally can only be done twice per day to the same group of allies and never two battles in a row.

On four dice of success on a skill check, a pep-talk before battle does one of the following: reduces all damage taken by attacks by one, increases all attack dice by one, or increases Emotional Defense by two until the battle is over or until the character so emboldened fails an Emotional Defense check. Each additional four dice of success allows the pep-talker to pick an additional advantage from the three listed above (or the same one, if they prefer).

Perception

Perception describes the character's ability to study the environment and perceive aspects about it that could be important to an investigation or even keeping that character alive. Successful skill checks could help a character to track footprints, find a secret door, see a pit trap before stepping into it, etc. But Perception isn't just limited to the sense of sight. Hearing, smell, touch, and even taste could be important factors in answering a question the character's has or discovering a dangerous situation before it actually becomes dangerous.

As describe under Insight, Perception is generally used for Environmental Factors, Insight for factors involving living creatures.

Highly Attuned

Although Perception generally governs environmental factors, a highly perceptive individual has trained their mind to be ready for anything thrown at it. Every 4 points of Perception increases Cognitive Defense by 1.

Personality

Personality describes a character's sense of self, including their self-esteem, their ability to perform in front of a group of people (e.g. singing, dancing, acting in a play, playing a musical instrument), and how they see themselves in their own minds including their look, the type of fashions they choose to wear, the type or quality of weapons and armor they choose to possess, etc.

Like Intimidation, Personality can be directed toward other creatures, and, when done so, it can be used to invoke Happiness or Sadness in allies or opponents. When so used, it's considered an attack against a creature's Emotional Defense. Just like in making an Intimidation attack, a willing creature can choose to fail.

Every 4 points of Personality increases Personal Defense by 1.

Persuasion

Persuasion describes a character's ability to invoke Trust or Distrust in allies or opponents. Like intimidation and performance, Persuasion measures a character's ability to get a creature to trust them and thus is treated as an attack against a creature's Emotional Defense. “Charm” spells would be persuasive, but it doesn't need to be magic. Con artists and best friends both get others to trust them, sometimes with good reason because they have their best interests in mind, sometimes so they can swindle them.

A shopkeeper could be persuaded to part with something at a lower price. A troll under a bridge could be persuaded to allow the party to pass unharmed.

In battle, a Persuasion attack can prevent an attacker from attacking if they fail their Emotion Defense roll. They cannot attack them until they successfully defend against the attack. Any character who is attacked again and fails again becomes “charmed” and fights on the side of the character or creature persuading them.

Speed

Speed describes how quick a character is on their feet or how quickly they can perform a given task, generally with some sense of accuracy (although accuracy is ultimately measured by the Coordination attribute if high precision is required). There aren't generally many skill checks against Speed unless there is some call for determining if equally quick individuals might catch or outrun someone else.

Speed itself does help with defensive skill checks which would require speed, such as the Dodge skill.

Every four dice of Speed grants a character an additional die for their Initiative rolls.

Although Speed is different from Movement Speed, there is a correlation between the two. Movement speed is initially determined based on a character's race, but dice in the Speed attribute improve speed from its racial base. Every six dice of Speed increases a character's Movement Speed measurement in Running, Swimming, and Flying (assuming they can run, swim, or fly) by one whole level (i.e. from slow to average, average to fast, or fast to very fast).

Stamina

Stamina describes the overall health and endurance ability of a character. Holding one's breath, running for long distances without having to rest, hiking up a mountain, crossing a wilderness, and increased ability in fighting off an infection, poison, and the elements.

Every four dice of Stamina increases the total Hit Points of a character by one die,

Every four dice of Stamina also increases Poison/Disease, Burning/Acid, Freezing, and Electricity by one die.

Stealth

Stealth is the attribute for moving without being seen or heard. Moving silently, hiding in shadows, camouflaging into the environment, sneaking up on a victim, criminal, or deer, all require a simple skill check against Stealth. If a creature is actively searching for a character, the GM can choose to instead treat it as a Stealth attack vs the opposing creature's Perception.

Stealth can be hindered by metal armor or generally anything else that makes a lot of noise as well as bright colors or anything else that might draw attention to a character rather than allow them to blend into the background. Generally these penalties are two dice or four dice or, if severe enough, the GM could choose to just make them fail without a skill check.

Strength

Strength describes the overall arm strength and leg strength of a character. Strength skill checks could be used in bending bars, pulling themselves or allies up a ledge, or holding up a portcullis to allow allies to escape. Strength attacks could be used to arm wrestle an opponent in order to win the betting pool or in pinning an enemy to the floor. Strength also aids a character in more mundane functions like wearing heavy armor and carrying heavy equipment, especially when it comes to what functions can be properly done while wearing such.

In addition to skill checks, strength also grants a character a dice advantage with melee and pole-arm weapons. For every four dice of Strength, a character gets an additional die added to their melee weapon and pole-arm attacks.

attributes.1598719991.txt.gz · Last modified: by dungeonmaster