Character stat discussion

Yeah that's true, ranged characters have to manage ammo. Isn't reloading a move action? Also, the fact that they can attack at range at all is an advantage over melee characters, who need to move into position to attack. So I feel like that balances out with the reloading a bit.

If your character wants to swap between ranged and melee combat, then it would probably be a good idea to focus on both Strength and Agility. But if you're specializing in one or the other, unless there are special skills/powers in the mix, the baseline system doesn't benefit a mixture of Strength and Agility, since you can also raise your Defense by increasing Wisdom. For example, if a melee dude puts one point in Strength and one point in Agility, he gets +1 to attack and defense, and he won't get much use out of his improved ranged attack. But if he instead puts one point in Strength and one in Wisdom, he still gets the +1 to attack and defense, plus the bonus to stabilize dying, plus other bonuses in and out of combat (presumably more than Agility would give you).

But yeah, I need to test different situations, like a dummy opponent with Wisdom = 1, 2, etc. for a full picture of how much combat utility each stat has. Also test things like Strength = 1, Wisdom = 1 vs. Strength = 2 (specialized distribution vs. broad distribution).

Strength based melee character:

High Strength
High Build/Resolve

Pros: High melee attack and damage, lots of life points
Cons: Low defense

Strategies: Melee characters (like the kind built above) have a higher life point total, meaning they can take more hits. They can also make use of armor without fear of it affecting their attack/damage potential, adding damage reduction. This means even though they are hit more often, they can absorb the damage more effectively.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Agility based ranged attacker:

High Agility
High Wisdom

Pros: High ranged attack and defense
Cons: Low life point total

Strategies: Higher defense means you are better at avoiding attacks, but when you are hit the damage is much more serious due to your low life point total. Wearing armor, which affects Agility (and therefore both defense and ranged attacks) effectively cancels out the benefits of high Agility and is therefore an unattractive choice for this type of character, leaving them more vulnerable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some thoughts: It may appear that melee attackers are dependent on equipment to be effective, but in actuality ranged attackers are even more dependent on equipment, since if you take away their weapons they lose almost all ability to do damage.

As you can see, it is quite easy to build any kind of character, even min/max characters like those depicted above. Simple System was designed to turn a character concept into a fully realized and playable character - the key is to start with a concept and build a character to match rather than let game mechanics dictate what kind of character you make. Skills are the feature that really set characters apart and specialize them, even more so than their abilities, so comparing melee and ranged based on the character cards alone can't give the full picture as far as combat potential/balance.

It is probably rare that someone would raise solely build and resolve, as big smasher would also want some strength and little wiz would no doubt want some intelligence or wisdom. This means that they would end up having modest totals in life points and power points, even if only as a side effect of their build. I'm not sure why having low life points or low power points (mana in this case) would be a requirement for the build, as neither would actually get in the way of roleplaying the character.

Consider this scenario: Little Wiz is level 6,and of his 10 advancement points (4 from character creation and 6 from leveling) he has maxed his resolve for more power points and put three in intelligence since in this particular setting intelligence influences how many spells (powers) you can learn. This would leave him with a 5 power point pool, or six if he spent one of his starting points on build. It also makes his life point total 8 or 9, which is not too bad. He could have spent his points in build for more power points, but that would have meant he couldn't learn many spells due to low intelligence. Along the way he picked up a couple skills, one that doubles his power point total, and another that allows him to draw on his life points to cast spells once out of power points. He also has an interesting spell that allows him to draw power points from his allies to cast spells, which comes in super handy as he's got Big Smasher on his team with a few power points to spare.

Big Smasher maxed his build and put the rest into strength, and coupled with his armor he can easily tank for the rest of the party. His build left him with a total of 5 power points, which he usually doesn't think about except when Little Wiz runs next to him to draw on his strength to cast some spells. That is of course until Little Wiz learns a new spell that grants a target ally a damage boost at the cost of one of their power points each turn, which means he can go on an awesome rampage for a full 5 rounds whereas a more frail character couldn't control the power for that long.

As you can see, the current mechanics allow for all sorts of interesting options, especially when coupled with skill and setting cards. It would actually take more effort to build a "broken" character than not, and again my reasons for deriving the stats the way I did was based more on what made logical sense to me as opposed to spreading everything evenly across all abilities.

Ooh, I like that solution. Charisma as a defensive stat would make perfect sense for a classic Paladin/Holy Warrior class.

Even using Charisma in the sense that it makes an opponent second guess themselves against a commanding foe or a dashing stylish rogue. Yeah, I like it.