18/00 STR why not 18/00 INT?

[dchapman]

Working my way through the LBBs and Supplements I-IV.

They give extra effects for having a strength above eighteen with the percentile spread. Why didn't they do the same for the other abilities? Any ideas?

Edit:

Also, looks like fighter's were the only ones to get ac bonuses for dex?

Fighters with a dexterity of greater than 14 can use their unusual manual dexterity to attempt to dodge or parry opponents' attacks. For ever point over 14 they are able to reduce their opponents' chances of hitting them by 1 (5%).

[apeloverage]

Perhaps the idea was to increase the power of Fighters in particular?

[coffee]

Apr 29, 2010 1:45:50 GMT -6 apeloverage said:

Perhaps the idea was to increase the power of Fighters in particular?

It was. Especially since Greyhawk added new spells and new levels of spells, further increasing the power of the magic-user.

This trend continued through AD&D -- note the increasingly restrictive rules on Magic-Users (spell components, casting times) and the weapon specialization rules from Unearthed Arcana which further boosted the abilities of fighters.

[jacar]

Because, if you had a character with 18/00 Int, folks would forever call you things like "muscle head" or "meat head".

[piper]

Gary said it was mainly because strength could be related to easily measurable increments, the other abilities could not.

[Finarvyn]

Here is an old thread about exceptional Dexterity. I believe it references an old Strategic Review article from '75 or '76.

[dchapman]

Thanks Finarvyn, that was a fun read.

[Finarvyn]

Well, it's interesting to me to realize that some of those sorts of tweaks occured early in the development of OD&D, even if they "flew under the radar" for most people.

I think that an honestly rolled 18 on 3d6 is rare enough that I can see giving a percentile roll for any of the six stats.

[thegreyelf]

Agreed, and playing off of how Str and Dex (from the SR article) work, it shouldn't be difficult to work up tables for %-based exceptional abilities all the way down.

[capheind]

The new "Basic" edition of Hackmaster uses a 3d6+percentile mechanic for all the ability scores that might be of interest. Even though I prefer the classic simpler systems I have to say that Hackmaster Basic is the first of the batch to really make slight differences of ability score actually matter, that said its still too rules heavy to ever be my go-to game...

[Drohem]

The Challenges Game System^R by Tom Moldvay uses percentages for all ability scores.

[dchapman]

Oh neat. Now that makes me wonder what other games the early developers worked on (Holmes, Arneson, etc).