[Pcgen-trackers] [ pcgen-Feature Requests-891521 ] [RSRD] Monstrous PC caps on low ability scores

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Feature Requests item #891521, was opened at 2004-02-05 22:43
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by papa_drb
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Category: Race Support
Group: Unscheduled
>Status: Deleted
Resolution: None
Priority: 2
Private: No
Submitted By: Matt Haffner (eltenedor)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: [RSRD] Monstrous PC caps on low ability scores

Initial Comment:
Reed Thornton says:

I was thinking about something sparked by one of the threads in 
the 
last couple of days having to do with BONUS:STAT|INT which sent 
me 
looking at the docs with regard to INT and INTSCORE and their 
cousins.  From looking at the docs I can't tell whether INTSCORE is 
the value that gets input by the user and dumped out to the 
character 
file as STAT:INT|SCORE:12 or whether INTSCORE is the result of 
STAT:INT|SCORE:12 + BONUS:STAT|INT|-2. This set me to 
thinking about 
various races that have substantial stat penalties and what the 
limits were as far as playability goes. I knew that a PC's Int is 
never lower than 3 but what about the other stats? I then found 
the 
following in the RSRD section MonstersasRaces.rtf

Ability Scores for Monster PCs:...
For ability scores lower than 10, the procedure is different. First, 
determine the character's ability scores, and compare that number 
to 
the monster's average ability score, using either the table below 
that applies to Intelligence or the table that applies to the other 
five ability scores. 
The separate table for Intelligence ensures that no PC ends up with 
an Intelligence score lower than 3. This is important, because 
creatures with an Intelligence score lower than 3 are not playable 
characters. Creatures with any ability score lower than 1 are also 
not playable.

I then checked the rsrd_races_o_p.lst versus MonstersO-R.rtf to 
Otyugh which is listed as Int 5 it is coded in the lst as 
BONUS:STAT|INT|-6. If you role a 9 that will give you a 3 but you 
should have score of 4 according to the table.
----
I says:

Tables for all the ability score capping can be found here: 

http://3.5srd.com/web/sovelior_sage_srd/Sovelior%20SRD/
monstersAsRaces.html

I tried to come up with a simple formula for the capping, but 
something easy isn't coming immediately to mind. Might have to 
be lookup-based. Yuck.

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>Comment By: David R. Bender (papa_drb)
Date: 2011-07-12 19:55

Message:
http://jira.pcgen.org/browse/CODE-703

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Comment By: Tom Parker (thpr)
Date: 2008-07-29 22:44

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arch requried

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Comment By: Andrew McDougall (tir-gwaith)
Date: 2005-09-16 13:28

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Yes.  But it is going to be a lot of code.  Not high on
priority.

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Comment By: Martijn Verburg (karianna)
Date: 2005-09-15 11:21

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8 months on, we still wanting this? - K

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Comment By: Andrew McDougall (tir-gwaith)
Date: 2004-10-06 18:46

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Paul, can we move this to FReq (it is new implementation of 
stuff) and not for 5.8?  It is something I'd like to do as an 
option, just not sure how to go about both methods....

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Comment By: Paul W. King (kingpaul)
Date: 2004-10-06 16:39

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Is this still valid?

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Comment By: Bryan McRoberts (merton_monk)
Date: 2004-02-17 12:44

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I'm lowering the priority on this one.  This is tied into the 
mess that surrounds negative-adjustments on monsters and 
the fact that there are a number of apparent 'formulas' that 
will take some time to come up with a good idea on how to 
tackle.

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Comment By: Martijn Verburg (karianna)
Date: 2004-02-12 16:15

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This should be supported for RSRD

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Comment By: Martijn Verburg (karianna)
Date: 2004-02-07 22:44

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Doug thoughts?

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Comment By: Matt Haffner (eltenedor)
Date: 2004-02-05 23:05

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I posted this additional bit on Y!:

It's a rather huge issue for any monstrous race with negative racial 
modifiers, but well hidden in the bowels of the RSRD. 

If you look closely at the table, you'll see that this doesn't just affect

characters with super low rolls. A rolled Int of 10 for a monstrous PC
with 
a base Int score of 8/9 (-2 racial mod) results in a score of 9, not 8.
That 
doesn't affect the final Int mod (still -1), but if you had rolled one
lower, 
it starts to: you rolled a 9 and the table tells you you get an 8 in the
end 
(not a 7). 

I tried to come up with some easy formula below the capping, but I 
couldn't right away. Off the top of my head, it sounds kind of messy 
since it looks like the rolled score and the monster's racial modifier
have 
to be passed into a translation routine that spits out the final 'good' 
score. 

What's really odd (and annoying, potentially), is this statement in the 
same section right before describing what to do about monsters with low 
average ability scores (< 10):

"Also, some monsters that make good PCs have their racial ability 
modifiers and other traits already listed in their monster entry."

I think this means that any monster with the "As Characters" section in 
their description works like the standard PC races (i.e. don't use these 
crazy tables). That means there has to be a selector of some sort in 
each creature's entry to let the code know which method to use for final 
ability selection, straight subtraction or the crazy table. 

Ack.


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