E (plus a comment on Con & App)

[Kurgan]

Sd> I believe all eight of the base characteristics, with appearance and
Sd> constitution, are essential.

     I can't tell you how much fun the Eloquence stat has been in my
     games. It's the perfect excuse to "go low" on points and have a
     rude, crude, totally socially unacceptable character. :) Skills
     that make use of it are fine, but honestly, just having the stat
     in mind while playing the character has been the most important
     thing. It really has proven to be a prime motivating factor for
     role-playing a certain type of character. Over the years I've had
     quite a few players that created either clueless barbarians or
     so-called 'refined' characters that actually were socially inept
     and made asses out of themselves at ever public function (but
     were blissfully unaware of their transgressions), and it's been a
     helluva lot of fun watching them go out of their way to come up
     with creative methods for redefining social graces. :)


     One other comment worth mentioning. When creating a character for
     the first time, I always have players begin Con & App (the two
     stats that are racially determined instead of a random roll for a
     multiplier) at max, instead of the assumed Native. It always just
     seemed too illogical for these two to begin at a low level and then
     build up. Having done this for almost 20 years now, I can attest
     that it has proven to be a good move, and also helps to avoid a
     lot of recalculating of vital statistics that, by being changed,
     end up causing a cascade effect of needed further changes. It
     also has never proven to be an unbalancing factor, either.



Best regards,

   Kurgan                         mailto:Kurgan at Fastmail.fm