System tweaking
I had an odd thought about the Frontier system this weekend - what if, instead of the current system, skills and statistics were given card ranks, and used as one of the cards in each hand related to the skill?
The current system works like this: each player is dealt a certain number of cards, and adds those cards to four community cards to come up with a five-card hand. The number of cards that each player gets in his private hand is determined by his character's relevant skill; the number of times he can discard a card and replace it from the deck is determined by the character's relevant statistic.
The new system would, I think, work like this:
- Statistics have sets of skills associated with them.
- Each statistic and skill is rated from 2 to Ace, but the skills are actually ranked as a distance above the associated statistic; so if a character had, for example, Dexterity 5 and Running +2, then his effective Running skill would be 7.
- In each hand, a fixed number of cards is dealt to each player. The appropriate skill is added to the player's private hand; thus if the player in the example above were dealt 7♥ 7♣ in a Running contest, he would use his 7 Running to make three 7s in his hand. If a character does not have the appropriate skill, he defaults to his statistic (since the skill is effectively +0).
- A player is not required to use his character's skill (or statistic) rating in his final hand.
I haven't decided yet whether skill and statistic rankings are wild cards or merely suitless (i.e., they can be used to complete straights and pairings - including 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind, and full houses - but not flushes).
I'm not entirely sold on this idea - any comments? One thing I have noticed is that it significantly reduces the amount that skills and statistics affect the outcome of a hand, which is something I need to consider.