Table for 8

 I just ran my first Amber Attribute Auction in more than a decade. I had invited a large group of players, but as of this morning, only 3 had confirmed that they'd definitely be playing, and one of those 3 said he unfortunately was probably going to have to miss the character creation system. 3 dependable players is enough to run a good Amber campaign, but it's not really enough to run an Attribute Auction, so I spent a good chunk of the day unnecessarily prepping for how I might handle character creation for 2 or 3 in a way that would allow me to seamlessly add another player or two at a later date. 

For those unaware of the intricacies of Amber, the auction has 4 major Attributes (Psyche, Strength, Endurance, and Warfare) and player bid against each other to be "1st Rank" in each. This is fundamentally broken with less than 4 players, and can easily fall apart even with 4. Basically, if one player manages to be first rank in 3 of the 4 attributes, you'll potentially have some very painful balance issues should those characters come to cross purposes. So I was worried.

Needlessly.

When the appointed time arrived, people just kept showing up to the google hangout and Roll20. I ended up with 7 players!

The auction went smoothly, despite my being a decade out of practice. If anything, my being rusty may have actually helped. I didn't oversell the attributes, so people had enough points to get Powers. Here's the Attribute "rungs" we ended up with:

Psyche rungs: 4 / 7 / 10 / 12 / 17

Strength rungs:  1 / 3 / 6 / 7 / 8

Endurance rungs: 5 / 7 / 10 / 12 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20

Warfare rungs: 2 / 5 / 7 / 10 / 12 / 15

It's kind of "weird" that 1st Rank didn't cost more than 20 for anything, and that Endurance was the highly competitive stat. Neither of those feels "normal", but they don't strike me as problematic either. Nearly every character ended up with Pattern, so they'll be able to move around the universe easily and they have reasons to interact. They're all cousins, and they have a vested interest in the prosperity of Amber.

This current batch of characters just feels like they are going to be so much easier to build stories for, than the crazy mixed-up groups of disconnected characters at the start of all my previous campaigns. No inexplicable enigma characters without a connection to either Amber or Chaos. No worries about anyone being "Shadow Lame" and unable to travel to the worlds where the plots are. No one caught in the unfortunate bind of having 60 points of Psyche and no Powers to use with it. This seems pretty great.

My only concern is in running a game for 7 players, especially a game like Amber where those 7 players are likely to frequently scatter to the ends of the universe. It's going to give me a serious workout each session, but thankfully we're only meeting every second week and I'll have plenty of time to catch my breath on off weeks. Should be fun. Wish me luck!

Phys Soc Men

I've said it before, but an experience tonight really drove it home.

Here's my open request to GMs and game designers: If your RPG is going to have different attributes, such as Physical/Social/Mental, you need to have all of those categories carry roughly equal weight, or else make the lame stats cost less. If, as so many systems seem to do, only Physical ever gets rolled, then you really don't need the Social or Mental traits at all. They should be significantly cheaper, or just not exist.

(Amber, for example, has no social trait, and it's only mental trait is just a measure of psychic power. And that system works just fine. Matters of problem solving and intelligence are left up to roleplaying and the player's craftiness. That's much better than saying "you plan to role-play that you're smart? Well then you have to spend half your XP on stats you'll never roll.")

If you insist on charging the same amount for the three stats, they need to be roughly equal in their functional ability to solve problems.

In tonight's one-shot at Wayward, the system had those 3 traits: P/S/M.

• I had Physical as my primary stat, and my character worked great and I had lots of fun. Someone else had literally nothing but Physical, and he did insanely well, too.
  
• Everyone else (5 other PCs) had some measure of points wasted in Social and Mental, and had varying degrees of frustration.
  
• The ship's Captain got creamed, because his maxed out social trait was unable to prevent any of the three fight scenes, and his correspondingly minimized physical trait meant he got hit again and again.
  
• Even the two psychic characters only got to roll their psy powers twice each. Compare that to my Physical stat, which paid off at least a dozen times, in melee, ranged, and starship combat.
  

That's not intended in any way as a slam on the GM. It's an easy trap to fall into, because of the nature of how most RPGs are run. Here again is a link to a rant I wrote last year on this topic, which discusses the issue from a different (but relevant) angle.

New Knackathon

I just posted a bunch of new Knacks for Scion. Does this mean I spent the day dreaming up new Knacks? NO! It means I came up with these months ago, and shelved them with the intention of waiting till Scion Companion part 2 came out. I didn't want to do a bunch of work designing and developing knacks if that book was just going to render them redundant them a week later. Surprise! It didn't. But hey, once bitten, twice shy.

• EDIT: It's worth mentioning that since these were written several months ago but have yet to see any use in game or development analysis at the forum, I can't attest to them being perfectly balanced. No big problems with them jump out at me, but I haven't looked that closely at them, at least not lately. Use at your own risk.

Here's a list of what I just put up:

Charisma Knacks: (Most of today's posted knacks are Charisma knacks, because at the time, that's what it seemed we'd run out of first with my group. All the PCs have at least 3 or 4 dots of Epic Charisma, and about 30% of the published Charisma knacks in the Hero/Demigod/God books are willpower refreshers.)
Band Of Brothers
Standing Invitations - Behind Closed Doors
Nothing But The Truth
Entourage - Worshipful Throng

Strength Knack:
Like A Fish In Water

Stamina Knack:
Aggressive Immune System

While I have a big brainstorm list that may one day become another 20 or 30 finished knacks, it probably won't be for a while. In the wake of Manifestations of Ichor (Scion Companion, part 2) there's a much stronger demand for new Boons than for more Knacks.

Composure, Resolve, Reflexes

(at the Scion Forums) kagetora0 wrote:

In my gaming group, we have decided to experiment with two things: using the nWoD stats (Basically, nixing Appearance and Perception, and adding Composure and Resolve, as social and mental 'resistance' stats) and then using those stats to make a social and mental "DV"
...
The main trouble we've run into is knacks. It's been a challenge to come up with a variety of knacks for Epic Resolve and Epic Composure; and equally a challenge to slide the old Appearance and Perception knacks in again.

Another option would be to go for a 12-stat system instead of 9-stat.

You'd keep Appearance and Perception, but still add Composure and Resolve.

For the 12th Stat, you could add "Reflexes". Reflexes is about reaction time, speed, and gross/full-body movement. Dexterity would remain the stat of precision and accuracy.

In this way, you'd break up attack pools and DV to be based upon two different stats. This would allow for more variety amongst PCs as well as making it easier for the GM to craft antagonists that were hard to hit or good at hitting, but not necessarily both. This could solve a lot of Scion's problems.

Of course, it would have other impact, and you'd need to make some other tangential rulings to support it:

1. At character creation, you'd get 10/8/5 (Or maybe even 11/8/6) points for Attributes.
2. At template/upgrade you'd get 6/4/3
3. Possibly raise the standard per-session XP award by 1 since your points have to go a little further to shore up all your weaknesses.
4. You'd still need plenty more knacks for Composure and Resolve, plus a couple extra for Dexterity and Reflexes (assuming the original Dex knacks were now split between them)
5. Numerous boons would need their dice pools altered to make the new stats worthwhile
6. I'd be tempted to base starting Willpower off Highest Virtue + (Average of Composure and Resolve)

I kinda like that. I think it would solve a lot of the systemic flaws of Scion. Unfortunately, it's too sweeping a change to implement to my campaign at this stage.

Sissy-Phus

You'd think 2,000 years of rolling a boulder up a steep mountain would result something above Strength, Stamina, and Athletics all at 3 out of 5 dots*. Guess I'll be writing some corrections in the margins of my book.

*: Especially since he's a (Legend 8) immortal Son of God, and thus his maximums on those would actually be 8, 8 and 5, respectively.

The Bergstrom Method Of Amber Combat

The truth is ugly: What I'd remembered as a veritable "holy grail" is in fact just a simple stoneware cup, with three different artist's stamps upon the base. I found the so-called "Bergstrom Method" for Amber combat, and it's only so-so. In some ways it's cooler than the chart, and feels more like an Amber methodology than that did. On the other hand, it's a little hard to read. What I did with Endurance was cool, and I like the way I handled the transition from Amber Rank to 1-point of Warfare, but the formatting needs work. Overall, though, I'm not as impressed with my own greatness as I'd hoped to be. Most disappointing is the realization that it's heavily based on someone else's concept - probably the original author of that chart. Here I was thinking I'd been all original and cool, when the truth is I was standing on the shoulders of chaos lords. My ego has taken enough kicks in the past few years. I may have been happier while on the grail quest. It's been a really tough week (I got laid off, and I hurt a friend) so it may be that I'm just depressed or self-critical. I'll look at it with fresh eyes sometime when I'm in a better mood. Oh well, here's the text, plucked from The Way Back Machine. I expect none of the links will work, but I'd rather not take the time to test or neuter them.

Handling Combat in Amber

credit where credit is due

This system (and the Testerman/Trimmer system it is based on) determines the length of a battle by comparing the warfare (or psyche, or strength) of the combatants, factoring in Endurance in longer battles. It is designed with the standard Amber 4 attribute system, but could be easily modified for whatever system you use. It is designed for one-on-one battles, but can also be adapted to armies or group battles.

We need to compare the relevant attribute (psyche for power battles, strength for hand-to-hand, or warfare for weapons) of the two combatants. But we can't compare just the straight points of the attributes, because that would result in a character with a single point of warfare to be infinitely better than someone with Amber Rank(zero points). So, we need to scale the stats just slightly. When we scale, we'll quickly be converting character creation points, and attribute points into something similar, which for lack of a better term we'll call Conflict Points.

Let's consider Human Rank a single "conflict point". Chaos Rank, being twice as good, will be two conflict points Amber Rank will be equal to four conflict points. As far as any "Ranked" attributes are concerned, take the number of points spent on the attribute and add five. This new total is the number of Conflict Points you have in that attribute.

• This is a bit toned down from Wujcick's explanations in the rulebook. He paints Amber as 8+ times as good as Chaos rank. I see it as around double. Otherwise, armies from chaos need to outnumber Amber forces by huge margins in order to really be a threat, and that's just not how Corwin presents it.
• This also means that if you spent one point on warfare when creating your character, he has 6 Conflict points in warfare. This gives him roughly 1 and a half times the swordsmanship of Amber Rank, and makes him three times as deadly as a chaosling, or 6 times as dangerous as a normal human.
• If you have 2 points of warfare you are not twice as good as someone with one point of warfare. Converting the ranked stats into conflict points shows you have 7 to thier 6 conflict points, giving you a Minimal Advantage.

Once you know the conflict points involved in the battle, you may compare them on this chart to determine what Advantage Category the fight falls into:

If the stronger character has:

1. Four times as many (or more!) conflict points as weaker character (4:1 or more extreme), they have a Murderous Advantage!
2. At least three times as many conflict points as weaker character (3:1), they have a Superior Advantage!
3. At least twice as many conflict points as weaker character (2:1), they have a Definite Advantage.
4. At least one and a half times as many conflict points as weaker character (3:2), they have a Modest Advantage.
5. More conflict points than weaker character, but less than one and a half times as many (7:6, or 54:47, or any proportionately similar small difference), they have a Minimal Advantage
6. If both characters have the same number of conflict points, (1:1) they are dead even.

Other factors such as weaponry, tactics, and setting Just how exhausted you are determines how well and how long you can defend yourself

To the index of all my Amber pages.

Other factors such as weaponry, tactics, and setting...

One of the strengths of this system is that it makes for easy improvising of the results of outside factors. If some factor aides a particular combatant (such as them having a sharper blade or better armor, attacking from ambush, being more familiar with the terrain), swing the Advantage Level one step in their favor.

For example, if Random has sword and dagger while Benedict has only a dagger. Benedict normally has a Superior Advantage over Random, but in this case it�s diminished to a Definite Advantage. If Random had a pistol and sword, plus lightweight bodyarmor, and knew where the boobytraps were, he could be Dead Even with Benedict or even have a Minimal Advantage against him.

If the factor just makes the battle more dangerous (such as both sides having rapid-fire weapons) then instead of changing the category just speed up the battle: allow everyone to die a few exertion categories sooner than normal.

By means of example: Corwin has a Minimal Advantage over Random. They could normally fence until Exhausted or Collapsing. But if both have poisoned blades, they could get knicked and die while just Tired or Strained. If using machineguns with explosive bullets in a burning skyscraper in a radiation zone while wearing a full body anticontamination suits might result in kills occuring while both were Fresh.

The system also assumes the use of weapons that allow some dodging, parrying, manuevering and/or use of cover; such as swordplay, sorcery, or karate. This, of course, is not allways the situation. In contests of continuous direct conflict such as prolonged wrestling, fighting in a pit or small contained area, or for trump-based psyche duels, assume the kills happen one or two exertion categories sooner than what the advantage level states.

For example, Fiona has just a Minimal Advantage over Brand in Psyche, but in a continuous battle via trump, as soon as he becomes Tired (instead of the normal Exhausted) she can defeat him (and if she became Strained, he'd be able to defeat her).

The categories also assume an opportunistic battle plan. Going full Offensive speeds up the time to a kill by an exertion level(for both sides), going full defensive shifts the advantage category two steps in your favor.

Examples: Corwin can play pure defensive and tire out Eric, who has both higher psyche and warfare, but rather lower endurance than Corwin. The psyche duel took less time than the sword battle to determine a victor, because it's a more direct and continuous means of combat.

what the Advantage Categories mean in terms of storyline:

---

Definitions of terms such as: Exertion, Fresh, Tired, Strained, Exhausted, and Collapsing If the stronger character has at least four times as many conflict points as the weaker, they have an Deadly Advantage. Anytime there's this much of a difference, the weaker character dies in well under a minute, and little can save them. "One hit = one kill" is often the rule in these cases. It all happens too fast for Endurance to make a difference. If you are this much better than your opponent, it is nearly impossible for them to kill you. Even if you are at Collapsing exertion, they will at best manage a single wound on you simultaneous to their death. If you are less exerted, they will be unable to harm you at all

---

If the stronger character has at least three times, but less than four times, as many conflict points as the weaker, they have an Superior Advantage. The victim should die within a few minutes, regardless of what endurance level they are at. Good stuff, nearby benefactors, or other factors might be able to save them, but they'll take crippling wounds long before endurance becomes a factor. The better warrior won�t perish unless they are at Collapsing level less than five minutes into the duel.

---

If the stronger character has at least twice , but less than thrice the conflict points of the weaker, they have an Definite Advantage. It takes very small slip-ups to recieve fatal wounds against someone this far better than yourself, and so the first signs of fatigue will do in the weaker fighter. The stronger fighter won�t perish till they reach Collapsing level, but the weaker will die if/when they reach Tired.

---

If the stronger character has at least one and a half, but less than twice as many conflict points of the weaker, they have a Modest Advantage. At this point, the battles start to draw out, and Endurance really begins to play a part. The stronger fighter won�t die until they reach Collapsing exertion level. The weaker will make a fatal mistake and die within a few minutes of reaching Strained level.

---

If the stronger character has more conflict points of the weaker, but less than one and a half times as many, they have an Minimal Advantage. These battles draw out really long, possibly taking days to determine a victor. Endurance is the real determination in who wins and how long it takes to do so. The stronger fighter will only perish in this situation if/when they proceed to Collapsing level of exertion. The weaker character if/when they reach Exhausted level.

---

If both Characters have the same number of conflict points, they are Dead Even. In this case, the only deciding factors are endurance and "stuff". The first character to reach Collapsing level dies. The other lives, but with several nasty wounds.

---

Exertion:

there are 5 levels of exertion. They are entitled Fresh, Tired, Strained, Exhausted, and Collapsing.

Fresh is the default starting level. Anyone who is rested and ready begins at Fresh. If you�re at fresh, you can handle (or at least delay) anyone who�s not at least twice the fighter you are.

Tired is the starting level if you�re the least bit sleepy or unrested. Also, a person progresses from Fresh to Tired after a several minutes of exertion. How long this takes depends upon Endurance. Figure approximately 1 minute per Endurance Conflict Point. At tired you begin to slow down, but are still only vulnerable if your opponent is significantly better than you.

As your exert yourself further you pass from Tired to Strained. At Human Rank, this happens after 10 minutes, and Chaos Rank after 20 minutes. At Amber Rank or better, it happens after a time equal to the Endurance Conflict Points times 15 minutes. At Strained, the first real mistakes begin to show up, and a better warrior will take advantage of them to wound or even kill you in short order.

Continuing to be active can move you from strained to exhausted. At Human Rank this happens 15 minutes after you begin to exert yourself, at Chaos Rank 45 minutes after you start. At Amber Rank and above, at 45 minutes times your endurance conflict points. Exhausted level is dangerous. Even if your opponent is just a little bit better or faster than you, s/he will be able to capitalize on your numerous mistakes at this point. Death could soon be in your future.

The final stage is collapsing. Humans suffer this after so minutes of hard exertion, and standard Chaosites after an hour. At Amber Rank and above, it sets in following their endurance conflict points, expressed in hours. At collapsing, you become nearly incapable of defending yourself. Mistakes abound, and your energy level and speed take a nosedive. As such, even those whom you greatly outclass in skill stand a good chance of ending your life.

Corwin was approaching the Exhausted/Collapsing end of things when he arrived in the courts of chaos, that's why he chose to trick Duke Borel instead of waging a duel.

To the index of all my Amber pages.

Credit where credit is due: Recently, I discovered a webpage maintained by Doyce Testerman that includes an excellent Holistic stat system, as well as a way of determining the victor and speed of victory in Amber battles. This system, originated by Randy Trimmer, is an great crib notes for Amber gamemasters, making the refereeing of battles simpler.

However, their system does not however really factor in Endurance, and is somewhat less balanced in the lower point value rankings for attributes. I have attempted to patch these flaws and expand upon the system, my results are above. Their system is less number-intensive than mine, but also less detailed. It's a trade-off (elegance or completeness), and you might like their system more than mine, so check it out!

� 1998-1999 by Rolfe Bergstrom, developed upon the work of Doyce Testerman and Randy Trimmer, and of course the game system by Erick Wujcick and the novels by Roger Zelazny.

At some point, I'll probably revise this with an eye towards making it easier to understand and implement.

Hands of the Vise - Stamina Knack

Hands of the Vise - Stamina Knack - No Prerequisites

Your grip is steely, and it is nearly impossible to disarm you. This is not due to strength, per se, but rather because you're just determined and have very sturdy hands. The difficulty to disarm you or twist an inanimate object from your grasp, is raised by an amount equal to your successes from Epic Stamina. In addition, the "immovable objects" that are your limbs add +1 die per dot of Epic Stamina in contested grapple rolls.

You may choose to release your grip at any time, but the default assumption is you retain your hold even when incapacitated or inactive. You could safely hang off a bridge or girder and take a nap.

Thickheaded - Stamina Knack

This knack was deemed unbalanced, and should not be used. It's very bad.

The reason this was broken is that it's abusable. It allows a character to focus only on Dex and Sta and still be very good at close combat, especially grappling. The XP savings gained by such a strategy would be far more beneficial than could be mitigated by the drawback of losing of "light unarmed" attack as an option.

Steel Drivin' Man - Strength Knack

The name of this knack is derived from the tale of John Henry, Steel Drivin' Man, who raced the bosses' steam hammer and won. Despite the name, the knack is open to female characters as well as male, and no sexism is intended.

Steel Drivin' Man - Strength Knack - Prerequisite: Holy Rampage
Your strength is such that you may rip through walls and solid rock with your bare hands. By rolling Strength + Craft: Mining (or Science: Geology) vs the difficulties below, you may travel at 1/2 your Move rate through solid objects, walls, and debris. Burrowing is a 3 tick, DV-2, rolled action, similar to Dash except slower.

• Solid rock: 40
• Mortared Rock Walls: 30
• Brick Walls: 20
• Packed Earth: 10
• Loose Surface Soil: 5

(Should the GM need to improvise for a material, a good starting point is 3 time the objects soak, rounded up to the nearest multiple of 5).

Activating this power costs 1 Legend per die roll. You must roll once per minute, and roll again any time the substance being burrowed through switches to a denser / more resiliant (thus higher on the chart) material. Failure on a roll not only stops you from moving, it also causes 1 level of unsoakable bashing damage as you flail your hands too hard.

Your tunnels remain open and stable for a number of hours equal to your dots in Epic Strength, then slowly collapse and fill in. Poured concrete, support beams, or other methods may be later used to make the tunnels permanent. Possession of this knack in no way prevents you from digging a tunnel the good ol' fashioned way, with lots of backbreaking effort and a good stout shovel.

Australian Horizon - Dexterity Knack

Australian Horizon - Dexterity Knack - No Prerequisite

Your intuitive grasp of the aerodynamics of thrown weapons is so refined that you may hurl any object as if it had the returning dynamics of a Boomerang. Doing so is tricky, and adds penalties of +2 to the difficulty of the attack roll and +1 to the Speed of the action. Likewise, it reduces the maximum distance you can throw the weapon to one-third what it would be otherwise (the weapon travels in a large circular loop, after all).

You may only use this Knack on weapons/items that you are strong enough to throw (see page 54 of Demigod for a full explanation - but in rough terms if you have 1 more Epic Strength or 5 more mundane Strength than needed to lift an item, you can throw it).

Regardless of whether the attack hits or misses, the thrown weapon comes back to your hands, ready to be used again on your next action. If the target has the Brick Wall knack or an active Boon such as Sun 5 or Fire 7, it's likely your weapon will be damaged. You should be particularly wary of throwing combustible boomerangs at Fire Giants.

If you also have the Richochet Symphony knack, you may choose the multiple attack option when throwing this way - though each attack must be on a separate foe.

A ready foe (one either acting on the same tick as you, or using an interruptible action such as Guard) may spend an action (Speed:3, DV:-1) to deflect your "boomerang" (so that it doesn't make the return trip) by rolling their Wits + Athletics and beating your attack roll. Also, a target with an active Whirlwind Shield deflects for free (and automatically) any time your attack roll misses their Parry DV. In order to so deflect it, they must be strong enough themselves to lift (not necessarily throw) the object you hurled at them.

Scions in Space!

A few minutes ago I posted some handy facts about re-entry and vacuum-exposure on one of my other blogs. Here's how it relates to Scion:

If pushed out the airlock of the spaceshuttle, a Scion would have four factors to deal with:

1. Hard Vacuum: 6B/Action, Trauma 5
2. Heat: 4L/Action, Trauma 3
3. Cold: 4L/Action, Trauma 3
4. Asphyxiation: 1 unsoakable bashing per 30 seconds after (Stamina+Fortitude)x30 seconds
   

If they were in a shadow, the Heat danger would go away, but the trauma value of the Cold danger would increase. The Fire Purview could render you immune to the heat. An astronaut in top physical shape (8 to 10 dice on Stamina+Fortitude, Bashing Soak of 4 or 5) could survive for a couple minutes with some lucky die rolls, but eventually they will die.

A Legend-4 Scion with Epic Stamina 3 would have 4 auto successes plus at minimum of 3 dice on the rolls. He'd have and a minimum Soak of 5 Lethal, 6 Bashing. And he could hold his breath for 8 times that of a Mortal with his mundane stamina. So, he'd stand a good chance of being unharmed until he'd spent at least 12 minutes in earth orbit. He'd be immune to the extreme temperatures, rarely take damage from the vacuum, and eventually die of oxygen deprivation somewhere around the 16-minute mark.

Re-entry is another matter. Damage would likely be 12L/action, Trauma 10. It may even be Aggravated - I tend to think not (since fire does only Lethal in Scion), but it could be argued. I'm unclear how long you'd be subjected to that.

Impact, upon landing is 25 levels of Bashing or Lethal, depending on where you hit down.

A Legend-7 Demigod with Stamina 6, Epic Stamina 6 (and therefore Soak of at least 6 Aggravated, 19 Lethal, 22 Bashing) and Fortitude 1 could survive in outerspace unaided for at least 58 hours (210,000 seconds before taking any damage) and then survive re-entry and impact.

Built (and advanced) to maximize for this, including maxing out your Legend and Stamina during both Character Creation and Demigod Upgrade, plus putting all your XP into Legend, a starting character could get to that level of Soak in about 6 sessions.

The PCs in my campaign are about 20 sessions in, and thankfully nowhere near that min-maxed.

Pet Peeves regarding Attributes

One of the things that really bugs me about RPG systems is how much easier it is to play a character that's stronger (than you) then it is to play a character who's smarter (than you).

For example, let's say you need to get into a building:

If I'm playing a character with Human Maximum strength, I just tell the GM that I'm ripping the door off it's frame, and make a die roll.

If I'm playing Mr Dexterity, I just tell the GM that I pick the lock, and make a die roll.

But if I'm playing a mental or social-based character, depending on the game and the GM, I may be out of luck.

I could be playing the suavest most charismatic PC that ever walked the earth, but if the GM's hell-bent on making me role-play through the discussion with the guards out front, I'm probably not getting in. (See, while I, the player, do have Charisma, I'm about human minimum in Manipulation. People don't see me as an authority figure, and I'm no good at lying. I am fun to be around, but that's not so useful for getting past armed guards).
Chances are the GM makes me act through at least a bit of it. If he's a good GM, and I do a decent job of roleplaying, and remind him of the character's social skills, he'll eventually let me roll. But that still means my ultra-suave character is limited by my acting and social abilities.

Worse yet, let's say I'm playing a character whose physical and social skills are mediocre, but he's got the greatest analytical mind known to history. Can I get past those guards, through the window or over the wall with a single Intelligence roll? Probably not.
Even if the GM lets me make a roll, it's at best going to result in a few hints on how to get in. Definitely my ultra-clever character is limited by my own real-world cleverness. And if things don't go so hot, I may say or do something foolish that a spy/techie/wizard with years of training and experience would never do. That's usually when the GM pounces. I know I do it all the time - most recently just two nights ago.

All GMs let you roll dice instead of actually climbing a wall.
Some (but definitely NOT all) GMs will let you make a Charisma-check instead of having to talk your own way past the guards.
But few indeed are the GMs who will let you roll Intelligence for the character to come up with a plan that gets them inside, without the player having to figure out at least the basics of the plan themselves.

Don't get me wrong. The way things are makes perfect sense on many levels. The game is less fun (and greatly unbalanced) if any one attribute (in this case, intelligence) solves everything. And in a role-playing game, there's a natural desire to make the players role-play or act. But that immutable paradigm has pissed me off on more than one occasion, and is a contributing factor in why I GM more often than I play.

So I try to be a good GM. I let the players try things. When they make horrible tactical blunders I prompt them with "are you sure you want to do that?" If their character sheet reflects a quick thinker and/or super-intelligence, I try to give them a few more seconds to think about their action. I generally let people roll Charisma before I start emoting the NPCs reaction to the crazy thing they just said. And I only kill characters when the players have repeatedly ignored the warning signs I've given them.