in some systems the ways classes and stats interact is different. In some systems, classes give stat growth, in other systems a class is skill unlocks as opposed to stats, how they interact can give openings for exploitation. But this varies from one system to the next and is typically 'balanced' by how much experience is needed to progress.

In a balanced system a stronger class gives greater stat growth returns, even if it means that those stats are locked into specific areas. But in order to truly dive deep into how stats can be used to break a system, first we must identify what our stats are. And this is of course a major underlying framework for a world at large. If you choose a fantasy Gameworld with stats, it means it has the obligation to be visible to some character who will be relevant to the story, otherwise it holds no meaning in the quantifying of the power of your character, now, granted as an author in order to better organize your thoughts you could in theory give them a world of levels, and have stats be a shadow framework that you keep in a seperate program in order to keep track of what is an appropriate opponent, much like a dungeon master in dnd will keep track of the characters strength to give them a suitably challenging fight or alternate encounter.

So let's get down to brass tacks. Many stories have the basic stats or a derivitive variation of them, some stories have multiple variations that, due to their tangential use, can be a better alternative e stat and thus a good replacement. Sometimes a skill can be used to replace a stat. But the important thing is that you have all the basics covered, and even if you use tangential stats, it needs to have everything covered, otherwise one comment can find the plot hole you never realized which is now the Achilles heel of your character, and with that on your mind it will actually like rot, slowly spreading through that character from that point forward. I mean this metaphorically, but from that chapter onwards that you learned of this critical failure you will tend towards a subconcious decision to lean away from situations that would put said character in that problem and related areas, and it will slowly build, even if it destroys your story by keeping them away from a plot point that would make for good writing, instead of just finding roundabout ways to deal with this new ability to fail, you avoid the entire build up to it. And this can be costly to a writer.

As for stats themselves, it's important to keep some kind of notepad of some sort with the stat description, in a later chapter I'll talk about what I think I'd an optimal way, even if it is more effort. But for now, it's a good idea to figure out what stats you want and what they do, what their purpose is, and a good description of them. In the end, the more detailed your writing, the better for adaptations. After all, you don't want that moment in Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets where he fights the basilisk after it's been blinded by faux, and somehow part of the pipes he runs through to escape it just isn't there.

This is a minor and rather pedantic point, but I stick with it, for those who read the series and recall that moment with clarity, Harry ran down a pipe and through several corners before coming to a dead end with a grate he could not pass by, so he found a stone at his feet, and tossed it down a side passage, the basilisk, now relying on sound (for whatever reason since snakes have a decent sense of smell and even heat sensors, but hey, let's not poke holes in the plot) immediately rushed down the side passage, Harry then followed the pipe back the way he came from and out a seperate corner, coming out near the massive face in the arena where Riddle's ghost stood. However in the movie, the pipe was shorter before the dead end and had no curves, he also followed behind the basilisk and immediately ended up coming out by the large face. This is of course a spatial error on top of just being too lazy to have a small pipe maze for a cheap snake to run through, but I was still incensed by their callous disregard of this moment.

MOVING ON.

If you give great enough detail and even put forth the effort to give it mathematical formulas it means your book, if you choose to make it a litrpg, has the potential and the framework to be made into a videogame, and with the mathematical framework already in place, it means some of the hardest part is done, assuming you balanced your entire books game world.

So now we actually list the various stats and some descriptions.

Strength- a standard staple of many stat groups, strength has been used for a variety of things in games and litrpgs, from how much physical abuse, and thus taking over other stats, to attack damage modifiers, how much the character can pick up, and even health, strength is sometimes an all around physical stat as opposed to just what it is, how dense and big your muscles are and what that means for your weight, and lifting ability. On top of that, comes pure melee damage.

Intelligence- the metaphysical side of strength that has everything to do with how smart you are in being able to piece some things together and also how powerful a character magic is. If strength is the density of physical muscle, intelligence is the density of metaphysical muscle. Sadly, as I said, it rarely has an actual effect on the thought processes of a character, this in and of itself holds a great mechanic which can be used to transcend settings in a litrpg, let us say that the litrpg setting has a virtual world and a real world with nanites, and your body out of game will be reflecting your in game starting stats, and each point in the game can have a reflection upon the character outside the game, this is of course an ability used in emerilia in a sense, and it has great use as a plot point of the story. The ability of the body being changed by the game is an interesting concept few utilize.

Endurance- endurance is part of a trifecta and is often swapped by Vitality, or in the all encompassing Strength, but it's important to note each stat still has it's unique niche in which it fits. Endurance covers things like stamina and defence, and sometimes covers health, vitality focuses on health and seconds endurance and defence.

Wisdom- wisdom is a metaphysical version of endurance, and is, if used in the physical world, a repository for whether a character can successfully complete a lore check. A character with low intelligence might not be able to tell you what 2+2 equals, but if they have high wisdom they can have an idiot savant moment and tell you that if it's a demon king's castle it's supposed to have a back door full of traps because the demon king can't trust his subordinates to not murder him, and the castle will be rice with secret passages. Of course everyone looks at them like they are stupid until they poke a torch and voila, there she blows, a secret passage that, sure enough, is confirmed about two steps in to be full of deadly traps. Wisdom can have numerous unusual uses in a party, but it's main use is Mana regeneration. This is great in a world unlike dnd, as dnd has how many spells you can cast a day, as opposed to how much Mana you have per encounter.

Dexterity- this stat can be swapped or even be alongside Agility, where as dexterity can be considered how flexible and nimble your body is, allowing you to do superhuman crafting, lockpicking, or trap disabling, it generally revolves around a person's hands, however if you have a dexterity of 40 I would say you might be able to fire a bow with your feet, so there is that. Agility on the other hand revolves around the quickness of the body, and both of them can be used in reflexes and dodging, the main difference is agility is not typically utilized for crafting, even if it's necessary for performing any action with any amount of speed.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Sometimes RPGs can have a rather straightforward stat instead of overlapping ones. This means less bang for your stat point perhaps, or more, depending on whether you enjoy an umbrella stat, or a spear stat. And what I mean by that is, an umbrella stat may distribute its live preserving goodness and be funneled entirely into giving you another 20 hp, or it can be an umbrella which gives 5 hp, 5 defense, 5 stamina, and 5 stamina Regen. Ultimately it's very dependant upon the stat system you choose and what math you utilize, but if you have what we could call a heads up display, or HUD, it all needs to be able to be matched out into a whole number.

Mana or mp, magic, aether, the system has numerous ways to designate the system of Magicka or the arcane. In other words, no matter what way you set your campfire alight, so long as it's not through a physical means you can say a wizard waved his hand and spent a couple of wooblah on it for all I care, but the terminology is often important in some aspect based on how in depth you want your magic system to be. In some cases arcane is different than magic power, and as such can have a conversion rate that can be used to create a broken character.

Taking conversion abilities into account, let's look at Blood and Cupcakes, a series that was until recently on royal road and was put on Amazon by another author, within this story the system was a more freeform one where in your actions dictated what abilities you could naturally create, and by doing so would allow you to convert one of your three pools, stamina, health, and Mana, into each other. This is an excellent system that while rare can be extremely useful to have an edge in battle, regardless of class, being able to take a "useless" pool and drain it into a more necessary one means regardless of what pool in increased, it will never be a waste no matter your playing style.

Now, as for the systems and their skills, some systems allow for self made skills, this is not very often done as it's much easier for an author to simply have it be pre-existing and have conditions that naturally will be met by the mc over the course of the story, allowing them to gain it when needed, as opposed to what may feel like a tedious chapter of training the same move for an arbitrary amount of times to create a unique skill known only by the mc to make them more Mary Sue.

However, other systems have previously skills that require extra effort to gain, but are easy enough to get simply by putting forth great effort, or time. Sometimes one may be shortchanged for another, more effort, less time, more time, less effort. There is always a minimum bar needing to be met for skill, otherwise they can't be gained for the mc to be broken as everyone would have the skill and thus it's easier to have another character utilize it in a broken way and thus be better. Obviously other characters need to be greater than the mc or their is not a mountain peak for them to reach, if every step of their journey shows a mountain below them, why bother with calling an action story litrpg, when if they are all powerful it's a drama filled slice of life. Oh have to understand all the nuances of story building to create a truly immersive story.

Continuing on with skills, what makes a skill broke and overpowered?

Honestly to me it's vagueness. The less concrete a skills title is the more manipulable and breakable it becomes. Any skill that can be used with creativity is inherently able to be broken.

Take for example the lowest most overlooked of skills in any litrpg, the manipulation skills.

It tells you one thing, you have control over something. This is important. Because instead of a stone spike spell, having a stone manipulation spell may mean early game low damage, but you can still make a stone spike even if it does Les damage, but later on you can make a multitude stone spike that explodes. All because of manipulation skills.

Imbuement is another, if you can put energy in it, it doesn't say how much, or for what purpose, or what item, this gives it great versatility to be used to temporarily enchant a weapon to deal fire damage or even leave a trail of magical napalm in an opponents wound. Possibly poisonous magical napalm.

Vague skills are left open to interpretation, and this means a creative character can use it like a crowbar and Morgan Freeman their way to saving the world.

Sometimes you need skills to be very specific, but a combination of vague skills and concise skills can let a character have "ideas" that suddenly takes a concept from the concise skill and then combines it with previous ideas to make something devastating.

Other ways skills can be broken is if a system allows skills to be overlapped. Not only buffing a person who uses a skill strike, but having that skill strike have a flame blade skill used on top, it's two skills that both swing, one has incredible power and accuracy, and one has power and an affinity to deal a status effect, if you can layer skills, then just like in "A New World" you can, if not create a new skill, make a combo skill which deals proportionately more damage.

Thank you to a comment or for helping me remember the title of that one previously.

There are many ways to have a broken system, and the logic behind why it's not been found before is simply "common sense" sometimes other characters, be they NPCs or other player characters, they might not even attempt to push the boundaries. And that's why I'm writing this. I am a boundary pusher, and I like seeing how much insanity and chaos I can make with a simple potion bottle full of random things.

Taking from a different story, oblivion online's author introduced a new mechanic of transmutation one chapter, and since then I have questioned what happens if you throw vegetables in it, what happens if you combine plants and animals, what about undead and living, what about already infused items? When I posted these questions the first time I had, even in spite of knowing that a creature can only be infused once, broken their transmutation system, simply by asking "what about if a monster is infused with an infused item?" It gave the author options they never realized before.

Personally I'm wondering how delicious a meal can be made by infusing cooking ingredients time and again, but I enjoy eating. XD

Just as I enjoy throwing a wrench into systems to see how it works out, I also wanna see how mundane I can take these systems which are deemed to be used by the upper echelons, simply because of something like a greater cost or need or it not a toy. The question becomes... But what if it WERE a toy? What if I use this on frivolous and mundane things? The answer apparently is magic bullshit.

Imagine a game world where using skills causes them to level, well... First of all I'm grabbing a manipulation skill, and then every chance I get I'm gonna use it for stupid things even if the common sense of the world says mages should be Noble and not look dumb. Listen, if me making patio furniture out of water is stupid but gets me to equal level of a grand mage in a month of me twiddling me thumbs to be comfortable in a pool of water held by water so be it. I will do so.

Because summer is hot and it's training that is fun. This is a great application of what can be done to make training good. In randidly ghosthound randidly trained his spear mastery with his root control, it made an interesting moment in the story which allowed for a boost in ability at the same time, being able, as an author, to think of these ridiculous things and use them to make a fun training montage that's going to break up the seriousness of a story is great.

"Is the archimage wearing sunglasses and swimtrunks in a floating pool of water?" Yes. Yes he is. That arch mage decided today was hot, so he made a pool of water, made it grow watery legs, and it's carrying him around town as he does his errands and buys tools and ingredients, and the entire thing remains cool and he just floats there waiting for the baker to stop gaping and get him some fresh pastries. Why? Because it's training and it's beneficial.

Sometimes thinking outside the box gets you ideas you can't use immediately. Sometimes it gives you ideas that are crazy, but keeping these ideas for later or can be used on a nonsense side character that comes around again and again can give character growth. Nothing says the mc had to have every idea. Maybe he was waiting outside the blacksmiths when he saw the archimage go buy on his aqualegs and he thought of how he can train himself in a similar way, a suit of earth armor to train up his earth manipulation, or a windsuit to keep cool and protected even in town.

If you want a serious mc, it's not wrong to make a jester character to try out ideas with. And if necessary can be used to fuel the growth of the mc.

Just remember, thinking outside the spell book can have greater rewards than following the notes of the spell took alone. :3