mechanics help wanted for a gelatinous creature setting.

[macsen]

For a campaign I'm going to run eventually, I want to use an old world I built whose dominant species are gelatinous creatures who evolved from lowly wild slimes.

The system is meant to be a simple one where players will be able to craft their own attacks, techniques, and movement abilities by "tapping" one or more of three core stats representing three core aspects of their gelatinous bodies.

At the moment, the three stats were:
morphing: the ability to form and hold intricate shapes.
hardness: the ability to harden specific parts of the body to shield from oncoming damage, resist environmental dangers, or harden one's attacking limbs.
strength: the ability to apply more force with one's attacks.

A friend, however, kept emphasizing the need for both hardness and strength as going hand in hand, and failed to understand how dropping one of these would deliver any decent damage. I discovered that whether or not I agree with him doesn't matter at this point: if he is right, morphing becomes left behind by physical fighter characters, and if I am right, then there is less a need for hardness if one has built a strength-based hero.

Intuitive attacks becomes moot if tell players they don't need to put hardness into attacks to deliver damage if they are going to intuitively put hardness and strength into physical attacks like my friend did.

What I wanted is for three stats each to offer their own perks if they are emphasized, but for there also to be techniques that require two or more stats, for it all to be intuitive and freeform, and lastly, for none of the core stat specializations to seem look too much like a pre-packaged character class.

Do any of these stats seem useless? I'd really like to have three stats, but I'm thinking of getting rid of either hardness or strength, or merging them.

Just throwing a line out for any ideas that strike any of you.

[Avaris]

Could Hardness become Stability? As in, how quickly it returns to the base state of formless mass. In combat terms, this means you have one stat for how well you do something (Morph), which would affect how easy it is to hit etc, one stat for how hard you hit (strength) and one stat for how long something stays hit/how hard you can be hit (stability)

If you've ever played Warhammer, I see the three stats as analogous to the three stages of combat. You roll to hit (Morph), roll to Wound (Strength) and then have an Armour Save (Stability).

Also, you can definitely deliver decent damage without either Strength or Hardness. Is a tidal wave hard? Does a diamond edged knife really need much strength to use?

[darklink_shadow]

Without morphing, you cant make a sharp point to your form to punch through an enemy's hardened flesh. If I can make a point, I have a wedge to use against your armor, and the tinest of chink in your guard becomes a gaping hole in a matter of seconds. And then I am attacking the soft, squishy gel and killing you.

Hit me with your clubbed weapon all you want. Sure, eventually it'll wear down my defense and kill me, but I'll get you first by bypassing your defenses.

For that matter, if you only harder part of you, I'll just crawl on top of you and stab at you in your weak spots.

Further more, a true bludgeoning attack against a highly morphing creating isn't going to do much. I'll just move my flesh out of the way of your attack, or absorb the bulk of the hurt by moving with the blow.

I insist: morphing is the best stat. Further reason being that with enough morphing I can run into places you can't, because you can't squeeze where I so. I can hide in more places. With enough morphing, I'll engulf you. Good luck moving or trying to attack while your every movement is suppressed by my entire weight.

[redwizard007]

The way I see it is this...

Attack:
My (morph + roll) vs. your (morph) to make contact with all the dodging and weaving of combat.

My (hardness + roll) vs. your (hardness) to achieve penetration of your outer membrane.

My (strength + roll) capped by my (hardness) to deliver damage.

It makes all 3 stats relevant.
Morph is both attack and evasion (probably movement affecting as well.)
Hardness is overcoming and resisting attacks as well as the maximum limit to your damage.
Strength is damage but is limited by hardness.

Pros: It would make some interesting builds and feat trees possible focusing on winning each part of combat.
Cons: Seems like combat would get complicated... but then again you are talking about giant blobs.

Additional thoughts
Are these the only stats or just the only physical stats? I ask for 2 reasons.
1. Quick thinking or a "Wits" attribute could give bonuses to portions of combat as you adjust to your opponent. Perhaps not right out of the box but the addition of a system of feats could be a nice way to add options.
2. If there are combat relevant abilities that do not require physical interaction then Strength could be a rather effective "dump stat" in the above system for caster types.