Look at those stats, talk about a munchkin!
AmerginLiath;7437811 So said:My personal experiences would argue strongly that this was not the case. I started playing sometime in the early 80s and Charisma was regularly dumped. If anything, I would point to larger diverse parties as the key element.
A lot of their early play was clearly modeled on Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, which was a major influence on the early game. Vecna is an anagram of Vance.Not surprised to see the high charisma. Henchmen and followers were really important in early D&D and charisma was a key factor in determining the quantity and the loyalty/morale those followers and henchmen had towards their liege.
I am pretty sure, unless you were a Wizard (aka Magic-User), Int was the "original dump stat", along with Wisdom unless you were playing a Cleric (aka Priest). For many of the stats (at least in 2nd edition, which was my into into the game, and which I have books), you could be just fine with a 6, except in your class's primary stat. Most detriments didn't come into play until you had a 5 or lower, and bonuses for the most part didn't start showing up until you had a 14 or 15. That's one thing I regret with 3rd edition was them making anything less than a 10 you get negatives, and higher than 11 you start getting bonuses.
Seeing Mordenkainen's stats, and I can see them being real. And I am sure Gygax went through plenty of characters before he got those stats. Are they pre-magic items or are those with magic items? Weren't there fountains and other such things that would grant a character +1 to an ability score? Or is that something my mind just made up?
The AD&D tables were... problematic. They were highly messy and uneven.Honestly, I had thought about trying to implement the AD&D stat tables, where you wouldn't be screwed badly with a score of 7 or 8, but the amount of changes that would need to be made to everything would be too much that 6th edition would be out by the time I would finish with that. Though, I think I will make the stat cap be 18 like it was in AD&D, instead of 20. Makes Gauntlets of Ogre Power something that is useful, instead of useless as most characters who use Strength would probably already have a 19 or 20 in it, and it would just go to the wizard or cleric.
It's always funny how experience differs. We started playing in the late 70's and, among the people I played with anyway, Cha was the dump stat. The only character that had a decent Cha was the paladin or the ranger (because they HAD to). Everyone else? That's where you're 9 or lower roll went if you could. Then again, we never really bothered too much with henchmen and hirelings.
Its funny how different peoples experiences are. For us Charisma was a pretty-useful-but-not-great stat, about in the middle between those who declare it a total dump stat and those proclaiming it a god stat. Our DM used the NPC reaction adjustment rolls on the regs, and we did a lot of roleplay, but never really delved into hirelings and henchmen. It was also useful for gauging the general hotness of your character.
Nice! Yes I've seen some pretty crazy stats rolled too, and rolled a few.Also interesting peoples reaction to certain stat scores. I look at those scores and see them as nice but no big deal. Just a couple weeks ago actually, a friend of mine was rolling up a 2E character (her first real one, after playing only 3.5 and 5th), and threw down two 18s and two 15s right in front of me (I think the other two were like 11 and 10), decided she was playing a Half-Elf fighter/thief, put one of the 18s into Str, and then rolled an 85 for her exceptional strength. It was quite glorious.