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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kinematics" data-source="post: 7962721" data-attributes="member: 6932123">What I've seen is that it's mainly a problem of the Standard Array.  With the Standard Array, you must have an 8 somewhere in your build.  When you go to point buy, it's more common (but not guaranteed) for the player to not want to have stats falling below average (and have a penalty), so you'll mostly see 10's as a baseline before trying to raise something higher.So the problem of the dump stat (outside of rolled stats) arises because the system forces a dump stat to exist.---I honestly like PF2's character creation steps.  It uses neither rolled dice nor point buy, but instead builds the stats out of ancestry, background, and class buffs.Pros:It's easy to see some stats influenced by birth (nature), but just as much have other stats influenced by what you did growing up (nurture).It feels like a better implementation of race to separate it into ancestry (genetics) and heritage (culture).  It doesn't quite match up to all the subrace possibilities (eg: genasi elements), but for the most part heritage seems a better tool than subrace.  It also makes it easier to fit characters of one race that grew up in another culture (eg: Carrot in Discworld, the human who grew up as a dwarf).It also fits in the Dragonmark "subraces" more easily.  Those just become additional heritage options.Everyone stats at a 10, which is 'average'. You're not forced to start out with a negative stat mod.  It feels better to build off of average, and seeing how you deviate, than build off of 8 as a baseline, which implies everyone starts at "kinda sucky".You don't buy your stats and then build your character on top of them; you build your character, and thus get a particular set of stats.Cons:It doesn't bother with odd numbered stats, though, which hinders the ability to mesh it with 5E's half-feats (+1 to a stat, plus some ability).It leaves less room for "customizing" an oddball design.  But one would naturally ask, then: do your stats really define your character?  If your background was a caravan leader, does it matter whether you took an arrow to the knee in a bandit attack, leading to a lower Dex? Particularly if the only point of that was to trade out point for a higher Str, or something?  Or is the fact that he was a caravan leader the important thing?---I'd want to have a system where you pick:Ancestry (Race)Ancestry (Heritage)BackgroundClassAnd that's all you need to worry about.  Maybe have a couple leftover points that you can assign based on life goals, or Ideals, or some such.Anyone feel like trying to experiment with something like that?</blockquote>

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