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<blockquote data-quote="Bill Zebub" data-source="post: 8382505" data-attributes="member: 7031982">Oh, now I'm starting to understand the point of this exercise.I agree that it's unfortunate that every Warlock maximizes Charisma, and every Rogue maximizes Dexterity, etc.As I said upthread, I'd love it if in D&amp;D a fighter could take any combination of Strength, Dex, and Int, and as long as the bonuses totalled the same, the fighter would be approximately equally effective.&nbsp; That is, Str +6, Dex +2, Int -3 would have a 50% chance of beating Str +2, Dex +0, Int +3.&nbsp; Or any other combination you could think of.&nbsp; And in my dream world each stat would contribute in different ways, both offensive and defensively.&nbsp; So maybe Str does more raw damage, Dex is more likely to hit, and Int is more likely to crit.&nbsp; (Note that I don't think this can actually work with D&amp;D mechanics.)(Another variant might have some sort of rock-paper-scissors thing going on.)If that were the case then we wouldn't be having this discussion: people would naturally try lots of different stats.But D&amp;D doesn't work that way, and given what we have I personally don't think it's worth any energy trying to get people to not max out their primary attribute.Think of it this way: if one player at a table didn't put their highest score in their primary attribute (but didn't totally dump it, either) and you were observing but couldn't see the dice and didn't know ACs and saving throws, do you think you could tell which player it was?&nbsp; I don't think so.&nbsp; I don't think it would change playstyle in a noticeable way, and statistically you'd need track a lot of results to figure out who was only +2.&nbsp; The only real way to figure it out would require expertise in the game rules and paying careful attention; based on number of known spells or abilities that get used (attribute modifier) times per day you might eventually find a clue.&nbsp; But, yeah, basically it's invisible to everybody but the player.&nbsp; So why should it bother anybody if players tend to take the same &quot;cookie cutter&quot; attribute distributions?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Bill Zebub, post: 8382505, member: 7031982"] Oh, now I'm starting to understand the point of this exercise. I agree that it's unfortunate that every Warlock maximizes Charisma, and every Rogue maximizes Dexterity, etc. As I said upthread, I'd love it if in D&D a fighter could take any combination of Strength, Dex, and Int, and as long as the bonuses totalled the same, the fighter would be approximately equally effective. That is, Str +6, Dex +2, Int -3 would have a 50% chance of beating Str +2, Dex +0, Int +3. Or any other combination you could think of. And in my dream world each stat would contribute in different ways, both offensive and defensively. So maybe Str does more raw damage, Dex is more likely to hit, and Int is more likely to crit. (Note that I don't think this can actually work with D&D mechanics.) (Another variant might have some sort of rock-paper-scissors thing going on.) If that were the case then we wouldn't be having this discussion: people would naturally try lots of different stats. But D&D doesn't work that way, and given what we have I personally don't think it's worth any energy trying to get people to not max out their primary attribute. Think of it this way: if one player at a table didn't put their highest score in their primary attribute (but didn't totally dump it, either) and you were observing but couldn't see the dice and didn't know ACs and saving throws, do you think you could tell which player it was? I don't think so. I don't think it would change playstyle in a noticeable way, and statistically you'd need track a lot of results to figure out who was only +2. The only real way to figure it out would require expertise in the game rules and paying careful attention; based on number of known spells or abilities that get used (attribute modifier) times per day you might eventually find a clue. But, yeah, basically it's invisible to everybody but the player. So why should it bother anybody if players tend to take the same "cookie cutter" attribute distributions? [/QUOTE]

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