Ability Scores Run Wild

[Macbeth]

It seems one of the major ideas of d20 is that nobody should have to have high scores in every ability. Arcane casters generally don't need much Wisdom or Strength. A cleric doesn't really need Intelligence or Dexterity, he might even be able to stand a low Constitution.

So what do you do when you end up with a character who needs ALL his ability scores?

In the last session of BardStephenFox's game I play in, we found an Ancient artifact/room thing that allowed anybody who entered it to swap two -2 penalties for one +4 bonus to abilites. Permanently. That was when I realized my PC needed every ability score. So what do you do when loosing points in ANY ability is dangerous? A few well placed ability drains could make the character mostly useless...

To expand on my exact case (though I'm sure others have had the same problems), I'm playing a Samurai 3/Psychic 1, soon to be Samurai 3/Psychic 2 (Samurai from CW, Psychic from Psychic's Handbook). He's effectively one of the groups front line fighters. He uses a homebrew mod of the Inertial Armor feat (modfied to work with Psychics, basically he uses his mind to gain +4 armor bonus to AC), so he fights unarmored. So he needs Strength to be effective in melee, Dexterity to keep his AC up, Constitution so he can take damage, Intelligence for skill points (for psychic skills), Wisdom since it is the key ability for his Psychic skills, and Charisma for some of the Samurai abilites. I'm not complaining about no being able to Min/Max, I just realized that a drain in any ability seriously effects the character.

So how to you deal with needing all you abilities? (I believe this situation is called M.A.D.: Mulitple Ability Dependency)

 

[Dr_Rictus]

Offhand? Stock your party cleric up on restoration (or lesser restoration) scrolls. Keep antitoxin handy since poison is one of the main sources of ability damage.

 

[Crothian]

Deal with it, ity okay to have a weakness. Most of my characters I perfer to have all abilities good as I don't beleive in the dump stat. But I fear most people beleive the stats need to be higher then they really do. As long as you have a positive bonus the score is really good where it seems people take them for grnated almost.

 

[hong]

Pick up feats like Zen Archery and Weapon Finesse, that let you shift your stat dependencies around.


Hong "I have made a truly marvellous page of such feats, but this post is too small to contain it" Ooi

 

[irdeggman]

Yes, 3.5 diluted the "dump stat" phenom. Pretty much all stats have a use, as you have discovered.

Wizards need a good Wisdom (for saving throws), while Str is not as important - if it is too low then they can't carry anything, etc.

And pretty much the same arguments can be applied to the other classes too.

Although I think this item that gives a +4 in exchange for 2 -2 is not balanced.

Usually it goes with a +4 for 3 minuses or at least not a numerical balance - because a +4 is worth more than 2 -2. For example Skill focus gives a +3 while several other feats give a +2 to 2 other skills. As you see they are still balanced but a single +3 is considered worth the same as 2 +2s.

 

[Kemrain]

Ability scores gone wild... Boy, did I have the wrong idea about this thread!

- Kemrain the Disapointed Charisma didn't show her Breasts.

 

[Chimera]

Tell me about it. In my last FR game, I was only able to try out a Monk/Wizard combination because we were given a single 18 ability score plus 25 points (41 points EQ). The only thing approaching a dump stat for that character was Charisma, and I *hate* having negative modifiers for anything (so I went with 10 Cha).

 

[Staffan]

- Kemrain the Disapointed Charisma didn't show her Breasts.

She did that in Playboy a couple of months ago. You can probably find pictures elsewhere.

 

[Treebore]

This is just an example of why I have a generous stat generation rule. I want my players to play characters they will be happy with. If they feel I am allowing them to be uber powerful they can always opt to penalize themselves how they see fit. Then if they are unhappy because everyone else is "so much beter", well it was their choice.

 

[Zappo]

A few well placed ability drains could make the character mostly useless...

This problem isn't limited to characters that depend on multiple abilities. A single well placed ability drain can very well terminate a spellcaster's usefulness, for example.