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<blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 8217974" data-attributes="member: 12731">Well, no, that's putting it too simply.If you start with a 16 you are effectively giving you a permanent -1 penalty to most of your important tasks (such as striking if you're a fighter).This won't suddenly transform you from a successful hero to a dead corpse in a ditch.But over the course of many hundreds of die rolls, you will end up regretting the choice. Many monsters are very hard to hit, and if you need a 17 instead of a 16, that reduces you by one fifth or 20%. (You go from hitting on five of the outcomes, to four of them. Four is 20% less than five)And don't think most monsters are easier to hit! They are, but even if you hit on 7 instead of a 6, the critical rules then mean you're back to scoring a crit on a 17 instead of a 16 - again reducing you by a full 20%!You will never feel the 5E feeling that you can be generous in not caring about plus bonuses &quot;because you hit anyway&quot;. Sure, if you're high level and you're battling entirely insignificant mooks that you hit when you roll a 2 (and where you crit even when you roll lower than 12), then you can say the starting 16 doesn't meaningfully affect you there... but that very rarely happens.And don't forget what Magic Sword says - in PF2 you simply have no good reason to do this.In older D&amp;D games you would choose to accept a 14 or a 16 when it considerably shored up another ability score, but Pathfinder 2 is designed to give you lots of other ability boosts, so you never need to accept a 14 or a 16. Your secondary scores will be acceptable anyway.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="CapnZapp, post: 8217974, member: 12731"] Well, no, that's putting it too simply. If you start with a 16 you are effectively giving you a permanent -1 penalty to most of your important tasks (such as striking if you're a fighter). This won't suddenly transform you from a successful hero to a dead corpse in a ditch. But over the course of many hundreds of die rolls, you [I]will[/I] end up regretting the choice. Many monsters are very hard to hit, and if you need a 17 instead of a 16, that reduces you by one fifth or 20%. (You go from hitting on five of the outcomes, to four of them. Four is 20% less than five) And don't think most monsters are easier to hit! They are, but even if you hit on 7 instead of a 6, the critical rules then mean you're back to scoring a crit on a 17 instead of a 16 - again reducing you by a full 20%! You will [I]never[/I] feel the 5E feeling that you can be generous in not caring about plus bonuses "because you hit anyway". Sure, if you're high level and you're battling entirely insignificant mooks that you hit when you roll a 2 (and where you crit even when you roll lower than 12), then you can say the starting 16 doesn't meaningfully affect you there... but that very rarely happens. And don't forget what Magic Sword says - in PF2 you simply have no good reason to do this. In older D&D games you would choose to accept a 14 or a 16 when it considerably shored up another ability score, but Pathfinder 2 is designed to give you lots of other ability boosts, so you never need to accept a 14 or a 16. Your secondary scores will be acceptable anyway. [/QUOTE]

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