cavalier973
Hero
Though of course neither of those arrays will usually be at all optimal.
Not optimal for combat, no; for storytelling, who can say?
Though of course neither of those arrays will usually be at all optimal.
Though of course neither of those arrays will usually be at all optimal.
Very true. As long as the prime state is pretty high, it is hard to totally gimp a 4E character.
Some people just swallowed the "must start with a 20 or its garbage" theory. There are of course many builds you can point to that are more optimal with a 20 prime, but and 18 will always do fine. What the 4e designers really hit was the realization that players want effective characters, but they are usually at least or more concerned with character concept in most cases. If the differences between optimal and "fits with my character concept, otherwise picking from the better choices" is not much then players will not worry about it a whole lot (aside from the guys that will crunch every number and min/max everything no matter what). I thought 4e hit that spot really well. You can stray pretty far from optimum and not be really harshly punished for it. 3.x's problem was it just wasn't that way. There were a lot of possible variations, but a few of them were vastly better, so it was really tempting to play close to the few best concepts. Even Essentials simple classes still allow for several effective build paths for each class, and some de-optimizing won't kill you.
Some people just swallowed the "must start with a 20 or its garbage" theory. There are of course many builds you can point to that are more optimal with a 20 prime, but and 18 will always do fine.
As long as the prime state is pretty high, it is hard to totally gimp a 4E character.
Of the 5 PCs in my campaign, currently at 24th level and played from 1st in all but one case - the sorcerer was introduced at 3rd:A 20 in your prime stat might be tempting, but you don't really need it
I have to agree with this. A 20 in your prime stat might be tempting, but you don't really need it, and it might give you somethnig to flesh out your character. Int13 might be irrelevant for an Artful Dodger Rogue, but it tells us something about the character.
Yep. At least so far, my level 13 Sorcerer is doing fine, too, and I started with 16 Cha (primary stat) and 18 Str (secondary stat). We also don't use Expertise feats. I do have a superior implement granting me an attack bonus, though (for fire powers only).None of these PCs has signficant trouble hitting things, and this is in a game without Expertise feats.
I went one step further and just asked my players in my games to limit themselves to 16s and lower in point buy before racial mods. Most appreciated it because it reduced the temptation to overspecialize.
I guess I went one step further than _this_!I went one step further and just asked my players in my games to limit themselves to 16s and lower in point buy before racial mods.