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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 6347184" data-attributes="member: 7635">God, this is going to cut close to a 4e attack, but...How 4e handled ability scores was the worst possible way short of % strength. I get what they were intending; a class is good with its prime stat and doesn't need much else. However, I saw the following when I played:1.) There was never a reason to ever start without a 18+ prime stat. It was going to do ALL your heavy lifting. Splitting your stats was pointless, so much so that V-shaped classes quickly died before PHB2 and much of the first round of X Power books were devoted to fixing Conlocks, Straladins, and Strangers. 2.) Since your defenses were based on the better of two scores, it meant you could safely drop 2 scores to 8 and not suffer, 3 scores if you were the right class combo. And since some scores were flat-out important to a class than others, there was never a reason for a fighter to have anything but an average con, a rogue to put anything into Intelligence, a Wizard to pump dexterity, etc. 3.) I shouldn't say ANY. Str mattered to armor proficiency, Dex to Init and Con to HP. Int/Wis/Cha? Unless you cared about those skills, you got no extra benefit. So given a choice between Str or Con, pick Con. Int or Dex? Dex. Wis or Cha? Flip a coin.4.) There was never a trade-off. A paladin wasn't either a monster with his sword or a mystic with his spells. He was always both. Even in the few odd cases where there was a trade-off (melee basic attacks/OA) Melee Training/Intelligent Blademaster came in and allowed you to attack with your con, wis, cha, or any stat you wanted. (and until HoFK, as good as with Str). 5.) All of this made sure you stayed within the parameter's of your role and often "picked" your powers for you; it was very rare to pick a power that didn't augment your chosen prime/secondary stat combo. It was dumb for a artful dodger rogue to ever pick a strength-based power, which often meant that even though there were 3-4 powers in the PHB to pick, you really only got a choice of 1 (maybe 2) powers at a given level. So much for "flexible". All of this really raised the question: Why even have ability scores? Unless you purposefully built your character to suck (or absolutely avoided the patch feats to make them work) you always used the same narrow build: your prime stat fueled your primary attacks/defense, your secondary score (determined by your build) augmented attacks and gave you a middle defense, and then you sank a few points in one of your remaining scores to raise your third defense. Put the rest in Con (if you hadn't done so already) and sit on two 8s. You could have built all that into the 1/2 level math and ignored SDCIWCh altogether!Ugh, rant over. Continue on about Paladins.</blockquote>

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