D&D 4E Dump Stats in 4e?

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Heroes have weaknesses. It's when they all have the same weakness that there's a problem.

Even with new social combat rules I don't think Cha is going to be more important; it's just a minor boost to a few skills.

 

[Gort]

See now I must be broken. Con has ALWAYS been my dump stat...

Whew. Go through a lot of characters?

Or perhaps your game doesn't have much combat. A high con is pretty much essential in my mind - there are many times when it's pretty much inevitable that you're going to take damage (magic missile, for example) and your hitpoints are the only thing between you and a grisly death. It's the only stat that every class gets a great deal of benefit from - wizards, for instance, always have high con to offset their very poor hit-dice (they can easily double how many HP they get even with poor stat rolls) while barbarians, at the other end of the scale, can never have too many hitpoints because they spend a lot of time in melee.

It's a complete no-brainer, and is often the difference between life and death for an adventurer. Can the same be said of charisma? Not really. Your GM might penalise you a bit if you have a 6 charisma, but when it comes to rolling dice, there isn't much difference between a guy with no points in social skills and 10 charisma, and a guy with no points in social skills and 6 charisma.

What I'm hoping in 4th edition is that since everyone will get some ability with social skills (assuming they use the Saga skills rules) people may be less likely to dump charisma, since they'd be losing some of those skills. Currently, unless you're planning to use social skills a lot, dumping charisma isn't really a hindrance.

 

[jasin]

The CHA scores of the PCs in our current party, using 28 point-buy
12, 14, 14, 14, 16

Cleric, paladin, paladin, bard, sorcerer?

 

[Jack99]

My party's charisma scores (con score) with a 32 pt buy

6 (16) (dwarven barbarian/fighter)
8 (16) (human monk)
8 (12) (elven wizard)
8 (16) (human fighter)
16 (14) (human cleric)
12 (16) (human cleric)

before rerolling due to being permanently killed and no rez in sight, the two clerics played characters with respectively 6 and 8 in charisma

As you can clearly see, charisma is pretty much THE dump stat in our campaigns.

 

[Logan_Bonner]

We've avoided dumpstattery pretty well (using a system that's more... fluid that 3.5), but there are still some that are better/worse.

If I told you what the current best and worst stats are, I don't think you'd believe me.

 

[RigaMortus2]

See now I must be broken. Con has ALWAYS been my dump stat (of course we do 4d6 drop lowest and arrange to taste so my version of dump stat and anyone elses are likely way different) I've always liked Charisma DEX and STR With the monk class my high to low went something like WIS, DEX, CHR, STR, INT, CON. ... best way to keep HP don't be there when the critter tries to spank you.

So basiclly the only way to be hit would be for the enemy to roll a nat 20, which is basically a crit, which is double damage, which your HPs won't be able to withstand...

 

[Sun Knight]

My group uses the wieghted point buy method, but I don't consider any single stat as a dump stat. I made sure that the lowest score I had was at least a 10. After all each ability score has at least one skill tied to it that can be used untrained and you can never know what the DM might throw at you.

 

[Sammael]

We've avoided dumpstattery pretty well (using a system that's more... fluid that 3.5), but there are still some that are better/worse.

If I told you what the current best and worst stats are, I don't think you'd believe me.

Try us.

 

[KarinsDad]

My party's charisma scores (con score) with a 32 pt buy

6 (16) (dwarven barbarian/fighter)
8 (16) (human monk)
8 (12) (elven wizard)
8 (16) (human fighter)
16 (14) (human cleric)
12 (16) (human cleric)

before rerolling due to being permanently killed and no rez in sight, the two clerics played characters with respectively 6 and 8 in charisma

As you can clearly see, charisma is pretty much THE dump stat in our campaigns.

35 point buy:

7 (16) (warforged soulknife)
17 (14) (human sorcerer)
16 (14) (elven monk/sorcerer)
14 (13) (human artificer)
9 (14) (shifter druid)

For PCs who need it, CHA is high. For those who do not, it's a dump stat. But, CON is never a dump stat (although not quite as high as in your 32 point buy game).

The same will happen for stats in 4E if Star Wars is any indication. However, CON is not quite as important in Star Wars due to the "3x max dice" hit points at first level. I suspect average CON in games will drop by 2 in 4E if weapon damage does not increase when people realize how many hit points their PCs have.

 

[Ry]

I did a heavily-reworked d20oid game once, and when you have 2 mental stats (Intellect and Willpower) all of a sudden there weren't dump stats anymore.