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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 4993417" data-attributes="member: 51942">It depends on the level.  My recommendation is a 20 post-racial (particularly for dex/int primaries) unless you know what you're doing.  Though it is easily possible to get better results with a lower primary, a +1 to hit, AC, Ref, damage and maybe init is terrific, and the alternatives then better be too.   Put more bluntly, I've yet to see a 20-post racial character suck, but I've seen many mediocre MAD characters when their intended various combos or flexibilities just don't work as well as they intended.  The best characters probably don't have a 20 starting stat.  But it's a pretty safe starting point.Edit: Higher level chars have more feat slots, and so feat prereqs play more of a role.  Also, by paragon/epic all your stats rise anyway, so getting the prereq(s) is cheaper too.  This means that higher level chars favor a 20 post-racial less frequently.  Also, a 20 post-racial won't shaft your important secondary much, which can still be a 16, or at worst a 14 which isn't actually that much worse.  I'm almost positive that 16/15/14/12/12/11 is a weaker array for almost all characters than point-buy.  It's an interesting option, and cool for roleplaying a skill monkey - but the skill modifier difference between that and an 18/14/11 build is not even +1 on average(!), and you're giving up a full +1 to attack and damage and hardly gaining anything else.  In short, this array will work well for those that need to satisfy prereqs or are MAD anyhow, and will remain subpar for most characters.  It's a good additional choice.Part of the problem is that at low levels you don't need the feat prereqs yet since there are ample excellent choices for few feat slots - and at high levels, anything but your primary+secondary stat will be terribly sub-par, and only attractive for feat prereqs and a small off-stat NAD boost.  To push my own beliefs on this matter: Now, you can fix that problem by raising all stats - not just 2 - at levels 4/8/14/18/24/28 ;-) - suddenly, it might be worthwhile to actually invest a little in off stats since they will actually remain competitive, and you've solved part of the skill and NAD divergence as levels rise in one swoop.Actually, I think it's subtly but significantly different:  nobody cares about about your dump stat, they care about your 4 (or at least 3) dump stats.  You can't really raise your lowest three stats by much anyway (even the proposed 28-point buy array remains just a subtle boost), and that means that the real distinction is between the following three groups:  great skills (primary/secondary +training), OK skills (primary/secondary OR training) and the terrible skills (no training, no aligned stat - and these are the majority)Each character is bad at most skills, that's almost inevitable for most builds.  Most characters will have about 4-5 OK or better skills, and 12-13 terrible ones.  You can do better; a Wis/Cha build has 9 stat-aligned skills, so for instance a prescient bard with training in 5 non-aligned skills could get 14 OK skills.  With just three multiclass feats for endurance, stealth and thievery, he could be OK at everything (though good at nothing).  'course, this is atypical (who wouldn't want at least a few really good signature skills?), and such a character has a primary/secondary split that boost the same NAD...</ramble>Right, so if you feel like adding the 16/15/14/12/12/11 array to the options, that's fine and balanced.  A further (more relevant imho) fix would be to raise all stats at 4/8/14/18/24/28 levels, which is a natural enabler of more balanced builds and thus likely to shift attention away from the primary and secondary stat.</blockquote>

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