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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doctor Proctor" data-source="post: 4695088" data-attributes="member: 78547">Before you go along with this house rule, might I suggest explaining to your players how the system works?  Everything is sort of based around having a 16 in your primary stat, anything above that is just gravy.  So, in the case where you get a racial bonus to your primary stat, you'll have an 18, which means you're slightly better off.  Buying an 18 (would be 20 if there's a stat boost) is usually rather inefficient due to the escalating point buy cost.  You lose out on a LOT from your secondary stats, and only gain a small benefit to the primary.  So really, the problems seems to be that your players overvalue getting an 18/20, not the system itself.  When we did a Paragon one-off, for example, I rolled up an Eladrin Greatspear Fighter.  He was really cool, and my only regret was that I actually bought an 18.  It was overkill to be frank, and I wasn't able to increase WIS and get access to some of the Polearm feats (Greatspear is both a Spear and a Polearm) because of that 18, so it really limited my build.The reason I'm pointing this out is that your house rule will most likely DECREASE differentiation between characters.  If you're going with a Dragonborn Fighter, for example, why even put a high score in there?  I'll just drop a 12 in STR and then have 16 CON, 16 WIS, 14 CHA and probably a 12 in DEX.  Sure I lose out on some of the other STR bonuses, but the primary effect of adding to my hit bonus will be there, and it will be a +5!  If you're playing a Dwarf Fighter though?  Drop a 14 in STR, then you'll get a 16 in CON, 16 in WIS, which are actually both 14's, which will leave you a lot of room for further boosting of tertiary stats.  Or heck, you could just go 18 in either WIS or CON while dumping INT or something.  I can just keep doing this ad-nauseum for every class/race combination you can think of, because there's almost no point in putting anything above the bare minimum into your primary stat anymore.  I think you end up with much more interesting builds overall when there's sometimes a tradeoff between hitting as often, and doing some additional things that wouldn't possible with a higher primary.</blockquote>

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