Is a +3 good enough to hit stuff?

[Runestar]

The earlier observation is accurate only if the high key stat was obtained at a significant opportunity cost with regards to your other key stats.

For certain classes, you really have no alternatives as to where to sink those stat points into. For example, a fighter has no use for int or cha, and if he wears heavy armour, he can dump dex as well. If you plan on not using a shield, wis can be ignored for most part. And oh...I get another +2str/con from playing a warforged or minotaur...

Lets say I am a bugbear brutal scoundrel rogue. I can easily have 16str/dex before racial bonuses and a good con score, and 10 in my mental stats (because the benefit from pumping them is really negligible).

Assuming I am playing a race with a +2 to my key stat, it is just too tempting to not go 18 at least, IMO.

 

[Plane Sailing]

FWIW my current campaign started by giving everyone the standard array (so nobody can have higher than an 18, but it is possible to get an 18 via racial bonus).

The two handed maul using human fighter has a Str of 13 (and a con of 18). He is having fun and doing very well thank you very much

Meanwhile the infernal warlock with a Con of 18 missed pretty much every single eldritch blast he threw!

Cheers

 

[Spatula]

For certain classes, you really have no alternatives as to where to sink those stat points into. For example, a fighter has no use for int or cha, and if he wears heavy armour, he can dump dex as well. If you plan on not using a shield, wis can be ignored for most part. And oh...I get another +2str/con from playing a warforged or minotaur...

Lets say I am a bugbear brutal scoundrel rogue. I can easily have 16str/dex before racial bonuses and a good con score, and 10 in my mental stats (because the benefit from pumping them is really negligible).

Well, you want to have a good score in one of them for the defense bonus. Fighters don't want to completely dump Dex, Int, Wis, AND Cha, because doing so makes them highly vulnerable to Reflex and Will attacks. It may not seem that bad at low levels, but it will bite the min/maxer later on - monster attack bonuses are designed to be able to hit a character's strong defense scores, making an attack against a really weak defense a near auto-hit.