D&D 4E Is Intelligence 4e's dump stat?

[Aust Diamondew]

I really hope that were will be no dump stats for any class anymore. All attributes should be equally useful for every character.

Really?
Stregnth should be as useful to a wizard as intelligence?
All abilties should be useful to all character but some should be more important than others, you can really divide ability scores into 3 tiers of usefulness for all classes.

For instance 3e wizard has very clear stat priorities:
Tier 1: Intellignce, Constitution, Dexterity
Tier 2: Wisdom
Tier 3 (dump stats): Charisma, Strength

or a typical 3e Rogue
Tier 1: Dexterity, Intelligence
Tier 2: Constitution, Wisdom, Charisma, Stregnth
But the thing with 3e rogues is that many many builds of rogue are possible, I played an 8 dex rogue in plate armor, focused on skills that weren't effected by that (search, spot, disable device etc). Not that this should necessarily be supported with the rogue class in 4e.
Likewise you can dump Int if you only need to max out 5 or 6 skills to do your job in the party (I've seen it done, all he wanted to do was be able to feint and have some of those athletic skills). The tiers shift about depending on your specialty (no charisma if you're not social, no stregnth if you just rely on sneak attack etc)

I don't want 4e rogue to have dump stats like the 3e Wizard, if it does intelligence should not be one of them and I don't think it will.

Sorry if I ramble.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I expect that every class will depend on three abilities, and the other three will be dump stats of sorts. Look at the rogue. Dex, Str, and Cha are important. Int, Wis, and Con not so much. But Con affects HP, Wis affects Will Defense, and Int affects...something. I expect that that something will be consistently applied across all characters, so that you give something up by dumping Int, but not anything crucial to your class unless it's one of your three key abilities. I'll put my money on it having something to do with skills, but who knows what that might be.

Well, I hope so.

MAD was a design flaw in 3e.* This is one good way to get rid of it.

* Besides the obvious, the deeper problem with MAD is that it is disadvantage under most campaign assumptions and an advantage under some campaign conditions. How bad or good MAD is depends both the specific campaign (stat generation, wealth) and the level of the PCs.

 

[Lab_Monkey]

I really hope that were will be no dump stats for any class anymore. All attributes should be equally useful for every character.

Really? Charisma should be as useful to a fighter as strength? Strength should be as useful to a Wizard as Intelligence?

I don't agree.

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My hope is that Int still leads to bonus skills from a non-class specific list. I may house rule it that way if this doesn't appear in the RAW.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Really? Charisma should be as useful to a fighter as strength? Strength should be as useful to a Wizard as Intelligence?

I like the idea of "half of them are very important."

Perhaps for a Wizard, we'll have Dexterity and Charisma being as important as Int.

Perhaps for a Fighter, we'll have Constitution and Wisdom being as important as Str.

The rogue seems to take one obvious (Dex), and then adds two secondaries (Str and Cha). One assumes Int, Wis, and Con are still useful for a rogue, they just don't care about those quite as much.

 

[Celebrim]

Really? Charisma should be as useful to a fighter as strength? Strength should be as useful to a Wizard as Intelligence?

I wouldn't go so far as to say that every attribute should be as important to any class as any other, since that would imply classes which were probably overly broad and complex for my taste.

However, I certainly understand the sentiment, and would say that I think in my ideal system every attribute is more somewhat more useful to every class than it is now.

For example, in my campaign its quite conceivable that you could play a high charisma fighter. I specifically have tried to address this limitation. Charisma could be used as a dump stat, because really the fighter is only losing the Destiny Points in doing so, but he is losing something and he could if he really maxed out his charisma have a somewhat effective build by pumping alot of points into his Leadership skill, and taking alot of charisma related combat feats like: flashy attack, force of personality, heroic presence, Prepare to Meet Thy Doom, heroic drive, heroic example, raw emotion, and You Can’t Do That to My Friend. The idea is to play something like a classic party leader. Ever notice how in the stories, it always seems like the guy with the most charisma is also the best fighter, and not his large muscular friend? If he can get Intimidate on his fighter class skill list with an Unusual Background or Cosmopolitan advantage, so much the better. Probably take a few levels of Explorer for the extra skill points and Explorer's Charm ability. Probably wouldn't be as effective as going all out on strength, but it wouldn't be completely ineffective and it would have out of combat advantages.

 

[Jhaelen]

Really? Charisma should be as useful to a fighter as strength? Strength should be as useful to a Wizard as Intelligence?

Yes, really.
I like the idea that a fighter who decides to focus on charisma should be able to do so without becoming unable to compete with a fighter focusing on strength.