No more ubiquitous dump stats !?

[Bishmon]

Anyone who's picking their stats to flesh out a character concept they have will do so regardless, and anyone who wants to min/max still won't put points in the slightly-less-bad stats, because they're still sub-optimal to some degree.

And what then for those in the middle, who want to build around a character concept, but not at the expense of giving up so much survivability or usefulness in return for nothing other than the fulfillment of the character concept?

 

[Felon]

Would it really make that much of a difference if Str provided slightly more benefit to wizards, Int to rogues, etc? I don't see how it matters, honestly. Anyone who's picking their stats to flesh out a character concept they have will do so regardless, and anyone who wants to min/max still won't put points in the slightly-less-bad stats, because they're still sub-optimal to some degree.

Not only does it make a difference for ability scores to provide some kind of general utility, but general utility is the only practical, mechanical reason to have ability scores in the first place.

Once you've got a system where ability scores only serve to provide class-specific bonues, then you can just roll the benefits into the classes themselves. I'll also point out that 3.5e characters abound which refute your claim that players won't put points in "sub-optimal" stats. The reason is simple: the point cost to raise an ability score ramped up, so raising a score from 16 to 17 cost as much as raising a 10 to a 13. You didn't as good of a score in a "slightly-less-bad" area, but you could get more for less since you could settle for a 14 instead of an 18.

In my mind, this is still an improvement over 3e, because while there still will be dump stats for a given class, there at least won't be one (nearly) universally ignored stat like Cha. If you want to cut down on the min/maxing in your games, rather than trying to tweak the value of each stat for each class, I'd just make the point buy costs ramp up a little more steeply.

A) As stated above, at least three core 3.5 classes used Cha for major class features (this does not take into rogues who accentuated face-man skills or rangers who emphasized their animal affinities), and there were at least a half-dozen non-core base classes that had a similar need for Cha.

B) Where is the improvement you speak of? How is having three or more floating dump stats instead one universal dump stat any kind of improvement?

 

[Ximenes088]

I mean, let's say some guy with a 4e warrior character will dump-stat Con. It's not because he's chosen to play a frail and unhealthy character, but rather because he's substituted Str for their Fort defense bonus, and he realizes the hit point gain from Con is small, and maybe he's figured out various other ways to marginalize the importance of Con for whatever's left over (through racial traits, feats, class features, or whatever). So he's still plenty sturdy, he's just found a way to be sturdy without having distribute any points in Con.

A defender who dumpstats Con will have, on average, 2/3rds of the long-term endurance of a defender who maximizes it. I would be very, very surprised if a character class predicated on getting hit a lot could just casually give up 5 healing surges, even if he somehow manages to avoid all his class powers which are Con-based- as it's implied axe powers will be.

Cha was the universal dump stat in 3.5. Paladins, Sorcerers, and Bards had some use for it, but everybody else could fairly well pitch it. A face-man rogue could throw a few points at it, but how many rangers seriously decided to rob points from Strength, Dexterity, Constitution and Wisdom to pump _Charisma_? A single stat should not be an obvious dump stat for all but three core classes- obvious as in, "My specific class mechanics give absolutely no benefit to this score."

It's pretty clear that 4e does not intend to make every stat equally or near-equally important to every class. It looks like each class has one prime requisite a la OD&D, and a choice of one of two secondary stats. As far as we can tell, there is no 4e class equivalent to the monk, in need of good stats in four different attributes, nor a 4e equivalent to the fighter, who could get by tolerably on nothing but strength. I think this is a good thing. An adventuring party of five in which each one is deficient in a different quality is a lot more interesting than one in which four are hideously malformed trolls and one is demented, rogue-who-sold-his-wisdom Adonis.

 

[Simon Marks]

I'm getting the feeling that "People will dump stat CON" is 4e's version of "The monk is so broken"

True, but not in the way you think.

 

[Ruvion]

snip....four are hideously malformed trolls and one is demented, rogue-who-sold-his-wisdom Adonis.

That pretty much describes my previous D&D experiences. I always hated that most of the party was CHA deficient trolls. My group tended to play non-paladin, sorcerer, etc (ie. classes hardwired into taking CHA for some benefit). The hardwiring still lives on in 4e but for numerous other reasons.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I'm getting the feeling that "People will dump stat CON" is 4e's version of "The monk is so broken"

True, but not in the way you think.

I tend to agree. Right now, it's looking like a reasonable thing to say, but in six months time we may appreciate that it's completely off-base.

I think, for a start, that quite a lot of fighter powers might be based on CON, particularly those that require sustained effort to use rather than bursts of power.

 

[SmilingPiePlate]

Personally I kinda like that it sounds like playing a character with low Con won't be quite as crippling.

It's kinda clever of them when I think about it; low constitution characters will have less long-term staying power or encounter endurance. They'll run out of healing surges faster. But they won't be dramatically easier to kill in any given fight (except maybe the one that runs them out of surges) than high Con characters are. Their small scale survivability isn't noticeably impacted but their long term endurance is.

I think that's a clever way to do it. In 3.5 and 3.0 I never played a character with a Con lower than 14. I'd feel a bit safer doing so in 4th, based on the rules I've seen.

As for there being no one stat that the majority of core classes can happily ignore, I think that's a good thing. Intelligence might be a stat not all classes use, but my experience playing DnD is that unless someone has a specific character concept in mind, nobody wants their character to be unintelligent. I don't think you're going to see a glut of illiterate, slack-jawed idiot rogues.

 

[Felon]

A defender who dumpstats Con will have, on average, 2/3rds of the long-term endurance of a defender who maximizes it. I would be very, very surprised if a character class predicated on getting hit a lot could just casually give up 5 healing surges, even if he somehow manages to avoid all his class powers which are Con-based- as it's implied axe powers will be.

From what you've seen of 4e so far, would it surprise you to see some racial trait, feat, or other resource that just let a character shill some other ability score for healing surges? And would you be OK with that?

Swing one weapon and use your 10 Str for attack and damage, swing another and your lowballed Str doesn't affect attack and damage because you're using your maxed-out 20 Con instead? What discernable reason for such inconsistency is there other than to promote dump-statting? It's a ham-handed design.

Cha was the universal dump stat in 3.5. Paladins, Sorcerers, and Bards had some use for it, but everybody else could fairly well pitch it. A face-man rogue could throw a few points at it, but how many rangers seriously decided to rob points from Strength, Dexterity, Constitution and Wisdom to pump _Charisma_? A single stat should not be an obvious dump stat for all but three core classes- obvious as in, "My specific class mechanics give absolutely no benefit to this score."

So instead, the 4e solution, to use the term loosely, is that you'll see lots of characters with three ability scores set at 8, but one of them won't necessarily be Charisma. It might be an axe warrior with an 8 Str, 8 Int, and 8 Wis instead. What exactly is the improvement there? And what have you seen that gives you the impression that Charisma will fare any better in 4e anyway? Which 4e classes use Cha? Paladins? Warlocks? Face-man rogues? That all sounds vaguely familiar.

An adventuring party of five in which each one is deficient in a different quality is a lot more interesting than one in which four are hideously malformed trolls and one is demented, rogue-who-sold-his-wisdom Adonis.

Except that the former adventuring party is a sham. That 4e party isn't really any more interesting--they just poured their points in a prefabricated mold cast for them by the game designers. What could be more dull than that? If any of them have a decent Cha, it's not because they want to be more diverse than the "malformed troll" that's a combat god. It's because they're substituting Cha for Str as the basis of their brute force damage-dealing. On top of all that, their deficiencies exist on paper only, because their dump stats don't really make them deficient in any meaningful way--otherwise they wouldn't dump the stat.

I sure hope WotC is holding some cards up their sleeves, because the design strategy I'm seeing is strictly cosmetic. It's a clumsy, reckless short cut that entirely misses the point of encouraging any kind of meaningful diversity (indeed, it strips away some of the diversity 3.5 offered). The numbers on the character sheet are moved around, but everything that's bad about dump-statting has been magnified.

To me, it just looks like a cheap, inelegant shell game. It's a real obstacle to my buy-in of 4e.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

would have liked it, if one of those paired attributes would go full and one half into the defense... but as a default, it would break the math... maybe tere are feats which allow you to do so. Problem solved. You are equally good at beginning, but your potential is higher.

Studyig in the Bib is not raising your int. Its raising your knowledge skill.

And to make int more desireable, i would also use the better of int or dex for initiative.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Felon, at the moment I think we just don't have enough information to come to those conclusions.

It may be that balancing your ability scores will be a much better idea than we think at the moment, simply due to the huge list of potential powers we know nothing about yet. We don't know if there is a Con-based utility ability for Wizards, or a Int based one for Clerics, for example.

We also don't know if you can choose either ability (say Int or Dex) to help with your skills - frankly I'd be surprised if you could. Therefore, to play a high-int low dex sneakthief isn't going to make much sense - nor is playing a master diplomat cleric without having a high dex.

As far as I know, the only thing that's been confirmed is that you can choose between two stats for AC, Fort, Ref & Will scores - if I'm mistaken on this then please correct me.

Swing one weapon and use your 10 Str for attack and damage, swing another and your lowballed Str doesn't affect attack and damage because you're using your maxed-out 20 Con instead? What discernable reason for such inconsistency is there other than to promote dump-statting? It's a ham-handed design.

It's the difference between stamina and strength - take American football players as an example. They can hit incredibly hard with a sharp burst in the tackle, but they're not going to be running any marathons (I saw a video recently with an adult bodybuilder being out-treadmilled by a 14 year old cross country runner - he was exhausted after about 2 minutes and she was fine). That's the example of Str vs Con right there - in a fight he's going to do more damage initially, but over time she's a better long term bet.