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<blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8076483" data-attributes="member: 5948">I like the IDEA of playing a stereotypically big strong race as a rogue.&nbsp; I'm thinking of things like Midgard minotaurs, or dragonborn, or half-orcs etc.&nbsp; Huge menacing beefy character who plays on the 'witless brute' stereotype to get people to underestimate him.&nbsp; But Str is one of those weird stats.&nbsp; It's great if you're a melee combatant, it's almost worthless for anyone else.&nbsp; Dex, and Con, and Wis are always good for any class, and Cha and Int have consistently useful niches, but if you're not whacking someone with a big heavy thing for fun and profit, then you'll only benefit from your +2 Str in the rarest of cases.&nbsp; You still CAN play it, of course, but you're going to be measurably (not dramatically, but measurably) less useful to the party.&nbsp;&nbsp; What's a bigger deal to me is how certain spellcasting classes require high ability scores to be useful.&nbsp; Race/class combinations are generally a matter of +2 or so in a stat, that's not gamebreaking or experience-ruining.&nbsp; But playing against ability score type can be.&nbsp; High charisma for a bard makes perfect sense as they're basically in showbiz, as does high intelligence for a wizard who're wrestling with complex arcane formulae all day.&nbsp; But having to be high-charisma to be a competent warlock or sorcerer has always bugged me.&nbsp; Surely an archetypical warlock character concept is the surly resentful unpleasant type who bargained for power to get back at everyone who shunned him?&nbsp; And sorcerous power is generally meant to be hereditary - I can't see any logical link there that means all competent sorcerers should have great people skills.&nbsp; And this one CAN make a concept unviable.&nbsp; If I want to play a miserable smelly self-pitying warlock who is tiresome to be around, I either have to come up with some tenuous rationalisation as to why this guy is particularly charismatic, or else grit my teeth, shove that 8 in Charisma and resign myself to the fact that his social ineptitude means he's doomed to be just plain bad at warlocking for his entire career.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="humble minion, post: 8076483, member: 5948"] I like the IDEA of playing a stereotypically big strong race as a rogue. I'm thinking of things like Midgard minotaurs, or dragonborn, or half-orcs etc. Huge menacing beefy character who plays on the 'witless brute' stereotype to get people to underestimate him. But Str is one of those weird stats. It's great if you're a melee combatant, it's almost worthless for anyone else. Dex, and Con, and Wis are always good for any class, and Cha and Int have consistently useful niches, but if you're not whacking someone with a big heavy thing for fun and profit, then you'll only benefit from your +2 Str in the rarest of cases. You still CAN play it, of course, but you're going to be measurably (not dramatically, but measurably) less useful to the party. What's a bigger deal to me is how certain spellcasting classes require high ability scores to be useful. Race/class combinations are generally a matter of +2 or so in a stat, that's not gamebreaking or experience-ruining. But playing against ability score type can be. High charisma for a bard makes perfect sense as they're basically in showbiz, as does high intelligence for a wizard who're wrestling with complex arcane formulae all day. But having to be high-charisma to be a competent warlock or sorcerer has always bugged me. Surely an archetypical warlock character concept is the surly resentful unpleasant type who bargained for power to get back at everyone who shunned him? And sorcerous power is generally meant to be hereditary - I can't see any logical link there that means all competent sorcerers should have great people skills. And this one CAN make a concept unviable. If I want to play a miserable smelly self-pitying warlock who is tiresome to be around, I either have to come up with some tenuous rationalisation as to why this guy is particularly charismatic, or else grit my teeth, shove that 8 in Charisma and resign myself to the fact that his social ineptitude means he's doomed to be just plain bad at warlocking for his entire career. [/QUOTE]

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