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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CleverNickName" data-source="post: 5912005" data-attributes="member: 50987">This, right here, is my biggest problem with character creation: the <s>need</s> expectation of starting the game with an ability score of 18 (or higher, in some cases).Using the original 3d6 character creation rules, it was very hard to get a score of 18.  (The probability was less than 1%.)  Rolling an 18 was so rare and beautiful that if you rolled one, you would play the character even if all your other scores sucked.  An 18 was awesome.  And everyone wanted one.So under the red-box Basic Rules, they softened it a little bit: now, your prime requisite could go up one point for every two points that another score went down.  (That score became known infamously as the "dump stat.")  Everyone could start the game with an 18 now, but it could be very expensive.Then the "point-buy" method came along, which allowed players to basically tell the DM what ability scores they wanted for their characters.  There were exceptions, but by and large, the first thing the player did was burn all their points to get an 18, and then spread the rest out to avoid serious penalties.  Now, not only did everyone get to start with an 18, they all had more or less the same stats.Then there came the 4d6 method, which helped break the monotony of point-buying and brought randomness back.  But old habits die hard: players had come to expect starting with at least one score of 18.  So they added racial bonuses.   Thus, if a player had at least one starting score of 16 or better, it meant (s)he would be playing an elf.  (I believe this was the main contributing factor behind the "31 flavors of elf" concept.  "Rats, I really wanted to play a barbarian, but I've gotta be an elf if I want an 18.  Can I move my +2 bonus to Strength? and change my favored class?  And move that Constitution penalty?"  But I digress.)And that is where we are today.  For whatever reason, players <s>need</s> expect to start the game with at least one ability score of 18.  And that is all fine and good, so long as that super-high score is somehow balanced with penalties.  It is not difficult to imagine how a character with a high intelligence would have sacrificed her physical training in favor of academia, after all.  But that is not the case.  Now, there are higher and higher starting ability scores, with fewer and fewer penalties or other drawbacks to offset them.It comes as no surprise that most of the threads in this forum are on the subject of "game balance."Now I am not saying that we need to turn back the clock and start using the old 3d6 rules for character creation.  But I do think we need to look long and hard at the power creep in ability scores, and find a way to compensate for it.  All bonuses with no penalties will break the game.</blockquote>

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