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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 5545092" data-attributes="member: 7006">Although I don't know if I'd use a word as strong as 'delusional', I do think your point is absolutely correct.  I think they genuinely believed towards the beginning that people would spread their ability scores out more in order to help with their defenses and their skills, and thus have two stat paths for the two divine classes made more sense at the time.It was only several months to a year in when it seemed like everyone immediately was going for 20s in prime stat with +3 prof weapons when possible that reality set in.  Optimizers came to the conclusion that Attack bonus was the end-all-and-be-all of numbers, and that having that as high as could be trumped any advantage gained by keeping other numbers competitive.  Add to that the problem of the V classes having half as many usable powers for their stat as A classes (thus reducing by 50% the chance of getting that one uber-power that trumped all others in its level bracket) and you have the disparity growing even larger.  And finally... as time went on and the emphasis of the D&D design really all became about the combat encounter (with the non-combat aspects of the game like skill challenges, rituals, and fluff taking a backseat to more powers, delves, and dungeon tiles), it only confirmed what most of us already knew... the Attack bonus of your D&D character was king. But the thing is... I don't think we can blame WotC for thinking this way.  I know at the very beginning I would never imagine that Attack bonus was the most important stat over all others, and obviously no one else did either.  If anyone at WotC or amongst all the playtesters had any inkling that this was true... we never would have seen the Power Attack feat as it's currently designed.  We also would never have seen Twin Strike as it is.  Nor would the warlord's Lead The Attack become so much more obviously overpowered than it was (before it got nerfed).It's easy for us to look back at it now and claim that WotC "should have known" or that more playtesting would have discovered it... but I really think that's us looking at hindsight with not just 20/20, but 20/10 vision.</blockquote>

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