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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 5001723" data-attributes="member: 51942">I can well imagine that the raise-all-stats rule wouldn't be for everyone.  The real risks (IMHO) are to balance, however, and not, the way I see it anyhow, in terms of player choices.  I don't like this particular optimization space because I see to many people "screw it up": they "round off" lower stats instead of raising their highest two stats, and end up playing stats they could have achieved with a lower point buy and end up with lower bonuses where it matters.  In short, the 4/8 level point allocations are not really an optimization space, they're more of a chance to shoot yourself in the foot.  There's very little real choice (very occasionally an off stat boost can be worth it for a prereq, and even then, you should be asking yourself if you didn't mess up your initial stat allocation), and very much real risk of people that "go for the flavor" end up gimping their character in combat.So, I think it's an illusory choice and a source of traps for inexperienced players that I wouldn't mind removing.From that background, raising all ability scores makes more sense, since it focuses player choice where it should be: your initial stat array allocation, and not the 4/8 boosts.  It also avoids punishing roleplayers for not exquisitely planning their character advancement (avoiding the "sorry, you just don't have the right prereqs for that feat and can't get it without gimping your secondary and/or primary stat!" effect) - now, stat prereqs are merely a matter of time.  A well planned char may get em a few levels earlier, but that's all.I much prefer your system to the three-stat raise.  I don't much see the point in three-stat raise fix; it's more complex, doesn't fix all builds, doesn't have all the nice other side effects of raise-all, and has almost all the downsides of the raise-all-stats approach.  I'd say, either focus on a minimal impact fix (i.e., your fix), or fix the root problem and get broader fix that fixes slightly more builds and a few other problems while your at it, but also has more side effects in terms of balance (I believe these to be unproblematic, but you never quite know).  The three-stat raise strikes me as the worst of both worlds: fixes hardly any more cases that your system, but has the risk of balance side-effects almost just as the raise-all approach does.</blockquote>

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