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Message: <blockquote data-quote="infax" data-source="post: 3954274" data-attributes="member: 12784">@Green Knight:From the Spined Devil Stats, what you can't say is that every even number would give a character a +1 modifier. 14/2 = +7 modifier but the Spined devil has +5 as a modifier to his stats at 14. It works out perfectly if you state it as +1 modifier at every even number above 3, although I would find that a little inelegant. It may be that. But you could surmise other options, however. From 14 to 19 you have a 5-point stat interval and +2 modifiers, the math could range wildely (although I agree it can very well be a +1 at every even number from there). Its just not clear for me so far.As for playing with point buy, in 80% of the games that I played or GMed characters were built with point-buy. Doesn't really suck for me as long as every character was created using the same system. I usually invested up to 16 on my main stat and had a very easy time reaching 19 before being able to require level 9 spells. You simply didn't start with any 18s most of the time, which was fine by me (although some of my fellow players hated not having the "racial maximum" for the stats of their heroic characters).If it has never been said stats don't give negative modifiers, I admit I may have read too much in other enworlders' posts (or that I stopped reading that thread from the guy with R&C before he admitted he was guessing from the Spined Devil).From the second part of that statement, what you are saying is that you think the modifiers will stay exactly the same (mod = (stat-10)/2)? It would be strange to present the Spined Devil's abilities in that way, then, wouldn't it?As for playing the half-orc compared to the grey elf wizard: yes, certainly if you take a race with a penalty and another with a bonus to a stat you'll have an easier time fulfilling your expected role. The maxed out Grey Elf will have more options and deliver more often as a wizard, there is no doubt about that. At low levels, there are advantages, if you run out of spells and have to defend yourself with a club, the Half-Orc has more chances of survival, but pretty soon that advantage disappears.The thing is I mostly don't play maxed out characters. I don't sink all the character's money in stat-enhancing magic items and don't mostly prepare buffing spells. I played characters with Cloak of Arachne, having more than one Alter Self spell prepared and starting a mid-level game (level 12) with a necklace of fireballs. Sure, the gamemaster can't pit an unnusual group blindly against CR equivalent monsters without some careful consideration first, but you can have slightly different games.A 10% difference chance is not-trivial but if for every 10 spells the Grey Elf casts that affects targets the Half-Orc only succeeds in affecting 9, it doesn't seem so terrible, does it?But, perhaps all this could be reduced to one argument:I usually don't play optimal characters and find it a bit bland when I have players playing solely optimal builds, after all, usually they end up looking a bit too much like one another, since they are all approximately the same build. Also, when situations arise that were not thought for the optimal character (for instance, when it comes to the wizard without spells to try to break down the door since the fighter is unconsious or it is the barbarian trying to overhear what a pair of NPCs two tables over are saying in the noisy tavern while the rogue is flirting at the bar) optimized builds have fewer options.Anyway, trying to come back (slightly more) on topic:Negative penalties are only worse psychologically, I think. You have the same problem, mathematically, if you give the half-orc -2 Int and the Grey Elf +2 Int than if you give the Dragonborn a +0 bonus to Int and the Eladrin a +4 Int bonus (more so, since it is likely the Human, the Halfling and the Dwarf, at the least, will have a +0 Int racial bonus as well).If this has been too much of a thread hi-jack, I apologize.</blockquote>

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