What was your character's best starting stat?

[Fede]

i assign 16 to the primary stat, and it either gets bumped to 18 (race with bonus to primary stat) or remains 16 and the 14 becomes a 16 with the race stat bonus. If i'm playing a human... it depends on the class.

 

[exile]

My first 4E character, an elven rogue, has a 20 DEX and is just fine for having dumped so many points into it.

Most of my subsequent characters go the 16, 16 route, and let racial modifiers bump one or both of those to 18.

 

[mmu1]

Did I miss something and this is supposed to only be about point buy characters?

Anyway, I think I had one character with a 20, but that was in a game in which we rolled for stats. (elf with 18+2 in Dex)

For 3E point buy characters, I almost never buy anything above a 16 (before racial adjustments) to start off (usually playing with a 32 point buy) because I like to have decent secondary stats and 6 extra points to go from 16 to 18 just isn't worth it. I might make an exception for a Wizard, maybe, and consider getting an 18. All of this assuming, of course, that it's a "real" game, not a one-shot dungeon crawl at a con.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Any 4e character I've actually played has started with an 18 (although, in the case of the warlord, the 18 was in INT, with 16 in STR). With a point buy, it's just not worth it going "all the way" for the 20, except for a couple possible exceptions (I'd consider it most in cases of Dex/Int being the main stat for a character, because of the AC/Reflex/attack bonus trifecta).

 

[DonAdam]

Like others--20 with a wizard, 18 with anything else.

 

[evilbob]

For 4.0 point-buy, I also find a 20 (18 + racial) to be too expensive. There are just too many other good options and reasons to spread things around; 18 (16 + racial) just gives you a much more well-rounded character that it's worth it for me. This includes even wizards (in fact, wizards especially benefit from good dex, wis, con, and even the dreaded cha).

That said: I would never play a character with 17 or lower (after racial) as their primary stat, either. (Well, a dwarven fighter with a total 16 Str is not quite horrible, but I can't think of any other exceptions - and frankly there's still a good argument to be made that he'd be better off with a 17 or 18.)

And hilariously, from what I've read the devs seemed to have expected everyone to go for the 20 as well. (Even "suggested stats" in the character builder gives you a 20 in your primary.) So maybe my advice isn't that good. Then again, they also created (and then quickly fled from) 4 classes that semi-require two primary stats and it's impossible to get an 18 twice, so who knows.

 

[Nymrohd]

Tbh I amped the point buy to 25 for my campaigns. Not really because of MAD problems (noone in my table has a MAD class) but because it makes the characters feel slightly more special, and makes feat requirements easier to meet.

 

[Krensky]

Ignoring rolled stats, where I think I had a 20 (18 plus racial), 18 is the max, often I don't go for anything above 16 since the games I run and play in tend to (unintentionally) punish hyper specialization.

 

[Crothian]

Usually a four, that fifth dot is expensive and rarely worth it.

What game are you talking about?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

In the campaign I am running, 18 is fairly standard. My point buy is a little different, and a bit of a tradeoff. I give out a 26 point buy, but in return no character is allowed to start with a stat above 18 after racial modifiers. The higher point buy serves to improve tertiary(and beyond) stats for skill and defense purposes, while making it easier for races without the +2 bonus to achieve an 18 in their primary stat. In practice, the 20 doesn't exist, and we generally only see 16s on characters who attack with +3 proficiency weapons.