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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6266972" data-attributes="member: 6681948">I found many 2e and prior groups had a preponderance of fighters (and other warriors) who rolled an 18 STR (and I didn't see close to half of those roll a 01-50 percentile either).So what other non-magical characters should we have, and what mechanics should they lose and gain?  Also, I've definitely seen CHA based Rogues who are great con artists, but not all that stealthy, and the occasional INT based rogue who's a pretty effective locksmith and trap disarmer but, again, not too sneaky.I liked the 3e move to getting bonuses spread out over stats - +2 to hit and damage sounds OK to me, so why not a 14 STR fighter?  No, we have to have an 18 in our primary stat and dump everything else to eke out that extra +1 to our main specialty, whatever the cost.  This is hardly unique to the Fighter - how many 15 INT Wizards do you see?  I pick 15 INT because he can apply his level bonuses to have a 19 al L16, one level before he needs it to cast 9th level spells.  But then he wouldn't have as high a save DC.I ran a 3e fighter with a 16 STR and a 14 INT - he did all right.  He used his 5 skill points (Human) per level to max out Blacksmithing, Armorsmithing and Weaponsmithing, so he wasn't all that well rounded, but I could have swapped some stats around to have a bit better CHA and made him pretty effective with Interaction skills, especially if we moved to a Pathfinder system where "class skills" only make a 3 point difference across all levels (and he could take an extra skill point per level - he's got plenty of hp with d10 + CON bonus).  Trip, Disarm, Expertise and Mobility feats made his main job control and flanking with the rogue, not a damage maximizer.  I'm sure he'd be laughed off the optimization boards,  but that wasn't the point of the character.But our games weren't about "the optimal fighter maxing out damage per round", so we didn't have the same focus on blind optimization.  Our Sorcerer dumped a lot for an 18 CHA, but his dump stat was DEX - so he didn't use ray spells, and his AC sucked more than normal.  That didn't make him ineffective,  but he certainly was not optimized.  Of course, if the game rules evolve to set challenges appropriate to fully optimized characters, then you either focus in and optimize, or your characters get ground up by the game system.  That means the designers need to assess whether the game is designed for optimizers or character-balancers.  Maybe some guidance on appropriate bonuses and stats at various levels would help in that regard, rather than "do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law".  Lots of games prescribe a healthy dose of GM oversight, recognizing that "balance" and "flexibility" are often incompatible.</blockquote>

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