Will CON become a dump stat?

[Remathilis]

So, from what we've seen so far, 4e is presenting three issues with ability scores:

1) Little or no general utility for some ability scores, resulting in ability scores being pretty much prescribed by class-specific needs.

2) Being able to get by with marginalizing an ability score that, intuitively, should be useful for a given class (Con for a warrior, Int for a rogue).

There is no number

1.) Each score will STILL affect something, I'd wager.
STR: Carry Capacity, Basic Melee Attacks, Athletics
DEX: Basic ranged attacks, Initiative, Stealth, Acrobatics, Thievery
CON: Starting HP, Healing Surges, Endurance
INT: Languages, Arcana, History, Nature, Religion
WIS: Insight, Perception, Dungeoneering, Heal
CHA: Bluff, Diplomacy, Streetwise, Intimidate

So there is no a trade off:
STR/CON: More hp, or better basic bruiser/carrying?
DEX/INT: Initative or Languages (and possibly skill?)
WIS/CHA: Intuition skills or Social Skills

2.) I can marginalize an ability score in 3.5, but it requires the right feats, classes, and templates. Just a few examples.

Monk WIS to AC.
Duelist INT to AC.
Paladin CHA to Saves.
Swashbuckler: INT to wpn Damage (CW)
Wpn Finesse: DEX to hit (light wpn)
Zen Archery: WIS to hit (ranged 30') (CW)
Insightful Reflex: INT to reflex (CAd)
Force of Personality: CHA to Will (CAd)
Steadfast Determination: CON to Will (PH2)
Agile Athlete: DEX to Climb/Jump (RW)
Tactile Trapsmith: DEX to Search/Disable Device (CAd)

A swashbuckler can effectively dump-stat str, a fighter can dump-stat wis, a rogue can dump-stat str, a mage can dump-stat dex already. It just costs them a feat or a class level to do it.

Why bother and just give people the ability to do it from the get-go?

 

[Will]

You know, a lot of people bag on players or DMs for the '5 minute workday' thing, but I don't think that's particularly fair.

When you hit an encounter, you have no idea how tough it will be; if you don't give it your all, and someone is seriously injured because you're plinking away with magic missile when you could have cast Polar Ray, that sucks.


Now, maybe it'd be a good idea to give folks some kind of knowledge check to ascertain the difficulty of the threat they face. But in a lot of situations, where you don't know? Sudden, maximum lethal force is the safest, most reasonable approach to evil monsters.

And once your big spells have gone, your second string spells are gone...
'you know what, we might face something REALLY tough, and I'm down a bunch. Maybe we should retreat and hole up, just to play it safe.'
"But the orphans! We have to rescue them!"
'Well, yeah, but the orphans have been missing for two months, and we have no real indication that a day is going to matter, do we?'
"Well, no... but it could be important!"
'And we could turn the corner and be staring at a beholder. Who'd save the orphans then?'
"..."


I, for one, am happy to see any steps that cut down on those conversations.

 

[Spatula]

Then feel free to do that in your own campaign. I highly doubt that WotC will send the gaming police to your house to enforce character generation.

...ok? Where did WotC's gaming police enter into the dump stat discussion?

Is there really much merit in a reaction that basically amounts to "two wrongs makes a right"? There were dump stats in 3.5e. But does that mean that compounding it further in 4e is okay? Personally, I wanted to see 4e improve upon the previous edition's shortcomings, not exaggerate them.

Your MU/wizard never had use for anything but Int, Dex, & Con. Now he'll just want Int and Con. Your fighter wanted Str, Dex, & Con. Now he may not even want the Con that much.

Sure, and that makes more kinds of wizards mechanically viable. Any player wanting to maximize the effectiveness of their wizard in 3e would put their best score into Int and the two next-best into Con and Dex. The result is nearly every wizard in the game is hardy and quick - creating a character like Raistlin (low Con, average? Dex) would be potentially suicidal. But if only Int is truly important, then you're free to arrange your other stats to fit the concept and not feel like an idiot for doing so. A low-Con mage will still suffer for having fewer healing surges, but your hit point total won't be crippled. A clumsy mage can still have a decent AC. And so on. Whether you suffer for your dump stats (or reap some benefit from a high non-critical stat) is up to the situations the DM places you in. A low-Dex character is still going to have trouble sneaking past guards, for example.

It encourages character variety, which is a good thing IMO.

 

[Steely Dan]

I'm hoping to see Incarnum as a power source down the line, and the powers associated with it: Con vs. Def.

I know I'm probably weeing in the wind with this one, but you gotta dream, baby!

 

[D.Shaffer]

I still think it's to early to say whether there's going to be a dump stat or not. Some abilities are obviously going to be better then others for certain classes, but we dont have enough information to say it's a definite 'You dont need points in ability X' for those classes. Why? We dont know what penalties a low score gives us yet beyond those for skill mods.

 

[D.Shaffer]

So, here's my bottom line scenario. We got two dwarves, Abel and Baker. Dwarf Abel buys 14 Str & 16 Con, while Dwarf Baker buys 8 Str & 20 Con. They both use axes. If Baker is able to build his dwarf so that he can shill Con for all of his axe attack and damage rolls, then what benefit is he missing out on that Abel gets for investing in Str?

The key word here is IF.

As is, how many powers have we seen that can be used for an Attack of Oppurtunity? For a fighter, who has abilities that give kicked with attacks of opp, the Dump Stat Str dwarf is missing out on the extra damage bonus/attacks that would provide, and which are key to operating as a Defender.

 

[Surgoshan]

From what we've seen of the Warlord, it appears that each class is designed to have a primary stat that every member of that class should focus on and two secondary stats each of which is more important to either of the two builds in that class. Judging from another article, Fighters are going to built on strength and con/wis. The warlord's primary stat is strength, reflecting his role in melee, with intelligence and charisma as secondary stats. This means that dexterity, constitution, and wisdom are less important to the warlord and, based solely on his powers and suchlike, you should ignore those, right?

Of course not! They're still important to the game as a whole. After all, the warlord only gets 5 hp per level, so those healing surges are going to be pretty important.

 

[Spatula]

Another thing to consider is that it looks like the two starting builds emphasize different ability scores. All rogues want a good Dex, but you also want a decent Str or Cha, depending on which path you choose. We know the martial splatbook is supposed to have additional builds for those classes, and it could be that they will key to different stats (an Int-based rogue, for example). So it's possible that with time, every class will have a reason to value most of the ability scores.

 

[Felon]

...ok? Where did WotC's gaming police enter into the dump stat discussion?

Sure, and that makes more kinds of wizards mechanically viable.

It makes them mechanically pointless. We're going in circles here. People seem unwilling to give any ground, and it feels like there's a lot of dancing around the points I've raised. You get A, but what about the X, Y, and Z that you lose?

Any player wanting to maximize the effectiveness of their wizard in 3e would put their best score into Int and the two next-best into Con and Dex. The result is nearly every wizard in the game is hardy and quick - creating a character like Raistlin (low Con, average? Dex) would be potentially suicidal. But if only Int is truly important, then you're free to arrange your other stats to fit the concept and not feel like an idiot for doing so.

So, what if the net result of that is that you now feel like an idiot for putting anything beyond a minimal investment in most of those scores? How about if Int can shill for so many other scores that your Raistlin's low ability scores are just numbers on a piece of paper? How do you feel about every wizard being a Raistlin?

 

[Felon]

The key word here is IF.

Such is the nature of a hypothetical scenario.