Will CON become a dump stat?

[mach1.9pants]

IMO Int is the dump stat (apart from for those whose powers are int based). Dex gives initiative and acrobatics, stealth and theivery are better than arcana, nature, history and religion. Only one per party needs these skills and the wiz/int based power user will have all those anyway.
Unless int gives something we don't know about (I may house rule 1 extra trained skill per point of int bonus IMC) Int is the dump stat.
Edit followed by cha

 

[Felon]

I thought that was the result of incompetent DMs. Are you now arguing that incompetent DMs are the standard on which D&D should be judged?

How would he would be arguing that? It's your presumption that incompetent DM's are the issue, not his.

Those people knew Rope Trick though. It's highly doubtful 4e PCs will ever get such easy access to extradimensional resting spots again. (Just to name an example that occured to me within one second flat.)

I know you really dislike 4e, Derren, and that you want to make that clear as often and strongly as possible, but a little context and thought could go a long way from making you the ENWorld laughing stock to a compelling authority one is inclined to listen to.

Oh what a riot! He didn't mention rope trick in his post! How could he not have done that? Yeah, total laughing stock! Good one, man!

/sarcasm

Reality check for many folks in this thread: The five-minute workday was a product not of incompetent DM's, but rather of players expending their resources casually and then needing to rest. The DM's only recourse at that point is to allow them to do so, or to try prod them along by attacking them while they're trying to take a siesta. The end result of the latter tactic is that it tends to burns up even more of their resources so that the party really, really needs to rest, at which point prodding them into action isn't really a great idea. This is basically the players and DM playing "chicken". Since most DM's have more interest in keeping the adventure going than shutting it down with a TPK, they let the adventurers rest when the decide they need to.

Bandy about pie-in-the-sky scenarios about how DM's "worthy of their salt" should run their game as much as you like. But consider how much bearing that has on the reality of the situation.

 

[Felon]

QFT, though please stop quoting him it makes my ignore list irrelevent

OTOH, I thank you for quoting Fifth Element so I have the opportunity to report the rudeness that you Quote For Truth that I otherwise would have ignored.

 

[Fifth Element]

How would he would be arguing that? It's your presumption that incompetent DM's are the issue, not his.

Actually, that comes from past posts of his. But wait, if I'm on ignore you'll never see this reply. Sigh.

 

[Fifth Element]

QFT, though please stop quoting him it makes my ignore list irrelevent

My apologies.

 

[Felon]

I'm consistently bewildered by the number of folks who register their complete comfort with the heavy amount of dumpstatting that all the current evidence suggests we're likely to see with 4e. I have to ask, how many abilitiy scores get dumped--and by "dumped", I mean set at the lowest possible value--before it's any kind of issue?

IMO, if a system reaches a point where characters of a given class can always be expected to have a top-notch score wherever it impacts their class and a neglible score wherever it doesn't, with pretty much no middle-ground in-between, then it pretty much voids the point of having ability scores in the first place. The designers might as well just take the bonuses form high ability scores and just hardwire them into the class. They could do likewise with the penalties from low ability scores, but there's little point in that since the goal of this whole design strategy is to ensure that the penalties only impact things the character doesn't care about anyway.

 

[Umbran]

This thread is seeing a lot of sniping and snarkiness.

It stops now. You folks all know the rules - you be civil, you treat each other with respect.

If you don't feel the other person is worthy of respect, don't reply to them. Don't talk about them. Don't talk about who is on what ignore list, either - that's pretty darned rude.

Next person who can't avoid being a jerk gets a vacation from the site, without further warning.

Edited: Umbran made a typo that significantly changed the tone and tenor of the warning. --Dinkeldog

 

[mach1.9pants]

Sorry, my apologies to all.

 

[Mad Mac]

Con seems rather important in the Heroic Tier of play. However, the article on Tiers seemed to indicate that Healing Surges become less and less important as you reach higher levels. This makes me concerned about the value of Con over a long-term game.

They mentioned Regeneration specifically. Slow Regen would allow you to get by between fights without burning Healing surges just to top yourself off, but it's still not as good in battle as healing 1/4 of your HPs (Or more, with a leader helping) in one go. Just one example of making surges less important without outright replacing them.

 

[Carnivorous_Bean]

I'm consistently bewildered by the number of folks who register their complete comfort with the heavy amount of dumpstatting that all the current evidence suggests we're likely to see with 4e. I have to ask, how many abilitiy scores get dumped--and by "dumped", I mean set at the lowest possible value--before it's any kind of issue?

IMO, if a system reaches a point where characters of a given class can always be expected to have a top-notch score wherever it impacts their class and a neglible score wherever it doesn't, with pretty much no middle-ground in-between, then it pretty much voids the point of having ability scores in the first place. The designers might as well just take the bonuses form high ability scores and just hardwire them into the class. They could do likewise with the penalties from low ability scores, but there's little point since the goal of this design is to ensure that the penalties only impact things the character doesn't care about anyway.

That's a pretty broad generalization, considering that I don't think we even have the remotest idea of what all the stats can potentially do for all classes. Although perhaps I missed something. That's quite likely -- I miss a lot.