Will CON become a dump stat?

[Spatula]

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.

*shrug* This has always been an issue with the game. Perhaps that's why 3d6, in order, is the one true way to roll up a character - you don't get to choose your dump stats that way. What use has a MU/mage/wizard ever had for anything but Int, Dex, & Con? A fighter for Int or Cha (Wis being marginally useful in 3e for the Will save bonus)? and so on. Every class has one important stat, a few secondary stats, and pretty much doesn't care about the others for all intents and purposes.

 

[Felon]

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.

I think it's safe to say that almost every thread in this forum operates under the pretext that we're only talking about 4e based on what we've seen so far.

But we have plenty of stats now. I've got a deck of 60 cards for Desert of Desolation that include 4e RPG stats, for instance.

 

[Felon]

*shrug* This has always been an issue with the game. Perhaps that's why 3d6, in order, is the one true way to roll up a character - you don't get to choose your dump stats that way. What use has a MU/mage/wizard ever had for anything but Int, Dex, & Con? A fighter for Int or Cha (Wis being marginally useful in 3e for the Will save bonus)? and so on. Every class has one important stat, a few secondary stats, and pretty much doesn't care about the others for all intents and purposes.

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.

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).

 

[DandD]

Well, there is an article or a designer blog about the Fighter, where there was the choice of either taking constitution, which appearently was favorable to warhammers, or wisdom, that had anything do with some kind of flurry of blows with the sword.
So, it seems that higher-level at-will/encounter/daily powers might not be restricted to one stat at all in D&D 4th edition. It might be quite possible (although perhaps rather uncertain) that even wizards might need strengt for some at-will/encounter/daily-power, like some kind of transmutating ray that temporarily changes you for some round into a grotesque and painful form, and deals big damage. But that's only a speculation of mine.

 

[Dinkeldog]

*shrug* This has always been an issue with the game. Perhaps that's why 3d6, in order, is the one true way to roll up a character - you don't get to choose your dump stats that way. What use has a MU/mage/wizard ever had for anything but Int, Dex, & Con? A fighter for Int or Cha (Wis being marginally useful in 3e for the Will save bonus)? and so on. Every class has one important stat, a few secondary stats, and pretty much doesn't care about the others for all intents and purposes.

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.

 

[AtomicPope]

In 3e, Con and Int were the only attribute that had cumulative benefits at each level. I would guess that with the new skill system, the benefits of high Int will be diminished. It only makes sense then to remove the "every level" benefit of Con as well.

Perhaps it will be a dump stat in campaigns that start at the Paragon or Epic tier but since you can't "retrain" ability scores I seriously doubt it will become a dump stat when creating a level 1 PC.

Personally I like the idea that there is no stat that has a critical benefit for every single class.

From playing Saga the advantage of the new skill system was that players weren't "penalized" for having an odd Int score and raising it later. In Saga you get the trained skill, in 3e you don't recalc your points. This new function improves Int scores as something players want to raise if it's an odd stat rather than say, "F-that, it's only one skill point."

 

[AtomicPope]

I think that Con could be a dump stat, which actually is a huge improvement on the game. Considering that in the past any player with a 7 Con was "Dead man walking", that really says something.

Con will still be important, particularly if the party doesn't have a cleric. Also, an improvement - healing isn't absolutely necessary.

 

[Stalker0]

Well, there is an article or a designer blog about the Fighter, where there was the choice of either taking constitution, which appearently was favorable to warhammers, or wisdom, that had anything do with some kind of flurry of blows with the sword.

We should keep in mind the following:

1) That statement was made several months ago, which is a lifetime ago in the development process.

2) We saw several weapons used by the pregens and there were no special weapon abilities.

 

[FadedC]

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.

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).

Hmm well it does appear that every class has at least one extra stat that's useful to them in 4e. Rogues gain extra bonuses from putting points into either str or charisma, we've also seen references to fighters gaining bonuses from con and wisdom, wizards gaining bonuses from charisma, and warlords gaining bonuses from int.

Obviously we have to see the full picture to know for sure, but it certainly seems possible there are less dump stats in 4e rather then more. If a fighter actually has use for strength, con, dex and wisdom then that's actually 1 less dump stat then he had in 3e.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

2) We saw several weapons used by the pregens and there were no special weapon abilities.

But there are powers that have specific weapon requirements, such as the Rogue powers that need to use a light blade, and Tide of Iron which requires a shield. My guess is that this is what Rob Heinsoo may have referring to in that early article.