What is the best ability score?

[ddude987]

Hello everyone!
A few friends and I had a discussion the other day, and the question of what is the best ability score? That continued into wondering what the full list of scores would be from best to worst? We came to the conclusion that Str is the worst ability score though beyond that, the rest was up in the air. What are some thoughts on this?

Please give a full ordering, and why. Ability scores can be equivalent. Yes, I know this is subject to class, race archetype, etc but were looking more for overall worth. Thanks! Discussion about other people's thoughts is encouraged.

[Elderand]

Charisma, there are way to run near everything off it

[Greenish]

The best ability score is the one that fuels your casting.

I notice for wizard, artificer, archivist, and erudite, that's intelligence.

[Emperor Tippy]

Int.

About the only thing that you can't apply it to (often multiple times in the same build) is Fort saves.

[OldTrees1]

Int.

About the only thing that you can't apply it to (often multiple times in the same build) is Fort saves.

Nightcloak would want a word about Intellegent Saves.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20040522a

[Slipperychicken]

what is the best ability score?

Define "best".

As in, what are you looking for in an ability score?

[Greenish]

As in, what are you looking for in an ability score?One that's funny but also romantic, and likes long walks on the beach.

[cakellene]

It's usually whichever is highest.

[Tengu_temp]

The most universally useful ability score for every character, no matter what their class is? Constitution. Sure, a level 15 wizard can bend reality backwards if he wants, but before he reaches that point, those extra several HP per level help him survive without getting knocked out by a random goblin's thrown booger or killed by a crit from said booger.

Constitution is almost never your most important ability score, but for almost every character it's the second most important.

[Gwazi Magnum]

Charisma or Intelligence in my opinion.

Charisma if you're willing to take advantage of things such as leadership.

Otherwise it's Intelligence because it gives you massive skill points, and is the main casting stat for most tier one classes.

Wisdom is a close second cause it does the same for Druid and Cleric.
But those two classes don't get as ridiculous as Wizards and Artificers can sometimes get.

+Intelligence with a feat can also cover things like will saves and HP.

[Slipperychicken]

The most universally useful ability score for every character, no matter what their class is? Constitution. Sure, a level 15 wizard can bend reality backwards if he wants, but before he reaches that point, those extra several HP per level help him survive without getting knocked out by a random goblin's thrown booger or killed by a crit from said booger.


Unless he has the Faerie Mysteries Initiate feat, in which case he can put everything into Intelligence while being reasonably durable. This can combo with Necropolitan (changes HD to d12s) to make him quite tanky.

[Ailowynn]

In a way, you might as well ask "what's the best class," since ability scores are affected so much by your class. The best ability is the one that can be broken the most, and I think that's Intelligence for two reasons: it lets you be a wizard, and it lets you be a genius--solve anything in the best possible way. High Wisdom is nice, but less immediately useful.

In a classless game, though, I'd say Charisma. You don't have to worry about being killed by that goblin if you can bluff or talk your way out of a fight. You don't have to slog through dungeons; you can convince people to do that for you. You don't need a five-fingered discount; they'll knock a bit off the price since your such a likable fellow.

[Emperor Tippy]

Unless he has the Faerie Mysteries Initiate feat, in which case he can put everything into Intelligence while being reasonably durable. This can combo with Necropolitan (changes HD to d12s) to make him quite tanky.

Straight Necropolitan renders Constitution a dump stat for pretty much any class that feels like it. The d12's are going to generally be more HP than anything but a front line melee tank is going to have before the higher levels (where HP is mostly an irrelevance anyways) as they won't be able to afford more than 12-14 Con (16 on the outside) and the difference in average rolls between a d6 and a d12 exactly 3 points (which would be 16 Con).

Int is generally the hardest to replace in its specialties (casting stat and skill points) while being fairly easy to get to replace everything else.

Also, the various ways to get Int to stuff tend to syngerize very well. I mean Necropolitan Gray Elf Factotum 8/ Monk 2/ Swashbuckler 3 with Keen Intellect, Insightful Reflexes, Kung Fu Genius, and Faerie Mysteries Initiate is rocking Int to everything on your character sheet except Fortitude Saves. Pay 4.5K GP to put a Novice Ring of the Diamond Mind onto one of your rings and choose Mind Over Body and you get to replace that Fortitude save with a Concentration check once per Encounter, which means Int to Fort saves as well once per encounter.

[Tengu_temp]

In a standard game, Necropolitans are going to be rare, the exception rather than the rule. And for everyone else, constitution is very much worth it.

[ddude987]

Let's pose the question from a "balance" point of view, if you were to give a race (or similar) a +2 stat and some other abilities, to make all 6 iterations (one for str, dex, con, int, wis, cha) equal, which would have the most extras to balance, which would have the least?

[Honest Tiefling]

I have found that if you dump Charisma enough times, your party will stop expecting your characters to talk to others after a few negotiations of role playing that score.

[ddude987]

Somehow in my current campaign I am the "party leader" even though I'm playing an 8 Cha introverted elf who dislikes all sentient humanoids.

[Honest Tiefling]

With some people, the player's charisma score can matter more.

[LadyLexi]

Charisma, because Diplomacy. An unarmored, unarmed bard's form of self defense.

[Phelix-Mu]

I'll say it's one of the mental scores. The physical ones can be obviated by any caster worth their salt, and while low hp can bone anyone in a given situation, most well-played characters can get by with a slightly above average Con.

I used to love rolling a Spot with +60ish on my high-level druid. High Wisdom feels better to me, but high Int is probably more mechanically useful. It's probably just that I like having my character be able to roll his/her eyes at anyone they meet.

[Heliomance]

Int.

About the only thing that you can't apply it to (often multiple times in the same build) is Fort saves.

Really? I though Charisma was the one normally cited as being able to apply it to everything forever.

[QuintonBeck]

As Gwazi Magnum said, Charisma takes the cake if you can take Leadership. It has its own applications and you can get minions to do what you can't.

It's interesting that Str, Dex, and Wis are seemingly the least appreciated stats so far. I suppose they just simply don't synergize with a whole lot.

[Emperor Tippy]

Really? I though Charisma was the one normally cited as being able to apply it to everything forever.

It can be but it doesn't synergize anywhere near as well as Int.

[ericgrau]

For X to Y maybe it's charisma or maybe it's something else. But generally it's whatever your primary stat is, then con (hp+fort saves), dex (AC+initiative+reflex saves), wis (will saves), int (skill points), str (carry capacity), cha (nearly jack squat... um, trivial and unnecessary bonus to social skills). Again, the moment you apply an ability score to any special ability it immediately changes the order.

[EugeneVoid]

Assuming medium optimization.

Strength- Usually... okay. Raises your carry weight, which is only a problem at low levels. In lower-op, raises your damage and accuracy. In fact, this is probably the easiest/simplest way that's not crap (weapon focus) to raise your accuracy and damage. On melee focused characters, having a decently high score is important. At least ten on characters that want to get involved in melee. Any casters probably don't give a hoot.

Constitution- Fort Saves and HP. Always useful. There are a myriad of different ways to render physical stats meaningless, so... Constitution is particularly vulnerable, because of Undead PCs and (oh god) Construct PCs. Still really useful though. Put excess points in here. A little HP never hurt.

Dexterity- Initiative. This also gives AC and determines ranged attacks. The second one is more important, because AC quickly becomes irrelevant. Actually pretty important, because it determines initiative. This is also a worthy candidate for points. (Factotums laugh at this, though)

Now the meat and bones: The mental stats.

Intelligence: Skill points. Very easy to get this to everything. (Kung Fu Genius, Faerie Mysteries Initiate, Factotum levels, Even Warblade Levels) Also, you get to have really high intelligence, which makes your optimization fine in terms of roleplay. You want at least a 10. Nobody wants to lose skill points. Especially, melee classes.

Wisdom: Will defense? I think that's it. It plays a part in that it can be applied to AC, to hit, to damage, to hit again... Without a focus though, it's not that great. Either put a bit in here, or don't. It's not really important.

Charisma: Dump stat. Or a pump stat. Charisma is really, REALLY, REALLY!!!(!!!) easy to get to pretty much everything. It's useless though. What a shame. I guess that you can diplomance people. It is RAW, but that's ****ing stupid, and nobody actually plays with those rules.

Edit: Oh and if you've casting.
Raise the crap out of the casting stat. MMMMHHH. KEEP PUMPING IT. DONT EVER STOP

[TuggyNE]

Hello everyone!
A few friends and I had a discussion the other day, and the question of what is the best ability score? That continued into wondering what the full list of scores would be from best to worst? We came to the conclusion that Str is the worst ability score though beyond that, the rest was up in the air. What are some thoughts on this?

Please give a full ordering, and why. Ability scores can be equivalent. Yes, I know this is subject to class, race archetype, etc but were looking more for overall worth. Thanks! Discussion about other people's thoughts is encouraged.

Well, it depends a whole lot on whether you are looking at the basic uses that nearly every character has for the scores, the still fairly straightforward uses various base/standard classes have for them, the more sophisticated stuff you can do, or just out-and-out TO. For that matter, do you want the scores which are most often the best, or the scores which have the most overall utility, or what?

Assuming straightforward uses and overall utility, EugeneVoid has a decent explanation, and I'd rank them Con>Dex>Int>Str>Wis>Cha, more or less.


One that's funny but also romantic, and likes long walks on the beach.

+win

[EugeneVoid]

Assuming straightforward uses and overall utility, EugeneVoid has a decent explanation, and I'd rank them Con>Dex>Int>Str>Wis>Cha, more or less.

http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/378/506/1d5.jpg

[fluke1993]

:smalleek:

So Eugene just proved to me that wisdom is the most important stat; if I had a higher wis I might not have failed that will save just now...

[mabriss lethe]

Assuming medium optimization.



Dexterity- Initiative. This also gives AC and determines ranged attacks. The second one is more important, because AC quickly becomes irrelevant. Actually pretty important, because it determines initiative. This is also a worthy candidate for points. (Factotums laugh at this, though)



It's also good to note that dexterity applies to Touch AC, which makes it significantly better for longer.

[ddude987]

:smalleek:

So Eugene just proved to me that wisdom is the most important stat; if I had a higher wis I might not have failed that will save just now...

I always thought Wis was the best stat. Sense if people are lying, their mood, read their minds... see people (or hear), invisible wizards might still make noise. Will save, so no will save or die, seems good.

[Spore]

I rate mental stats above physical ones. That arrow MAY kill you, that Sword swing MAY miss, but if you are truly a smart, wise and charismatic character you will gladly have enough people jump in the way.

Int heavily influences all things non-combat (skills! skills for everyone!), Charisma lets you influence your surroundings to do partly your bidding (one advantage no one really ever mentions in an tier debatte: a Paladin of any faith may have the trust of most governments and gets easy access to anything), and Wisdom separates the leaders from the mad dogs.

It is the wrong set of abilites for someone who just wants to punch the frick out of some monsters. But you can only create the picture of a mighty warrior that doesn't stand down if you REALLY push up one stat enough that it hurts. Make a Strength Monster and fluff it to be muscular and brawny and no one sane will stop you. Make him agile and nimble and people are astonished by your fleet of foot. Increase his constitution and baffle people onto what the character can take.

My list is all about making an impression your gaming table and fellow players rather than winning at the "x to y" game or optistomping the everliving stuff out of some poor CR appropriate creatures.

[danzibr]

The most universally useful ability score for every character, no matter what their class is? Constitution. Sure, a level 15 wizard can bend reality backwards if he wants, but before he reaches that point, those extra several HP per level help him survive without getting knocked out by a random goblin's thrown booger or killed by a crit from said booger.

Constitution is almost never your most important ability score, but for almost every character it's the second most important.
Totally Con. I forget the build, but you can get over 30 HP at level 1. Something like Arctic Dragonborn Human Bear Totem Barb with 2 flaws for more Toughness, the regional feat which gives 5 HP, Slow trait. At higher levels, go Half-Ogre Half-Minotaur Arctic Mongrelfolk Dragonborn. By RAW, +14 Con at ECL 2. Start at 18, that's 32 Con, +11 modifier.

EDIT: I forgot to use blue text.

[GreenETC]

Int>Dex>Cha>Con>Wis>Str.

Actually, I'd like to see a comparative analysis of builds that make absolute use of the stat. Int gets to be a Wizard or Factotum build with Int to everywhere, Con is a Deepwarden, Str would be a Hulking Hurler, etc.

[AstralFire]

As far as justifying optimization or optimal strategies in-universe, I think hyper-awareness (Wis), hyper-analysis (Int) and hyper-subtly-influencing-reality-with-sense-of-self (Cha) all come out to be about the same, really, once you're well into your 20s. Especially Wis/Int.

[Slipperychicken]

Charisma: Dump stat. Or a pump stat. Charisma is really, REALLY, REALLY!!!(!!!) easy to get to pretty much everything. It's useless though. What a shame. I guess that you can diplomance people. It is RAW, but that's ****ing stupid, and nobody actually plays with those rules.


Believe it or not, many people actually talk their way out of problems. It works more often than you'd think.

[OldTrees1]

Believe it or not, many people actually talk their way out of problems. It works more often than you'd think.

Diplomacy being a powerful skill is reasonable. It being flat DCs is RAW silliness.

[ericgrau]

Easy to optimize while still dumping charisma. And rarely does anyone play diplomacy as diplomancy. Nor should they.

The mental stats tend to be poor in general for classes/builds that don't specifically use them. Because the players' mental stats tend to be 8-12 and that's what really determines what your character does. The DM can try to make up new effects based on mental stats, but this takes work and often isn't done.

This applies in particular to talking your way out of problems. i.e., declaring what your character says to some creatures not dice rolling.

[Devils_Advocate]

With regard to how things work in core-ish play, without lots of ridiculous cheese -- I know that the core rules have plenty of ridiculous cheese, but Natural Spell aside, most of it's not applicable to the topic at hand --

I've thought about this before, and I've noted that a bunch of feats give +1 or +2 to something or other. So you can look at which feats +4 to an Ability score is equivalent to (by reviewing the helpful list of what each of them does (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#theAbilities)). And while a small bonus to a specific thing may not be worth a feat, such feats strike me as often being relatively balanced against each other.

For example, +4 Wisdom gives the benefits of Iron Will, Alertness, Self-Sufficient, and half of Negotiator; but Heal and Survival are fairly useless for most characters. +4 Constitution gives you Great Fortitude and Improved Toughness x2.

We can make judgement calls in cases where feats don't exactly cover something. For example, just giving +1 AC when you're not flat-footed is probably what would bring Dodge up to par, so let's call that 2. The improved carrying capacity from +4 Str is probably worth about 1. But the +1 to hit gets discounted because you noticed that Dex is a generally superior stat and are basing your attack rolls off of that like a clever monkey.

You can apply this method on a by-character basis, too, which is how the value of Ability scores of course ultimately must be evaluated if we are to be practical. Wisdom counts for 2 more for a Monk, for example. Dexterity equates to 9 useful feats for a Rogue, because everything on the lengthy Dex list but Ride is helpful for a Rogue to boost.

It's also worth considering the detriment of dumping a stat all the way to 3 or so. When you look at that, you can see that certain Abilities are quite useful not to have really low. A Dexterity penalty applies to AC all the time no matter what sort of armor you've got. Barely being able to carry anything sucks. (On the other hand, having Str and Dex both high is kind of a waste since you can use just one to power your attack rolls, so this creates the situation where most builds call for a high score in one and a mediocre score in the other.) Terrible Constitution is pretty much a death sentence, since your final line of defense that things generally have to cross in order to actually kill you -- HP and Fort -- is compromised. And horrid Wisdom makes you susceptible to stuff that may make you wish you were dead, due to a bad Will save.

Int and Cha, on the other hand... A combat monster Barbarian can utterly tank both of those and be pretty much fine. Which makes sense; if your combat strategy is to hit them very hard until they fall down, that doesn't require much beyond animal cognitive capability, and the average bear is Int 2 Cha 6. Not exactly known for being all intellectual and persuasive, y'know?

Of course, that leaves you vulnerable to ego whip (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/egoWhip.htm)... which raises one final consideration. Each of your Ability scores has a second job as a sort of weird alternate hit points such that you're incapacitated if they're exhausted. If this weren't explicitly a rule, there's no reason they couldn't plunge down into the negatives, doing no harm but increasingly severe numerical penalties as they do when lowered to above 0. But they arbitrarily do work like that, which makes it dangerous to have any score really low.

[Slipperychicken]

Diplomacy being a powerful skill is reasonable. It being flat DCs is RAW silliness.

You could do something like making it an opposed Diplomacy roll. Ironically, that would probably make life easier for a specialized negotiator. (EDIT: Maybe with a bonus equal to [existing flat DC - 10]?)

Additionally, Bluff can be quite powerful, allowing a skilled user to bypass many obstacles with ease. This goes double when combined with Forgery.

[Eldonauran]

:smallconfused:

I'd say it depends on your build. There are many ways to get Dex to hit, to damage. There are good ways of doing the same with Wisdom and Charisma. Intelligence too.

The second best score is easy. Constitution.

With the synergy between Int (or Wis) and Cha, you make make a decent melee character by leaving Str at 10. Int>Cha=Con>Dex>Wis>Str or Wis>Cha=Con>Dex>Int>Str. I've seen very good builds that use these.

[Wardog]

I think what all this shows, is that whoever decided "Half-orcs get +2 to str, so they need -2 to two mental stats to balance it" really didn't understand the game they had created.

[HaikenEdge]

For importance, I've got Con > Int > Cha > Wis > Dex > Str

If you've 0 Str or Dex, you're basically immobile; if your mental attributes go to 0, you're comatose.

On the other hand, if your Con goes to 0, you're dead.

That aside, the best ability score, in my opinion, is Intelligence. Intelligence gets you skills, can be applied to almost all your roles, if you have the right combination of classes, feats and powers. I'm sure the same can be said for Charisma, but Charisma doesn't also give you more skill points.

[Know(Nothing)]

Int>Dex>Cha>Con>Wis>Str.

Actually, I'd like to see a comparative analysis of builds that make absolute use of the stat. Int gets to be a Wizard or Factotum build with Int to everywhere, Con is a Deepwarden, Str would be a Hulking Hurler, etc.

Depends on how cheesy you want to get, since the Muscle Wizard (http://ihititwithmyaxe.tumblr.com/post/46007651740/breaking-d-d-3-5-the-muscle-wizard-or-how-to) makes the most of STR.

[Devils_Advocate]

It looks like the consensus is "Con is best in general followed by Dex, Int is best for basing everything off of via crazy splatbook cheese, Cha is best if Leadership is allowed, and also if you'd rather solve problems by talking than through combat, because duh, that's what it's for."

No one has ranked Strength higher than 4th best and the OP is the only one to rank Wisdom higher than 3rd, I think. So there is further wide agreement that neither of these is best, though not that either is worst.


Yes, I know this is subject to class, race archetype, etc but were looking more for overall worth.
Hmm. Well, if boosting the Ability scores of a versatile group of adventurers -- each with a different specialty, a different primary Ability score, and a different sort of build -- you'd of course do best to raise the primary score of each character.

But if you had to pick a single Ability to give everyone in the party a +X boost to? Constitution, almost certainly, followed by Dexterity, then Wisdom, then Intelligence, then Strength, then Charisma.

The thing about Charisma is that while it does useful stuff, it's generally best to have one specialist character do that stuff for the party, so +Cha is pretty wasted on everyone else. Of course, you could be in a game where the party's success or failure in social endeavors is more important than success and failure in combat endeavors, and where success or failure in social endeavors is highly dependent on stats. In that case, +Cha to the party negotiator might well be worth more than +Con +Dex to the entire group! But that would be a fairly unusual sort of campaign.

Strength is valuable to two-handed Power Attackers and also for various opposed rolls involved in attacks other than just hitting them very hard until they fall down (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm). Outside of melee, its main impact is on encumbrance, which can be a significant issue for low-Str characters provided the DM is enforcing it, but a high Strength is pretty much wasted on a Wizard, say.

Besides, boosting e.g. a Bard's Str so he can wear more armor and thus have higher AC while keeping him at a light load is only slightly more efficient than just raising his AC via Dex, so you might as well do that and get the other benefits of higher Dex as well. Unless you're buying Dex and Str at different rates; this one of those things where point buy leads to different considerations than just assigning stats in order of priority.

Getting more skill points is good, and one of the things that make humans good at a bunch of different things by design, though I'd say high Int is wasted on a class with a lousy skill list like Sorcerer or Barbarian. Surprisingly nice for a Cleric or Paladin, though!

The downsides of low Wisdom are severe, but they can be significantly patched with the right abjurations and divinations. Plus you can have a creature type that makes you outright immune to mind-affecting stuff. But even without that, just protection from evil goes a surprisingly long way, for example.

High Dexterity isn't necessary for a character who can use heavy armor without penalty... but even if it doesn't restrict special abilities, heavy armor comes with a big penalty of the armor check variety, and a reduced speed. It would be preferable to use a mithral breastplate instead, at which point you want 20 Dex! Some really nasty stuff targets your touch AC rather than flat-footed, anyway. And without a big armor check penalty holding you back, a +5 modifier will let you pass a few basic skill checks untrained. Did I mention that there are a lot of Dex-based skills?

Constitution plays the most direct role in deciding how alive you are. Unless you have special means by which your mind can still influence the world even if you are deceased, being an adventurer requires being alive. On the other hand, if such special means are in play, then it's not so much of a concern, now is it? ;)

So, in conclusion, I'd say that the 3 Abilities that saving throws are based on are most essential, not just for saves but because each also does something else important (Initiative and touch AC; hit points; Spot, Listen, and Sense Motive). I guess Dexterity most of all, as its necessity is least easily obviated.


Let's pose the question from a "balance" point of view, if you were to give a race (or similar) a +2 stat and some other abilities, to make all 6 iterations (one for str, dex, con, int, wis, cha) equal, which would have the most extras to balance, which would have the least?
How powerful a race is depends on how well its abilities synergize with each other, though. E.g., an Artificer doesn't benefit from dwarven Weapon Familiarity, while a Barbarian doesn't get much out of dwarf skill bonuses. Actually dwarves are a really solid race and not a good example of what I'm talking about, but they're slightly less awesome than they might appear because for almost any given character there's a bit of their big list of awesome stuff that's not really relevant.


the players' mental stats tend to be 8-12 and that's what really determines what your character does.
More specifically, the characters' abilities may determine whether they succeed at what they attempt, but the players' abilities determine what they attempt.

And solving a problem often comes down to choosing the right approach. Really, the role of characters' strengths and weaknesses is mostly to make various approaches more or less viable.

The only real alternative to that is a system in which the player's only role is to design the character. Which could be fun, but that would be a simulation, not a roleplaying game.


I think what all this shows, is that whoever decided "Half-orcs get +2 to str, so they need -2 to two mental stats to balance it" really didn't understand the game they had created.
Those aren't meaningful penalties to a typical melee bruiser, though, just like +2 Str isn't a meaningful benefit to a typical skill monkey or arcane spellcaster. Racial abilities generally reward you for playing to stereotypes and punish you for going against them. They're the opposite of balanced in that regard. If they're balanced, it's by the races getting thus rewarded and punished equally.

(You may be surprised to learn that humans aren't actually generically good at everything, because they suck at roles requiring keen senses (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0838.html). Halflings, too, really, as they're one of the like 3 creatures in 3.5 that can't see well by moonlight, which sucks for a race oriented towards the scout role. Some 4E designer commented on how absurdly common darkvision and low-light vision were in 3.5 as an explanation of why they decided to tone that stuff down a bit.)

Anyway, getting no meaningful benefit from your race but (unremarkable, due to nightvision proliferation) darkvision is punishment enough for playing a half-orc whose modus operandi isn't "hit things very hard", so screw those Ability penalties. No, seriously, you can just toss out the -2 Int and -2 Cha, house-rule them out of existence, and half-orcs are still worse choices than dwarves for nearly everything, even tough-guy things, and half-orc wizards and bards still totally suck sufficiently hard.

On a related note, high elves are rather sub-par, because while they get a bonus to a generally useful stat, they get a penalty to one as well, whereas most races get a penalty to a dumpable stat

[Wardog]

Those aren't meaningful penalties to a typical melee bruiser, though, just like +2 Str isn't a meaningful benefit to a typical skill monkey or arcane spellcaster. Racial abilities generally reward you for playing to stereotypes and punish you for going against them. They're the opposite of balanced in that regard. If they're balanced, it's by the races getting thus rewarded and punished equally.

I know, although I think that's part of the problem.

It means the half-orc is only really good for one thing (max-strength melee brute). And not only that, if you don't go that route, you end up gimping your character, because with fewer overall stat points (and no notable other bonuses) you will be worse overall than any other race in the role.

(It stuck me most when, some years back, I was playing around with some wacky character concepts in NWN. I was wanting to make a character with equally high STR and CON, and not-bad other stats. As such, the Dwarf's +2 Con and the Halforc's +2 Str were equally useful, but the lower total stats of the orc made him absolutely worse).

Also, the lack (?) of synergy between the half-orcs bonuses and penalties is a bad design, IMO, because - even without the net penalty - it forces them into a specific role (stupid fighter). An elf, for example, gets a bonus to a stat that is useful for most classes, and a penalty to one that is useful to everyone. This means he can be good at any class, albeit tending towards a particular style of that clase (quick but fragile). Ditto for halflings, gnomes, and dwarves. The halforc, on the other hand, is very good at one or two classes, and rubbish at several others.


Finally, I would think that a caster would suffer a lot more from -2 to their primary stat than a fighter would from -2 to str. A fighter just becomes less good at hitting things hard (and some builds don't rely on str anyway), but (apart from a couple of feats with moderate str requirements) isn't actually prevented from doing anything. A wizard with -2 int, on the other hand, not only gets fewer and less powerful spells, but is potentially cut off from higher level casting.

[Spuddles]

I always thought Wis was the best stat. Sense if people are lying, their mood, read their minds... see people (or hear), invisible wizards might still make noise. Will save, so no will save or die, seems good.

In real life, if someone asked me "Spuddles, you could have a 210 in any of your ability scores, which do you want?" That's +100 to checks, btw.

I would go with wisdom because a) autohypnosis and b) if I chose something like charisma or int I would go mad with power.

[Helcack]

I follow this for real life and D&D for how I build pretty much all my characters:
1. Intelligence(With skill points, a low score in anything can be pretty much negated, and a high score in something can be increased many times over)
2. Charisma(The ability to talk your way out of problems, have people like you, and generally make your life easier is extremely important. A character/person with a horrible Charisma can get nowhere in life but the bottom.)
3. Wisdom(The ability to not be an easily manipulable person are only slightly less important than being able to manipulate people yourself.)
4. Constitution(The ability not to die when **** happens is important. The smartest, most charismatic, wisest mofo in the world will die of disease before anything happens if he dumps this stat.)
5. Dexterity(The ability to do things quickly is extremely important, the main use for this is having your body react as quick as your mind[See Initiative])
6. Strength(even though this is low, don't put too little in this or you can't carry your loot[in real life and in D&D] so don't put this below a 10 if possible)

Ten most important things that are given to you by stats:
Skill Points/Bonuses(If you can't do anything, what use are you?)
Initiative(If you don't react, then nothing gets done.)
Will Saves(If you fail this, you are already done.)
Fort Saves(If you fail this, you are probably dead.)
Hit Points(Just try not to die in one hit.)
Ref Saves(Have enough hit points so you don't need this.)

[Talya]

Charisma.

Not only does it have the most X-Stat to Y-Bonus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125732) options, but merely having it makes you awesome. You can be superstrong, superintelligent, (or both!) and without charisma you're just a brutish jock/sweaty nerd (or both!) with no style or personal magnetism at all.

[Devils_Advocate]

the lack (?) of synergy between the half-orcs bonuses and penalties
Nah, penalties to a role's dump stats effectively have synergy with a bonus to that role's primary stat when they're the alternative to penalties to stuff useful to that role. ("You're forgetting the BEST dwarven bonus! MINUS TWO CHARISMA!") The whole min/max thing, y'know?


forces them into a specific role (stupid fighter).
They make okay clerics, psychic warriors, and so on, not that there's anything remotely remarkable about that. (Full orcs as a race really got screwed by penalties to all the mental stats. It means that they're bad at all forms of spellcasting and more broadly all forms of mental activity.)


Finally, I would think that a caster would suffer a lot more from -2 to their primary stat than a fighter would from -2 to str.
Using my metric given above, +4 Str equals Weapon Focus twice and Weapon Specialization once, so that's 3. I think that there's a Forgotten Realms feat that lets you count a mental stat as two points higher for spell slot purposes, which leaves Spell Focus. So, assuming that a caster targets each saving throw with one school most of the time... +4 to [casting stat] is worth roughly 8 feats.

My mathematical analysis leads me to conclude that a typical spellcaster's primary Ability score roughly twice as relatively offensively useful to the spellcaster as Strength is to a Strength-based warrior.


A wizard with -2 int, on the other hand, not only gets fewer and less powerful spells, but is potentially cut off from higher level casting.
Eh, +4 from leveling and +4 from an item gives a spellcaster who starts with 12 a score of 20 by level 17 (and you're allowed to reroll if your lowest result when rolling up Ability scores is under 14). I don't think there's any point in your career where being able to cast your highest-level spells is particularly hard even if you do start with a -2 penalty.


In real life, if someone asked me "Spuddles, you could have a 210 in any of your ability scores, which do you want?" That's +100 to checks, btw.

I would go with wisdom because a) autohypnosis and b) if I chose something like charisma or int I would go mad with power.
Hm, that's a tricky one. I don't doubt that 210 Int is easily several times more than enough to figure out exactly what wisdom is and how to efficiently increase it, but there's a definite danger of getting distracted by several million other potential applications of one's enhanced intellectual capabilities.

[Slipperychicken]

In real life, if someone asked me "Spuddles, you could have a 210 in any of your ability scores, which do you want?" That's +100 to checks, btw.

I would go with wisdom because a) autohypnosis and b) if I chose something like charisma or int I would go mad with power.

Not as disgustingly OP as 210 Charisma, but still good. You get to immediately know everyone's alignment and surface thoughts, perceive everything, be the best doctor in the universe, and also annihilate your Craft and Profession checks.


Detect Surface Thoughts (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#detectSurfaceThoughts)
This lets a character read the surface thoughts of a single target (as the 3rd-round effect of the detect thoughts spell). There is no saving throw to resist this effect, though the target can use Bluff to disguise his or her surface thoughts (see the Bluff skill description), in which case this becomes an opposed check (any result lower than 100 automatically fails). The target must be visible and within 30 feet of the character.

I'd most likely give in and take 210 Intelligence, since I could do more good for people in the long run by knowing everything and inventing all the things.

[Greenish]

If you suddenly had a mental ability score of 210, would you still be the same person?


I'd take the 210 on Con. Never get tired, never get sick (gotta invest in Steadfast Determination), never get distracted.

[Shining Wrath]

This is really a "What's the best class" thread, because no one cares about ability scores divorced from a PC.

If I were a DM and gave you a choice of playing a Commoner with 18's in every score, or a 24 point buy build in a base class, with no PrC or multi-classing allowed for either, what will you choose? I'm going to have a LOT more fun with almost any class than I am with uber-Commoner.

Let me attempt a mild thread hijack, then:

Which abilities are the most important aside from their utility as a class primary score?

How useful is strength for non-melees?
How useful is intelligence for characters not using it as casting stat?
How useful is wisdom for characters not using it as casting stat?
How useful is charisma for characters not using it as casting stat?
How useful is dexterity for the not-rogueish classes?

And I'm going to agree with the sentiment above that you'll never get very far down the list before you start thinking about putting point buy into Constitution.

So, just considering uses for a "generic" PC:
Strength - carrying capacity, some minor skills. Carrying capacity often handwaved into insignificance. Utility: very low.
Intelligence - languages, skill points, some handy skills. Utility: high.
Wisdom - Will saves, some handy skills. Utility: medium-high.
Charisma - some very handy skills. You are pretty much guaranteed to need to talk to someone once per session. Utility: medium.
Dexterity - AC, Initiative, Reflex saves, some minor skills. Utility: medium.
Constitution - Fort saves, one critical skill, HP. Utility - high.

Therefore: INT=CON > WIS > CHR=DEX > STR.

Again, this is setting aside the utility of these abilities as prime scores for various classes.

[ddude987]

I'd most likely give in and take 210 Intelligence, since I could do more good for people in the long run by knowing everything and inventing all the things.

Would you gain skill points retroactively? All of a sudden, you can do anything well.


If you suddenly had a mental ability score of 210, would you still be the same person?


I'd take the 210 on Con. Never get tired, never get sick (gotta invest in Steadfast Determination), never get distracted.

I think you wouldn't be the same person with any ability score changed, except maybe con. Str, you would accidental destroy things, Dex, uncontrollable twitching perhaps. This gives me a good idea, a cursed item that pumps an ability score to that height when its not convenient, or something along those lines.

[Slipperychicken]

Would you gain skill points retroactively? All of a sudden, you can do anything well.

That's right. Well, one could do ~98 more things with max ranks :smallbiggrin:

The only intelligence skills which would need ranks would be the trained-only ones (since they're getting +100 from ability score). So just one rank for each of the following: knowledge skills, decipher script, Forgery, Disable Device, maybe some Craft skills, etc. Then probably spend the remaining ranks on social skills and sense motive.

[Talya]

Therefore: INT=CON > WIS > CHR=DEX > STR.


You're not factoring in the ease of switching these various features to another score.

You can add Charisma, for instance, to Armor Class, Saves, To Hit, Damage, Hit Points, Knowledge Skills, Concentration Checks, etc., with feats, gear, or PrC dips.

Charisma has more options for doing this than just about any other ability score, too.

[Wardog]

Nah, penalties to a role's dump stats effectively have synergy with a bonus to that role's primary stat when they're the alternative to penalties to stuff useful to that role. ("You're forgetting the BEST dwarven bonus! MINUS TWO CHARISMA!") The whole min/max thing, y'know?


Sorry, I expressed myself increadibly badly there.

What I meant was that the bonuses and penalties synergise so well (assuming you want to play a melee-focused meat-head) that they effectively force you to min-max into a specific role.

[Devils_Advocate]

Incidentally, DMG stats for NPCs basically go

Dex > Con > Wis = Str > Int > Cha

(i.e. for most classes Dex > Con, for most classes Con > Wis, for most classes Con > Str, Wis and Str are roughly tied, for most classes Str > Int, and for most classes Int > Cha.)

That can be seen as the default totem pole, with Abilities promoted or demoted from there in importance depending on class.


If you suddenly had a mental ability score of 210, would you still be the same person?
Well, did you even exist 6 seconds ago, given that everyone then was different from you right now (even if one of them was highly similar)? How could any of them be the same as you if they were all different? Aren't "different" and "the same" antonyms?

But, conversely, the mind is a process, and every process involves change. Frozen unchanging in one state, one has no thoughts, feelings, etc. So because there is no difference between you right now and you right now, your mind can't exist for just a single instant either.

As such, it seems that there is no "you". (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MindScrew)


You're not factoring in the ease of switching these various features to another score.
See, this is why I specified that I was discounting that stuff. ... Although I am counting Weapon Finesse, since it's Core and not class-dependent...

(There seems to be broad consensus that Dexterity is superior to Strength, thus generally recommending builds that use the former for attack rolls over the latter.)

If there's a general conclusion to be drawn from the responses in this thread, I think it's that responses to this question need to include caveats in order to be meaningful. What's "best" heavily depends on context.

The question of which Ability is most important to the general inhabitants of a setting is different from the question of which Ability score is most important to the adventurers of that setting, for example, and the answer may even vary from one setting to another!


Sorry, I expressed myself increadibly badly there.
Oh, I took your parenthetical question mark to mean that you weren't sure whether you were in fact describing a lack of synergy or instead synergy, and required clarification on the matter. I therefore took it upon myself to respond in the negative to the implicit query I perceived -- the question of whether "lack" ought to be dropped from the sentence in order for it to make contextual sense -- for the sake of clarification.

I suppose that the half-orc's deal could be described as having excessive synergy within the context of generally low capability. ... Or more aptly by saying "they're only competitive with other races at one type of thing and relatively bad at almost everything else".