Does anyone ever play bad stats deliberately, just for fun?

[Calthropstu]

I saw a rolling stats vs point buy and wondered: What if someone wants to deliberately play a sub-par character?

For example, let's say you wanted to play a beavis+butthead style character who talked their way through stuff through sheer stupidity? Obviously the standard arrays would be insufficient to display such characters.

If you have done so, how did it work out?

[Quertus]

I mean, I played a Sentient Potted Plant for peat moss' sake. So, yeah, I've done that.

The Plant? Awesome. Great times. I was contributing very little across the board. But I could still communicate with the party, help plan, remember things, piece puzzles together.

Rolled stats, and Armus was almost as I envisioned him, but his Strength was too high. So I asked if I could just lower it. I was told "no". I thought for a bit, then asked if we still did 2-for-1 trading. I was told yes. "OK, I take 2 points from my Strength, and add 1 to my Strength." Repeat until Armus' Strength is where I pictured it. GM just shook his head. One of the best characters I've played.

[pabelfly]

I've taken a cut or two I didn't have to on a stat before - Charisma on a non-CHA character. Was fun playing that up.

[Silvercrys]

Standard array is probably fine for shenanigans, put your 8 in Wis and your 10 in Int, then your 15 in Cha and play a sorcerer or some other face character. Even still have your 14 for Dex so you can go Rogue if you want.

I'd only really look askance at a character if it was horribly mismatched for its class. If you still have an 8 Int after going to Wizard School or whatever, you can't cast spells so you wouldn't be able to graduate. I'd need some kind of justification in that case, though I would accept just about any of them like "I really wanted this alternate class feature but I don't care about the spellcasting, I'm going to take most of my levels in (other class that actually matches ability scores). Though in that case I'd probably ask why not take your first level in that class to have an actually competent characters and multiclass at 2nd, etc.

Wouldn't even mind the plant terribly as long as the other players didn't mind... though if we're playing a combat heavy game I'd try to help you build it with Psionics or something so you can still contribute. Mostly just people trying to bring 6-8 Int Goblin Wizards or whatever to a serious dungeon crawl/adventuring game is kind of annoying.

[KillianHawkeye]

I've min-maxed my point buys to pretty interesting places. I fondly remember a Pathfinder Brawler whose Int, Wis, and Cha scores were all 7. :smallamused:

[FaerieGodfather]

No. It's the opposite of what I consider fun, and destroys my engagement and my enjoyment in the game.

[ZamielVanWeber]

As long as I am a functional member of the party, yes. When someone's fun starts causing making the game harder then I have concerns.

[KillianHawkeye]

Well I can say that my Brawler did do a few things through sheer stupidity that weren't in the party's best interests, but he still contributed most of the time.

[Particle_Man]

Yes in first Ed AD&D to prove a point to a power gamer.

[Biggus]

I'd quite happily play a totally incompetent character for a one-shot adventure, it could be hilarious if done right. I don't think I'd want to play one through a full 20 levels though.

[Dienekes]

One of my favorite characters was a Goblin Fighter who wanted to be a knight. Easily the most useless character I've ever made. A negative modifier in all relevant stats except Dexterity. He was so much fun.

[AvatarVecna]

I've taken a cut or two I didn't have to on a stat before - Charisma on a non-CHA character. Was fun playing that up.

This. One of my consistent characters in PF is a goblin gunslinger who is either at or approaching Str 5/Dex 20/Cha 5, preferably with drawbacks to exacerbate the Cha problems. He has absolutely no business wandering into a social situation and redneckin' it up but he's going to anyway and y'all're jus' gon' have t' suffer th' consequences! He's a riot to play, and while he's got a good heart usually, he's rather opinionated, impatient with people, and generally extremely surly.

[Zaq]

Yes, but only in Kobolds Ate My Baby, not in D&D. D&D can get pretty silly, but I’ve never had a GM lean far enough into madcap shenanigans to have failure routinely be more entertaining than success.

I do want a chance of failure, but I also want to be competent at what I say my character is competent at.

[Crake]

Ive had players, as I mentioned in the other thread, play intentionally sub optimal arrays, like an 18 str, 14 wis druid.

[Luckmann]

I've played a lot of mis-matched stats/arrays and I've played (almost exclusively) sub-optimal builds (I take fun concepts and then optimize upwards until I am satisfied with the character and the character-mechanical interaction/concept), but I'm not sure I've played "bad stats" deliberately, no. Nothing like a straight low-Dex rogue or a low-Int wizard.

[OGDojo]

i played a goblin campaign where i started with 5 6's and an 8 for stats.

[Alcore]

I saw a rolling stats vs point buy and wondered: What if someone wants to deliberately play a sub-par character?

If you have done so, how did it work out?
Sub-par and 'bad stats' need to be defined. I've seen plenty of players pitch a fit when everything was at 10 or higher but no 'good stats' at 16 or above.


I find it works great to play that way. Wizard with int of 13, a barbarian with str and con being the only positives? Sure! The DM can relax and we can have fun without worrying about stupid little things like balance. I just want to have fun. Some DMs get it and some find it annoying.


I've DMed before and i have found it stressful. They want to start with 18 to 20 in a stat. They want to be the heroes. They want tough fights too. Then they complain when i crush them under my boots. Sorry; i need to keep throwing bigger and bigger rocks till they are either happy or "rocks fall, everyone dies"


Pathfinder adventure paths are even worse; i keep needing to make them tougher for the standard most carry renders easy encounters a breeze and hard becomes easy.

[Calthropstu]

Sub-par and 'bad stats' need to be defined. I've seen plenty of players pitch a fit when everything was at 10 or higher but no 'good stats' at 16 or above.


I find it works great to play that way. Wizard with int of 13, a barbarian with str and con being the only positives? Sure! The DM can relax and we can have fun without worrying about stupid little things like balance. I just want to have fun. Some DMs get it and some find it annoying.


I've DMed before and i have found it stressful. They want to start with 18 to 20 in a stat. They want to be the heroes. They want tough fights too. Then they complain when i crush them under my boots. Sorry; i need to keep throwing bigger and bigger rocks till they are either happy or "rocks fall, everyone dies"


Pathfinder adventure paths are even worse; i keep needing to make them tougher for the standard most carry renders easy encounters a breeze and hard becomes easy.

My only experience with pf ap's is that they are built to murder the party. I ran jade regent and I can't count how many times people died (usually cohorts.)

The fight with the outsider cleric in the tower became a grueling 35 round 2 session battle. But then, I had that problem when running pfs as well. Meanwhile, people here proclaim the opposite.

Meanwhile, I run my characters through the same adventures and crush them. Maybe there is something about the way I run encounters that makes them harder?

[Psychoalpha]

I find it works great to play that way. Wizard with int of 13, a barbarian with str and con being the only positives? Sure! The DM can relax and we can have fun without worrying about stupid little things like balance. I just want to have fun.

If you just want to relax and have fun without worrying about stupid little things like balance, you can do that with a Wizard with Int 50 and a Barbarian who starts with all 18s. Or an entire party who starts with nothing higher than a 13. Or literally any other combination since you're explicitly there to relax and have fun without worrying about balance.

You stressing out because your players want 18s and tough fights and etc isn't a problem with what stats go where, it's a problem of communication, expectations, and as always, people.

[Eldonauran]

Currently playing a venerable Aasimar Barbarian who thinks he is a wizard, with his final stat array turning out to be 10 Str, 10 Dex, 10 Con, 14 Int, 16 Wis, 16 Cha. He is turning the otherwise serious Tyrant's Grasp campaign into a survival horror comedy. Think Master Roshi from Dragon Ball Z minus the sexual harassment and lechery.

Party face, UMD expert, Lore-expert, and all around wise grandpa who can actually pack a punch (thanks to Spring Rage, a rage power that ignores age penalties while raging). The d12 HD sure helps him survive when surprise attacks happen.

The entire concept behind this character is to show that system mastery is the greatest contributor to the power level of a character. Also, that I wanted to make the wackiest kind of character I could, that fit all the roles I like to play, and gave me a challenge.

[Silvercrys]

If you just want to relax and have fun without worrying about stupid little things like balance, you can do that with a Wizard with Int 50 and a Barbarian who starts with all 18s. Or an entire party who starts with nothing higher than a 13. Or literally any other combination since you're explicitly there to relax and have fun without worrying about balance.

You stressing out because your players want 18s and tough fights and etc isn't a problem with what stats go where, it's a problem of communication, expectations, and as always, people.Mmhmm.

Give them a 18/16/14/13/12/10 array or their 42 point buy or whatever, then increase the ability scores of literally everything you want to be part of a "threatening" encounter by 3. You'll get a basically identical experience to the one you'd have if your players had the standard array. Does take a bit more work because you have to recalculate saves and attack and damage for the monsters and such, but you can also just add 2 to everything in a pinch (adding 2xHD HP as well).

Sometimes WotC or Paizo or whoever just needs to explain how the math works explicitly, the only edition they did that for was 4e though I believe (Disclaimer: I have not read the 5e DM's guide).

[Alcore]

My only experience with pf ap's is that they are built to murder the party. I ran jade regent and I can't count how many times people died (usually cohorts.)

The fight with the outsider cleric in the tower became a grueling 35 round 2 session battle. But then, I had that problem when running pfs as well. Meanwhile, people here proclaim the opposite.

Meanwhile, I run my characters through the same adventures and crush them. Maybe there is something about the way I run encounters that makes them harder?
I don't know about Jade Regent but most APs are built for a point buy of about 20. If your players are rolling convert the results to a point buy to know where they stand. APs are also built with a theme in mind and if not mindful can make the AP all the harder; like my Kingmaker party who undervalued the survival skill and was lost for a few days in the forest.


I miss my old kitsune monk (she was actually quite young but still adult) who had a con of 6. My opening post i had her sneeze and wipe the snot on her kimono due to something in the air. The others followed the charge into a "comedically serious" game. Guardians of the Galaxy and The Order of the Stick remind me of that short game.

[Jay R]

Yes -- as long as there's still cool things for him to do, which the DM will support.

In Original D&D, using strict 3d6 in order, I rolled up a character with STR 4, DEX 16, low WIS, fairly high INT, low CON, average high CHA character. I was about to abandon him when the DM said, "That's a nine-year-old kid".

I remembered that the DM had had a very happy childhood, and liked telling stories about the things he'd gotten away with, so I went with it. David became an extremely successful nine-year-old thief, who used his innocent face and small body to get away with things other thieves couldn't. The average foe does not target the kid in the party first, and I knew that the DM believed kids could be clever and effective. Also, the DM gave him the same plusses to Climb Wall, Hide in Shadows and Move Silently as a hobbit, based on his size.

As long as I occasionally focused on child-like ideas (playing with any new equipment, wanting to look over any wall we found), the DM liked the character, and he could get away with a lot.

How do you sneak up on a guard who's leaning against a wall? Walk up to the him, crying. "I'm lost, and I can't find my dad, and I'm hungry, and I'm cold, and I'm thirsty, and ... and ... (burst into tears)" The guard comforted him, and said, "I can find you something to eat. Then we'll get the captain, and find your parents." When he turned his back, the kid backstabbed him.

Ah, the innocent, carefree days of youth.

[Psyren]

1-2 dump stats, sure. Whole arrays being bad, no. The game assumes that generally, remarkable people become adventurers, and point buy arrays / best-X-drop-low rolls reflect this. This has only compounded as the act of character creation itself became more involved/a metagame of its own.

[Jay R]

I once rolled an overall awful character. The DM looked at my stats, and said, "He stays on the farm where he was born, grows up, gets married, has children, and lives a good but quiet life. He dies an old man, in bed, surrounded by his loved ones. Great game! Roll up a new character for the next game."

[RNightstalker]

I've always toyed with the idea of being able to do so, but every time I try I just can't bring myself to it. If I had a more regular group I think I might be able to whip up the courage to actually do it...especially if that was the campaign theme.

[Elysiume]

It's fun to play a character with strengths and weaknesses but I don't enjoy playing a character that's bad at their raison d'être. A 10 str THF fighter simply isn't going to be fun for me: hitting less often, dealing less damage, more heavily encumbered. I'm not interested in playing a character that simply can't carry their weight mechanically; it feels bad to be anti-optimized and it drags down the rest of the party.

Tanking non-required stats: maybe, but probably not. A str 7, int 7, cha 7 druid can still get the job done but they're not very smart, they can barely carry their backpack, and they're some combination of obnoxious and boring that makes them not very fun to be around. I'd consider it for a oneshot where that sort of gimmick can be amusing but I wouldn't want to have to roleplay that for an extended campaign.

[SangoProduction]

I've played a terribly statted Warlock (intentionally less than point buy), to represent him having nothing else to turn to except some unknowably dark overlord who may eventually call in the favor.
The paladin and him were *great* buddies. Never any bad blood at all. Mister goody two shoes getting free perks from a god and all.

[Lvl45DM!]

I've played a terribly statted Warlock (intentionally less than point buy), to represent him having nothing else to turn to except some unknowably dark overlord who may eventually call in the favor.
The paladin and him were *great* buddies. Never any bad blood at all. Mister goody two shoes getting free perks from a god and all.

HAH my group had a running joke about how warlocks didnt need any stat and hypothesized "Tim the Average Warlock" (you have to kind of sing it when you say it. TIM the ave-rage warrrr-lock!)
Then when rolling stats for a new character one of us got every roll between 9 and 12.
Tim the Average Warlock LIVES!
He assigned his Dex the 9, his Strength the 12 and so every stat was +0 except Charisma at a mighty 12.

Tim was a great character, totally evil and constantly scheming for more power. Sadly the campaign died soon after, but he had managed to steal a Belt of Fortitude and a Periapt of Wisdom from under the partys noses, so I assume he was aiming for getting an item of every Stat boost.

[Uncle Pine]

I once played a human Commoner because I was invited to a Pathfinder game but wanted to learn the least about the differences between PF classes and 3.5e classes. My stat rolls were quite poor, but I wanted to play a Commoner so that didn't bother me (and I still managed to have 13 Int so that I could meaningfully contribute on a strategic level).
The result? A retired farmer named Radislav who inherited a cursed adamantine longsword and a taste for alcohol. He made sure to pump up Ride and Handle Animal ranks, bought a pet bear to use as a mount and several pet chickens equipped with coloured scarves as friends and moral supports. He eventually went on and discovered that in PF hoeing can be useful for things other than RP (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/master-craftsman/), which resulted in an abundance of wacky extra magical items for the party carved from squashes and other plants. Good rolls during combat and a bear compensated well enough for subpar abilities and class choice.

[Quarian Rex]

I find it works great to play that way. Wizard with int of 13, a barbarian with str and con being the only positives? Sure! The DM can relax and we can have fun without worrying about stupid little things like balance. I just want to have fun. Some DMs get it and some find it annoying.


That sounds like hell to me. Don't get me wrong, I have grown quite fond of point buys that shake out to the elite array or somesuch (so nothing too crazy) but there is a world of difference between playing a character with disadvantages and playing a character who is incompetent. Playing a character who is designed to fail at their chosen schtick is the opposite of the fun times. Unless you're just playing the character to be disruptive or a drain of resources or are playing in a game with minimal/no investment. Those aren't games I could really play in for very long.

Granted, one of the characters that I have most wanted to play is a venerable Sage (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/sage). The idea of starting out with such a hefty malus (-6 to all physical stats) on an otherwise martial character yet still being able to contribute meaningfully is an alluring prospect. Granted, one of the characters primary motivations is to regain some of that lost youth, but when that might become viable might vary. That kind of penalty is not something that I think could be viable on a martial for very long, and not something that I would even bother trying on a more standard chassis.

What am I really saying here? If you are going to be playing some of the more drastic variations of this theme then make sure that you mention/discuss it with your group, and give them veto for the concept. While I'm sure that playing a potted plant (or a Wizard who can't land a spell, same thing one might argue) could be awesome in a very specific set of circumstances, it is not something that should be inflicted on a party that hasn't bought in completely.

[Malphegor]

I've always wanted to build basically Rincewind from when Discworld is basically still with Vancian spellcasting.

Low intelligence, decent Dex, wizard. Knows maybe one or two spells, and is very much a wizard, but hasn't got the mental room to cast or learn any more.

Mostly flee from battles (Expeditous Retreat is a 1st level spell after all), or use a crossbow or improvise a 'sock with a load of pebbles inside', the ultimate flail.