"Dump stats" punishments

[random11]

No matter what system you are playing, it will usually encourage players to have strong sides on the expense of "dump stats".
In most systems, a fighter won't REALLY need charisma or wisdom, and at the same time, a mage won't need much strength.

I'm not looking for elaborate plans of forcing players to build balanced characters, mostly since there is nothing really wrong with it. But I am looking for minor common disadvantages for each stat, that characters with low stats will encounter.

[Kurald Galain]

No matter what system you are playing, it will usually encourage players to have strong sides on the expense of "dump stats".

No, it doesn't. It depends highly on the system whether this is viable or even possible.

[Stam]

7th Sea has no dump stat, for one.

[Zincorium]

To actually answer your question:

As long as the players are a cohesive group that helps each other solve problems, it's very rare than an individual weakness will prove more than a very minor impediment. This is much the way real life works, as long as your friends can help you accomplish something, it's okay you couldn't do it alone.

You can force the issue by making the player face, on their own, challenges they're not equipped to deal with, but I can't see that improving the game. Worst case scenario is you miscalculate, they have no way of getting past the obstacle, and the game just stops.

[Grynning]

In Mutants and Masterminds, only Con is really important, since attack, Skills and AC are purchased separately from Dex, Str and Int. In that system stats are bought more for flavor reasons than mechanical ones (although high str. is still needed for big guys, Int for int-based checks, etc). It does lead to rather silly situation of no-one having a bad con score though (which is kind of the same as D&D).

I've been toying with the idea of going back to straight down the chart rolls for one game. Mainly to get people out of their element and make them pick their class after they have their abilities and not before. To lessen the chance of someone getting screwed I'd probably do 2d6+6 for each score though.

[mostlyharmful]

I see dump stats as advantageous in building cohesive parties, as you said the fighter doesn't need wis or cha so long as someone has it. It gives the players a reason to work together and a role in the group, something that any self interested PC can fix on as a motivation to hang together and not ruin the plot for everyone.

[koldstare]

I've been toying with the idea of going back to straight down the chart rolls for one game. Mainly to get people out of their element and make them pick their class after they have their abilities and not before. To lessen the chance of someone getting screwed I'd probably do 2d6+6 for each score though.

You could do 4d6 lowest 3 re-roll ones. It generates decent scores. Of course you could do it 1st Ed. style. Pick class THEN roll stats 3d6 in order.

[Tempest Fennac]

The problem with the 1st Edition's method is that it often just gets avarage results. For instance, here are some resuls I just rolled: Str 5, Dex 11, Con 11, Int 16, Wis 14 and 12. Unless I decided to be a Wizad before I roled, I'm going to be pretty much useless (I tend to prefer using point buy if I'm honest. The problem with this being that it's really easy to avoid dump stats using PB).

[Dallas-Dakota]

Now I want to roll up a character.
I blame you

[Tsotha-lanti]

It's a class-based system; Charisma is useless to Fighters because they wouldn't get anything out of having a high Charisma - almost all Cha skills are cross-class (Handle Animal is a 5-rank skill that helps you max out your Ride bonus; Intimidate is just inferior). A Wizard doesn't get anything out of having a high Strength.

If you want to encourage well-rounded characters, play a game that doesn't have classes. GURPS characters need all four stats; RuneQuest characters need all stats (now, anyway, with APPearance replaced by CHArisma, which is used in spellcasting and for several special abilities).

It doesn't really make a difference there either, though, because those are skill-based games, and characters can't learn all skills. In RQ, your CHA is ultimately irrelevant to how good you are at interacting with people; it makes a couple of percentiles of difference to your Influence skill value, which is negligible.

Not all characters are going to know all skills, although by presenting diverse challenges and situations, you can encourage your players to improve many aspects of their characters: if everyone is expected to be able to speak convincingly for themselves - for instance, if boasting contests are a regular occurrence, or if every character is expected to lead their own retainers into battle - everyone will aspire to have good interaction skills; if everyone is expected to fight in diverse ways - for instance, to use weapons in battle, but also to wrestle and brawl with friends and companions at celebrations - everyone will try to learn multiple forms of combat; if everyone is expected to look after their own fields and cattle, everyone will try to develop good agricultural and herding skills.

In your typical D&D game, the fighter is expected to fight, the bard is expected to talk, and the wizard is expected to use magic. They're mechanically constrained to these roles and punished for trying to break them (cross-class skills, special abilities and prestige classes that give an advantage in the field only available to certain classes).


What I'd recommend is not punishment, but using the intentionally chosen weaknesses of characters to create tension. "A character has to do something they're no good at" is one of the oldest plots ever. The fighter ends up in a situation where he needs to use his inferior brains and personality to succeed. The wizard has to fight his way out of something.

Of course, in D&D, these challenges are very difficult to pull off, because those characters really suck at doing that stuff, and will probably fail - or the challenge is roleplayed rather than mechanical, in which case the mechanical weaknesses are irrelevant. Don't repeat the same sort of situation, either - that will start feeling like punishment, and it's not like the wizard can become a good fist-fighter without becoming a worse wizard.

In games with disadvantage systems (like GURPS), the disadvantages the players choose are mostly roleplay disadvantages, and tailoring challenges to them is that much easier, since they don't require the character to succeed mechanically at something they suck at mechanically.

[Ossian]

I try to get straight from Game 1 which kind of development avenue we're pursuing. If it's all-awesome hero, I give more free rein to the players. Basically, come up with a PC concept that fits in the "party concept" (assuming they have one) and go for it. Roll high, low, whatever you want, and if need be, just dump. Plus, if a player has a character concept he really is dying for, I am willing to concede some bonus ability points to make that possibly in a near future. e.g. a duelist wannabe who, to have a good enough dex, should assign too disadvantageous ab. scores to the other stats. So, an extra bit here and there is still fair game, they're happy, and and we all have fun.

OTOH, if we decide we're going for a grittier or just more high-adrenalyne campaign, I will encourage the creation and development of more rounded characters, closer to the tough semi-scoundrel type. Less "Paladin of the Sun God" and more "John McLane" (Die Hard) or "Agent Dignam" (M.Whalberg in "The Departed"). I will tend to put them in situation where a failed sense motive (or a series of complex rolls more often) can get you killed just like a failed save. Situations where chacrater and guts save more lives than guns and blades. Intimidate, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Bluff, can really boost your game sessions if your players know that their hides might depend on them. It's just a different gamestyle though, not necessarily the best one.

Point is, you have to keep them challenged (the players), and not just by means of Challenge Ratings. You have to give them different operative contexts, and force them to be adaptive and smart. Break the mold and throw your tough badass fighters in a commando operation deep in the heart of congolese darkness, and have all the NPC "marines" make comments on how they might be a hell of a bunch of swordplayers but they couldn't find the north even if the sky was flashy-green in that direction.

Give the a lot of "fog of war", make things hazy in the heat of the battle and heve them not focus on the bloody (literally) battlegrid unless the character keeps a cool mind, which is hardly ever the case when icor soaks the ground and people trip over orkish bowels, face down in the dirt.

Throw them more "do or die" situations and have them become more manageable if they succeed in skillchecks like "Knowledge - Tactics" or "Appraise", to get an idea of the odds.

Discourage excessive specializations or, if your player thinks they are fun, play along with him and turn them into chances for roleplay (and for some nice "comeback" situations when the specialist will actually become vital).
Make survival the fun-part, not just the kill count at the end of the day. Hey, that's fun too, mind you. Only, it gets a bit repetitive after a while.

Ossian

[shadow_archmagi]

Heh heh. I don't know what you have against dump stats. STR always has been and always will be my dump stat because there is always a way around it. Can't carry much? Shrink item. Tenser's floating disk. Need to punch things? Weapon finesse and Shadow Something from ToB will let you add dex to damage and to-hit.

[Illiterate Scribe]

OTOH, if we decide we're going for a grittier or just more high-adrenalyne campaign, I will encourage the creation and development of more rounded characters, closer to the tough semi-scoundrel type. Less "Paladin of the Sun God" and more "John McLane" (Die Hard) or "Agent Dignam" (M.Whalberg in "The Departed"). I will tend to put them in situation where a failed sense motive (or a series of complex rolls more often) can get you killed just like a failed save. Situations where chacrater and guts save more lives than guns and blades. Intimidate, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Bluff, can really boost your game sessions if your players know that their hides might depend on them. It's just a different gamestyle though, not necessarily the best one.

Wut? John McLane is a gritty hero?

[Ossian]

Wut? John McLane is a gritty hero?

Lawlz...well, the post wasn't phrased well. I meant gritty as in "unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger, courageously persistent", but maybe the word is better fitting in "having strong qualities of tough uncompromising realism" where realism, in McLane's adventures, isn't exactly the operative word ;). So, since you mentioned just McLane, I take it agt. Dignam was closer to the "gritty" mark, wasn't he?

BTW: it just occurred to me that a perfect way of screwing up your level 20 fighter with 8 CHA and 8 WIS is to give him/her a mate and a family, which is pretty much what makes un-heroic most of the situations in real life.

Being a 4 Atk/round combat beast with 200 HP won't be that great if your girlfriend (or boyfriend) is a òevel 1 commoner with AC 9 and 4 HP....
Well, actually there's no need to kill them at all. Just highlight and stress how insensitive (low WIS) and sometimes just UNromantic and UNcool (low CHA) your girl/boyfriend thinks you are.....

O.

[Mushroom Ninja]

Stat-draining monsters can screw somebody who dumped in a stat.

[Smiley_]

Stat-draining monsters can screw somebody who dumped in a stat.

That is actually a valid point.

No DEX or STR results in paralysis

No CON results in death (undead excluded of course)

No INT, WIS or CHA results in a vegetable, I think. (certain monsters need not apply)

[LoneGamer]

One thing people haven't mentioned is that Fighters need a decent WIS to supplement their crappy Will save. Don't want to be fighting the BBEG and then suddenly the fighter is defending it thanks to Dominate.

[AmberVael]

The fighters in my campaigns all know the horrors of Chaos Beasts, Ghosts, 13th level Soulknives, and Ego Whip.
Charisma is worthwhile if you ask me.

But actually, the real way to encourage people not to dump (of another stat) is to give it an extra incentive to be used.
I heard of one variant (which I now constantly use) which gives you an action point for each point of charisma bonus you have. Essentially, does fate find you favorable or not?

[TempusCCK]

A person with low strength may try to avoid heavy lifting, or may want to help in teh heavy lifting, but be unable to do so well. They're going to carry very light weapons, if any, and only stick to the lightest of their encumberence, even if they can hold more.

A person with low DEX is going to be clumsy, and have a very bad shot with bows. They'll be noisy and avoid ranged weaponry.

A person with low CON is going to be sickly, and is going to absolutely abhor being hurt in any way shape or form, and is going to avoid sick people.

A person with low WIS is going to be alot like Belkar, they may have good plans, but the inability to see how they'll turn out. Bad foresight and unable to learn from their mistakes.

A person with low INT is going to be an idiot, they're not going to come up with intricate or even solid plans. If they are a fighter they're going to advocate a wild reckless charge all the time, if they are a Cleric they are going to rely on Wisdom and "The Holy Power of [INsert Deity]" to perform their various tasks.

A person with low CHA is going to go two ways, they can be shy, not into conversation, or they can be gruff and abrasive.