Discourage stat dumping

[cjcaesar]

I read a lot about valorize the abilities that the players are likely to dump during character creation: INT first, then STR and CHA and in some builds I also see WIS as the dump stat. I never seen CON or DEX dumped because they are too valuables and if someone wants to dump one of these two, I think he's already fairly penalized. I didn't find a way to valorize the remaining 4 abilities in a build that put them as the dump stat but maybe I can try to discourage players to dump them before all:
1. INT or WIS: apply the malus to character initiative;
2. STR: apply the malus to bonus HP derived from CON every level;
3. CHA: apply the malus to charisma skill check of every member of the party if the character is in the same room and if you roll for a random character to attack count that character as two (if you have 3 party members don't roll a 1d3, roll instead a 1d4).

You can use the malus only to mitigate the bonus to a minimum of 0 (a character with 10 DEX and 8 INT has Initiative 0) or you can choose to go all out and use the malus to impose a negative modifier (a character with 10 DEX and 8 INT has initiative -1).
What you think?

[Millstone85]

I think that knowledge and social checks are too rare. Making those important would help rebalance the stats.

[Contrast]

If you're rolling stats it feels a little unfair to further penalise them for something out of their control.

If you're using point buy and you don't like PCs having scores of under 10, just tell them that 10 is the floor and to spend their points accordingly.


In terms of your suggestions - I think the Cha one in particular is a bad idea as you'll encourage the party to literally leave the player outside whenever there's talking to do, excluding them from the game. Plus you'll potentially be causing some resentment.

The Cha and Str ones are sufficiently bad I likely would not choose to have a negative. The Int/Wis ones I wouldn't care about particularly on most characters.

[Greywander]

I think you might be looking at this wrong. It's more interesting to have a character with both strengths and weaknesses. A well-balanced party should have a decent score for each ability somewhere in the party, otherwise it could be used against them to great effect if they all have the same weakness. But it should be encouraged that a player gives their character flaws, which can be represented in ability scores.

The way to handle this is through roleplay. Got a character who dumped INT? Put them in a situation where they need to make an INT check for something. Maybe someone asks for directions, and they have to make a History check to see if they know where someplace is. Failure isn't really bad for them, but it might lead to an interesting narrative consequence, like the other person getting disgusted and making a rude comment about their intellect. Maybe the character is sensitive about not getting a formal education, so it really affects them when they're made to feel stupid.

Got a character who dumped STR to maximize CHA? Put them in situations where they need to (or want to) perform feats of strength to impress the ladies. Again, failure isn't serious, it just has funny and interesting roleplay consequences.

Throw the party into a situation where they need to engage in negotiations, but the only person that took the necessary language is the one who dumped CHA. Some awkward bumbling later, and some sort of agreement is reached, but it's perhaps not as good as it could have been, and it's clear the other party isn't too pleased about having to deal with you.

Don't punish them. Just put them in situations where their flaws actually matter. Failing at things can be fun, too, as long as the consequences aren't too bad. Talk to the players as well, they might be able to come up with ideas for awkward situations you could put their PCs in, and what the consequences could be for failure that they would be okay with.

[DeTess]

I read a lot about valorize the abilities that the players are likely to dump during character creation: INT first, then STR and CHA and in some builds I also see WIS as the dump stat. I never seen CON or DEX dumped because they are too valuables and if someone wants to dump one of these two, I think he's already fairly penalized. I didn't find a way to valorize the remaining 4 abilities in a build that put them as the dump stat but maybe I can try to discourage players to dump them before all:
1. INT or WIS: apply the malus to character initiative;
2. STR: apply the malus to bonus HP derived from CON every level;
3. CHA: apply the malus to charisma skill check of every member of the party if the character is in the same room and if you roll for a random character to attack count that character as two (if you have 3 party members don't roll a 1d3, roll instead a 1d4).

You can use the malus only to mitigate the bonus to a minimum of 0 (a character with 10 DEX and 8 INT has Initiative 0) or you can choose to go all out and use the malus to impose a negative modifier (a character with 10 DEX and 8 INT has initiative -1).
What you think?

I don't think dumping is necessarily bad, and for everything except int, there's ways to already penalize people in game. In my recent campaign in particular there are quite some moments where having raw physical strength is a very useful tool for bypassing obstacles and carrying loot, so you can already penalize that by making use of the carrying capacity and lifting values, as well as using enemies that grapple.

WIS is penalized with a lot of saves that you don't want to fail against. If you want to discourage WIS dumping, just use someone throwing around crowd control spells every other encounter.

CHA either isn't going to be an issue dumped if the players never do social encounters, but f they do, chances are the low CHA dude will have to roll a check at one point or another, especially for stuff like deception.

That just leaves INT, which is sued for the knowledge skills, which you can pawn off on the team wizard, and investigation, which is a skill that should be rolled almost as often as perception. Just remember that if a character is actively searching a room for stuff, its investigation, not perception, and people will soon realize that dumping INT does have a cost.

All that having been said, if you're dead-set on using an additional penalty system, I'd say that the system as you've currently set it up is somewhat unbalanced. The first penalty is fine, but the penalty for a dumped STR is far more severe. To get it more in line with the rest I'd apply it to health recovery from HD instead. The last option only penalizes those that did not dump CHA, as they're made worse by having people around with bad CHA, and that just encourages forgoing CHA altogether and just kill everything. Instead, I'd apply that penalty to also affect WIS saves or something like that.

[Reynaert]

I've seen the opinion float around that because int is underused and dex is overused, a simple fix would be to have initiative bonus work off int. Which, as an avid wizard player who really likes the alert feat, I'm all for ^_^

[zockeros]

I don't think dumping is necessarily bad, and for everything except int, there's ways to already penalize people in game.

The biggest issue with Int is how easy it can be substituted by the players intelligence. Besides Wis no other stat comes even close to this.

[Kintar]

I just adhere to strict encumbrance rules for str. I even apply it to myself as I made an arcane trickster and often remind the DM that I don't wear armor because I only have 8str and don't want to use up that much weight on a a couple ac.

For int, a couple of intellect devourers gets the point accross.

[Bjarkmundur]

Wait, we're looking at ways to make stat-dumping have more of an impact on the narrative, whilst at the same time increasing enjoyment and immersion?

When penalising players, I always make sure it's either a choice, or a trade-off. For example, when introducing Lingering Injuries, it was met with opposition at first. When I suggested Lingering injury could be taken as a reaction to take 0 damage from an attack, the players were willing to have the discussion.

You could do the same here. Use point buy, leave the floor at 10, a d reduce the points accordingly. Now, instead of dumping a stat, he can take a flaw, and gain two extra point for his point buy. Make sure the flaws are entertaining, come up at least 1/session, and are mostly contained within the narrative.

Bad Memory
Prerequisites: 11 or lower Intelligence score.
Special: You can choose this flaw at character creation to gain two extra points for buying stats using the point-buy method.
Flaw: You have disadvantage on Intelligence ability checks. You always misremembered the names of characters, locations and factions, and seem to constantly wander off and get lost.

All thumbs
Prerequisites: 11 or lower Dexterity score.
Special: You can choose this flaw at character creation to gain two extra points for buying stats using the point-buy method.
Flaw: Whenever you roll 5 or less on an attack roll, roll once on the fumble table, or lose the grip on your weapon or implement and accidentally throw it 10 feet in a random direction.

I don't know, I'm just making up stuff. But if you put some thought into it, you could have something that makes dumping stats pretty interesting.

[elyktsorb]

I don't think people would dump stats if they had to mean them. Like, would you realistically want to play an 8 Int character that has problems doing basic math? I wouldn't, but most people who dump a stat don't ever use the stat Mechanically or RP wise.

[Sparky McDibben]

Why are we penalizing (further!) valuable roleplaying characteristics? Dump stats are an RP gift!

[JNAProductions]

I don't think people would dump stats if they had to mean them. Like, would you realistically want to play an 8 Int character that has problems doing basic math? I wouldn't, but most people who dump a stat don't ever use the stat Mechanically or RP wise.

8 Int is not rock-bottom stupid.

It's a little slow. Assuming the character had an education, they probably know their entire times table (up to 12*12), it just takes them a few moments to remember. Now, if they have a low Int AND no education, they'll probably have issues with multiplication and division, but that's more than just a low Int at play.

[Lunali]

8 Int is not rock-bottom stupid.

It's a little slow. Assuming the character had an education, they probably know their entire times table (up to 12*12), it just takes them a few moments to remember. Now, if they have a low Int AND no education, they'll probably have issues with multiplication and division, but that's more than just a low Int at play.

Something odd just occurred to me, since int affects your knowledge skills it would only make sense to say it also includes your level of education. This means that an educated person with low int is a little slow, while an uneducated person with low int is average intelligence but hasn't had the chance to learn as much. Therefore, education makes you stupider.

[Constructman]

So the new "standard" array would be 15 14 13 10 10 10?

As well, if I'm building a character and I need 15 14 14 for whatever reason -- say i'm building a Ranger or a Monk and I want good Dex of course, but also good Con and Wis but I didn't pick a race that increases one of those -- I'll have to take the 8 somewhere. Which usually goes into either Str or Cha, as I still want Int for Nature checks.

I kind of feel like what you're advocating for qill lead to characters who are good at once specific thing and mediocre at everything else, instead of what we have now with characters good at a couple of things and bad at one thing. It's perfectly possible to build 15 12 12 12 12 10 in the array. A Dex Fighter could work with thoe stats I guess. Anything else? Eh, they want at least a 14 in one or maybe even two secondary stats. Even Rogues usually want 14 in one of Int or Wis if they're on trap checking duty.

[Tanarii]

IMX Heavy armor wearers (Fighters, Paladins, HA Clerics) regularly dump Dex to 8 or 10.

Something odd just occurred to me, since int affects your knowledge skills it would only make sense to say it also includes your level of education. This means that an educated person with low int is a little slow, while an uneducated person with low int is average intelligence but hasn't had the chance to learn as much. Therefore, education makes you stupider.

All ability score explicitly include natural ability and training, per the PHB. So yeah, Int includes education.

Personally I like the idea of an Int 8 character with Investigation to represent an uneducated character who's above average at deductive thinking.

[sophontteks]

Stat dumping is just how the game was designed. An easy solution is to just put less weight in their meaning. Adding penalties to lower stats will punish MAD classes, which isn't conductive to good gameplay IMO. This is just encouraging everyone to have the same or very similar stats.

Intelligence isn't about being smart or dumb. A person's real intellect really takes shape in charisma, wisdom, and intelligence pretty equally. Its not how intelligent you are, but how your intelligence takes shape.

Having a low intelligence really just means you never went to school, or performed really badly in your studies.
Having a low wisdom just means you don't pay attention to your surroundings.
Having a low charisma just means you haven't dealt with people, or struggle to not be awkward in social situations.

Conversely high score in any of these three skills can be a sign of a sharp mind. I've met engineering students who can handle mathematical equations far beyond anything I'm capable of who can barely take care of themselves IRL. Is that high intelligence? Yes. What is its significance though, really? How should the game represent this?

[LudicSavant]

Stat dumping is just how the game was designed.

This. Unless you just rolled an incredibly lucky set, something has to be your bad stat.

[qube]

My favorite statistic: did you know that about half the people in the world have below average intelligence?

And with a 10 (or maybe 11 in 5e?) represents the human average ... it certainly isn't strange to have an 8 in a stat. The perspective of us is just twisted because players have so many points to buy

So, while LudicSavant notes

Unless you just rolled an incredibly lucky set, something has to be your bad stat.

I'd like to note unlike all your stats are the same ...something has to be your bad stat.

D&D doesn't make make gods (OK, 5e doesn't ;) ) - it makes heros. And while heros have a lot of good aspects, most of them aren't good at everything.

-----------

Wanna discourage stat dumping? Simply say characters have to be created with the standard array.

[Laserlight]

A character's weaknesses are as important in defining him as his strengths. If you want to avoid anyone being below average in a stat, are you also going to require them to have at least AC 15, d8 hit dice, a good melee attack, the ability to cast spells, and fluency in all local languages?

[Tanarii]

-----------

Wanna discourage stat dumping? Simply say characters have to be created with the standard array.

Yeah. At the least, it'll stop 2-3 8 attribute characters. Which is definitely a point buy thing in some circles.

[Âmesang]

I actually did dump Con once for a point-buy drow antipaladin/assassin due to how MAD she ended up being (even after being allowed to use the D&DNext playtest katana — two-handed finesse for 1d10 slashing). Granted, it felt thematically appropriate in a way, due to her slight build (I recall drow being, on average, smaller than surface elves) and as a callback to the elves' Con penalty in 3e.

Also a number of my characters are based on ones I've made in other games or used to draw, so dump statting was often appropriate; one such character turned into a Pathfinder ranger had Cha dumped due to being the "silent, unassuming, lost-in-the-crowd" type — hard to be personable if you're alone in the wilderness for months at a time. I had fun with a below-average Int/above-average Wis paladin as the "country bumpkin" type — not much for book learning, but friendly and with good common sense… who eventually died a heroic death (that she didn't need to, as it turned out). Then a sorceress of mine dumped Str as a result of never needing it due to her noble, pampered upbringing (isn't that what servants are for?), and a poor Wis combined with her high Int and Cha made her as the type to exclaim how she had "the most scathingly brilliant idea."

(Also my own Wis is poor, so if I misunderstood something or lacked awareness, it made it easier to play it off as being "in character." )

Honestly the only time the concept felt cheesy was for my minotaur barbarian with his below average Int and Wis — I maxed out Str and Con ASAP, with his next highest stats being Cha and Dex, respectively.

[MaxWilson]

If you want to discourage stat dumping... roll stats 3d6 in order. (Or 4d6k3 in order, or whatever suits your fancy.)

The game is still fun that way, as long as the players buy in to this method, and you'll see characters you otherwise wouldn't see, like the strong-but-fragile wizard or the highly intelligent Sharpshooter fighter.

[Constructman]

If you want to discourage stat dumping... roll stats 3d6 in order. (Or 4d6k3 in order, or whatever suits your fancy.)

The game is still fun that way, as long as the players buy in to this method, and you'll see characters you otherwise wouldn't see, like the strong-but-fragile wizard or the highly intelligent Sharpshooter fighter.

And then that Wizard keeps failing his concentration checks, and the Fighter misses half the time due to having a 7 Dex, and the party Cleric has no stat above 12...

[MaxWilson]

And then that Wizard keeps failing his concentration checks, and the Fighter misses half the time due to having a 7 Dex, and the party Cleric has no stat above 12...

And the strong, fat, fragile (Str 14 Con 7 Int 15) wizard learns to stay behind the big stupid fighter, who uses a greatsword instead of a rapier (because Str 16 Dex 7), and the jolly but not-all-that-disciplined (Wis 12) Friar Tuck cleric Blesses the party and heals them when they're turned to stone or something, but also sometimes sneaks off to have a roaring drunk with his old buddies from the seminary (whereas a Wis 18 cleric would act more responsibly).

That's why it's still fun if all of the players buy in, but clearly you wouldn't buy in, so your DM obviously isn't going to be doing this kind of campaign. Keep on dumping those same old stats the same way you always do.

[Spore]

You won't get munchkins, optimizers and "tabletop players" to RP more if you restrict their freedom in building characters.

Also take the odd challenge and make the fighter do the intelligence check because his background allows him to make the int check, and no one else. Give the wizard advantage for climbing while being helped by the fighter but refuse the fighter to pull him up in a stressful situation (if he doesn't want advantage on attacks against him).

Give the indexterous dwarven cleric a reason to use sleight of hand to signal his friends. Let the uncharismatic butthole wizard do the talking because the archmage of the academy thinks his friends are morons.

This is DM 101. Target the character's weaknesses for once. There will be characters that have no weaknesses (either by bardic syndrome of being equally meh at everything or because the player cleverly set up his character), then you have to adjust the situations. A trapper ranger from the north might have difficulty finding his way in the desert (higher DCs), a bard might be the best mundane healer by virtue of jack of all trades and good wisdom but this doesn't mean he knows what he is doing here (two middlish DCs, one for identifying the situation, one for solving it, and if you mistreat a patient, his condition worsens if you botch the second roll).

[sophontteks]

And the strong, fat, fragile (Str 14 Con 7 Int 15) wizard learns to stay behind the big stupid fighter, who uses a greatsword instead of a rapier (because Str 16 Dex 7), and the jolly but not-all-that-disciplined (Wis 12) Friar Tuck cleric Blesses the party and heals them when they're turned to stone or something, but also sometimes sneaks off to have a roaring drunk with his old buddies from the seminary (whereas a Wis 18 cleric would act more responsibly).

That's why it's still fun if all of the players buy in, but clearly you wouldn't buy in, so your DM obviously isn't going to be doing this kind of campaign. Keep on dumping those same old stats the same way you always do.

Lets hope they never run into an enemy smart enough to run past the fighter, or worse, ambush the party from behind.

[JakOfAllTirades]

Dump stats are the reason 5E has six saving throws. No matter which stat you decided not to prioritize, eventually you'll pay for it, somehow.

[Corran]

3. CHA: apply the malus to charisma skill check of every member of the party if the character is in the same room and if you roll for a random character to attack count that character as two (if you have 3 party members don't roll a 1d3, roll instead a 1d4).

This one, although interesting as an idea, wont work well imo. It encourages players to have their low-charisma characters stay out of social situations so that the party face wont get a penalty on any roll that might come up. I get that the idea is to tempt players to not plan for negative modifiers, but this solution can cause more harm than good.

[Damon_Tor]

I roleplay NPCs based on the PCs' stats all the time. If you have an int of 8, people are going to treat you like a dumbass. If you have a cha of 8 people are going to treat you like an *******. This stuff isn't likely to affect the story much, but it seems to be enough that my players don't dump their stats without being prepared for the fallout.

[Lunali]

This one, although interesting as an idea, wont work well imo. It encourages players to have their low-charisma characters stay out of social situations so that the party face wont get a penalty on any roll that might come up. I get that the idea is to tempt players to not plan for negative modifiers, but this solution can cause more harm than good.

I think that was intended for combat, making low chr characters more likely to be targetted by enemies that choose their targets randomly.