| Sabamonster |
james maissen wrote:People overreact to 'negative' modifiers on a very emotional/psychological level. If a 6-7 in a stat were a +0 modifier (and the DCs were just raised accordingly) people wouldn't react nearly as much to them. There's very little 'magical' about a 10 vs an 8 or a 12 imho, yet people instinctively see it differently.
It isn't quite that clear cut. From a purely mechanical standpoint, you are correct. However, 10 is described as average, and has an intuitive definition that separates it from a 6 or an 8. And, when rolling stats, the 10-12 range corresponds to the average as well. Finally, the d20 system is mostly an additive system--people feel that psychological pain of negative scores (as you referenced above).
That said, mechanical point buy decisions do result in the kind of equality of strength that you mention, and should generally be considered as such in optimization arguments.
Rubia
Agreed - Sub 10 Int traditionally meant that your character couldn't even articulate well. As in, you had trouble speaking in coherent sentences. I think a lot of people tend to overlook this particular aspect of character builds. If you don't have at least 10, you are considered below average in that particular area. That includes basic functions.