First thing I do when making a new character is to buy up stats to 10. I have a strong aversion of negative stat mods. I'm not sure if I'd call a 10 CON a dump...
Here, here,
For me I DO NOT like negative stats on my characters whether PC or NPC.
Sorry but my engineer side is talking here. A "dump stat" is vague in definition as it is not a singled out stat or defined as a minimum. Is having a stat at 10 dumping, or does it start at 8.
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They do, but in one case he basically said he got amazing HP rolls, so if you can do that and take great fortitude you're fine. Sadly you are at the mercy of the dice if you try that. The other guy is suggesting staying in the back means you won't get hit. You will, and smart casters fort down other casters in the first place, so you're fighting from a weak position.
So one is the "I am lucky I'll still have hp" argument, the other is "maybe my GM won't have monsters target the caster" argument. In the former, there is still a stat you could have dumped that would be better (depending on class); the latter you'd be better off Dex-dumping if you have that attitude.
That said, no one has ever made a character like that in one of my games. One person considered doing so after reading one of the class guides here, but stopped after I told them that their character would be too stupid to flank if they had an Int of 7.
I am this close to start insults for this sentence but because i fear the ban hammer i will simply say this:
This is a house rule, there is nothing in the rules preventing you from flanking based on your character's INT score.Also there is a pretty bad house rule imo.
I am this close to start insults for this sentence but because i fear the ban hammer i will simply say this:
This is a house rule, there is nothing in the rules preventing you from flanking based on your character's INT score.
Also there is a pretty bad house rule imo.
I never said there was such a rule, nor would I actually institute it as such. My point is to illustrate that having an Int, or indeed any stat, that low should have serious consequences for the character beyond the limited base of skill points you get from the rules. A character with a 7 Int is profoundly disabled and, yes, would be worse at combat than someone with a 10 Int, even if the rules make no provision for such. Given that the player involved would presumably be dumping Int to increase their combat efficiency, I wanted them to understand that there would be meanginful consequences for their choice.
Wolves flank and they have an int of 2
Wolves flank and they have an int of 2
Yup, that's exactly the point my player made, right down to the same animal. My response was that wolves can also survive full-time in the wilderness with only a Survival skill of 1, and most animals seem to manage with no Survival skill at all. In other words, animals aren't a good analogy for the capabilities of sentient adventurer types.
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I never said there was such a rule, nor would I actually institute it as such. My point is to illustrate that having an Int, or indeed any stat, that low should have serious consequences for the character beyond the limited base of skill points you get from the rules. A character with a 7 Int is profoundly disabled and, yes, would be worse at combat than someone with a 10 Int, even if the rules make no provision for such. Given that the player involved would presumably be dumping Int to increase their combat efficiency, I wanted them to understand that there would be meanginful consequences for their choice.I am this close to start insults for this sentence but because i fear the ban hammer i will simply say this:
This is a house rule, there is nothing in the rules preventing you from flanking based on your character's INT score.
Also there is a pretty bad house rule imo.
No no no, you as good as said it was a houserule. Not covered by rules but you would enforce a penalty as vicious as "cannot flank". There are combat feats that require a high Intelligence, but a high Intelligence is not required to fight. The skill penalty is the penalty that a 7 INT character receives.
I also think this houserule is a horrible way of doing things.
3 Int is enough to function as an adventurer. It has noted this since 3E was out. In fact, sentient creatures cannot fall below 3 Int without being mentally handicapped hard enough to be unplayable. Having less than a 3 Int means you are not capable of moral decisions. 3 Int is enough to speak an intelligible language, have skill points, count your coins, and be an adventurer.
However, you cannot do that without rolling or suffering stat damage. For everyone else, the absolute worst you could hit is Int 5 using the core races (including orcs and such). You're capped at a mere 10% loss in knowledge versus most people.
Personally, I think you made a horrible GM call, and I probably wouldn't play with you if I saw you bullying another player like that.
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Wolves flank and they have an int of 2Yup, that's exactly the point my player made, right down to the same animal. My response was that wolves can also survive full-time in the wilderness with only a Survival skill of 1, and most animals seem to manage with no Survival skill at all. In other words, animals aren't a good analogy for the capabilities of sentient adventurer types.
Wolf takes 10 on survival giving him an 11. With a 10 he can feed himself. With a 12, he can feed himself plus another medium sized creature. A pack of wolves making survival checks are probably going to feed themselves just fine.
I never said there was such a rule, nor would I actually institute it as such. My point is to illustrate that having an Int, or indeed any stat, that low should have serious consequences for the character beyond the limited base of skill points you get from the rules. A character with a 7 Int is profoundly disabled and, yes, would be worse at combat than someone with a 10 Int, even if the rules make no provision for such. Given that the player involved would presumably be dumping Int to increase their combat efficiency, I wanted them to understand that there would be meanginful consequences for their choice.I am this close to start insults for this sentence but because i fear the ban hammer i will simply say this:
This is a house rule, there is nothing in the rules preventing you from flanking based on your character's INT score.
Also there is a pretty bad house rule imo.
INT 7 means (roughly) 10% less chance than the average to succeed to an INT based task and less skill points, that's it.
I am sorry if i came the wrong way but it seemed to me you actually enforced such a thing (or threatened to enforce) and not using a hyperbole during a discussion.
It's posts like this that really showcase how stupid the "Your INT score is your IQ" argument is.
INT 7 means (roughly) 10% less chance than the average to succeed to an INT based task and less skill points, that's it.
Can you exlpain that please? i don't think i have seen such arguement before.
I've generally interpreted each + or - on a stat as representing a standard deviation from the mean. INT 7 is basically 2 sigma lower than the mean. It's about 1 in 50 in the population as a whole. That's borderline retarded in the old school parlance. Most people on this board likely have zero contact with anyone in that category. Frankly I bet most people on this board have very little contact with anyone with less than average intelligence (emergency room techs and doctors on the other hand have a lot of experience with that population). There is a terrible amount of dysfunction typically associated with it, and I can't help but observe that most players who dump that stat play a romanticized 'Forrest Gump'-ization of it.
Ok i don't understand statistics very well in english (having done statistics in my language) but if have gotten it right i think that you are wrong because +/- 1 modifier doesn't mean one deviation away because every action involves a d20, and a +/- 1 on a d20 means roughly 5% and a standard deviation means more than 5%.
Again i might have totally misunderstood what you said.
Wolves flank and they have an int of 2Yup, that's exactly the point my player made, right down to the same animal. My response was that wolves can also survive full-time in the wilderness with only a Survival skill of 1, and most animals seem to manage with no Survival skill at all. In other words, animals aren't a good analogy for the capabilities of sentient adventurer types.
In this case you're trying to determine the capabilities of a creature with an intelligence score, and it looks more like you're trying to punish the characters dump stat than to take a rational assessment of how dumb an int 7 character is.
The survival ability allows people to get by in the wild , ie, eat enough every day. Wild animals tend NOT to be full, so suffering on the brink of starvation because they can't roll a 14 every day seems pretty realistic (albeit unplanned)
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Can you exlpain that please? i don't think i have seen such arguement before.It's posts like this that really showcase how stupid the "Your INT score is your IQ" argument is.
INT 7 means (roughly) 10% less chance than the average to succeed to an INT based task and less skill points, that's it.
It's something I've seen on this board where it was argued:
10 INT = Average
100 IQ = Average
Therefore, 7 INT = 70 IQ
You can hopefully see the missing step that makes it a fallacy.
@EWHM
Again if i understood correctly what you said:
I don't think that you can/should use ability modifiers as standard deviations because the scale (spread might be a better word) of the ability scores just isn't as large as it should be, if we were talking about ability scores that range in the tens (that is 40-50 is the normal) then maybe you could say that -10 is 1/10 less than the normal (again roughly).
I don't think that i am getting my point through correctly, i blame my english.
Anyway what i am trying to say is that the -/+ 1 of an ability score is too thin to deviate much from the norm, and i see the current way it works as a way too big abstraction to enforce statistic tables on them, even probabilities don't sit well with it.
Can you exlpain that please? i don't think i have seen such arguement before.It's posts like this that really showcase how stupid the "Your INT score is your IQ" argument is.
INT 7 means (roughly) 10% less chance than the average to succeed to an INT based task and less skill points, that's it.It's something I've seen on this board where it was argued:
10 INT = Average
100 IQ = Average
Therefore, 7 INT = 70 IQYou can hopefully see the missing step that makes it a fallacy.
That seems odd.
If we compare two characters, one with INT 10 and one with INT 7, and we judge their IQ from the results of the actions they take that thinking is way off.
The human range in Pathfinder is 3-20, with the average being 10-11 based on the fact not all humans are going to have their +2 in that given score. The game is not designed to play characters below the range of capable of humans. When I say capable, I mean anything not handicapped to the point that they cannot function as a member of society. A human commoner with a 3 Int can speak a language fluently, be an exceptional sailor, and a professional accountant according to the rules (2 skill, profession (sailor) and profession (accountant)).
Anything that is considered too handicapped to function is less than 3 Int, based on what we can view within the rules and the guidelines that were presented when 3E came out.
Can you exlpain that please? i don't think i have seen such arguement before.It's posts like this that really showcase how stupid the "Your INT score is your IQ" argument is.
INT 7 means (roughly) 10% less chance than the average to succeed to an INT based task and less skill points, that's it.It's something I've seen on this board where it was argued:
10 INT = Average
100 IQ = Average
Therefore, 7 INT = 70 IQYou can hopefully see the missing step that makes it a fallacy.
I have always used that argument, and yet it has never stopped us from playing low Int characters in the past. I mean, even Peter Griffin is a functional person and he was declared retarded because of his low IQ.
Peter griffon is around a 7-8. (
I haven't read all 72 posts, and don't really plan to, but it seems to me that there is something that was not said at the beginning of this thread.
I don't think there is anything wrong with a low stat. If the players roll their stats, then one of them HAS to be low--surely the DM doesn't expect the player to cheat? And if they do a point buy, does the DM expect then to make all their stats the same?
So then where is the problem? It would seem the issue is not that they have a low stat, but that they aren't playing the character that way. When I create a character with low int, or low cha, I try to find a reason for that. Is he not that bright? Is he quick, but uneducated? Is he badly scarred from battle, or does he just not bathe often enough?
Basically, I don't see that a low stat is an issue, but rather ignoring that stat. And in that case, it's a failure of the DM, not the player. The DM should hold the player responsible for his/her character build. If your character made a 3 INT fighter that is holding forth at the gates of the city, the DM should be stepping in.
EDIT: based on what people are saying about Peter Griffin and IQ scores--if the player has a 7 and the DM thinks he isn't able to solve something, then he fails the INT check, no matter what he rolls.
Wow there are some really negative feelings for low stats. It only escalates when the GM turns what should be a flaw into a dangerous and often targeted handicap. If a 7 in Int would turn a character into a bubbling idiot less functional than an animal, I hate to see what lower stats would do considering that the lowest a stat can be (for a humanoid) is a 3 (7 to 8 below average). Following the same scale, having a 13 or 14 should make a character a genius.
Anyway, I'm not actually a fan of min-maxing, but it tends to be offshoot of point buy (trying to make a character that's effective at what they do). It's fun to roleplay low stats (luckily I've never played with GMs that try to kill my character for it). And I've almost always have created characters via the rolling method, thus low stats are only unavoidable by sheer luck.
One of my favorite characters had a 7 for Wisdom. When she was supposed to be keeping watch, she would rummage through her loot and mark her inventory. Terrible at keeping guard, got lost often, and easily distracted.
I've also played a low Con, but high Dex and Cha Paladin (with a level of Sorcerer). He didn't have a hard time surviving, but probably because he didn't get hit very often. Mage Armor + Shield + Good Dex = Win.
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In any case, I'm wondering about other dumps. What is acceptable, what is ludicrous?
What do you think about all this?
Stats I would dump, depending on the build.
Str, Dex, Cha, and App :)Stats I would *never* dump, regardless of build.
Con, Wis
Skills are too useful to consider dumping Int below 10, IMO. I refuse to have less than 2 skill points per level (or 3 if I'm playing Human).
Wolves have a wisdom of 12 so they can take 10 to feed themselves and one other creature.
-huh. thought it was a 15. even better!.
10 Get along in the wild. Move up to half your overland speed while hunting and foraging (no food or water supplies needed). You can provide food and water for one other person for every 2 points by which your check result exceeds 10.
He doesn't seem to have any ranks in survival (it went into perception) He'd need a 14 wisdom or 1 rank in surivival to feed others by taking 10.
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Wolves have a wisdom of 12 so they can take 10 to feed themselves and one other creature.
-huh. thought it was a 15. even better!.
10 Get along in the wild. Move up to half your overland speed while hunting and foraging (no food or water supplies needed). You can provide food and water for one other person for every 2 points by which your check result exceeds 10.
He doesn't seem to have any ranks in survival (it went into perception) He'd need a 14 wisdom or 1 rank in surivival to feed others by taking 10.
+5 Survival when tracking something though. You could use that to simulate tracking food (pack of deer) which would then provide for the younglings as well.
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Wolves have a wisdom of 12 so they can take 10 to feed themselves and one other creature.
-huh. thought it was a 15. even better!.
10 Get along in the wild. Move up to half your overland speed while hunting and foraging (no food or water supplies needed). You can provide food and water for one other person for every 2 points by which your check result exceeds 10.
He doesn't seem to have any ranks in survival (it went into perception) He'd need a 14 wisdom or 1 rank in surivival to feed others by taking 10.
+5 Survival when tracking something though. You could use that to simulate tracking food (pack of deer) which would then provide for the younglings as well.
Actually, Survival skill has nothing to do with INT, just like flanking has nothing to do with INT. For a list of other things which have nothing to do with INT, please see the Core Rulebook.
Wow there are some really negative feelings for low stats. It only escalates when the GM turns what should be a flaw into a dangerous and often targeted handicap. If a 7 in Int would turn a character into a bubbling idiot less functional than an animal, I hate to see what lower stats would do considering that the lowest a stat can be (for a humanoid) is a 3 (7 to 8 below average). Following the same scale, having a 13 or 14 should make a character a genius.
Anyway, I'm not actually a fan of min-maxing, but it tends to be offshoot of point buy (trying to make a character that's effective at what they do). It's fun to roleplay low stats (luckily I've never played with GMs that try to kill my character for it). And I've almost always have created characters via the rolling method, thus low stats are only unavoidable by sheer luck.
One of my favorite characters had a 7 for Wisdom. When she was supposed to be keeping watch, she would rummage through her loot and mark her inventory. Terrible at keeping guard, got lost often, and easily distracted.
I've also played a low Con, but high Dex and Cha Paladin (with a level of Sorcerer). He didn't have a hard time surviving, but probably because he didn't get hit very often. Mage Armor + Shield + Good Dex = Win.
The point buy system has next to nothing to do with actual gameplay min maxing. When it comes down to it, a group with rolled stats is more likely to have a distorted gameplay just because of the sheer random chance of dice. I've had campaigns in which people have gotten a max score of 14 and some with multiple 18's and 16's. The point buy system allows players to make what they want, and that's the whole purpose of the game. To do want you like to do.
While admittedly the majority of the reason I dump certain stats is the desire to min-max, I also make sure to design the fluff of the character so that it makes sense.
My 7 Charisma half-orc ranger? He was raised in captivity by gnoll slavers. His command of Common is limited and heavily accented, and he has no real experience with the mannerisms of 'polite' society, so he tends to be crude. But he is of average intelligence and above average wisdom, so he's not an idiot and he possesses a bestial sort of cunning, which can surprise people who expect the big, ugly guy to be dumb as a box of rocks.
The point buy system has next to nothing to do with actual gameplay min maxing. When it comes down to it, a group with rolled stats is more likely to have a distorted gameplay just because of the sheer random chance of dice. I've had campaigns in which people have gotten a max score of 14 and some with multiple 18's and 16's. The point buy system allows players to make what they want, and that's the whole purpose of the game. To do want you like to do.
You have a point, it's more of the player's own doing regardless of how the stats are generated. To have multiple 18's though requires a lot of points or some serious stat dumping. Not saying it's a bad thing, because there are legitimate reasons for such an array of stats.
It is bad DM'ing and DM metagaming(NPC's don't know your stats). The mature thing to do is handle it out of character. You can call it whatever you want, but if a GM can't man up and discuss things with me as a player he give my empty chair to the next guy.Well obviously I would handle it out of character. I'm not going to look over a character, give it my approval, and then express my unhappiness passive-aggressively by making the low Can guy save against poison all the time. But if someone makes a highly min-maxed character, ignores me when I caution them against it (as I invariably will) I will definitely create situations where the balanced characters will thrive and the min-maxed guy will fare poorly. And why not? The min-maxed character gets to shine in combat, or whatever it is he/she was built for, while people who made reasonable, balanced characters lag a bit behind. I don't think there's anything wrong with holding people to account for such behavior.
That said, no one has ever made a character like that in one of my games. One person considered doing so after reading one of the class guides here, but stopped after I told them that their character would be too stupid to flank if they had an Int of 7.
What if he used examples in the game do prove your int 7 statement wrong? Do you GM fiat that his character is the exception?
Min-maxed characters almost always have built in weaknesses that normally take care of themselves. I have yet to see one that doesn't. Now if you exploit that weakness....:)
They may shine in one area, but they are normally not so good in other areas.
Holding them accountable is not the same as making up stuff just to make their character look bad.
Peter griffon is around a 7-8.
Crazy as it sounds, that right there is more than enough proof that a character can still function and reason as a "person" with an Int of 7-8.
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With all of that said, if you are against dump stats just raise the point buy and restrict them. My last campaign I was going to do PFS point buy, but I switched to 25 point (5 extra point) buy with the note that they can't have any stat below 10. Basically I just gave them the 4 points you would get for having 1 7 +1 extra for the heck of it, and made sure everyone was at least average at all stats. Higher point buy tends to help
Melees more than casters, so it also helps shore up the caster / melee discrepancy (since most min/max casters have 2 or more stats they can dump).
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While I'd prefer a 42 point buy, I can see being ok with a 32 point buy. That would allow a reasonable 18, 16, 14, 10, 10, 10. With those stats I could at least "act normal" in any circumstance, whilst also being awesome in half of what I do.
It may surprise you, but the Elite Array (15,14,13,12,10,8) is actually perfectly capable of taking on challenges in Pathfinder. I know people love their 18s too much to see that though.
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Elite Array has a dump stat though. If it were (15, 14, 13, 10, 10, 10) would it still work well for MAD classes? That 12 is probably going in con or wis on martial classes. If it's going into survivability or a critical save do you dare give it up?While I'd prefer a 42 point buy, I can see being ok with a 32 point buy. That would allow a reasonable 18, 16, 14, 10, 10, 10. With those stats I could at least "act normal" in any circumstance, whilst also being awesome in half of what I do.It may surprise you, but the Elite Array (15,14,13,12,10,8) is actually perfectly capable of taking on challenges in Pathfinder. I know people love their 18s too much to see that though.
I think the fact that the Elite Array has a dump stat is Paizo's endorsement of them. I'm willing to bet most people in the world have one.
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I pretty much ALWAYS min/max my stats depending on the character I am playing. This means I have at least one if not two dump stats.
It depends on your gm and how your games go, but I find the benefits of maxing out the important stats that you use a lot to be a huge win. I routinely have a 7-8 on my characters (usually due to a racial mod) with the other end granting me some nice bonuses.
I LOVE this thread for all the pfs stat arrays:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderS ociety/general/pFSAbilityScores
(Again, the board is adding a space to my links. Anybody know how to fix this? Anyhow, remove the space in the PathfinderS ociety to fix the link.)
Don't be afraid to do it.
As for dumping Con, in home games it might not be a huge deal. Usually the DM and the group want you to continue playing the character that everyone has invested time into. So if you DIE based on taking unconscious damage and a low con score, there are ways to bring you back.
If you plan on playing in PFS, do NOT use con as a dump stat. In PFS if you die, your character is gone (barring super high level resurrections and such). I'd try to never drop your con below 10 in PFS and usually try for at least a 12. You'd be surprised how much 1-4 points can help when you are bleeding out in an unconscious state.