RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I'm not going to say that either Bob or Jiggy are wrong, but I will say that tanking 3 stats to the tune of -2 is pretty extreme. One stat at -2 is highly survivable and another one at -1 doesn't hurt that much more. But three -2 stats has huge implications for things like skills and saves etc. I'm not saying that you can't do it or that you shouldn't do it; rather I'm saying you're gonna see diminishing returns.@Bob_Loblaw: I agree with most of what you said, except this:
I do take issue with the player that always wants two or three stats at 7 so they can squeeze a few extra points into other stats. This is actually bad roleplaying.You are wrong. Stat selection is not an act of roleplaying, and therefore cannot be bad roleplaying (or good roleplaying, for that matter).
I agree. But the point is that none of that has anything to do with how good or bad your roleplaying is.
@Bob_Loblaw: I agree with most of what you said, except this:
I do take issue with the player that always wants two or three stats at 7 so they can squeeze a few extra points into other stats. This is actually bad roleplaying.You are wrong. Stat selection is not an act of roleplaying, and therefore cannot be bad roleplaying (or good roleplaying, for that matter).
Roleplaying is what you do at the table, not what's written on your character sheet.
How you assign your stats affects what roleplaying would be appropriate, but is not itself an act of roleplaying.
You know what I meant. Anyone who is always looking to tank two to three stats is probably a bad role player. Can those stats be played and be fun? Sure. If the player does it nearly all the time though, I would say that the player has no real intention on role playing and is only looking at the game as a set of numbers. Again, that's fine for some groups. It's not fine for mine.
I agree. Once in a great while as sort of a joke PC, it’s fine. Doing it all the time means you are a bad player, not just a bad roleplayer.
You know what I meant. Anyone who is always looking to tank two to three stats is probably a bad role player.To be blunt, that's a prejudice, not an observable fact.
So far I have not seen a good role player that dumps half his stats on most of his characters. As I said, the character can be role played but I haven't seen a good role player do this on a regular basis.
Needless to say, if multiple -2s are happening often, and it is interfering with someone's fun somehow then something is wrong. But I don't think it's a lack of restrictions on character creation that's the problem in that case. Much more likely the GM and the player don't see eye to eye about the campaign — because it takes a very specific campaign to make multiple dump stats playable at all.
Adding restrictions more advanced than "nothing above x and nothing below y" is still inadvisable. They're player characters, not GM characters.
Even then, starting a campaign with the statement "I don't want anyone too special, and I don't want anyone with big weaknesses" tells me as a player that you want a kind of boring story.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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And I haven't seen anyone who criticizes min-maxers be any better at roleplaying than anyone else. Doesn't mean a thing.
Consider your sample size, Bob. With few exceptions, personal experience tends to be a really bad basis on which to draw conclusions. The data is inherently biased, as we tend to game with people we expect to have a good time with. And if we don't have fun with someone, we're more interested in avoiding future situations than determining the real reason for the displeasure.
You act based on what you already think, and those actions lend themselves toward supporting those beliefs. It's a self-reinforcing cycle.
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I feel there is a perception that people don't dump to make interesting characters, but in a predictable way, with minimum penalty to their character. A Wizard can dump Cha and Str with no real penalty that can't be overcome with a anthaul, and a more charismatic friend. Many martial classes will dump int and cha.
There are lots of common, mechanically non-penalizing, permutations, but you rarely see a "interesting character" like a warrior with dumped dex, or a wizard with a low con. So when everyone dumps predictably, it is for the same reasons, maximizing their core class, with minimum penalty. Much like people cringe when certain items/feats etc are "required" then they are decried as over powered, the same could be said of certain stat always played stat combinations.
The problem is, as always, some people choose those combinations because they are the character they want to play, and others choose them because they feel it is the "only way" the character should be played. (I shudder to think of my World of Warcraft days, where people wouldn't accept you into their guild if you didn't stat your build right even if you were 10x more effective then the nubs who followed the guides.) It isn't easy, or prudent to separate these people, because this is really just coming down to an opinion thing, that is wether or not this behaviour is min/maxing or playing an effective character or some other pejorative.
To the op, I think he expressed the concern that having a table full of players who have effective characters, especially who play tactically well together, makes it challenging as a DM to balance encounters to be challenging, but not deadly. I won't say every encounter has to be challenging, it is appropriate for the PCs to be all heroic and stomp encounters sometimes, but other times they should feel challenged. So from that perspective it is easier to balance against balanced characters vs "glass cannons."
And I haven't seen anyone who criticizes min-maxers be any better at roleplaying than anyone else. Doesn't mean a thing.
Consider your sample size, Bob. With few exceptions, personal experience tends to be a really bad basis on which to draw conclusions. The data is inherently biased, as we tend to game with people we expect to have a good time with. And if we don't have fun with someone, we're more interested in avoiding future situations than determining the real reason for the displeasure.
You act based on what you already think, and those actions lend themselves toward supporting those beliefs. It's a self-reinforcing cycle.
My sample size only includes a few hundred people thanks to conventions and game stores (I understand that is still a very small sample and only includes the limited to the areas I have been). I used to play and run games there and it was very common. It happened in every system that uses point buy. After a while you see the same type of player. I used to be that type of player. I used to dump what I could and do everything I could to ignore that. I don't anymore. It turns out that it was not a sign of someone who wanted to play a role playing game. I was approaching the game from a video or board game point of view.
Needless to say, if multiple -2s are happening often, and it is interfering with someone's fun somehow then something is wrong. But I don't think it's a lack of restrictions on character creation that's the problem in that case. Much more likely the GM and the player don't see eye to eye about the campaign — because it takes a very specific campaign to make multiple dump stats playable at all.
Adding restrictions more advanced than "nothing above x and nothing below y" is still inadvisable. They're player characters, not GM characters.
Even then, starting a campaign with the statement "I don't want anyone too special, and I don't want anyone with big weaknesses" tells me as a player that you want a kind of boring story.
I agree with you on this. It's the player that cripples himself then complains that he lost another character because the GM is out to get him that causes problems. Sometimes the GM may be trying to prove a point, and that is just as bad. I don't target any characters in particular but I also don't hold back when the enemy finds a weakness. I wouldn't expect the players to hold back once they figure out that the creature is susceptible to a particular attack. The enemy shouldn't either.
I want heroic characters in the game. I don't want to have to adjust the game because someone comes to the table with half the character being dumped.
So far I have not seen a good role player that dumps half his stats on most of his characters. As I said, the character can be role played but I haven't seen a good role player do this on a regular basis.You know what I meant. Anyone who is always looking to tank two to three stats is probably a bad role player.To be blunt, that's a prejudice, not an observable fact.
I have/had a player that does that. He optimizes defensively, but his offense usually sucks. He still RP's though, and is the only one to write background stories without being pushed to do so.
I have tried to tell him part of staying alive is killing the bad guys quickly, but it is not getting through.
With point buy I actually just try to get an 18 and as many 14s as I can usually in con and dex. I might drop one stat down to an 8 if my character does not seem to be the one to talk to strangers a lot or is just more resevred from the world like Charisma and never dump Wisdom as I don't want a bad will save. Doesn't seem to produce overpowered characters.
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Yeah, and did you notice the “I am just doing this for interesting RPing flavour" group never seem to put a 7 in DEX or CON?
But I think that if I sat down at a table and said "since all of your characters are simpletons, I will be assuming command of this party and giving the orders around here", it may cause problems.
My issue is that I WOULD like to travel with a group of folks that I could trust to both do their job and act like some semblance of normal people. I'm not saying that a 7 INT can't be roleplayed well and enjoyed by the character and the party, I'm saying I'm sick of sitting down at a table with three melee combatants that ALL have a 7 INT / CHA because they wanted to pump their strength score.
I get especially angry when those 7 INT/WIS/CHA melee combatants then want to pipe in when we are discussing extremely detailed tactical manuevers or knowledge skills because the desire to dump your stats to make yourself awesome at combat and still play your character as the unholy love child of Einstein, Ghandi and General Patton when not in combat is extremely meta-gamey to me.
D&D's mechanics reward this style of play. Tactical choices are made by the player and not a result of mechanics. You'll see countless proponents of this type of play as well when people say things like "I give the player a +2 to the character's roll when they come up with a good idea". The player decides the action, but the character's level of competence in completing it is all the game figures out.
Let's take flanking as an example. If I as a player can out maneuver the GM on the battle map, I can earn a flanking bonus. D&D rewards my personal tactical prowess, not my characters.
If the game was more abstracted and instead required me to make some sort of Maneuvering roll to get flanking, it rewards me for putting points in Maneuvering instead of my own personal skill at positioning pieces.
That said, some tactical maneuvers don't exactly require a high intelligence. Wolves, lions, dolphins and orcas have all exhibited learned tactics, including group tactics.
But I think that if I sat down at a table and said "since all of your characters are simpletons, I will be assuming command of this party and giving the orders around here", it may cause problems.
My issue is that I WOULD like to travel with a group of folks that I could trust to both do their job and act like some semblance of normal people. I'm not saying that a 7 INT can't be roleplayed well and enjoyed by the character and the party, I'm saying I'm sick of sitting down at a table with three melee combatants that ALL have a 7 INT / CHA because they wanted to pump their strength score.
I get especially angry when those 7 INT/WIS/CHA melee combatants then want to pipe in when we are discussing extremely detailed tactical manuevers or knowledge skills because the desire to dump your stats to make yourself awesome at combat and still play your character as the unholy love child of Einstein, Ghandi and General Patton when not in combat is extremely meta-gamey to me.
D&D's mechanics reward this style of play. Tactical choices are made by the player and not a result of mechanics. You'll see countless proponents of this type of play as well when people say things like "I give the player a +2 to the character's roll when they come up with a good idea". The player decides the action, but the character's level of competence in completing it is all the game figures out.
Let's take flanking as an example. If I as a player can out maneuver the GM on the battle map, I can earn a flanking bonus. D&D rewards my personal tactical prowess, not my characters.
If the game was more abstracted and instead required me to make some sort of Maneuvering roll to get flanking, it rewards me for putting points in Maneuvering instead of my own personal skill at positioning pieces.
That said, some tactical maneuvers don't exactly require a high intelligence. Wolves, lions, dolphins and orcas have all exhibited learned tactics, including group tactics.
The mechanics do favor this type of play but good role playing does not...if you are taking advantage of game mechanics that your character wouldn't be capable of this is meta gaming and not good role playing...Your character is moving about the battle map not you(if he couldn't make that decision because of his impairments why are you)...We had a dm who we had a huge issue when he did this(having even the dumbest creatures act as tactical masters simply because he is)...part of role playing is playing to your characters ability to think...if you have a low int or wis and don't have a sizable stat in the other you should not play as smart/wise you usually are(assuming most people who play dnd are at least of average int and more often I find higher)...This is why I hate playing low int/wis chars because it is much harder for me personally to role play.
My sample size only includes a few hundred people thanks to conventions and game stores (I understand that is still a very small sample and only includes the limited to the areas I have been). I used to play and run games there and it was very common. It happened in every system that uses point buy. After a while you see the same type of player. I used to be that type of player. I used to dump what I could and do everything I could to ignore that. I don't anymore. It turns out that it was not a sign of someone who wanted to play a role playing game. I was approaching the game from a video or board game point of view.And I haven't seen anyone who criticizes min-maxers be any better at roleplaying than anyone else. Doesn't mean a thing.
Consider your sample size, Bob. With few exceptions, personal experience tends to be a really bad basis on which to draw conclusions. The data is inherently biased, as we tend to game with people we expect to have a good time with. And if we don't have fun with someone, we're more interested in avoiding future situations than determining the real reason for the displeasure.
You act based on what you already think, and those actions lend themselves toward supporting those beliefs. It's a self-reinforcing cycle.
You know, low stats can actually be fun. Our group typically does 20 point buy, several people will lower to 7s. We had a magus who lowered his cha to 7, a different player declared his character spit when he talked and referred to him as "Mister Spitty". So thus the Awesome badass Teifling with all the arcane powers of hell was called Mister Spitty during the entire campaign. The DM had people not want to talk to him and his terrible nickname stuck. The only time he had women actually want to... uhh... promiscuate with him was when they were assassins. He was all happy that the DM finally rolled in his favor until he got snuck attacked to death.
My current character has a strength of 7. I can barely lift and carry anything, it makes for an interesting challenge.
We have had players play 7 intelligence very well, usually with "My character wouldn't think of this, but someone else would..." prefacing a lot of things. When someone has a 7 wisdom the players routinely make bad decisions or roll to see if they would even consider a smart course of action. One of my rogues had a 7 int, he started play with the title, "Lord of bad ideas" from his backstory.
I guess my point is, low stats can be fun and challenging and fun to play up. Nobody certainly picks on anyone for a 10 cha or a 10 wisdom, but 7? Yes, i pick on 7 wisdom characters...
-Tundra
If someone wants to dump their stats then the consequences are on them. If the GM refuses to enforce(not make up arbitrary rules) that is on him as a GM.
Example:When I run a game I use traps, I attack ability scores, I grapple, I trip, and so on.
If you create a one dimensional character you will run into an issue. Well the other players will too, but they will be more likely to handle it. The positive side of focusing so much is that you will be really good at what you choose to focus on, and the other characters may be in awe with your really high diplomacy modifier or the amount of damage you do. The game is all give and take.
Also 7 intelligence is not drooling stupid.Remember, folks: 7 and 13 are equidistant from 10. 7 in a stat is only as far below average as 13 is above average. Roleplay accordingly.
The 3E system (and 1E-2E to my knowledge) has never been meant to represent physically or mentally handicapped individuals. There is literally no level of Intelligence in D&D that means you will drool on yourself, or seriously lack cognitive functions, or be unable to move or walk by yourself, or suffer from some other debilitating condition.
3 Intelligence is literally enough to tell the difference between right and wrong, function in society, speak a language without issue, and so forth. 3-18 is the range of normal humans in 3E/3.5/PF (though in PF it's 3-20 in whichever stat you drop your +2 in). 3 Intelligence is high enough to be responsible for your own actions. 3.x/PF does not DO drooling stupid.
Additionally, ability scores mean different things to different creatures. A str 1 frog and a str 1 human (ability damaged) are not actually as strong as one-another. The human is still stronger (mostly due to size at this point). Likewise, an Intelligence 6 means something drastically different from Ettin to Ogre to White Dragons to Water Mephit (the latter actually being known as constant jokesters).
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You know what I meant. Anyone who is always looking to tank two to three stats is probably a bad role player.
Bob, I generally enjoy reading your comments, but this one is a stinker.
Also 7 intelligence is not drooling stupid.Remember, folks: 7 and 13 are equidistant from 10. 7 in a stat is only as far below average as 13 is above average. Roleplay accordingly.
A 7 INT means that you rely heavily on your training and that you definitely don't think outside the box. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're some kind if *retard.
/ *unless you're playing with a DM who suspects you're a Stat-dumper. If that's the case, you're screwed.
I've reached the point where 8-15 is generally not going to get much attention as a general rule; they are common enough that most people won't particularly think about anything in this range. Anything beyond that, in either direction, is going to attract attention, both desirable and undesirable. They can be alleviated to some extent, with conscious effort, but they are what defines your character and character's approach to the world, so they will be noticed, and other people will use that information however they see fit based on their worldview and agenda. Whether the net effect ends up being positive or negative is entirely up to the player, and how they handle that attention in character. I think the biggest problem I've seen with low stats is that DM's will force people with low stats to rp them to the hilt, but those with super high stats are left alone to do whatever they want, even if they choose to ignore the downsides of such stats, or the fact that such extremes as 1 18+ and 3 7's would lead to a less than perfectly balanced character rp wise in the real world. If more DMs enforced the notion that both extremes are indeed notable, and should be played as such, I suspect less people would groan about low scores or try to min-max their stats. The idea that low automatically is bad and high automatically is good may be sound mechanically, but should not be applied to the rp aspect of the game.
Please consider Einstein, the 8 INT Human Expert. He's got 6 skill points per level (possibly 7 if Favored Class is used), which is more than a 12 INT Fighter.
Is Einstein an abuse of the system? If so, why?
/ I figure Einstein is built on a 10 or 15 point buy. The INT saving are probably going for STR or CON or maybe WIS.
The mechanics do favor this type of play but good role playing does not...if you are taking advantage of game mechanics that your character wouldn't be capable of this is meta gaming and not good role playing...
You're talking about the human element of the game, which is fine because that does exist, but it's exact features and implementation are going to be different at every table. No two groups are going to roleplay the exact same way.
My point about "You get +2 to your character's roll because you (the player) had a good idea" is a pretty common phenomenon. It's a widely accepted technique to encourage creative thinking. It does reward the player's ability to think over the character's.
Without serious modification, this has to be an accepted fact about the game. You can say that roleplaying needs to happen to account for it, but if I'm a smart person, I'm still going to have those smart ideas for my Int 7 character, some of them are going to come through. The game is still set up to reward my intelligence (player) regardless of my character's intelligence.
There are other games where there are no tactical decisions, or they are very simplistic. There are games where you can have a "tactics" skill and roll it, then based on success/failure you describe how your character's tactics win the day.
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The mechanics don't support the notion that 7 is drooling stupid whatsoever. Two people who are generally similar except one has Int 10 and one has Int 7 will make int-based rolls in a way that the results will be indistinguishable to someone not carefully tracking the results and running a statistical analysis on them. That's not the way the difference between "average" and "drooling stupid" - or even "dimmest guy in the class" works in real life. Casting ability scores to fixed levels of intelligence is dubious to begin with, but if you're going to do it, you should at least not do it in a way that's clearly incredibly wrong. You can say that the 7 Int fighter shouldn't even try to be tactical when your 10 int guy is standing there being all normal intelligence, but the more than one-in-three times that that guy rolls higher than you on an int check you're going to feel pretty stupid. Saying 7 int is even "really dumb" or too dumb to play or whatever and 7 int characters should be prohibited from ever really displaying much intelligence is like saying that dwarves are basically sessile compared to humans and a dwarf character should be roleplayed as essentially immobile or you're cheesing the rules. Yes, dwarves are slower than humans, but they're slower by an amount that's clearly defined by the rules. Int 7 characters are dumber than Int 10 characters by an amount that's mechanically defined, and that amount is "not very much."
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Why not just stick to point buy which keeps everyone on the same page balance-wise?I am using pointbuy. The problem is that some players, will often drop their stats way down to 7 or 8 and give a flimsy reason to justify why their characters should have such a low stat. It's plain min-maxing
Q. How is picking your stats any different than choosing your class, weapons, feats and spells?
I.e., if I make a Power Attack barbarian/fighter with a bardiche who wears a bandolier full of potions of Enlarge Person and has the Accelerated Drinker trait, is he suddenly over-the-top because he started with a strength of 19 and paid for it with a charisma of 7?
Why does a gnome bard or halfling sorcerer have to have a strength of 10? Or 8? Or even 6? Perhaps, just maybe, magic and gift-of-gab is how they overcome their physical limitations, no?
Plug the following 20pt array of 15,14,12,12,12,12 into a dwarf for STR:15,DEX:12,CON+14,INT:14,WIS+14,CHA-10, and give him plate armor, Combat Expertise, Steel Soul, and the Threatening Defender and Defender of the Society traits, and even a "min-maxed" 25-pt barbarian is going to have trouble hitting him or enjoying saves as good.
Stats are only one small part of the total package.
So a str 16 woman is weaker that a str 16 man?
Additionally, ability scores mean different things to different creatures. A str 1 frog and a str 1 human (ability damaged) are not actually as strong as one-another. The human is still stronger (mostly due to size at this point). Likewise, an Intelligence 6 means something drastically different from Ettin to Ogre to White Dragons to Water Mephit (the latter actually being known as constant jokesters).
Do you consider females and males to be different creatures? I guess you could make some sort of argument as to where their strength comes from (upper body, leverage, girth, etc) but I'd rather not get into that sort of conversation here. Let it suffice to say that the same number can be interpreted in wildly different ways from character to character. The only thing that doesn't vary is the modifier, because whether you're a quiet introvert or a loud and boisterous party-goer, you still have a -2 Charisma penalty. The reasons behind that penalty could be as different as night and day, however.
Personally I've always felt children are in the 4 to 6 range and teenagers are 7 to 9. So that int 7 fighter would be comparabel to a 13 to 15 year old. Not bright for an adult but a long way from drooling, 3 is animal intelligence afterall and most of them don't droll on themselves.
It's not important, but I'm kinda anal about these sorts of things. Animal Intelligence is 2 or less. 3+ is sentient and capable of telling right from wrong, and speaking languages. :P
Int 3: Retriever, Tarrasque, Executioner's Hood, Chupacabra, Death Worm, Devilfish, Gray Render, Grick, Tendriculos, etc. These are all single minded in their actions. They don’t really think things through. They generally have a single tactic that they use no matter what.
Int 4: Chimera, Choker, Gibbering Mouther, Nessian Hell Hound, etc. These creatures are only slightly more intelligent than the Int 3 creatures. Looking at their descriptions though, they aren’t really all that bright. The chimera mentions that they are just smart enough to not make good pets.
Int 5: Dretch, Griffon, Morlock, etc. These are not great thinkers either. We’re starting to get into creatures with some tactics. The griffon is said to be calculating but it goes on to say that they aren’t concerned with abstract concepts. Morlocks are described as barely thinking beasts.
Int 6: Ettercap, Ettin, Gargoyle, etc. We’re starting to get to slightly smarter creatures but the ettin has never been seen as intelligent. These creatures intentionally set traps (ettercaps). Ettins are described as Though not particularly intelligent, ettins are skilled and cunning fighters. They prefer ambushes, which is a sign of tactical ability.
Int 7: Behir, Harpy, Minotaur. This is the lowest a PC should start with. We are comparing their intelligence to a creature that is not stupid (the behir and harpy both call this out) yet most of these creatures are still rather feral.
Int 8: Boggard, Gnoll, Troglodyte. These creatures have actual cultures that can vary from region to region. They are adaptable to different circumstances. The boggard is said to be pragmatic. Gnolls combine pack tactics with individual standoffs and they are capable hunters. Something interesting to note is that most of these creatures are still slightly feral and savage but also form communities.
There are some differences between low, average, and high intelligence that are assumed in the Bestiaries. The lower the intelligence, the more feral. As the intelligence rises, so does the desire/ability to form communities and a culture all their own. I don’t see any reason why a PC should be any different. None of these are drooling idiots, but they are also not very tactical until we start to get to Int 7 (which is the lowest a PC should start with).
Nobody's saying "my 7 INT is just as good as your 15 INT". People - or at least one person, me - are saying that 7 int or cha is, while not the exact same as average, very close to average mechanically. In fact, we can quantify exactly how close: a mental challenge that an average person will fail half of the time, a person with 7 Int will fail 60% of the time. If you think that that's what the difference between an average person and someone who's not worth trusting with anything but the simplest tasks looks like, then you have pretty high (and pretty exact) standards for that sort of thing. People are free to ignore the mechanics of the game, assign fluff descriptions to various numbers based on... something?, and end up with a system where the fluff doesn't match the crunch, or they can let the mechanics inform what different numbers mean and end up with a system where someone can assign character creation resources to things that give them greater ability to overcome standard game challenges without having to pay for it by speaking like Cookie Monster. I personally prefer the latter system, but people are free to play however they wish.
Here's a thought experiment: Would people find 7's in stats so vile/cheesy/whatever if the standard point buy system looked like this? -
- Characters start with a 7 in every stat.
- Point buys for Low/Mid/High power are 39/44/49
- Stats cost the following:
7: 0
8: 2
9: 3
10: 4
11: 5
12: 6
13: 7
14: 9
15: 11
16: 14
17: 17
18: 21
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The intend of having a limit is to balance character creation so that new and experienced players all could make interesting characters without unbalancing game play.
Hence, what is requested is ideals and suggestions on how to balance a party (between its members) via ability score control or otherwise and how to pull this off.
This thread seem to have gone a little off topic, but it seems it for the better, with all these different views.
Thank you, all for your advice, inputs and ideals. Its been an insightful look at everyone's views on character creation.
The intend of having a limit is to balance character creation so that new and experienced players all could make interesting characters without unbalancing game play.
Hence, what is requested is ideals and suggestions on how to balance a party (between its members) via ability score control or otherwise and how to pull this off.This thread seem to have gone a little off topic, but it seems it for the better, with all these different views.
Thank you, all for your advice, inputs and ideals. Its been an insightful look at everyone's views on character creation.
I would respond with some follow up questions to you, so I can get a better idea of what it is you're looking for.
What exactly is the problem you are finding? By this I mean: tell me a story of an "unbalanced" character that demonstrates the problem, then give me a ratio of how often this happens in your games.
For example, did you have a Fighter with a 20 Strength and 7 Charisma (after racial mods) and felt his attack rolls and damage was too high? How exactly did this upset the balance of the game? Would the balance of the game been restored if he had a 16 Strength?
Are your players competing against each other? If they are cooperating, just ask the experienced players to each assist a new player, so that all the characters are at the same level of optimization. I do this all the time in one of our groups. One of the players enjoys hanging out with us, but isn't interested in reading all of the feats to figure out which one is best. So he turns to me, tells me what he wants to be good at, I pick out 2-3 options for him and he makes the final decision. This is good for the GM, because both of our characters are on a similar power level, so he doesn't have to worry about someone feeling left behind.
Personally, I wouldn't treat a 7 as being incapable, but it is outside of the norm for a fully functioning adult, and the PC will have to deal with the ramifications of that. Capability wise, it does mean the character is a bit weak in that department, and will occasionally need assistance in circumstances that rely on that attribute, but a single 7 wouldn't completely stop someone from functioning. I wouldn't impose that level of pain until they had two or three such stats. At that point, they would be significantly challenged in enough areas that people around them are going to tend to treat them like a little kid in an adult's body, regardless of what other stats they may have.
I'm curious if there's something that's informing people's ideas of what real-world levels of capability different stats correspond to besides traditional ideas about what they mean that aren't mentioned in Pathfinder material and do a woefully poor job of matching the mechanics with fluff or a not-supported-anywhere desire for a 7 stat to be more punishing than the mechanics make it.
Pathfinder DOES provide some benchmarks - we have a very loose idea what a Str score means, for example, because of the carrying capacity chart. We know that 10 is about human average (or an eyelash below it, depending on how you figure things.) We have the racial modifiers. (Speaking of which, does the fact that Elves have an average of 8 Con lead people to treat the average adult elf as someone who is whatever the con equivalent of the 8-int fighter is? Generally sickly and frail, and shouldn't really consider doing anything exhausting?) What PF doesn't have anywhere - at least not in the CRB or the GMG - is a table that says what each ability score score is supposed to mean flavorfully. It's probably reasonable then, to intuit what they mean from the mechanics of the game, and the mechanics of the game say that someone with 7 Charisma is certainly distinct from someone with 10 charisma, but not severely so, and the 10 charisma guy won't succeed on charisma-based challenges all that much more often than the 7 charisma guy. The 7 charisma guy STILL shouldn't be the face, because over the course of a large number of charisma checks, you will eventually see a statistical difference between the two of them, and that difference will appear much faster if the 7 charisma guy is compared to a 16 charisma guy, especially since the 16 charisma guy is pretty likely to have invested in at least one social skill, but he's not a total schmuck barely capable of social interaction unless the guy with a 10 is mostly a total schmuck barely capable of social interaction.
Really, you can go to the mechanics to figure out what a stat corresponds to, or you can abandon trying to have fluff match crunch and force more severe ideas (not anywhere in the rules that I could find) of what lowish stats mean onto the system and then be puzzled every time the barely-capable idiot does better at the intellectual task than the average guy, which will be about a third of the time.