I'll start this off with the Invested Regent archetype for the Monk. You now need Charisma in addition to the usual Monk MADness of STR, DEX, CON and WIS. Obviously you can cut that down a bit by going with a DEX build and possibly taking the Scaled Fist archetype (if your GM allows it considering it technically alters bonus feats).
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A single-classed shaman aiming to use the arcane enlightenment hex. Int, Wis & Cha are all needed, then Con to stay alive, and at least some Dex unless you have some dedicated protectors. Since you can wear armor you'll probably want enough strength to carry it too.
Divine hunter paladin. Dex for shooting, strength for composite bow, charisma for smiting, and con because if you're doing a lot of damage you need some HP.
Archery based warpriest. As above but replace charisma with wisdom.
Wouldn't a cleric need the same thing, only with Wis too?
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I once DMed for a 3.5 swashbuckling cleric. He needed Str for rapier damage, Dex for rapier hits, Con for hp, Int for extra skills, Wis for spells, Cha for his charming personality.
Arcanists are pretty MAD as intended, thanks to their spellcasting being completely Int based, but their Arcane Exploit class features being Cha based. You can easily work around it by avoiding the Cha based options, but you lose out on a lot of flavorful options.
Trying to actually use them though is frustrating since your save DCs will be significantly low for your level.
Bloodragers are rather MAD. They need Str for melee, Dex for medium armor, Con for melee, and Cha for casting (they even loaded up their spell list with a bunch of blast spells that will have laughably poor save DCs).
Any inquisitor.
Seriously. They're a "know monsters" class as well as being skill-heavy, so Intelligence is a must. They cast out of Wisdom, so that's a must. They are heavy on social abilities, so Charisma is important. They don't get heavily offensive spells or very many of them, so you really need Strength if you're going melee, and both Dexterity and Strength if you're going ranged. If you're going melee, you'll want the Dexterity anyway to try to not get mashed every time someone counterattacks, plus you'll need Constitution to survive when you inevitably do get whacked.
Point is... a melee inquisitor needs it all. A ranged inquisitor can get away with a low Con score.
Skald is a knowledge guy with only 4+Int skill points. And a medium armor guy, so you want dex. And then you need charisma for the spells. And strength for your attacks. And everyone wants constitution and wisdom.
Kata Master Monk.
All of the problems of the base Monk with a Charisma based class feature.
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Any front-line cleric. Str, Con and Dex for fighting. Wis for casting. Cha for channelling. Int because you have hardly any skill points but people expect you to have Knowledge: Religion, Perception, Diplomacy, etc.
Any front-line cleric. Str, Con and Dex for fighting. Wis for casting. Cha for channelling. Int because you have hardly any skill points but people expect you to have Knowledge: Religion, Perception, Diplomacy, etc.
CRB clerics have the worst MAD in the game. They lost heavy armor so a higher DEX is nigh essential, they lost things like DMM Divine Power so they need better ways to improve their to hit so they need more STR, they need CHA to access their channels, WIS for spellcasting, INT for their abysmal skills needed to do casting stuff, and they still need CON to make up for the d8 hit dice.
Clerics need everything.
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Some of these I find funny.
Sure, you can make any class MAD if you try to do everything, which I feel like is the complaint that's being made here.
Sure, if you try to make a cleric with a lot of skill points, who's really good at channeling, and spell casting, and fighting with a weapon point buy will kill you!
But you're a cleric. When I play with clerics I don't expect them to have many skills. Knowledge religion and knowledge planes are about the only things I really expect. More is always nice, but you don't get to be good at everything. Besides, if you use background skills, play as human, use your FCB for it you end up with 6 skill points per level without a bonus from int.
Channeling...while we'd all like channel to be better it sucks without lots of investment and still ends up sucking at higher levels. Unless you're making a character invested in channeling specifically I usually just ignore charisma, though I do avoid dumping it (as I usually try to avoid dumping stats anyways).
For the price of a single feat, Heavy Armor prof, you can basically eliminate dex for a melee cleric. And for an archer cleric, while the first few levels of play are a bit rough with no static damage bonus once you get deadly aim and other static modifiers onto your attacks archery will do just fine. Most archers I've played haven't ever started with more than 14 strength, and in the long run those 2 or so points of damage wont matter much.
If you accept that you're not going to be good at everything, and instead choose one thing to be good at and a second thing to be okay at you can have a very competent character.
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Bloodragers aren't that bad - with medium armour you only need 12 or 14 dex (I have a barbarian doing fine with 12). In fact, with access to defensive spells designed to keep a wizard alive (mirror image and blur on a barbarian is utterly frightening), you could drop your dex even lower and put the points into Con instead.
Oh, and charisma? 12 or 13 starting charisma is fine. You are not a blaster. You are a full BAB martial character. Use spells like Shocking Grasp and Scorching Ray - even a ranged touch attack will be child's play with your full BAB. Even if you pumped your Charisma to 18, at level 10 you get 2 fireballs per day, with a DC17 save. Compared to a Sorcerer at the same level throwing out twice as many *dazing* fireballs with a save around DC22, before falling back to a solid half-dozen basic fireballs, and having alternate damage, buffs and utility to spare.
Sure you can make a Bloodrager into a blaster if you really want to, but you don't get enough spells per day to do it well, and you are always well behind the full casters in spell progression. You know how the first few levels as a caster kind of suck? As a Blastrager that will be half your career (90% in PFS). Forget any spell that relies on a save and just have enough charisma to be able to cast them.
Try these 20 pointbuy stat lines (before racials):
16 14 14 8 9 13 (fairly balanced strength focus line)
17 12 14 8 9 13 (slightly less balanced, attack/damage bump comes at level 4 rather than 8)
14 14 14 10 10 14 (for the dump averse - less damage but better saves and skills)
16 12 16 7 10 14 (more HP - 2 skills/level is all fighters gets anyway, right?)
18 10 14 7 10 12 (MOAR attack/damage, mirror image is far better than an extra point of AC anyway, buy a Cha headband at level 7)
All of these will serve quite admirably for any suitable race. Tweak as needed based on your exact racial adjustments.
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Arcanists are pretty MAD as intended, thanks to their spellcasting being completely Int based, but their Arcane Exploit class features being Cha based. You can easily work around it by avoiding the Cha based options, but you lose out on a lot of flavorful options.
You really only need INT to be high though. I'd say the order of importance goes INT>CHA=DEX>CON>WIS>STR. 8-14-12-16-10-14 pre-racial modifiers is reasonably sound. Take a race that gets +2 to Int and you're set, or even go Dual-Talent Human for +2 INT/CHA. Heck, take Noble Scion of War at Level 1 and you can put more into CHA than DEX.
When I hear MAD my mind instantly goes to the CRB Monk or to weird class combos such as Magus/Cleric/Mystic Theurge. Those classes need very high scores in multiple stats in order to function properly.
Bloodragers aren't that bad - with medium armour you only need 12 or 14 dex (I have a barbarian doing fine with 12). In fact, with access to defensive spells designed to keep a wizard alive (mirror image and blur on a barbarian is utterly frightening), you could drop your dex even lower and put the points into Con instead.
Oh, and charisma? 12 or 13 starting charisma is fine. You are not a blaster. You are a full BAB martial character. Use spells like Shocking Grasp and Scorching Ray - even a ranged touch attack will be child's play with your full BAB. Even if you pumped your Charisma to 18, at level 10 you get 2 fireballs per day, with a DC17 save. Compared to a Sorcerer at the same level throwing out twice as many *dazing* fireballs with a save around DC22, before falling back to a solid half-dozen basic fireballs, and having alternate damage, buffs and utility to spare.
Sure you can make a Bloodrager into a blaster if you really want to, but you don't get enough spells per day to do it well, and you are always well behind the full casters in spell progression. You know how the first few levels as a caster kind of suck? As a Blastrager that will be half your career (90% in PFS). Forget any spell that relies on a save and just have enough charisma to be able to cast them.
Try these 20 pointbuy stat lines (before racials):
16 14 14 8 9 13 (fairly balanced strength focus line)
17 12 14 8 9 13 (slightly less balanced, attack/damage bump comes at level 4 rather than 8)
14 14 14 10 10 14 (for the dump averse - less damage but better saves and skills)
16 12 16 7 10 14 (more HP - 2 skills/level is all fighters gets anyway, right?)
18 10 14 7 10 12 (MOAR attack/damage, mirror image is far better than an extra point of AC anyway, buy a Cha headband at level 7)All of these will serve quite admirably for any suitable race. Tweak as needed based on your exact racial adjustments.
Very much this for bloodragers.
When I played one, I built it mostly like a barbarian but with either 12 or 14 charisma. You only need enough charisma to cast spells. Bloodragers work best when they buff themselves, not as offensive casters. They don't have enough spell slots to be sustained offensive casters, but that's why they're also basically barbarians.
You're a barbarian with the ability to self buff more. Play the character that way, and you realize you're amazing.
I like shooting for 16 CHA on my bloodragers, because it's nice having a martial with the option to fireball swarms when necessary (and 16 CHA gets me to the point where I feel decently comfortable with spell DCs), but it's by no means required.
I also don't consider DEX a requirement on medium armor. A little extra AC is always welcome, but the Bloodrager has buffs to draw on there.
Really, all the Bloodrager NEEDS is STR, CON, and enough CHA to cast spells. Not a particularly bad case of MAD.
Unless you use heavy armor, you need dex pretty bad for AC.
Paladins will pretty much always want Cha, Str and Con. Don't really need Dex or Wis, but don't want to dump either and Int is good too. So they are in a bit of a tricky spot.
A Reliquarian Occultist can be MAD. They Need strength, dexterity, and constitution like other melee classes, wisdom to cast their spells, and intelligence to have enough focus to power their implements.
Unless you use heavy armor, you need dex pretty bad for AC.
Well the difference is plus one or three points of armor. Keeping in mind enchantments, rings, amulets, etc, it's not that bad. Besides when you can start affording good heavy armor, you can start to afford basic items. You do save money on protection though if you have heavy armor.
On a melee build, every point of AC is important. Especially at low level.
Every point of AC is nice, but not essential. I play melee characters with 16 AC all the time. They do perfectly fine. They WILL get hit at some point, but that's a core assumption of the game. Bloodrager has enough HP to take the hit and keep fighting- even at level 1.
What these characters don't generally want to do is try to tank an entire room. It definitely works better with another melee partner to divide attention, or a chokepoint.
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On a melee build, every point of AC is important. Especially at low level.
Important? Nice, sure. But not critical. As mentioned I've done perfectly well as a Barbarian with 17AC - 15 while raging. Often 15 is more than enough at low levels, and sometimes it is not even close to what I need. An extra 10% miss chance that 16 dex would give me... honestly it's not as important as an extra 5% to hit and 1-2 extra damage, personally. I hope to be dishing out attacks more than I'm taking them, so dodging an opponent's blows is less important than not only landing my own, but also making sure they count.
I'd love to be able to do that and also run around with enough dex to make full use of Celestial Armour, but everything has it's price. For me, AC is not worth sacrificing damage for. It's good to still have enough to survive a fight, and I always like to not be *too* easy to hit (I know someone who played a Barbarian with Reckless Abandon who's AC got down to about 7, declaring that at that point armour was not worth investing in because it would take too much to get up to the point where anyone would miss him on a 2), but if tanking is not your primary role, then don't sacrifice your primary role to improve your tanking.
Everything comes at a cost, and for many characters pushing their dex up to 16 just because they only get medium armour is quite simply not worth it.
I'm playing a bloodrager right now, and the 17 AC was leaving me bleeding on the floor fairly often. Now, I do expect it to get better with higher levels and layered defenses, but actually getting to that point is pretty difficult.
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I'm going to second the Invested Regent Monk. It needs Strength, Dex and Con for fighting, Wisdom for AC, DC's, their ki pool and defense, and Charisma for an additional resource fuelled specifically by Charisma and for the DC's of their powers, which are separate from ki powers. If said monk also wants to utilise the Kirin Style feats, they will need a large quantity of Int. That's all 6 ability scores.
My current char is an AoO reach cleric(evangelist).
Str: carry weapons and armor
Dex: AC and combat reflexes, saves
Con: HP, saves
Int: Skills
Wis: Casting, saves
Cha: Channel, face skills
Worse, I have a 15 point buy. :-(
/cevah
Of course Kirin style is garbage, and no one should ever use it. So they don't need int.
Well, that wasn't the question asked. It might be terrible, but so is this hypothetical MAD monk. I'd be impressed if anyone were to make as MAD a character viable.