Why The Ability Score Cap At First Level?

[MidsouthGuy]

You can't have an ability score over 18 at level one. But why?

I've played in a few groups where a character started with a 20 (or even 22 in the case of an Orc character whose lucky player rolled an 18) ability score right out of the gate. It wasn't game breaking, and the other characters weren't left in the dust thanks to the fact we were all limited by level one hit points and equipment. With the measures PF2 is putting in place to make the game more balanced, capping ability scores at level one seems less like a way to ensure a balanced game, and more like a way to enforce the new character creation method. As a big fan of rolling for stats and opponent of capping ability scores at any level, if this stays in the finished product of PF2 (which I'm sure it will) it's going to be one the first things I houserule out of the game, if I bother switching to PF2 at all.

Anyone else have thoughts, comments, enraged outbursts, or vehement objections they would like to share on the subject?

[neaven]

MidsouthGuy wrote:

You can't have an ability score over 18 at level one. But why?

I've played in a few groups where a character started with a 20 (or even 22 in the case of an Orc character whose lucky player rolled an 18) ability score right out of the gate. It wasn't game breaking, and the other characters weren't left in the dust thanks to the fact we were all limited by level one hit points and equipment. With the measures PF2 is putting in place to make the game more balanced, capping ability scores at level one seems less like a way to ensure a balanced game, and more like a way to enforce the new character creation method. As a big fan of rolling for stats and opponent of capping ability scores at any level, if this stays in the finished product of PF2 (which I'm sure it will) it's going to be one the first things I houserule out of the game, if I bother switching to PF2 at all.

Anyone else have thoughts, comments, enraged outbursts, or vehement objections they would like to share on the subject?

Bound accuracy by level. That's why. It's one of quite a few ways to ensure that all characters will have numbers within a certain range for each level, which makes encounter design easier for developers - if AC, saves, DCs and to-hit will always be in a certain range, it's easier to dial monster numbers in. Pity it comes at a cost of character customisation.

[HWalsh]

MidsouthGuy wrote:

You can't have an ability score over 18 at level one. But why?

I've played in a few groups where a character started with a 20 (or even 22 in the case of an Orc character whose lucky player rolled an 18) ability score right out of the gate. It wasn't game breaking, and the other characters weren't left in the dust thanks to the fact we were all limited by level one hit points and equipment. With the measures PF2 is putting in place to make the game more balanced, capping ability scores at level one seems less like a way to ensure a balanced game, and more like a way to enforce the new character creation method. As a big fan of rolling for stats and opponent of capping ability scores at any level, if this stays in the finished product of PF2 (which I'm sure it will) it's going to be one the first things I houserule out of the game, if I bother switching to PF2 at all.

Anyone else have thoughts, comments, enraged outbursts, or vehement objections they would like to share on the subject?

The Math in PF2 is *very* tight.

Some players have already figured out that they can make Monks with Fighter Dedications that can almost actually ensure that all of their iterative attacks hit automatically (as long as they are flanking) against enemies within APL+3. The only problem is that they are finding themselves +1 or +2 away.

Starting at 20 would give them that extra +1 they need.

[lordredraven]

It ensures that character creation methods produce similar ranges. The default character building doesn't alow for the possibility of over 18. You get four set of raises and the best you can get to is 18. By putting in the cap it allows the potential option for other build methods( rolling dice etc) without breaking the hard limit the default method imposes based on the math

[Edge93]

neaven wrote:

Bound accuracy by level. That's why. It's one of quite a few ways to ensure that all characters will have numbers within a certain range for each level, which makes encounter design easier for developers - if AC, saves, DCs and to-hit will always be in a certain range, it's easier to dial monster numbers in. Pity it comes at a cost of character customisation.

I've seen lack of character customization/difference between characters complained about/derided by a lot of people on here and it seems like everyone who does so is only looking at how the classes have more similar numbers now. The customization is a lot more than that though, there have been a lot of cool tricks added through class feats to make the classes unique, while keeping numerical edges that some characters have over others within a small margin so that we have say Fighter with 70% chance to hit and Melee-specced Wizard at 50% rather than Fighter hits on 2 (a major difficulty I've had in 1.0 that along with other big flaws in 1.0 design makes threatening bosses very difficult to design) and Melee-specced Wizard needs a 17 to hit and only gets two iteratives to the fighter's three or four.

TL;DR characters are still loads customizable, it's just more about the specific things you can do rather than pumping the numbers that say how well you do them to who-knows-where.

[ChibiNyan]

This is one mechanic I agree with and actually have been using in PF1 for a while now. Stats over 18 at creation were just munchkinery and I'll stand by those words. With the value of +1s this edition, doing this would be very enticing for your primary stat and everyone would feel obligated to do it at the expense of everything else.

I actually like how in 5E you can't even get a 18 at all with point buy. Only crazy luck with d6s can overcome the apparent limitations of your race!

[PossibleCabbage]

I always hated "stats above 18" at character generation, would not play one, and would not allow it if I was GMing. So I agree with PF2 here.

[Vahnyu]

MidsouthGuy wrote:

You can't have an ability score over 18 at level one. But why?

Because if you roll for stats and somehow end up with straight 18s, your punishment must be more severe.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I always hated "stats above 18" at character generation, would not play one, and would not allow it if I was GMing. So I agree with PF2 here.

And I liked them. From 2e where we played races that had greater than 18/00 Strength to Dark Sun (4d4+4 before modifiers ability scores).

Some races are simply better than humans in certain respects and artificially nerfing them for reasons of 'balance' or personal preference goes against my personal preferences.

[nogoodscallywag]

MidsouthGuy wrote:

You can't have an ability score over 18 at level one. But why?

Because that's the way it should be!

[MidsouthGuy]

nogoodscallywag wrote:

MidsouthGuy wrote:

You can't have an ability score over 18 at level one. But why?

Because that's the way it should be!

Why is that 'the way it should be'? Why should 18 be the maximum you can get in an ability score?

I'll bring up the Orc who managed to get a 22 Strength again as an example. The player rolled an 18, applied his racial bonus, and was monstrously strong right out of the gate. But if memory serves, the same character had something like a 7 Int, and was dumber than a bag of rocks. Which is exactly how you would expect an Orc to be.

But with ability scores capped at 18, the same character would be little different from a human fighter. This really seems to me like nothing more than a way to punish people who prefer rolling for ability scores. And even if there is some perfectly valid reason for it, I'm still going to houserule any ability score cap out of my home games.

[Haikido Mara]

Home games are home games and you should modify any rules to make you and your players happy.

As to why cap at 18? It is for game balance/encounter design. Run two parties through the same adventure (preferably low level so magic items are not changing things a lot). The parties should be the same except one should have 20-22 for their primary stats and the other should cap at 16 for their primary stats. If you want to spend the leftover points boosting other stats, feel free. The games will play differently and generally the lower stat'd one will be tougher. Not that they both cannot be fun, just a difference in the challenge level.

But that is just to illustrate how the difference plays. The problem occurs when (and it is usually not hard to find) players complain that modules/scenarios/encounters are not challenging for a 22 stat character. That the game needs to be rewritten for that build. But if every fight is built to be challenging for the 22 stat then character builds much below will be slaughtered. So instead of having a ceiling of 18 we will have a floor of 20.

Therefore given a choice between you playing an 18 str fighter, me a 16th str fighter and crazy Eddie playing a 14 str fighter vs you playing a 22 str fighter and me and Eddie having to 20 and 18 respectively, I am going to choose the former. Not saying that it is the best choice, just the one that I would make.

And again home games are home games, use whatever rules you like.

[PossibleCabbage]

MidsouthGuy wrote:

nogoodscallywag wrote:

MidsouthGuy wrote:

You can't have an ability score over 18 at level one. But why?

Because that's the way it should be!

Why is that 'the way it should be'?

Because you can't roll more than 18 on 3d6. Also because "if you cherrypick your race, you can get an extra +1 to your important stat mods" got *really* out of hand in PF1, so it's good we're walking that back.

People should be choosing their ancestry more based on "I have an idea" or "I think it would be neat to be a..." and not "well, if I'm a Yaddithian, I can have 20 Intelligence and good Constitution."