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No. Something is subjective when people have different ways of looking at it. In general, it depends on their feeling, preference or experience.
By this inane definition, scientific facts as basic as the non-flatness of the Earth, the evolution of species, and the efficacy of vaccines are all subjective. Just because there is a dissenting opinion somewhere does not mean that it is not possible for someone to be objectively right or wrong on the subject.
For example, it seems from our discussion that I value out of combat more than you so I value skills more than saves while you value them the other way around. As such, our "best attributes" are different. But both of us are rational in our choice, we just have different experience and preference.
Case in point: your valuation of out-of-combat skills hinges on the assumption that those form the larger part of Pathfinder's gameplay on a regular enough basis to be described as general. This is objectively not the case. Combat is generally a core part of Pathfinder 2e's gameplay, which is why the majority of the game's ruleset deals with combat, and which is why Paizo themselves noted certain stats to be valued higher than others in the rules (see my above post). You certainly have a subjective valuation of out-of-combat skills, but claiming that out-of-combat skills hold equal or greater value in the rules compared to combat abilities is objectively wrong.
I'm here because there is common ground for discussion: We play the same game. Being subjective doesn't mean there can't be a discussion.
Which discussion is there to be had, then? If nothing you say is of any objective worth, what contribution are you making to discussion? Why should anyone listen to you, let alone change their mind based on what you say? The fundamental problem with your rhetoric here is that by tearing down any common grounds for discussion, you are also making it impossible to communicate opinions in any constructive manner, because you're eliminating the medium by which those opinions can be analyzed and evaluated by one another. There is also an inherent hypocrisy in denying the means of having an objective discussion all while making arguments in favor of your points, which is an attempt to give your opinions a grounding in objectivity. Were everything truly subjective as you'd say, you wouldn't be feeling the need to defend your points, let alone attack others' opinions either.
Instead of trying to dismiss our point of view you should try to understand it. You'll realize there's no insecurity behind what we say.
But that's the thing: I do understand your viewpoint just fine, that is what the bit you quoted outlines. You just don't like it, because what it outlines doesn't reflect positively upon the way you've been acting in this discussion. It is you here who have been desperately trying to dismiss my viewpoint and that of others, and so by claiming that I'm arguing subjectively and am therefore not worth listening to. This is why defending your own opinion on the same basis is so hypocritical, because even here, you are implicitly expecting your personal opinion to be held as objectively correct.
In practice, nobody cares that you dumped Con for Int on your Barbarian, and you are free to make similar decisions to your heart's content with future characters. More broadly, this isn't about you, your characters, or your worth as a human being, nor should it be. This is just a discussion about how ability scores aren't equal (and they objectively aren't), and if such a basic fact elicits such a strong defensive reaction, that I think ought to be a call to examine where that defensiveness is coming from, as nobody is out here to attack your build decisions.
These forums are an extremely vocal minority of the playerbase - I would even say most people who play PF2E - and tabletops at large - don't go on the internet to talk about it, as most other types of entertainment.
I'm not quite sure what this is meant to say about the demographics of this discussion or the validity of the statement you quoted. All you're saying is that the people feeling personally attacked by a general discussion on attributes are a minority within a minority.
And what is 'suboptimal' is entirely subjective, so we can't have an 'objective' discussion about it.
Says who? Of course it is possible to have an objective discussion on optimal and suboptimal decisions; there are even entire fields of study around decision-making, including decision theory. Pathfinder 2e is built to be a tactically-oriented game where the crux of its gameplay is to encourage its players to make optimal decisions at key points of gameplay, especially combat. To deny this, let alone claim that there is no such thing as optimal decision-making, is to demonstrate fundamental and wilful ignorance of one of the core pillars of the very game we are discussing.
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I like keeping the stats as is. It's part of the flavor of this type of system.
I wouldn't mind seeing dual stats for each save. Cha or Wisdom for Will. Str or Con for fortitude. Dex or Int for Reflex saves.
Given the underlying assumptions about each stat, you could easily justify the above stats for saves.
Wis is force of will. Strong insight.
Charisma force of personality. Talking yourself into overcoming a will effect.
Str is sheer physical power allowing you push through a Fort save.
Con is health and physical durability.
Intel could be mentally reacting to a dangerous AoE or effect taking the right angles and moving just right to avoid it.
Dex is sheer speed of reflexes reacting.
Spread more valuable around stats increasing variability of stat builds and not punishing classes for not having an ideal stat as a main class stat, while still maintaining verisimilitude.
This description is very confusing. Were the skills separate from the attributes or some combination of attributes? IMO, just looking at your description, I'm like HM has weird maths. But I'm betting that's a feature and that we're missing some important information.
I'll try to clarify. First, skills are separate from attributes, but they are based on a combination of attributes. Swinging a great sword is more about strength than dexterity, so SB=(STR+STR+DEX)/3, while swinging a shortsword is more about dexterity, so SB=(STR+DEX+DEX)/3.
From the HM Gold Player Edition: Attributes define a character. They are presented in the order in which they should be generated — later attributes often derive from earlier ones. Many attributes are numerical, most often generated by rolling 3d6. Regardless of modifiers, no numerical attribute can be less than 1. Seven Key Attributes are identified as most useful in “typical” role-playing. These are STRENGTH, ENDURANCE, DEXTERITY, AGILITY, INTELLIGENCE, AURA and WILL.
Also: Many GMs (and nearly all players) believe that PCs should form an elite within the fantasy environment and should enjoy an advantage in character generation.
q When rolling key attributes roll 4d6 (instead of 3d6) and discard the lowest die. This raises the average roll from 10.5 to 12.25.
q When rolling key attributes roll 5d6 (instead of 3d6) and discard the 2 lowest dice.
q Endurance is more important than any other attribute. Roll one extra d6 and discard one (extra) d6 when generating Endurance.
The "q" at the beginning of a line represents a check box. These are optional rules.
Skills are either "open" or "not open". If a skill is not open you may be able to open it when you first try to use it. For example, you've never used nunchuks before, you pick some up and try to use them, you "open" nunchuk skill (probably at a very low level). Or you've never read Arabic before but you pick up a book in that language and... oops, you can't read it. You need training.
When you open a skill you open it at some multiple of your skill base. This multiple might be any integer from 1 to 5. This represents your initial training (and perhaps some "pre-game" experience). This product, SB x multiplier, is called "opening mastery level" -- how well you know the skill at the start of the game or, later, when you first open it. For example, if you pick up training in nunchuks during the pre-game (your live before the game starts) you might open the skill at SB4. If you just pick up some nunchuks off the floor and start fighting with them, you probably open the skill at SB1. In the former case, with SB=15, you'd have a 60% of hitting your target. In the latter case, same SB, you'd have a 15% chance.
Skill Base (SB) is a measure of innate ability at a skill. Mastery Level is a measure of how good you are with the skill *now*.
Everything is a skill. Nothing except time prevents a wizard from learning to fight with a sword, or a knight from learning to cast spells.
Does this clear anything up?
Deriven Firelion's suggestion sounds good.
There are a lot of ways that could be implemented, these are just two.
Would you add the best of either stat to your save? Easiest method
Or sum them and divide by 2? More math but makes having stat combinations important rather than just 1.
The combination method would kind of mean you cant be good at all saves. The apply the highest of the two means you can be good at all saves from ability modifiers.
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I was advocating for their removal in a future game, as it sidesteps a lot of build viability issues and some of the icky bioessentialist roots of the hobby stemming from Gygax.Let's avoid using volatile buzzwords in forum discussions. They're not conducive to a civil discussion.
Well, no. I take the topic of ableism very seriously, and this idea of numerical general intelligence is a particular issue I take to heart. The recent Rules Lawyer video gives me a bit more confidence to push back on this "keep politics out of my fantasy game" reaction. People needed to speak up to get Pathfinder to be better on queerness and race, and it's not going to be any different for neurodivergence and mental disability.
Now, I'm not saying this to mean you are an ableist for preferrimg an attributes based system. I keep using Lancer as an example as another 4e inspired game that still has attributes that behave differently and do their own interesting things, additionally without bioessentialism (which was an explicitly stated goal). I can understand why the mechanics of attributes can be something someone likes or dislikes. But I absolutely will insist that if we are going to talk about INT as an attribute, that will require us to consider the attitudes it perpetuates, just as Paizo moving away from race as a term and moving away from hardcoded ancestry bonuses and penalties were also politically concious acts. What would be actually ableist would be to deem this less worthy of real discussion than the many other social issues Paizo has put effort into better representing.
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Says who? Of course it is possible to have an objective discussion on optimal and suboptimal decisions; there are even entire fields of study around decision-making, including decision theory. Pathfinder 2e is built to be a tactically-oriented game where the crux of its gameplay is to encourage its players to make optimal decisions at key points of gameplay, especially combat. To deny this, let alone claim that there is no such thing as optimal decision-making, is to demonstrate fundamental and wilful ignorance of one of the core pillars of the very game we are discussing.
Says me and my group. Says other groups and tables - because not everyone considers 'optimal' to be the same thing. That's evident from even a cursory glance at discussions here on these forums.
In my group, combat for more than half of the players is an afterthought when compared to the narrative of their character - and they will pick options that some people here would consider 'suboptimal' because it better fits some small aspect of the character's narrative, even if it doesn't give them any real bonus outside of one very specific niche thing - and that's fine, because they don't view combat as the 'optimal' thing.
One player doesn't increase most skills at all, and just stacks a bunch of Trained Lores because they are a bookworm - and I'm talking stuff like Vegetable Lore or Accounting Lore or stuff like that. Hardly ever useable in most circumstances and locks them out of many actions they could take with other skills, but its important they have them.
And we don't care if choices are allegedly 'suboptimal' or whatever, because the only 'optimal' play for us is having fun, in whatever of the hundreds of ways that can manifest - whether that's from some cool mechanics thing, a funny IC scenario that make the whole table laugh, a meme shared in the Discord based on something that happens in-game, ect.
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Well, no. I take the topic of ableism very seriously, and this idea of numerical general intelligence is a particular issue I take to heart. The recent Rules Lawyer video gives me a bit more confidence to push back on this "keep politics out of my fantasy game" reaction. People needed to speak up to get Pathfinder to be better on queerness and race, and it's not going to be any different for neurodivergence and mental disability.
Look I like that there is diversity here, and Paizo do support it strongly. But you are going to get a lot of people off side with evangelising. For myself I'm deliberately not watching that video just so I can ensure I can treat Ronalds content on its merits.
Well in 2E the main things Intelligence as an attribute actually measures is the chance of knowing a thing about a topic, The chance of succeeding at overcoming an opponents defenses against Int based magic, and crafting a thing. Also languages known, additional skills trained, deciphering text and learning spells of course.
Essentially Int reflects a character knowing lots of things.
It doesn't actually mechanically represent the ability to reason, analyze situations, or understand patterns. Players do this not characters.
This is actually why it is a bad stat. The game doesn't provide any skills or actions to represent a how each point of Int affects those areas the attribute says it governs.
If we can say Charisma through a demoralize action using an intimidation skill check can be used to force a character into a state of fear represented by a condition in the game then there has to be something that can represent how the unrepresented aspects of Int have real repercussions in the mechanics of the game as well.
It is one of several measures of magic effectiveness, crafting, and knowing a thing about a thing. That is P2E intelligence.
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Well, no. I take the topic of ableism very seriously, and this idea of numerical general intelligence is a particular issue I take to heart. The recent Rules Lawyer video gives me a bit more confidence to push back on this "keep politics out of my fantasy game" reaction. People needed to speak up to get Pathfinder to be better on queerness and race, and it's not going to be any different for neurodivergence and mental disability.Look I like that there is diversity here, and Paizo do support it strongly. But you are going to get a lot of people off side with evangelising. For myself I'm deliberately not watching that video just so I can ensure I can treat Ronalds content on its merits.
Again, I don't think you could get away with calling someone "evangelizing" for pointing out the problems with Torag's old lore or the issues of how orcs were depicted. Much more ketfuffle is coming from people wanting to pretend it's not there than my simply pointing out an issue that other RPG designers have spelled out as well.
I'm not going to debate whether it should be brought up at all further. I'm going to continue talking about it as it comes up and you'll just have to deal.
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This is very clear and obvious baiting, please just stop, I don't think anyone here agrees with your conceit that a game having stats is discriminatory or harming people and you trying to steer the discussion in a direction where you call people who disagree with you on that topic ableist is not only evangelizing, it's downright disrespectful of others and the community guidelines as you try to paint with such a broad brush.
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isn't this threat more about attributes as they relate to how good they are in the game?
Its not really the place for a larger debate on whether an Int attribute in a game is ethical. That would be its own thread.
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isn't this threat more about attributes as they relate to how good they are in the game?
Its not really the place for a larger debate on whether an Int attribute in a game is ethical. That would be its own thread.
The reason I see it as relevant is that if we are going to talk about making INT less of a dump stat or attribute balance more generally, it's important to not overlook that angle and spend a bunch of time polishing something that ultimately still ends up being entirely reworked to sidestep historical issues of ableism. It won't be as easy as in Lancer where it's inhuman machines and not people, but things like renmaing attributes and shifting what they do would have balance implications while avoiding the worst associations. Or, obviously, an attributeless system does not necessarily have to have this problem at all. We can walk and chew gum here and talk about solutions to both concerns. Besides, even if I did make a separate thread, it would still get these responses and accusations, but with my name being the first thing people read in the thread. There is no way to talk about social issues without being accused of baiting on this forum, if anything this is a lot safer where we are several pages in and I don't need to worry about people coming in specifically to be mad.
Again, I'm not accusing anyone of ableism. I feel I've been really careful to phrase the criticism itself civilly. But it kimd of sucks that people who side with the status quo on this can make accusations and then get what they want by having the thread locked. I think it's very possible to bring this up productively, but it means we can't constantly debate whether it should ever be discussed at all.
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I doubt I would play a game with no attributes. I'd move somewhere else if PF goes too far from its origins.
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Says me and my group. Says other groups and tables - because not everyone considers 'optimal' to be the same thing. That's evident from even a cursory glance at discussions here on these forums.
In my group, combat for more than half of the players is an afterthought when compared to the narrative of their character - and they will pick options that some people here would consider 'suboptimal' because it better fits some small aspect of the character's narrative, even if it doesn't give them any real bonus outside of one very specific niche thing - and that's fine, because they don't view combat as the 'optimal' thing.
One player doesn't increase most skills at all, and just stacks a bunch of Trained Lores because they are a bookworm - and I'm talking stuff like Vegetable Lore or Accounting Lore or stuff like that. Hardly ever useable in most circumstances and locks them out of many actions they could take with other skills, but its important they have them.
And we don't care if choices are allegedly 'suboptimal' or whatever, because the only 'optimal' play for us is having fun, in whatever of the hundreds of ways that can manifest - whether that's from some cool mechanics thing, a funny IC scenario that make the whole table laugh, a meme shared in the Discord based on something that happens in-game, ect.
Notice the subtle difference between what you're relaying from your group's experience and what you're saying: from your account, various members in your group personally attach more value to certain stats over others, and make character build decisions based on that preference. By your own admission, some of those build decisions are evidently suboptimal even by your own standards, e.g. stacking niche Lore skills instead of taking more general-purpose bonuses, and the adventures you play clearly leave enough room for those. These preferences that inform those build decisions are for sure subjective, and valid to boot -- except they're also not what the topic of discussion goes against.
What you have done, by contrast, is take your fellow players' subjective experiences, and co-opted them to make the entirely different claim that there is no objective grounds for stating that some attributes are valued more highly than others -- despite the fact that this is something Paizo themselves have explicitly stated, as already shown. Not only is this method of argumentation neither terribly honest nor respectful of the others in your group, it also fundamentally misses the point: the point to this discussion isn't to say that you're enjoying the game wrong if you take Vegetable Lore instead of a more powerful skill, nor to judge you for making suboptimal decisions that work fine at your table. The point is, much more simply, that some decisions in this game relative to attributes tend to carry objectively greater benefits than others (for instance, boosting versus dumping your KAS), and some of us are advocating for a future system in which stacking Vegetable Lore or whatever would be just as optimal a build decision as going for something else. That's it. Nobody is attacking you for making room for less-than-optimal builds at your table, and the fact that you'd interpret this discussion as such speaks to some deep-set insecurities that I think are worth challenging.
This is very clear and obvious baiting, please just stop, I don't think anyone here agrees with your conceit that a game having stats is discriminatory or harming people and you trying to steer the discussion in a direction where you call people who disagree with you on that topic ableist is not only evangelizing, it's downright disrespectful of others and the community guidelines as you try to paint with such a broad brush.
This is complete nonsense, and if anything were to get this thread locked, it would be the histrionics and straw men being drawn up around this particular topic rather than the topic itself. To be clear: Helmic is plainly not accusing Paizo nor anyone else of ableism for favoring Intelligence as a singular attribute; the simple point being made is that such an implementation does not come without a certain context and connotations, and both have somewhat problematic implications. We can easily see this with ancestral ability boosts, as Intelligence maluses are fairly rare and always given to ancestries that have very little to do with humans, as opposed to ancestries like orcs that have a history of racial coding in prior tabletop games. Less formally, we commonly see this in play and even some popular tabletop shows, where characters with low Intelligence are roleplayed as if they had a learning disability. This is typically done by people without any such disability, and typically for laughs.
Politics aside, the notion of intelligence as a singular ability is rooted in outdated science, and PF2e as a system itself challenges that legacy bit of design by breaking down that Intelligence stat into a multitude of different skills representing different aptitudes. In this respect, Intelligence in particular is a "bad" stat not simply because it's generally weaker than most other stats in the game, but also because its implementation as this monolithic indicator of mental aptitude (i.e. IQ, as Helmic mentioned) tends to convey an overly simplistic and limiting model of ability that also frequently lends itself to bad roleplay.
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Yeah that's definitely not on topic. The measure of a stat being good or bad in the context of this thread is in regards to mechanics of the game not ethics involved in how a stat is portrayed. there is nothing wrong with discussing that but doing so here dilutes the seriousness of that topic. It also makes discussing the mechanics more difficult. It is not relevant to how good int is as a choice as it related to the mechanics of the game.
I think a good pointer to how much the developers value Int when its not KAS is to look at how often those sample characters in the books recommend Int. Its not very common if its not your KAS.
I saw two that recommended int. Dancer for Bard and Storm Druid.
i didn't look through everything but in those two int is listed but its listed last.
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Case in point: your valuation of out-of-combat skills hinges on the assumption that those form the larger part of Pathfinder's gameplay on a regular enough basis to be described as general. This is objectively not the case. Combat is generally a core part of Pathfinder 2e's gameplay, which is why the majority of the game's ruleset deals with combat, and which is why Paizo themselves noted certain stats to be valued higher than others in the rules (see my above post). You certainly have a subjective valuation of out-of-combat skills, but claiming that out-of-combat skills hold equal or greater value in the rules compared to combat abilities is objectively wrong.
This just feels like a completely meaningless use of the word objective. Different tables have different balances of in- and out-of-combat, and there is no objectively right or wrong for this value. There are assumptions upon which design is based, and I agree that PF2 is designed with a pretty large amount of combat as an assumption for what is happening in a typical campaign. If someone wanted to play a campaign in which a fight never occurred, I would encourage them to use a different system than PF2 because of this. However, saying that this medium-to-high combat frequency assumption means that it is objectively wrong to value skills over saves is nonsense. In the games that SuperBidi plays, I assume that SuperBidi is correct that skills are more relevant - they'd be the one to know. The only way for it to be an objectively wrong accusation is for either:
1: SuperBidi is incorrect, and saves are more valuable in SuperBidi's games. This seems a strange thing to assume.2: SuperBidi's tables are somehow themselves objectively wrong to place a higher emphasis on skills than saves. This cannot be true - it may be mismatched with the system, at the greatest extent it may be less fun to play this style of game in PF2 rather than other games, but it can't be objectively wrong.
This is why SuperBidi is calling it subjective; because there's nothing inherently wrong with playing with a greater out-of-combat focus in PF2, it's just the subjective factor of what everyone involved in the table finds more fun.
(It also seems like this sort of accusation is typically made against tables that aren't valuing combat as highly in their enjoyment - rarely do you see people say that it is 'objectively wrong' to value certain abilities to a greater extent because they play to a very high level of optimisation and lethality against single-target bosses. For some reason that's just 'understanding the game' and 'optimisation', despite equally being a divergence from the assumptions of how the game is played.)
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Weirdly enough the magus sample builds never actually recommend you raise int, despite it being the class in most need of more skills due to be tied with the lowest number of trained skills with wizard (before KAS).
IMO the Magus as a class bends over backwards to let the player dump Int: despite Int technically being the class's spellcasting ability, the Magus's key attribute is a physical stat rather than Intelligence, and Spellstrike lets you use that physical attribute for spell attack rolls instead of your spellcasting ability. The class does end up with an extremely low amount of trained skills, but then also gets to raise their Dex/Con/Wis and Strength to boot for good defenses and meaty attacks. The end result is a class that by all rights should have high Intelligence for thematic reasons, but in practice is encouraged to dump Int in favor of high physical stats all around. Tempting as it may seem, switching their KAS to Intelligence would make the class worse off, as they'd have less accurate attacks and wouldn't actually be making much use of their Int due to Spellstrike. This I think is one of those examples where ability scores and their implementation in Pathfinder (among other systems) get in the way of character expression instead of enhancing it.
This just feels like a completely meaningless use of the word objective. Different tables have different balances of in- and out-of-combat, and there is no objectively right or wrong for this value. There are assumptions upon which design is based, and I agree that PF2 is designed with a pretty large amount of combat as an assumption for what is happening in a typical campaign. If someone wanted to play a campaign in which a fight never occurred, I would encourage them to use a different system than PF2 because of this. However, saying that this medium-to-high combat frequency assumption means that it is objectively wrong to value skills over saves is nonsense.
As this comment not far above yours should indicate, you've quite severely misinterpreted the point at hand: the intent here is not to tell people they're wrong for building their characters according to personal preference or to claim that there's only One True Way any character should be built, so much as point out that there is in fact an objective valuation of attributes in Pathfinder's rules on a broader level, and that this frequently constrains build choices. People are allowed to make suboptimal build decisions at tables that are fine with it, and certain adventures indeed feature an atypical enough distribution of combat and non-combat challenges that they push for a different valuation of attributes and skills relative to the norm.
In fact, the very existence of these non-standard adventures I would say demonstrates that there is an objective means of valuing ability scores, because their valuation changes in relation to the adventure's contents: an adventure with lots of social encounters and no combat would likely have Charisma as a god stat, and Constitution as the worst stat to boost. Similarly, an adventure that's just one big crime mystery to solve would likely have the Investigator be a top-tier class in that context, whereas otherwise the class is generally seen as fairly mid. Really, it's not that the valuation of ability scores is purely subjective (it appears you don't seem to believe this either), but that making a general case for their valuation still leaves room for more special cases where exceptional circumstances cause that valuation to change in largely predictable ways.
So really, the problem here isn't that people are wrong for building their characters differently, the problem is that some people are getting extremely defensive about their personal character choices and insisting that everyone else is wrong for having a different perspective on a broader level. Already, using an atypical AP to make the case for Pathfinder as a whole is making an incorrect generalization, but to use one's personal experience in this respect to also make a general case for the system's rules is as equally incorrect as it is self-indulgent, to say nothing of how using it to invalidate each other's observations is stifling to intelligent discussion.
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Weirdly enough the magus sample builds never actually recommend you raise int, despite it being the class in most need of more skills due to be tied with the lowest number of trained skills with wizard (before KAS).IMO the Magus as a class bends over backwards to let the player dump Int:
Uh, you DO realize that Magus's do actually get to throw spells as well as spell strike, right? And that ( pre remaster when the class was created) their bread and butter spell strikes used cantrips that added Int to damage?
There is a lot of incentive to raise int over and above skills.
But I'm sure that you think it is objectively true that Wis is more important than Int for a magus :-)
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Weirdly enough the magus sample builds never actually recommend you raise int, despite it being the class in most need of more skills due to be tied with the lowest number of trained skills with wizard (before KAS).IMO the Magus as a class bends over backwards to let the player dump Int:Uh, you DO realize that Magus's do actually get to throw spells as well as spell strike, right? And that ( pre remaster when the class was created) their bread and butter spell strikes used cantrips that added Int to damage?
There is a lot of incentive to raise int over and above skills.
But I'm sure that you think it is objectively true that Wis is more important than Int for a magus :-)
I am perfectly aware, yes, but as mentioned in the very comment you've responded to with this "um, actually", the Magus's KAS doesn't lend itself particularly well to strong save spells, to say nothing of their save DC capping at master proficiency. This is in fact a major reason why Expansive Spellstrike is seen as a trap feat, because you don't really want to be using your actual spellcasting DCs or modifiers as the Magus when your strikes are far more likely to land. That cantrips have lost their spellcasting mod to damage is but a further point in favor of what I'm saying, as the Magus is now incentivized even less to boost Int. For all the complaints made about the class as the details of the remaster came about, the Magus is a significant beneficiary of these new cantrips, and is stronger than ever before.
By contrast, Wis does in fact feed into the Magus's Will saves and Perception, both of which are notably useful, so I would say that yes, absolutely: more often than not, boosting Wis on a Magus will have greater returns than boosting Intelligence, because the class is built to minimize the use of its own spellcasting ability. You are, of course, free to disregard what I say entirely, and build a Magus that maxes out Int and dumps Wis; just don't come complaining to me when your character fails their umpteenth Will save and keeps getting ambushed.
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People are allowed to make suboptimal build decisions at tables that are fine with it, and certain adventures indeed feature an atypical enough distribution of combat and non-combat challenges that they push for a different valuation of attributes and skills relative to the norm.
These choices are not 'suboptimal' build decisions.
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These choices are not 'suboptimal' build decisions.
Which ones? The choices listed by the original commenter themselves as suboptimal, such as picking up Vegetable Lore instead of a skill that sees meaningful use, or the different valuation of attributes and skills in relation to specific adventures? Because if the latter, you are indeed correct that making build decisions based on that different context would not necessarily be making suboptimal build choices; that is in fact why I did not label them as such and took care to distinguish them from actual suboptimal choices.
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These choices are not 'suboptimal' build decisions.Which ones? The choices listed by the original commenter themselves as suboptimal, such as picking up Vegetable Lore instead of a skill that sees meaningful use, or the different valuation of attributes and skills in relation to specific adventures? Because if the latter, you are indeed correct that making build decisions based on that different context would not necessarily be making suboptimal build choices; that is in fact why I did not label them as such and took care to distinguish them from actual suboptimal choices.
I was that poster, and I used ' ' around 'suboptimal' because its not a term I or any of my group ascribes to any choice in tabletops. They're just choices.
I said many here would consider them 'suboptimal' - and that they aren't useable in many scenarios - but Lore is a niche skill, so that's expected. They are meaningful in use because the meaning in this case is that the player got to use the skill they picked, and had fun with it.
And everything is in context for whatever specific campaign your doing - there isn't 'one default' campaign or style. That's the beauty of tabletops.
It's why I don't believe you can ascribe objectivity to any of it in some 30,000 feet mentality.
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I was that poster, and I used ' ' around 'suboptimal' because its not a term I or any of my group ascribes to any choice in tabletops. They're just choices.
I said many here would consider them 'suboptimal' - and that they aren't useable in many scenarios - but Lore is a niche skill, so that's expected. They are meaningful in use because the meaning in this case is that the player got to use the skill they picked, and had fun with it.
Forgive me, I got my identities briefly confused after seeing so many comments in this discussion upvoted by one of your aliases. On-topic, the issue at hand seems to be that you mainly just have a problem with the semantics of the discussion: although we are clearly having a conversation on optimal decision-making in the context of problem-solving and gameplay mechanics, you insist on redefining "optimal" as "fun" and pretending that this is a discussion about something else entirely. I get what you mean, and I agree that ultimately the most important part of any game is that the players have fun, but this does not detract from the fact that a game's design can lend itself to more or less fun, and the best-designed games are those whose mechanically optimal decisions also lend themselves to the most fun at the table, with no dissonance. Although the player you mentioned is having fun by stacking Lore skills they may never use, their character would suffer if pushed to their limits in a more challenging adventure, and it would be better for them too if a hypothetical future edition of this game weren't to punish them for making such flavorful decisions for their character under that same level of challenge. Surely, as someone who purports to also be into game design, you must have given some thought on the matter.
And everything is in context for whatever specific campaign your doing - there isn't 'one default' campaign or style. That's the beauty of tabletops.
It's why I don't believe you can ascribe objectivity to any of it.
See above; just because certain APs deviate from the norm of an adventure with more combat than anything else does not mean a general case cannot be laid out. Again, even Paizo points this out and explicitly lays out a valuation of ability scores based on the correct assumption that Pathfinder as a system is oriented more towards combat than out-of-combat gameplay, even if it does feature both. Pointing out the existence of adventures with different proportions of out-of-combat activities does not invalidate this more general point, nor does it prevent anyone from discussing any other points of the design of a game that is clearly built around those general assumptions.
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These choices are not 'suboptimal' build decisions.
But you said yourself only a couple posts ago that some of the choices your players made weren't good and involved things that would rarely, if ever, be relevant.
It seems odd to say that while also arguing the choices are mechanically equally as valuable as any other.
And everything is in context for whatever specific campaign your doing - there isn't 'one default' campaign or style. That's the beauty of tabletops.
Table variation matters, but that doesn't mean mechanics don't exist or game design doesn't matter (which is sort of an ironic position given your name).
You can both acknowledge that things can vary from table to table (sometimes dramatically) and still examine or criticize core assumptions of the game. There's no contradiction here. Arguably it's even kind of a non-sequitur.
I didn't say they weren't good - I said some people here would consider them suboptimal. And then I said they weren't useable in most circumstances - but then also said they are Lores so that's known and understood.
Nowhere did I say they weren't good, and I do not think they aren't good - because they are fulfilling what the player wants for their character and allows them to have fun. Therefore, they're good.
I didn't say they weren't good - I said some people here would consider them suboptimal. And then I said they weren't useable in most circumstances - but then also said they are Lores so that's known and understood.
Right, but this is the doublethink being called out here: you are simultaneously pointing out the mechanically suboptimal nature of stacking niche Lore skills in lieu of increasing more generally useable skills, and denying the fact that doing so or anything else is suboptimal. That these skills are Lores doesn't give them a free pass, as they are a part of the game in the same way as any other skill. Worth noting as well that Lore skills are the only ones that are allowed to auto-scale with a general feat (i.e. Additional Lore), whereas allowing a general feat to provide the same benefit for almost any non-Lore skill would generally be considered too strong. Clearly, not all choices in this game are equal.
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You are, of course, free to disregard what I say entirely, and build a Magus that maxes out Int and dumps...
Thank you for your ever so generous permission to build the character that I want to play that I think is at least as efficient as the one you consider objectively optimal.
And why should I complain when the character performed very well in actual play? Including casting AoE spells to huge effect from time to time.
And the character was even played up to level 20 where the difference between my spell DC and a pure caster DC was as big as it was ever going to get. But, even then, my AoE spells did just fine against mooks.
Note, I'm NOT saying that my build was the objectively best magus. I AM saying there is no such animal, that lots of builds will be about the same efficiency with various trade-offs.
Well, no. I take the topic of ableism very seriously, and this idea of numerical general intelligence is a particular issue I take to heart. The recent Rules Lawyer video gives me a bit more confidence to push back on this "keep politics out of my fantasy game" reaction. People needed to speak up to get Pathfinder to be better on queerness and race, and it's not going to be any different for neurodivergence and mental disability.Look I like that there is diversity here, and Paizo do support it strongly. But you are going to get a lot of people off side with evangelising. For myself I'm deliberately not watching that video just so I can ensure I can treat Ronalds content on its merits.Again, I don't think you could get away with calling someone "evangelizing" for pointing out the problems with Torag's old lore or the issues of how orcs were depicted. Much more ketfuffle is coming from people wanting to pretend it's not there than my simply pointing out an issue that other RPG designers have spelled out as well.
I'm not going to debate whether it should be brought up at all further. I'm going to continue talking about it as it comes up and you'll just have to deal.
You do you, Helmic. I'll just not engage with any more of your posts that continue to bring up such topics, so as to avoid unnecessary and easily avoided trouble.
I'm sure if you cross any of the community guidelines your posts will get flagged anyways; and if you don't, then they won't. I'm just going to step back and let things shake out however they will.
Best of luck to you if you do keep up with the rhetoric. It doesn't end well for most.
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Yeah I think the objective/subjective epistomology muddles more than it clarifies, it's seeming to mostly just be about saying X is subjective therefore who can say whether game design is real or not.
For every anecdote about how XYZ 14 STR barbarian played just fine at someone's table, I think the much more common experience has been frustration. 2e is generally designed on the assumption that players care about being effective and that it feels bad to have to choose between what you want to play and what is optimal.
I think a good rule of thumb is to ask yourself that if Paizo were to actually make whatever change is being discussed, would you be willing to sit there and argue that they should change it back? If the answer is no, then I know I don't actually care about the topic, I'm relying entirely on "the game is good and any changes would suggest it's bad" knee jerking.
I fully believe people here actually actively like attributes, and would argue for their return if they didn't come back for PF3e. I find it hard to believe anyone here would sit there and tell Paizo to roll back buffs to INT or complain it got renamed. It doesn't feel like the "it's subjective" posts have a positive argument or a case for why a change would actually be bad, it mostly just seems to be demanding irrefutable scientific proof that this one change will make the game be better than going to heaven for all tablws at all times. It seems like an unreasonable standard to have to personally convince you that your relaxed home game wasn't fun before anyone can discuss balance - something Paizo already acknowledged years ago with its variant rule for alternate attributes, because they know they're highly imbalanced.
So to me, I think since a new edition is only just going to further break from the OGL, might as well not stick with Str Dex Com Wis Int Cha anyways and opt for something more deliberate.
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I once did a character with as many Lores as I could get as a sorcerer. It turned out good when i got to roll 2 of my Lores which where ironically the 2 I had Addition Lore skill feat for. Weird how most of my Lores never came up but the two i chose for Additional Lore which they were both Master (We were level 10). It felt like having 7-8 Trained Lores doesn't really feel mechanically good when you consider there is general ways to get Lores.
For a Bookworm character Bardic Lore, Loremaster Lore or even the Thaumaturge level 1 Diverse Lore. Are good options to show off your Book smarts or even Untraiend improviser, depends on if your DM will allow you to use it to roll Lore: Vegetables for an example.
All four of these options are great way to show off how smart your character is without sacrificing their combat usefulness. Which I have been in games where I have a teammate who keeps building sup-optimal and sometimes it puts characters ICly in some tough, almost life threatening pickles.
I've seen what happens when you neglect Dex or Wis on characters. I am currently in a game where I have a dexless Cleric that is not a War Priest and it is painful to walk around with 15 AC at level 3 simply because you didn't build 16 Dex so it be an 18 AC. This is what is known as the caster trap, I've seen it time and time again. It seems you must have either 16 dex/12 con or do a 14/14 split of dex and con. So many casters feel extremely similar if you build optimal in my eyes. In hind sight Kineticist Armor in Earth at level 4 will really help my AC out despite not having the STR to move well, 15ft movement as a caster is all I need.
Maybe the real problem is the fact that I haven't been in a game where INT skills change the flow of battle. One of which learned Wraths resist almost everything, which wasn't useful. With the new Recall knowledge rules I might get more information that this enemy fort is lowest but that only really works if I built a balanced combat list. Which I suppose is the real pain is trying to get at least 1 spell that can target each type of defense. (AC, Fort, Ref, Will) Which is something i struggle with as an Divine & Occult Tradition Player.
I once did a character with as many Lores as I could get as a sorcerer. It turned out good when i got to roll 2 of my Lores which where ironically the 2 I had Addition Lore skill feat for. Weird how most of my Lores never came up but the two i chose for Additional Lore which they were both Master (We were level 10). It felt like having 7-8 Trained Lores doesn't really feel mechanically good when you consider there is general ways to get Lores.
For a Bookworm character Bardic Lore, Loremaster Lore or even the Thaumaturge level 1 Diverse Lore. Are good options to show off your Book smarts or even Untraiend improviser, depends on if your DM will allow you to use it to roll Lore: Vegetables for an example.
All four of these options are great way to show off how smart your character is without sacrificing their combat usefulness. Which I have been in games where I have a teammate who keeps building sup-optimal and sometimes it puts characters ICly in some tough, almost life threatening pickles.
I've seen what happens when you neglect Dex or Wis on characters. I am currently in a game where I have a dexless Cleric that is not a War Priest and it is painful to walk around with 15 AC at level 3 simply because you didn't build 16 Dex so it be an 18 AC. This is what is known as the caster trap, I've seen it time and time again. It seems you must have either 16 dex/12 con or do a 14/14 split of dex and con. So many casters feel extremely similar if you build optimal in my eyes. In hind sight Kineticist Armor in Earth at level 4 will really help my AC out despite not having the STR to move well, 15ft movement as a caster is all I need.
Maybe the real problem is the fact that I haven't been in a game where INT skills change the flow of battle. One of which learned Wraths resist almost everything, which wasn't useful. With the new Recall knowledge rules I might get more information that this enemy fort is lowest but that only really works if I built a balanced combat list. Which I suppose is the real pain is...
This kind of makes me think Int should actually provide an auto scaling lore per +1 instead of trained in a skill. Leave it to feats to get you extra skills your class and background don't provide.
But your last point is the main things Int needs to to be able to do, affect the flow of battle.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thank you for your ever so generous permission to build the character that I want to play that I think is at least as efficient as the one you consider objectively optimal.
Behind this hilariously salty answer is the implicit admission that the non-issue you feigned offense against was never a thing to begin with. I'll take that concession. You are free to think whatever you like; arguing it to an audience capable of critical thinking however requires making convincing arguments, which I'm sure you'll be able to produce in time for some other subject.
And why should I complain when the character performed very well in actual play? Including casting AoE spells to huge effect from time to time.
And the character was even played up to level 20 where the difference between my spell DC and a pure caster DC was as big as it was ever going to get. But, even then, my AoE spells did just fine against mooks.
Note, I'm NOT saying that my build was the objectively best magus. I AM saying there is no such animal, that lots of builds will be about the same efficiency with various trade-offs.
And everyone clapped.
But seriously, I fail to see how you think this anecdote helps convey a general point. It is certainly possible to get lucky on a Magus and deal lots of AoE damage with the right spell, but it is a mathematical fact that you are less likely to do so than a full caster with legendary save proficiency and a higher spellcasting attribute. Really, the issue isn't that the topic of discussion is subjective, but that you seem to personally believe that if you feel a certain way about something, it must be objectively correct, and everyone who disagrees is both subjective but also somehow also objectively wrong at the same time.
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But seriously, I fail to see how you think this anecdote helps convey a general point.
Because you have more than anecdotes to bring us? Or some whiteroom theory that a lot of people disprove in this discussion. You should realize that your theories are just as valid as our owns and that your experience is just as anecdotal as our own.
Another example (as it seems the studious Barbarian is unclear): I know of a lot of people who consider that casters can't deal as much damage than martials, and by a significant margin. I personally deal much more damage with my casters than with my martials. So how can these "anecdotes" be reunited under an "objective" theory of optimal?
I expect you to tell me that one of these anecdotes is wrong and the other is right, as it has been your answer from the beginning. But maybe you should consider that they are both true as different players handle the same character differently, hence more subjectivity on what is "optimal".
I think the issue is less that I'm engaging in hyperbole, and more that you're making a straw man out of what I've been saying, and not just my own arguments. Note for instance how I specifically mentioned freedom of optimal build choice: you are free to allocate your character's attributes as you want; the simple point being made in this discussion is that some distributions of ability scores are optimal over others. As with the example of that other character, you can dump Dex on your Barbarian to boost your Intelligence if you really want, and in less challenging adventures that's likely fine, but you are still sacrificing a major benefit (Dex saving throws) in exchange for a minor benefit (RK skills you can't use while raging), making for a suboptimal decision. Really, the issue here with several people seems to be less that they disagree with the notion of optimal build decisions, and more with the fact that they feel personally targeted when the sort of suboptimal build decisions they make in their own games are labelled as such in a broader conversation.Optimal is purely subjective and circumstantial.
For example, my PFS studious Barbarian traded 1 point in Constitution for 1 point in Intelligence. I'm pretty sure it's suboptimal to you. But it is optimal for PFS (combats are not deadly and skill challenges are very important) and for me (I prefer to have better skills than better saves/hp).Suboptimal tradeoffs, like you call them, don't really exist. There are tradeoffs and then depending on people they will be either optimal or suboptimal. But for most of them there won't be any general agreement.
Once you consider that optimal is subjective you point falls appart.
That is half-truth. It is true that you can trade some points and be playable. But let's say we have traded some not only one (magical item selection, etc.), it is not the same hitting a creature with a 10 (optimal) than requiring a 14, much harder.
I repeat the problem is the d20 with all-or-nothing system. If instead the previous example of 10vs14 to even hit, it would be that you deal 12 damage instead 18, probably it would be much more relaxed to trade points, as probably the main issue is that fear of wasting rounds not contributing anything in a just missing all your hits.
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Look I like that there is diversity here, and Paizo do support it strongly. But you are going to get a lot of people off side with evangelising. For myself I'm deliberately not watching that video just so I can ensure I can treat Ronalds content on its merits.
I watched it. I disagreed with most of it.. to the point where I considered dropping support for him on Patreon. But if we can’t learn to disagree civilly on matters like this we might as well pack it in. So I’ll continue supporting him and watching his videos about the game,at least until he gets — if he gets — so preachy I can’t stand it anymore. I dislike preachy.
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That is half-truth. It is true that you can trade some points and be playable.
You're missing my point. I'm speaking about optimal, not playable. And I've never advocated for anything but an 18 in your attack stat (or 16 if you can't put an 18 or have extremely specific reasons to do so), there's no need to argue about that.
The example that raised the discussion is my studious Barbarian with 14 Int at startup. Some posters find it suboptimal (which is fine, it's their right) but they expect to convince everyone it is, when my character attribute spread has been optimized to the core: It is optimal.
Some posters find it suboptimal
Raises hand. It is not terrible, I'd just prefer to do other things which would be more effective. There is too much anti synergy going on.
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Raises hand. It is not terrible, I'd just prefer to do other things which would be more effective. There is too much anti synergy going on.
Which is fine.
But in my case it's not "anti-synergy" as I don't make Int-based checks during combat.It's just that skills are extremely attribute-dependent. And they are the main way to engage with the game outside combat. Increasing Int or Cha is for me necessary to have a few skills to contribute and shine outside combat.
So the tradeoff is very simple: I exchange a drop of combat efficiency for a lot of out of combat usefulness. It's clearly a tradeoff that some will see as negative and others will see as positive, I personally see it as positive. So my character is optimal, from my point of view.
To be fair, it's probably not optimal for combat. Higher HPs or saves might be more valuable in most combats. But different table games involve different amounts (and types) of noncombat scenes. INT can be very powerful for those. Which is why the "objective" claim falls flat to me.
I've raised the differences in experience and it looks like everyone focuses on that. But I've also raised the differences between players. 2 players, playing the same game around the same table, will have a very different reading of the situation and of their respective contribution. Also, players play differently and as such some characters will be better in someone's hand than in someone else's. And that's without even speaking about personal preferences, which can be seen as a tangential discussion even if it technically impacts their contribution (if you give me a character I don't like chances are high I won't get the most out of it just because I want to play something else).
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Even if we established without a doubt that some attributes are bad (or 'suboptimal'), the answer would be rebalancing them, not removing them as a concept. Jumping to such a conclusion is absurd.
I think we brought up enough points that we could easily actually make Pathfinder 3rd Edition the best it can be without sacrificing the stat system.
In the end what makes INT "bad" Isn't how it used or why have any at all. It is based entirely up to party composition just like the Alchemist class. Being unable to use Recall Knowledge before fighting the enemy is terrible and would increase it's power if you found hints about what the enemy could be. Perhaps knowledge is also only as useful as what you could do with it.
Recalling knowledge only to find out the enemy is weak to Fire Damage and the wizard didn't prepare Fireball (Or any other fire spell) really feels bad especially if you didn't get a chance to Recall Knowledge this information before and could prepare for it. It's the same as, the Enemy lowest save is Will. The wizard didn't think he needed will saving throw spells to be effective this adventure ring day.
You get these points where it just feels bad when you can capitalize on the information given but on the other hand, preparing fireball and you fight a group that you discover is weak to fire. It feels GREEEAATTT! You are useful, you prepared the right spell for the job!
If you're in a game where no one is a caster then recall knowledge in combat loses 90% of it's meaning. Because stated on page 1 or 2.
"That's nice to learn that but my sword is doing just fine cutting the monster." - Martials need way less knowledge to tactically fight and the only things it would help is the pre-planning and being able to get special material weapons like Silver or Cold Iron.
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When I consider the attributes, I find it best to seperate them into two groups. The active and the passive.
Passive attributes:
- Dex: Reflex Saves, naked-AC
- Con: Fort Saves, HP
- Wis: Will save, Perception
Active attributes:
- Str: Bulk limit
- Int: Additional trained starting skills, additional languages
- Cha: zip!
It important to bare in mind that until the end of the playtest, Charisma played the roll of determining how many magical items one could have invested. Which might explain its lack of other inherent qualities.
All the ones in the passive group are incredibly important to almost every character. Some aspects, like the importance of Dex can move up and down depending on things like armour and use of fineese weapons, but those are generally on top of layers.
Of the 6, it looks like Charsima is the worst intrinsically, as it has little in the way of generic benefit. It has an interesting parrell with Strength, in that all of its power comes from its active use. Its also somewhat telling that Strength acts on your physical carrying capacity, and Charisma was intended to work as your magical one.
The active attributes then come down to their actual effectiveness when literally used.
Strength is the fundamental combat stat. Dex can swap in for some builds/weapon choices, but strength is really the core.
Charisma is the fundaental social stat. Deception, Diplomacy, Intimidate. The work horses of social interactions, with hundreds of skill feats between them.
Intelligence then is something of the odd one out. It grants some passive benefits, but none anywhere near as important as the main 3 passives, and its active uses are pretty much confined to Lore rolls. Lore, unlike athletics or intimidate or the like, does bring with it or actually enable any changes to the world or enviroment. It sits as the odd one out.
Marginal passive effects, marginal active effects.
I like the rogue as an example putting class abilities aside for a sec.
A ruffian or thief rogue are great. They're KAS is hit and damage.
Scoundrel sacrifices hit and damage for better cha.
Mastermind sacrifices hit and damage for extra Int.
Those are tradeoffs. If your talking about which build is optimal you have to get specific about what. What are they optimal at doing? They each are better at different things.
Mastermind can actually have at least trained in every skill at level 1 with +4 int. If there is a weakness mastermind can find it.
Scoundrel can debuff enemies with cha skills, talk that bounty giver into giving extra rewards, and convince that merchant to sell the oarty that treasure map.
But what racket is considered weakest? Which is considered strongest?
Bringing class abilities back in,
Because they gave thief dex to damage further improving the stats contribution for that kind of rogue they gave ruffian more of a weapon selection for sneak attacking.
If int is the baddest stat, dex on a thief is the opposite giving the most bang for each +1 of any stat. Yes theres a whole class package you have to take to get the best stat to be that good but there it is and you can dedicate to whatever else you want to be while having super dex with no need for str to do damage or hit.
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Because you have more than anecdotes to bring us? Or some whiteroom theory that a lot of people disprove in this discussion. You should realize that your theories are just as valid as our owns and that your experience is just as anecdotal as our own.
As a matter of fact, I do: as already pointed out, Paizo themselves have explicitly stated that some stats are valued more in the rules, in the exact same way I outlined. Specifically:
The classic ability scores aren't of equal value in the rules. Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom tend to be more important unless a character requires a particular ability score from among the other three for a specific purpose.
So yes, my claims are rooted in fact. Yours are not. Just because it's fun to labor the point, it's also a generally-recognized fact that dumping your class's key attribute is a suboptimal build decision, and even you have admitted in the past that the system doesn't support certain stat distributions particularly well:
The only thing the game doesn't really support is high Int and high Cha. For the rest, you can build nearly any combination of stats (there's also high Dex, high Str and high Cha or high Int that doesn't work well). High Strength Sorcerers and high Int Barbarians are pretty functional, I've seen some here and there.
Your words, not mine, so clearly you acknowledge the existence of suboptimal builds. How's that crow taste?
Another example (as it seems the studious Barbarian is unclear): I know of a lot of people who consider that casters can't deal as much damage than martials, and by a significant margin. I personally deal much more damage with my casters than with my martials. So how can these "anecdotes" be reunited under an "objective" theory of optimal?
That's the point: they can't, because anecdotal evidence is by nature incapable of proving a general point. Your personal stated experience of dealing more damage with casters than martial classes (are we talking AoE or single-target damage here?) has no bearing on the fact that martial classes are clearly designed to output more consistent single-target DPR than casters.
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Really, the issue isn't that the topic of discussion is subjective, but that you seem to personally believe that if you feel a certain way about something, it must be objectively correct, and everyone who disagrees is both subjective but also somehow also objectively wrong at the same time.
The only thing that I've ever said is objectively wrong is your insistence that something is objectively correct.
This is a game where the goal is to have fun, an insanely subjective thing.
This is a game where the tradeoffs are often very subtle and essentially impossible to model out in any kind of objective fashion. And that is totally ignoring the fact that the tradeoffs depend on party composition, GM rulings, player abilities, adventure being run amongst several other things.
To state that character A is objectively better than character B is literally objectively a false statement.
Oh, I concede that there are some differences in character efficiency that are large enough for one to be effectively objectively better than the other. A wizard with an Int of 18 is effectively objectively better than a wizard with an Int of 10. But, even THERE, somebody will come up with a counter example showing that, even THERE, the Int 18 Wizard is NOT objectively better than the Int 10 Wizard (although they ARE better in a huge majority of cases).
Most characters SHOULD max out their KSA UNLESS THEY HAVE A GOOD REASON TO DO OTHERWISE
Even if somebody managed to come up with some agreed upon objective scale for rating characters (where the inputs would at LEAST include party composition, house rules, player skill, adventure) it would STILL be the case that the final result wouldn't really matter a lot.
A player who really likes playing character B, the "suboptimal" build worth only 98.561 points will do better than playing the "optimal" character A worth 100.000 points because they'll be more engaged with the game, they'll be paying more attention, they'll be thinking better.
Your whole thesis that there is anything objective about where you put secondary stat points is just flat out wrong. At that point you're talking about quite minor differences in character power and its pretty much all subjective. Both from a theoretical point of view (there IS no objective scale) and from a practical point of view (the persons tastes matter far more than the miniscule and unquantifiable differences in character utiliity).