Abilty Scores

Barney · Post by **Barney** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 1:43 pm

I was wondering If anyone ever takes the ability scores the computer gives you automatically instead of re-rolling until you get good totals. Personally I always re-roll until I've got decent scores because It seems stupid to be a powerful God child and yet the weakest member of your party. The most points I've ever got was 96, which i thought was pretty good, apart from the fact it took me 15 minutes of just sitting, clicking the mouse button over and over. As you can see i value my time.

Bloodmist · Post by **Bloodmist** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 1:57 pm

Depends. sometimes i feel like powergaming, sometimes i feel like role-playing.

Jaesha · Post by **Jaesha** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 2:35 pm

First of all, welcome to Gamebanshee @Barney, a place where you can always expect the friendliest of enviroments and the finest selection of wines... err no, that´s something else..

Anyway, hope you´ll like it here.

Second, I never just go for the highest score to make a fighter 18/18/18/3/3/3... That, I just find sucky. It depends on the portrait, always. I never make a charming lady portrait with 3 in charisma.

Rataxes · Post by **Rataxes** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 3:02 pm

Tip: The probability of getting a higher sum of rolls increase dramatically if your class has steep stat requirements, paladins and rangers come to mind. I made a ranger this afternoon and I had gotten 11 rolls over 90 pts total in just 5 minutes. Finally I settled for a 95 roll

It's just too typical that the classes who could really use 90+ stat points (multiclasses come to mind) are the ones who have very slim chances of getting them.

But I too, never give my PC stats that does fit with the type of character I had in mind. You'll never see me giving ANYONE a score below 10 in either charisma, wisdom or intelligence since I could never picture my protoganist as a foolish, stupid, and to top it off, ugly person

Impaler987 · Post by **Impaler987** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 3:13 pm

I do reroll stats all the time, but I believe there is as much role-playing reason to reroll your stats as there is a powergaming reason. First of all, you are the child of a god, so it'd make sense to be better than the average person. Second of all, we know a typical fighter's set: 18/xx, 18, 18, 3, 3, 3, which is gross powergaming. I like top-heavy 18s on fighters as much as the next guy, and I do shoot for them, but I also insist on my fighters (or any other characters of mine for that matter) to have at least 10s on their non-important stats (as a general rule), with more well-thought-out numbers in those stats.

Same applies to paladins and rangers; I don't want any dummies or uglies.

Take one of my rangers, a female stalker I'm currently soloing, for example:

STR 18/69
DEX 18
CON 18
INT 12
WIS 16
CHA 15 (SPOILER - will drop to 14 after a certain point)

See? Strong, quick, and sturdy as hell, but also fairly intelligent (average is 9, remember), quite wise, and even quite attractive (14 after that certain point is still considered good).

And yeah, I usually mold the stats to fit the type of character I'm playing. Sometimes I break my general rule of 10s or above when, for example, playing a chaotic evil half-orc barbarian, in which case low intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores are quite fitting.

Rataxes · Post by **Rataxes** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 4:08 pm

Isn't 11 considered "average" in D&D?

Nightmare · Post by **Nightmare** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 5:34 pm

Originally posted by Rataxes
Isn't 11 considered "average" in D&D?

Yes, I believe so. I usually re-roll until I get a decent roll for a powerful enough character, but I don't spend hours going for an uber-roll.

Impaler987 · Post by **Impaler987** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 5:35 pm

Originally posted by Rataxes
Isn't 11 considered "average" in D&D?

I've heard in the Forgotten Realms settings, the average citizen has stats of all 9. Which makes sense because fighters, mages, clerics, and thieves must have a minimum of 9 in their respective prime requisites to be what they are.

Stilgar · Post by **Stilgar** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 5:48 pm

Sometimes when i'm lazy, i just create a character with the first roll i get, and give it a low strenght, that i just edit with shadowkeeper.
But i'm fair enough never to give myself a 18/00 strenght this way, and i never go over the 85 using this method

JackOfClubs · Post by **JackOfClubs** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 5:51 pm

Originally posted by Impaler987
See? Strong, quick, and sturdy as hell, but also fairly intelligent (average is 9, remember), quite wise, and even quite attractive (14 after that certain point is still considered good).

SPOILER:
I don't mean to burst your bubble, but if you're talking about the dream you have in Spellhold, you can't sacrifice STR or CHA (these abilities can be easily enhanced through items, so it would be pointless.) Only DEX, CON, INT & WIS can be sacrificed.

Koveras · Post by **Koveras** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 6:08 pm

I almost always imported it from BG so I get the tome upgrades.

Kinda overpowering but hey, it suits me.

thaGforce · Post by **thaGforce** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 6:08 pm

Are you sure about that? I remember always sacrificing my charisma.

But even so, there is always something to sacrifice easily. Mage/Sorceror/Bard = wisdom, Any Other Class = Intelligence.

Koveras · Post by **Koveras** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 6:13 pm

I think it might depend on your class, but I'm not sure.

Impaler987 · Post by **Impaler987** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 6:45 pm

Originally posted by JackOfClubs
SPOILER:
I don't mean to burst your bubble, but if you're talking about the dream you have in Spellhold, you can't sacrifice STR or CHA (these abilities can be easily enhanced through items, so it would be pointless.) Only DEX, CON, INT & WIS can be sacrificed.

It depends on your class.

ForgotenWarrior · Post by **ForgotenWarrior** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 10:50 pm

@impaler: thats a GOOD roll there

im soloing with a barbarian right now and he got 19 str,18 dex, 19 con,9 int, 6 wis, and 18 charisma, not even nearly as good of a roll as yours heh (he does GOOD though, walks over enemies like they're nothing)

Ps: he killed the party on second floor of the inn in Promenade right after he finished circus quest, he's quite a tank, I'd say(133 life, level 9, 153 or so when enraged and drawn upon holy might,

heh, you gotta love pure power.)

ForgotenWarrior · Post by **ForgotenWarrior** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 10:51 pm

walks through *(just wanted to have 100 posts heh, forgive me for spamming

)

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Tue Nov 05, 2002 6:20 am

I'm playing now with a PURE CLASS berserker, with
Str 13
Con 10
Int 18....
Also auto-restricting myself to leather armors...

Stilgar · Post by **Stilgar** » Tue Nov 05, 2002 6:47 am

Originally posted by Littiz
I'm playing now with a PURE CLASS berserker, with
Str 13
Con 10
Int 18....
Also auto-restricting myself to leather armors...

That's fun, i did that once with a kensai
(the low stat's not the armour

)
I used to play a fighter class with
18(or 19) str
18 con
18 dex
x int
x wis
3 chr

Cause charisma can be added thorugh the ring of human influence that you get very early in the game.
But that's just no fun to play
Well it was the first time, but after i got more familiar with the game, i started to make it harder for myself.

JackOfClubs · Post by **JackOfClubs** » Tue Nov 05, 2002 7:15 pm

Originally posted by Impaler987
It depends on your class.

I'm afraid not. I happen to be in that part of the game right now and I tested it with all of the different classes using ShadowKeeper. You get the same four choices no matter your class. I didn't try multi-classes, but I don't see why they would make a differenct.

I don't have ToB installed, so that might be something that got changed in the expansion, but I doubt it. As I mentioned, there are items which set your STR and CHA to 18 or above so sacrificing these abilities would be pointless from a gaming point of view.

If you find a specific case which allows you to sacrifice CHA let me know what class it is and what the dialogue option was (ie "I will give of my mind and my ability to learn" for intelligence).

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Wed Nov 06, 2002 3:03 am

Well it was the first time, but after i got more familiar with the game, i started to make it harder for myself.

Oh, no, I have only roleplaying motivation.
In the same party Anomen is fully armored.
He used always sling, being a coward, but then he passed the test,
became a little nobler, and now he enters melee, too!!!