The Gaming Den

We all discuss which sort of stats are best for what sort of character. But when do you find that a stat that you don't always focus on became really important, or when did you have a character who could rely almost entirely on one stat?

I've found a melee character for who I wanted as much Con as I could possibly acheive. I wasn't worried about him hitting, or about him killing things; he did those with extreme ease. What was his real problem was that he took tons of damage each round.

Of course, the enemies would probably be dead as well, so the goal was to survive until the end of the round/combat, so that one of multiple healers would be able to reach my character.

There was, 1 bard, 2 Druids, 1 Cleric and 1 Rogue with UMD out of a group that had 9 total members, and when the group got together there was only 4-6 of us at the table with their characters. Each of those characters had a wand of Cure Light wounds bought for them.

As a result there were few sessions where there as many healers as non-healers, and I wasn't really worried about not getting healed, as much as I was about taking so much damage that I wouldn't live to see a heal.

On the other hand, the character was able to solo nearly any melee based monster of his CR from level 4 (when the Barbarian was started) all the way to level 6. If they took damage from magical adamantine weapons, then he'd be able to hurt them, and kill them in as fast as a round (an Ettin at level 5; a giant croc at lvl 4) or fight more difficult challenges like a small (green?) dragon at level 5 (scaly cats...).

[Tangent on barbarians and dragon fighting. It's possible, but the Barbarian needs throwing weapons, javelins, spears, even Darts are good weapons for a Barbarian.]

The dragon took several rounds, two of it trying to hurt me, and me plugging it with javelins and hurting it badly.

It's breath weapon was within my javelin throwing range, so I'd be able to hurt it every round it breathed). When it was recharging it flew back; so I'd pop out of rage in 1 round; then heal for at least 1 round; then rage if the Dragon attacked with it's breath weapon. So any real damage it did was being reduced (5 more HP per round at lvl 5 awesome; and if it had to recharge for 4 rounds, that was 20 damage healed, and most of the saving throws for half damage were made, so the [url=http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/drag ... reenDragon][Dragon][//url][I looked up green dragon stats to see what was close to what I fought, probably the CR 4 Young Green dragon], only did one half of 4d6 (4-24 = 28, 28/2 = 14 [average the numer], 14/2 [make the save] = 7) which is about 7 damage when the breath weapon hit me. While my javelins were always hitting and dealing 1d6+3d6 (rage) + 11 (BaB due to Blitz, Str, Rage bonus, Magic bonus).

So, I was dealing 11+[4-24]; or about 24-ish damage each round, while it was dealing 7 to 10-ish.

Then it thought it could melee me, and then it got killed by a bastard sword to the face, as I had been 'ready' to rage and attack as soon as it got down to charge, or rage and get out of the way if it began to breath acid at me.

Fortunately, the character had a decent wisdom score (12) and a high Int (14), so being able to come up with a pair of readied options was credible.

[Stats were: S 13 + gear, D 10, C 15 + gear/lvl bonuses; Int 14; W 12 Ch 8].

I've also had a slew of fighter builds were Int was the only real stat that I cared about. It was for skills, attack rolls, and even other skill checks [many of the Wis-based skills, spot, listen and sense motive] and will saves [The game allowed for old core feats, so long as people would take the old core feats; max of 2 flaws, and one flaw was needed per feat of this type].

Inherently the only tats that particularly matter are Con, Dex, and Int. The other stats add to various skill checks and class features and special attacks, but the fact is that Con, Dex, and Int add to real things (hit points, initiative, and skill points respectively) regardless of class. Classes which can use Con, Dex, or Int to power their class features are by definition superior to other ones.

-Username17

Well, Wisdom does add to stuff for everyone, too; i.e., will saves.

Admittedly this is situationally useful, but it does affect everyone regardless of class, and is one of the reasons Clerics and Druids win.

I actually tend to completely give intiative the flip-off, and focus on con or int using characters.