Favorite Stat

[Malken]

I always thought that it was a bit "unfair" that magickers only really needed wisdom to be majorly kickass and that 99.9% of magicker players will nearly always get very good + in that stat due to nearly always prioritizing it (unless you're one of those weirdos who are into rp'ing and such) while warriors, rangers and assassins pretty much always need decent stats in all of them to be decent.

I think 'gikers should be forced to rely on other stats a lot more like the rest of us poor peons.

[Synthesis]

It's kind of amazing to me that endurance is coming out as the dump stat, BY FAR.

As opposed to what, though? Most of my characters are poor or below average in at least one stat. Below average strength sucks. Below average agility sucks. Below average wisdom sucks, even for warriors (despite what people think). With endurance, at least it's possible to compensate for some of the issues of being below average. E.g. bandaging if wounded. Riding instead of using stamina through walking. Armor to reduce damage. Skills to prevent being hit.

I've never noticed wisdom making much of a difference in skillgain for my combat-oriented PCs.  Days-played branch points have all been fairly similar, at least within the "poor dwarf wisdom" to "good elf wisdom" range.  The only time I had difficulty branching a warrior was with a half-giant with poor wisdom...and that was more because it's kind of difficult to generate certain failures when you're dismantling everything in 1-2 hits.

[RogueGunslinger]

Now you see why everyone keeps dying to that hole. Sub 100 hp's will do that to you.

[Malken]

Now you see why everyone keeps dying to that hole. Sub 100 hp's will do that to you.

Not sure I'd want to sacrifice all of the great bonuses offered by awesome strength and agility just for the off-chance that I'll someday be following someone into the pit o' doom.

[RogueGunslinger]

Now you see why everyone keeps dying to that hole. Sub 100 hp's will do that to you.

Not sure I'd want to sacrifice all of the great bonuses offered by awesome strength and agility just for the off-chance that I'll someday be following someone into the pit o' doom.

I won't disagree with that at all. Str agi end wis, in my opinion, is the best prioritization possible for any character that will see combat.

[Clearsighted]

It's kind of amazing to me that endurance is coming out as the dump stat, BY FAR.

Because endurance is weird, and its effects are a bit marginal. Which means people typically only notice endurance if it's either shit or incredible. Everything inbetween, from like average to extremely good, is hard to notice. Maybe a few more hitpoints or stunpoints.

I love having a high endurance. But it's hard to make a case for being anyone's favorite stat. Second favorite? Yeah.

I won't disagree with that at all. Str agi end wis, in my opinion, is the best prioritization possible for any character that will see combat.

The one stat I see here that is seriously overrated is agility. I'd prioritize even endurance over it, and I don't even think endurance has that big of an impact. Basically with endurance, you can either survive a three room fall or you can't. You want to be on the 'can survive' end of the spectrum. But it's a very binary stat.

[Malken]

str agi end wis 26 for age is a classic and has yet to let me down.

[valeria]

I tend to not prioritize my stats. I'd rather be mediocre across the board than have to deal with a "poor"in anything ever again.

[Malken]

I tend to not prioritize my stats. I'd rather be mediocre across the board than have to deal with a "poor"in anything ever again.

Hm, that's not how stat distribution works, but we all have our little lucky charms and if not prioritizing stats worked so far for you, that's good!

I never shave between characters and ever since I've started doing that I've had pretty great stats so far. Ladies, you should all try it as well.

[RogueGunslinger]

I won't disagree with that at all. Str agi end wis, in my opinion, is the best prioritization possible for any character that will see combat.

The one stat I see here that is seriously overrated is agility. I'd prioritize even endurance over it, and I don't even think endurance has that big of an impact. Basically with endurance, you can either survive a three room fall or you can't. You want to be on the 'can survive' end of the spectrum. But it's a very binary stat.

Agility effects practically everything. Going from half-giant to elf makes this incredibly apparent.

[Clearsighted]

I won't disagree with that at all. Str agi end wis, in my opinion, is the best prioritization possible for any character that will see combat.

The one stat I see here that is seriously overrated is agility. I'd prioritize even endurance over it, and I don't even think endurance has that big of an impact. Basically with endurance, you can either survive a three room fall or you can't. You want to be on the 'can survive' end of the spectrum. But it's a very binary stat.

Agility effects practically everything. Going from half-giant to elf makes this incredibly apparent.

Thing is. I've played elves, and I've played half-giants. Poor half-giant agility is the shit. Being able to only hold one or two things at a time is a valid reason to suicide a character. However...Most any other race can get by with 'average' agility just fine and never have it affect them much.

Not when it matters, anyways. High agility might make you a great sparring partner, but it won't save you in a real fight. Not unless it's a fight you could never lose to begin with (like a 20-day char vs a 1 day, and even then....if it's ranger vs warrior, there might be a surprise!).

Obviously, I never want to be staring down the barrel of 'poor' agility. Or even below average. But it's far from the #1 stat.

[RogueGunslinger]

Things high agility has done for my characters:

Saved from falling-death multiple times, without climb.
Made me dodge mekillot attacks on a new character long enough to flee.
Dodged again on flee attempt.
Made me attack three to four times for every one strike by another.
Made apprentice-level steal work with strangely high rate of success.

I'd take high agility over high endurance any day, because middling-low endurance still gets you over 100 hp.

[valeria]

I tend to not prioritize my stats. I'd rather be mediocre across the board than have to deal with a "poor"in anything ever again.

Hm, that's not how stat distribution works, but we all have our little lucky charms and if not prioritizing stats worked so far for you, that's good!

I never shave between characters and ever since I've started doing that I've had pretty great stats so far. Ladies, you should all try it as well.

I'm not sure you get what I'm saying.  I'm talking about risks and possibilities, not about 'oh this happens every time.'

Between "reroll/reroll undo" and not taking whatever negative hit it is that your lowest priority stat takes, I haven't had to live with a "poor" since I stopped prioritizing.  Where I previously had two characters with "poor" something on both the initial roll and reroll, I've since had zero double-poor characters.  I also don't get that bump to the top priority stat... hence the higher chance that I'll be mediocre across the board.  Which I have been more frequently, though not always.

[Revenant]

I had a c-elf warrior with poor end once, he wasn't someone you wanted to box. On rough circle days, it typically ended up every bynner on the other end of his fists screaming for help as he mercilessly pounded them and his inability to be hit allowed him to slowly regen his stun one tick at a time. I doubt anyone ever knew he was stuck at 90 hp, or that he had poor endurance, he simply faked it so hard because he was untouchable with his extremely good strength and exceptional agility. He was still a Runner, and even with the Byn being as powerful as it was in that day, was giving Troopers and occassionally Sergeants the beatdown in the ring. He even rescued a Trooper from a Mek once.

Thing is, no one would have ever, ever known just how fragile he was, because he was SO goddamn quick, and unencumbered. Pair this with master two-handed fighting style, ugh, watch out. People talk shit about city elves, this guy would grevious PCs and NPCs with a gith bastard sword, he was always covered in blood because things would explode half the time when he killed them. He also kept a light shield for when shit got real. He was, hands down, one of the scariest non-stealth PCs I've EVER played. He was also the best sparring dummy in the known.

[RogueGunslinger]

I tend to not prioritize my stats. I'd rather be mediocre across the board than have to deal with a "poor"in anything ever again.

Hm, that's not how stat distribution works, but we all have our little lucky charms and if not prioritizing stats worked so far for you, that's good!

I never shave between characters and ever since I've started doing that I've had pretty great stats so far. Ladies, you should all try it as well.

I'm not sure you get what I'm saying.  I'm talking about risks and possibilities, not about 'oh this happens every time.'

Between "reroll/reroll undo" and not taking whatever negative hit it is that your lowest priority stat takes, I haven't had to live with a "poor" since I stopped prioritizing.  Where I previously had two characters with "poor" something on both the initial roll and reroll, I've since had zero double-poor characters.  I also don't get that bump to the top priority stat... hence the higher chance that I'll be mediocre across the board.  Which I have been more frequently, though not always.

What I think Malken is getting at, is priority just changes what would have been higher or lower. So if you roll without priority and get all good's you would have gotten all good with priority as well. If one skill was very good, then that would be allocated to the one that your prioritized. And I'm about 95% sure he's right.

[Clearsighted]

I had a c-elf warrior with poor end once, he wasn't someone you wanted to box. On rough circle days, it typically ended up every bynner on the other end of his fists screaming for help as he mercilessly pounded them and his inability to be hit allowed him to slowly regen his stun one tick at a time. I doubt anyone ever knew he was stuck at 90 hp, or that he had poor endurance, he simply faked it so hard because he was untouchable with his extremely good strength and exceptional agility. He was still a Runner, and even with the Byn being as powerful as it was in that day, was giving Troopers and occassionally Sergeants the beatdown in the ring. He even rescued a Trooper from a Mek once.

Thing is, no one would have ever, ever known just how fragile he was, because he was SO goddamn quick, and unencumbered. Pair this with master two-handed fighting style, ugh, watch out. People talk shit about city elves, this guy would grevious PCs and NPCs with a gith bastard sword, he was always covered in blood because things would explode half the time when he killed them. He also kept a light shield for when shit got real. He was, hands down, one of the scariest non-stealth PCs I've EVER played. He was also the best sparring dummy in the known.

Without getting into the mechanics too much, I honestly think a lot of what you experienced had more to do with two-handing, than high agility.

A dwarf with exceptional endurance+ and good armor stands a very good chance of not even feeling most elf/half-elf blows from dual-wielded training weapons.

Still. You're not far off. I'd go str-agility on an elf, and str-end as a dwarf. But funnily enough, I almost never prioritize my stats.

[BlackMagic0]

I kind of wish I could change my answer to Agility.

It really is such an amazing stat...

[spicemustflow]

I'm remarkably dumb when it comes to code, but I love agility. Reminds me of old days when I played rogues in Daggerfall and PnP.

[Revenant]

I had a c-elf warrior with poor end once, he wasn't someone you wanted to box. On rough circle days, it typically ended up every bynner on the other end of his fists screaming for help as he mercilessly pounded them and his inability to be hit allowed him to slowly regen his stun one tick at a time. I doubt anyone ever knew he was stuck at 90 hp, or that he had poor endurance, he simply faked it so hard because he was untouchable with his extremely good strength and exceptional agility. He was still a Runner, and even with the Byn being as powerful as it was in that day, was giving Troopers and occassionally Sergeants the beatdown in the ring. He even rescued a Trooper from a Mek once.

Thing is, no one would have ever, ever known just how fragile he was, because he was SO goddamn quick, and unencumbered. Pair this with master two-handed fighting style, ugh, watch out. People talk shit about city elves, this guy would grevious PCs and NPCs with a gith bastard sword, he was always covered in blood because things would explode half the time when he killed them. He also kept a light shield for when shit got real. He was, hands down, one of the scariest non-stealth PCs I've EVER played. He was also the best sparring dummy in the known.

Without getting into the mechanics too much, I honestly think a lot of what you experienced had more to do with two-handing, than high agility.

A dwarf with exceptional endurance+ and good armor stands a very good chance of not even feeling most elf/half-elf blows from dual-wielded training weapons.

Still. You're not far off. I'd go str-agility on an elf, and str-end as a dwarf. But funnily enough, I almost never prioritize my stats.

I happen to think it was a combination of agility and two handed that would otherwise be impossible to replicate. I started focusing on two handing weapons after my second character got tossed into the arena with a two handed axe, and almost beat the corporal that was sent out to fight him, I said to myself "Never again will I neglect two handed". Since then, I've learned that dual wield and shield use are not necessarily the standard by which to judge combat ability. Shield use seems to be more effective against two handed.

[Chettaman]

Your mom is more effective against two handed.

Having finally getting different stats all around and actually playing elves, dwarves, witches, and comparing them to humans... I've noticed how the matrix code might work. I'm not going to say that wisdom is the best stat. I'm just saying it's my favorite.

wisdom - agility - strength - endurance

[Revenant]

Your mom is more effective against two handed.

Please, the only reason my mom wins a slapfight while I'm two handing a maul is because she's my mom and I'd never swing the damn thing at her. It doesn't count.

[FantasyWriter]

Wisdom, wisdom, wisdom.

[solera]

Wisdom is my dump stat. I'm in no hurry. I like endrurance on my noncombatants.

[Jingo]

Stats honestly shouldn't be as extreme as they are in game. Ever played an elf with poor strength or endurance? It's not fun.

[Clearsighted]

Stats honestly shouldn't be as extreme as they are in game. Ever played an elf with poor strength or endurance? It's not fun.

Most of the time stats aren't too extreme...unless you're an elf or a half-giant. And then either poor strength or poor agility/wisdom can be a Sisyphean ordeal at best.

But there's really not a lot of difference for say, humans, between good and extremely good, etc, except in encumbrance.