1eyedking What's wrong with min-maxing?

[Average Manatee]

You'll get those attribute boosting items eventually if you're building for late game, sure. However through most of act I- Act III in KM the best items you'll find will offer +4 to an attribute at most, and the majority will be +2 items only. These are the most difficult parts of the game where a failed save can easily lead to a party wipe and you don't want to build obvious weaknesses into your character. This was kind of the point of my post, really. Building for late game can make the hardest parts of the game more of a struggle than they need to be.

Additionally, if you want the best XP rewards for your character you need to play with 'Skill Check User only gains XP' and have a bunch of stuff (persuasion, trickery and perception at the very least) all at a good level to give your protagonist character a head up during the initial stages of the game when they need it most.

This is a bad way to look at it. If you failed a roll that you had an 80% chance to fail, then going from 8 to 12 WIS would still have a 70% chance to fail. That's bad either way. Wisdom stats don't fix your problem. You fix your problem by getting some kind of immunity or killing whatever causes the problem more quickly. You're trading (for example) +1 on your strength rolls (which adds +1 to every attack and 1.5 to every damage with a twohander, so potentially occuring like 4-10 times a turn) for +2 on a roll for something you experience maybe once or twice an hour. That's silly.

If 12 WIS actually made you functionally immune to something it'd be good, but it doesn't. Your weaknesses come from your class. Fighters are always weak to will saves, period. A fighter with 12 WIS is a fighter who is significantly weaker at doing their job and is still weak to will saves.

 

[Stoned Ape]

This is a bad way to look at it. If you failed a roll that you had an 80% chance to fail, then going from 8 to 12 WIS would still have a 70% chance to fail. That's bad either way. Wisdom stats don't fix your problem. You fix your problem by getting some kind of immunity or killing whatever causes the problem more quickly. You're trading (for example) +1 on your strength rolls (which adds +1 to every attack and 1.5 to every damage with a twohander, so potentially occuring like 4-10 times a turn) for +2 on a roll for something you experience maybe once or twice an hour. That's silly.

If 12 WIS actually made you functionally immune to something it'd be good, but it doesn't. Your weaknesses come from your class. Fighters are always weak to will saves, period. A fighter with 12 WIS is a fighter who is significantly weaker at doing their job and is still weak to will saves.

No you're not sacrificing 20 STR for 12 WIS, you can have both. If you're a fighter you can get a 20 STR and accommodate 4 12s in your initial attribute assignments, leaving 1 attribute at 10.

As a human fighter I'd probably drop CHA and INT both to 10 to pick up 13s in CON and DEX so I could later put an extra point into CON and still have access to Dodge later on, or do the opposite. The only attribute I'd even consider totally dumping would be charisma so I could start with 14 CON too, but I probably wouldn't do it.

At 3rd level Fighters can afford Iron Will so that 70% chance to fail becomes 50%, or 30% with Owl's Wisdom, then a couple of levels later on get Armed Bravery for a nice scaling Will saves bonus (eventually up to +5 on all Will saves as long as you're wielding a weapon you have advanced weapon training with) which makes them close to equivalent to a class with high Will saves (actually +1 better overall after Iron Will).

 

[Average Manatee]

Far better off to do something like 20/15/14/10/10/7.

Stop wasting your feats on things that spells and proper gameplay can cover just fine. You're probably dealing half the damage of a fighter who is taking things that make them fight better.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Far better off to do something like 20/15/14/10/10/7.

Stop wasting your feats on things that spells and proper gameplay can cover just fine. You're probably dealing half the damage of a fighter who is taking things that make them fight better.

You: A Fighter is perfect with a WIS score of 8.

Also You: I mean 10... or 7... or something. I'll decide later. Regardless, spells fix everything.

2 feats out of a Fighter's pool is not a drastic investment that will stop them from effectively dealing damage.

 

[Average Manatee]

It's a dump stat you barely use. You're only not putting it at 7 or 8 because that would literally buy you nothing

2 feats early game is huge. That could be cleave and cleaving finish, taking you from 1 attack per round to 3. 200% increase in damage output

 

[King Crispy]

The above conversation perfectly answers OP's thread title question.

 

[Stoned Ape]

It's a dump stat you barely use. You're only not putting it at 7 or 8 because that would literally buy you nothing

2 feats early game is huge. That could be cleave and cleaving finish, taking you from 1 attack per round to 3. 200% increase in damage output

You can get Power attack, Cleave, and Cleaving Finish by 2nd level (1st as a human), why are you waiting until 3rd?

Edit: I said I'd take Iron Will at 3rd level, there's plenty of time to take cleave and cleaving finish before then.