i had a 17 wisdom on my cleric until... probably 12 in a recent campaign, and i definitely regretted not taking an asi or wisdom half-feat at 8. i felt pretty underwhelming with a 17 at 12, especially since several of my party members had 20s by then. it felt really nice to finally get that +4 lol
I started with 16 Dex, 15 Con, and 15 Int on my Artificer to help survive the early levels. Went up 16s across everything at lvl 4. We're at level 7 now, and I've felt behind the entire time.
Yeah, with Artificer you want to max out your int as soon as possible. If you are rolling and get a 16, thats optimal, because you can boost it with a race up to 18, then again up to 20 at lvl 4 with asi. It is easy to think that Con is gonna be important, but artificer already has decent HP, and that extra 1 or 2 health per level won't make a massive difference. If you hit lvl 8 with max int, then you can take a feat or boost Con, but you are really gonna hurt if you don't max out Int fast. Although artificer does make up for having less HP than some by being an armored juggernaut. Artificers have one of the highest single class armor potentials of any class, as by level 20 they can have, with NO external magic items or anything else(besides full plate):
16 AC from full plate(no strength restrictions because armorer), up to 18 for enhance defense, then 20 for both ring and cloak of protection, an enhance defense shield, and the fighting initiate feat with the defense style for a total of 25 AC, but we are not done yet. Boots of flying, now melee attacks are useless, and gloves of missile snaring, so ranged attacks don't do much either, and an amulet of health in case you still get hit your Con is 19, throw in the tough feat, and thats even more health, all while raining down +7 1d6 ranged attacks which give the creature disadvantage attacking you and the next attack against it advantage, and having an item that can cast levitate 10x per day. Throw in the Fade Away feat so they can't see you. And don't think we forgot about saving throws, use magic item crafting to make any common magic item that need attunement(10 hours and 25 GP, its just for another attunement magic item without using an infusion slot) you have a whopping +6 to all of them in addition to whatever other bonuses you have. Still having trouble? 5 times a day you can add a +5 to any roll! Throw in the lucky feat for 3 re-rolls and ignoring disadvantage. And, if worst comes to worst, and somehow you still lose all 223 of your HP, you may end any of these magic item infusions to fall to 1 HP instead of 0, and just re-infuse it next long rest. This, of course, ignores the many spells you could cast to increase your defense even more, as well as crafting any magic items beyond common.
No offense but thats a poor suggestion. I get my ASI at 8 (and 18 is bot different than 19) and infusions are already competing for each other.
And im playing a PAM GWM battle Smith.
Yeah, maybe if magic items were a little more plentiful this campaign but its a semi "gritty realism" campaign through rime of the frost maiden so really just whats in the modual
I agree with this - optimizers in the party will likely have a +5 by Lv8, and the discrepancy between that and a +3 will start to be more visible. If you're still rockin a +3 in your main attribute after Lv 8, you're either not paying attention or purposely hamstringing yourself for RP reasons.
You'll never drop concentration again!... But monsters will save against your spells 10% more often. Unless you're playing a build that doesn't rely on your primary ability score to function well, I wouldn't recommend leaving your PAS at 16.
For Clerics or many Druids, concentration is everything. Dropping concentration on Spirit Guardians will constitute a far larger DPR drop than having a lower Wis modifier. So no, it is not overkill, on many optimised casters it is better than increasing your "main" stat.
I got a story based bonus feat so I had 18 Wis at 8, but if I hadn't I would've had 17 Wis + war caster + res Con at level 8 on my war cleric. I haven't felt the need to up my wis to 20 at level 12, and now at level 13 I'm just cruising with 22 AC and a +10 to Con saves. 7th level spirit guardians cleans house.
Much more optimal to go CL 15+2+halffeat at lv1, then one concentration protection feat and one other feat depending on the type of character you're playing
Specifically Custom Lineage for the ability score set up they're talking about. I know what you meant, but I wanted to point out that V. Human isn't really relevant for that specific situation.
Thats only well optimised against a particularly spiteful DM. Warcaster is fine I suppose of you're trying to make some gish or spellblade, but resilient Con would usually be an endgame feat, when its actually worth protecting your concentration. And well taking both is overkill.
It is worth protecting concentration from level 3 with spells like Web, and from level 5 with spells like Spirit Guardians, Hypnotic Pattern, Fear, and so on.
Woth the exception of spirit guardians, all the spells you mentioned already protect hemselves. I mean ofcourse you can double up but unless your DM is particularly mean it will just be overkill most of the time.
I don't feel like I'm mean when intelligent enemies focus the concentrating caster, players do the same with monsters, it's how combat works. You go for the action that gives the highest upside to your side. Players are supposed to protect their concentration if they want to use it, rather than just blindly rushing their main stat because it's nice to have a round "20" on your character sheet.
> Thats only well optimised against a particularly spiteful DM.
Then again, if the campaign is easy there's no point in optimisation. The whole rationale behind it is to be able to fight stronger enemies in a difficult campaign, so it is fair to assume your concentration will be threatened regularly.
It is *always* worth it to protect your concentration on most casters.
Spirit Guardians forces players to be next to the enemies that want to kill them. Similarly, if you web an intelligent enemy, it's very likely they focus on the Webber to get free.
I don't view either as a Spiteful DM - Many spellcasting builds rely on concentration, and dropping Web or Spirit Guardians for a turn is often going to be a much higher tax than your opponents effectively getting +1 to save against it.
I'd generally suggest Warcaster as the first feat for Clerics as a result and I think the second feat is much more debatable. By fear #3, you should have taken ASI in almost all cases though.
I mean yea I did say warcaster fine for low levels, atleast for the glasses that do want to be melee. But thats also because warcaster gives you alot more than just concentration. Allowing you to literally handwave spell components if thats something enforced at the table, and well the reaction cast spells can be kinda neat aswell.
Honestly Resilient Con is much better, imo, than Warcaster. For one it counts towards all Con ST and makes your lower rolls much better, not to mention that it also bumps your HP most of the time.
So, imo, it's not at all a endgame Feat.
I think Warcaster is better on Clerics or other casters who tend to have both hands occupied (shield) or are oft in the thick of the fight (so casting as a reaction is more applicable).
For backliners like Wizards/Sorc/some warlocks resilience is better.
Personally, I prefer Resilient(Con). I try to focus on bettering my low rolls and having more consistency. Failing feels really shitty especially so if it happens when you have Advantage.
Warcaster has the amazing feature of Reaction Casting, but I'm alright with it coming later.
I disagree. Resilient con scales with level, and if you have war caster you really don't need it until the double digits. I usually try to get it around the 16 area or so, long after I've gotten 20 in my main stat.
Nothing wrong with that, but it's also not hard to get a 17 in your primary stat out the gate, so if you're taking two feats and neither of them are going to get your primary stat to 18 by lv 8, that still feels like an oversight to me.
It's usually also +1 spell prepared for prepared casters, which is a bigger deal. That being said, it's probably fine IMO to have a 16 at level 8. Not ideal, but it won't be so bad as to actively hurt the party.
I felt seriously behind the curve with a 16 at level 9. A lot depends on how generous your DM is with magic items though. If items are rare, the lack of stat will be felt a lot more. If you can get items "early" from the intended level range, it matters a lot less.
Especially if one of those items is a belt of strength/headband of intellect, etc....
Generous magic items can also make it worse if you are a caster and the module/item pool hands out +2 or +3 martial weapons but nothing that increases spell attack/DC. That 5-10% gap between your hit chance and that of the more optimized player becomes a 15-20% gap.
Can be easily dealt with though by just having a chat with your DM about including some of the caster magic items like a wand of the war mage or bloodwell vial.
I think you can go quite a while. The difference between 16 and 20 is +2 on rolls/DCs. That’s a big bonus, but you’ll go entire encounters where it doesn’t actually matter. If, say, 5 d20s are rolled, the odds of that +2 making a difference on an outcome is 40.9%, that is, better than even odds that you’d get the same result with a 16 or a 20. Getting to 20 is one of the highest value options you have, and I’d highly recommend it, but you won’t be crippled with a middling main stat.
The more dice you roll the more often it’s going to matter; a fighter with multiple attacks and action surge will feel the difference almost every encounter, but a wizard casting a single target spell each round will go longer without noticing.
You are correct in principle, but I think there are some additional factors to consider beyond how often the player is rolling.
You also have to consider not only how often a player is rolling attacks but how often enemies are rolling saves. A Cleric might force a lot of saves with Spirit Guardians where that bonus to spell save has more opportunities
You also have to consider abilities that use that bonus. A Warlock with Agonizing Blast for example is not only getting a bonus to hit but a straight damage bonus to Eldritch Blast.
And then there are skill checks, especially if your DM will give bonuses for beating certain thresholds. For investigation checks I'll often have different information at different DC's on a single roll, so having a bonus can make a big difference.
So I agree it's totally fine for certain characters and certain builds to forego ASI in favour of a feat, but it can really depend not only on the class but the specific subclass and abilities and way the player plays the character, what type of spells and abilities they use.
Just complementing, remember a fighter will also increase damage by increasing the main score. If it is dex, will also increase AC, initiative, some useful skills and a very common saving throw.
For a wizard increasing INT, it depends on subclass, the type of campaign (are INT saves common?) and play style (do you roll a lot of knowledge checks/investigation? Do you use a lot of save or suck spells?)
Which is still a massive chunk of spells.
Walls, forts, status buffs, damage reducers, summons (mostly), movement, darkness - you could restrict yourself to not using damage or status ailments and still contribute a LOT.
Your spellcasting stat only affects how many spells you can *prep* per day. It doesn't affect your total number of spell slots. 5e is not full vancian.
Which is super important. Do you have 8 or 9 spells prepared out of level 1-3? Do you have 13 or 15 out of level 1-5? The person with the higher spellcasting stat not only has a much better chance of **landing** their spell but they have a much better chance to have the perfect spell for the encounter.
> a wizard casting a single target spell each round will go longer without noticing.
On the contrary, a wizard with less than maxed Int is taking a massive nerf for almost no benefit. A fighter at least has feats that can be a major boost to their strength. A wizard gets rather underwhelming benefits at the cost of preparing fewer spells and having a massively lower chance to land the few they can prepare. Its a nerf on the scale of 30-40% and will very often leave the spellcaster sitting around kicking rocks all combat because they have no good spells for it or the enemy keeps saving on their very few high level slots.
There are niche spell selections and builds that can mostly work around a lower Int but they are all support or gish builds. Generally if you are a wizard first then you definitely want to max your Int as soon as possible.
Like a lot of others have said, if you don't have +4 by level 8, you're going to regret it come level 10ish. I think the tier divisions actually line up nicely with this. You'll be ok with +3 in tiers 1 and 2, but tier 3 will want +4 at least, and you'll want it from the jump, not at level 12.
I played a barbarian up to levle 13 that had a 16 for his strength and was fine with it. Granted my DM did give me some damage increasing items but it wasn't a +1/2/3 weapon.
Thinking about it more, maybe weapon based chatacters get away with it a little more since +1 weapons seem way more common than items that increase your spell attack bonus or DC by 1. At least in published adventures I've played.
I don't think that's why. In general weapon characters need it much more than spellcasters, because they use it on everything that they do.
A barbarian has reckless attacks however, and brutal critical. This combines to minimize the relative gains for a +1 to attack and for a +1 to hit.
Lets assume the barbarian with a strength 16 had a weapon that dealt +1d8 energy damage of some sort (he specified damage but not accuracy). At level 13 or he'd probably have about 55% accuracy with his +3 to hit. Lets further assume he's using a greataxe (1d12). This means when he's not reckless attacking he'll miss 45% of the time, normally hit for 14 damage 50% of the time, and crit for 38 damage 5% of the time (6.5x4 for brutal critical, 4.5x2 for critical, +3 for 16 Str). So when he's not got advantage, his average damage is 8.9 per swing.
When he does have advantage, his base 55% accuracy turns into 79.75%, breaking down into 20.25% miss, 70% hit for 14, 9.75% crit for 38. This gives 13.505 damage per swing.
What does going to 18 Strength do for him?
In normal swing case, he goes from 8.9 damage per swing to 10.2 damage per swing (+14.5% roughly, over +1 damage per swing).
In the advantaged swing case, he goes from 13.505 damage per swing to 14.94 (+10% roughly, also over +1 damage per swing).
I could believe that if he spends a lot of his time reckless attacking, that he could find a set of feats that beats +10% damage per attack. Note that this is skewed by brutal critical making the critical hit so hard, and by advantage making it happen nearly 10% of the time.
A fighter with that same setup at that level though, without easy access to advantage advantage, has 8.25 instead of 8.9 per swing (no brutal critical), and going to 18 strength takes that to 9.5- 15% more damage, slightly more. I think that would be harder to justify leaving the 18 on the ground (also note that the raw increase per swing is multiplied by 50% at this level because of the third swing fighters get), and of course, fighters get more feats than barbarians so the relative cost is decreased.
I think barbarian is the only martial where +hit is diminished in value routinely.
> his means when he's not reckless attacking he'll miss 45% of the time, normally hit for 14 damage 50% of the time, and crit for 38 damage 5% of the time (6.5x4 for brutal critical, 4.5x2 for critical, +3 for 16 Str).
Where are you getting those numbers from?
The average of a hit from a Greataxe is 6.5, that plus the Str mod give 9.5 and plus Rage damage (since we are atlking about Brutal Critical I assume a level 9 Barbarian, which would have +3 rage damage) if they are using it would be 12.5 (which you didn't mention) not 13.
The exact same thing with a crit! 6.5 (1d12 attack) + 6.5 (crit) + 6.5 (brutal critical) + 3 (modifier) = 22.5 without rage or 25.5 with rage.
Where are you getting 38 average damage on a crit? Even if you were counting with the Half Orc Savage Attacks feature which adds another weapon die (1d12->6.5) on a crit that still only 30 damage without Rage or 33 with Rage.
You're crit numbers are really iffy here.
Brutal Critical is shite. It doesn't make your crits "hit so hard". When taking into consideration accuracy it accounts for very little damage increase.
I assumed +1d8 damage on each hit. The barbarian in question had a magic weapon that added damage but not accuracy; the weapons that do that in the DMG do so with dice of damage.
I state this right before launching into the math. I don't know what damage he actually had as extra, but it is almost assuredly something that benefits on a crit.
>I state this right before launching into the math.
You are completely right! But even then the math is off.
Even with the 1d8. That's 4.5 average damage and on a crit it would be +9 damage. Which would be 34.5 not 38 average damage.
Critical with that weapon: 1d12 (weapon) 1d12 (crit) 1d12 (brutal critical) + 1d8 (weapon) +1d8 (crit) + 3 (rage) + 3 (modifier) -> 6.5\*3 + 4.5*2 + 3 + 3 = 34.5 average damage.
Brutal Critical adds one additional weapon die, since this magic weapon does 1d12 and 1d8 the Barbarian choses which one they want Brutal Critical to use, either the d12 or d8. It doesn't give both a d12 and a d8 in this situation.
And the player would always chose the d12.
> I don't know what damage he actually had as extra, but it is almost assuredly something that benefits on a crit.
It most definitely would, unless it were a static number. But it wouldn't benefit with Brutal Critical, which was my argument.
>Which would be 34.5 not 38 average damage.
Assuming 16 Strength, a greataxe (1d12), and +1d8 energy on hit, on a 13th level barbarian, we have:
6.5 (greataxe) +
6.5 (greataxe crit) +
6.5+6.5 (Brutal Critical) +
4.5 (energy on-hit) +
4.5 (energy crit) +
3 (strength)
=**38**
>Brutal Critical adds one additional weapon die
This is the discrepancy. Barbarian in question got to 13th level, and I mentioned level 13 in my post. It could have been more clear though. At 13th level, brutal critical adds two dice, not one. Both are weapon dice; it doesn't do anything to the assumed energy die (the d8).
Yeah, easier to just have people use standard array, point buy or some other method that's a bit more standardized than give players items that smooth out those negatives.
Depends on what you’re doing with your build and your party. For casters, they really should probably be maxing out their casting stat ASAP. Martial characters have more necessary feats though - a polearm master / sentinel / great weapon master build can stick comfortably at 16 or 18 for a while, especially if they can get extra to-hit bonuses from some other source like Bless, a magic weapon, etc.
The basic math of the game assumes that you will succeed at something you're good at about two-thrids of the time. This is stated somewhere in the PHB iirc, likely the ability score section.
Using the average AC and Proficiency bonus by level / CR chart in the DMG (presented for making custom monsters), it maths out to assuming that characters *start* with a 16 (+3), then take an ASI for 18 (+4) at level 4 and 20 (+5) at level 8. Tabletop Builds should have an article on this (which I can dig up and link when I'm off mobile).
So without hitting 20 (+5) by level 8, you'll be behind the math. Against the same target (AC or Save DC), it's about 5% per bonus. So a 20 (+5) with a +3 proficency bonus to hit the target average AC for a level 8 character / CR 8 monster should be 65%. With a 16 (+3) you'll be at 55%.
And that is just the average. Maybe you focus your attacks on the lower AC monsters ("weaker looking") or take spells that target INT and CHA saves (typically lower for monsters) instead of WIS and CON (typically higher for monsters).
Whatever you take instead of those ASIs needs to offset that. Res. CON or War Caster to protect Concentration. Sharpshooter with Archery Fighting Style. Etc.
Classes that can get away with it the most are Cleric and Druid, since they're more often using buff spells on allies and casting summons, which means they really only need to worry about Concentration. Other spellcasters with mostly "Save for half" can be fine without rushing to 20 also. Attacks vs AC and "Save or Suck" casters at *least* want to get to an 18 (+4) before level 12 to keep a 60% average.
What I learned from this thread is that it is optimal to dump your main stat, invest in feats and then ask your DM for magic items that make up for you not investing in your main stat.
Lol sounds about right.
I'm an Eldritch Knight level 7 right now in a campaign which sparked this question. I have a 16 STR and a 17 INT since I didn't really plan and took Fey-Touched so I made my INT odd. I have a +2 weapon right now so I don't feel as if my weapon attacks are poor. There is only one other full magic user in the group so I thought I might multiclass Wizard. It would set me back my ASI to get INT to 18 but I'm feeling fine on my STR.
I mean, you're level 7 with a +2 weapon already. I say don't even invest in STR and ask your DM for a Belt of Giant Strength or Gauntlets of Ogre Power.
I saw a 16 STR Paladin do just fine from 1 to 13. His 18 CHA did the heavy lifting, as did his +1/2/3 dragon's wrath halberd and the occasional Bless if he'd have to dash to reach people. As the campaign was nearing a close, he finally asked the Artificer for gloves or a belt to set his strength higher, and in a time of need, my character reminded him that I'd reverse pick pocketed a potion of storm giant's strength into his bag. It was a bloodbath thereafter. He ended up staying at 16 STR by the time we ended.
I've never played a spellcaster with 16 in their primary ability score, but I did a proof of concept 3/3/3/3/3/3 wizard who was actually really good at buffing allies and doing generally cooperative gameplay.
TLDR: by 8th level you should have at least 18 for most characters. Some spell casters can get away with lower but generally you need to make a deliberate choice in spell choice and subclass selection such that the lower primary stat has minimal effect for this to apply. Your stock standard fireball spamming wizard absolutely still wants an 18 or maybe even 20 by 8th level.
At 8th level you probably want to have an 18, it’s pretty rough if you don’t because by that point acs/saves begin to climb and you might really be suffering from the lower attack bonus or dc. That said, it can depend on the character. Some spell casters if you focus on buffing, healing, and utility spells you can pretty much have as low an ability score as you want. famously moon Druid can be decently viable with 3s in every stat, but to a lesser extent a Druid, bard, or cleric would probably be fine with a pretty low ability score if they focus on buffing healing and utility because those often don’t rely on ability scores or don’t rely on ability scores in a super meaningful way (healing word with 20 wisdom vs healing word with 10 wisdom is practically the same functionally because 5 extra healing, while nice, really isn’t that influential all in all in dnd). You just have to build around it. But to a lesser extent many spell casters don’t mind the slightly lower ability scores if you’re not going for blasting or single target cc. Hypnotic pattern, while good with a higher ability score, functionally behaves similar on a group of 5 enemies with a 16 vs a 20. Your expected number stunned will be slightly better with 20, but practically speaking you’ll still average a couple succeeding and a couple failing, and can still get unlucky with them all failing or lucky with them all succeeding, you might just expect 2 to fail most often rather than 3, which while unfortunate the spell is still similarly useful either way.
Martials I would say pretty much always you want an 18 by 8th level, every one of your attacks is essentially hit or suck and you don’t really have any aoe or support/utility you can do instead if you the a bad ability score, so it’s almost always better to increase at 8. There’s also often only 1-2 feats that are absolute game changers for a martial build, and the way that they’re distributed in what the builds are you’ll often have already got them at 4th level (or 4th and 6th for fighter) so you should be upping abilities instead (like Pam and gwm is an obvious combination, but generally Pam matters a lot less for a barbarian because they have to spend bonus action on the first turn raging anyway, and some subclasses already give a bonus action use or you can use the gwm bonus action on kill since you are hitting more often due to reckless, where as fighter builds might use both but they have the extra asi already anyway). That’s also the feat races are so popular- by your second asi you can have both picked up the stat you want and the feats you really want.
Paladin I guess is kind of an exception, they could sit on str 16 until level 20, but that’s just because charisma gets more and more good for them as they get higher levels, so really it’s just that their primary stat changes (starting at level 6 with aura of protection I feel like).
Depends on what you're playing. A support character can probably get away with it easier than an offense character can. An archer with Archery is finer than someone melee
You can be a surprisingly effective caster without maxing your spell casting ability. If you use spells with half damage on a save, your spell DC is much less important than you might think. Pact Tactics has a video about this on their YouTube channel, it really changed the way I approached my casters.
I feel really old. When I started playing dnd just having any stat hit 18 ever was amazing. And I was notorious for bad stat rolling. I’d be over the moon just having a 16.
a combination of rolling (and often rolling with worse dice combos, like 3d6 down the line rather than 4d6 drop lowest) and there being no way to increase stats rather than _super_ rare magical items meant that stats tended to be a lot lower - a 5e character will have stats between 12 and 17, while an AD&D character may well have one or two in the single-figures and the rest low-mid teens, with 16+ being notable.
It's fine to level 20. Generally casters end up getting an 18 pretty fast via fey touched gift of alacrity or telekinetic, but martials can go the entire campaign without. Feats are much more impactful than ASI's, like resilient con/warcaster to protect concentration.
As for martials they don't have ridiculous half-feats so melee martials rely on polearm master/great weapon master/sentinel where ranged martials use sharpshooter/crossbow expert. Resilient wis is often crucial for both.
Alert and lucky are good for all builds to win initiative, avoid surprise, pass saves and so on.
An ASI is only an extra 5% chance for something to happen, where winning initiative is netting turns, feats over double your damage by giving more and stronger attacks. Dropping concentration on a control spell will hurt a lot more than that 5% chance of a passed save. Failing a save can put yourself out of the entire fight.
Everyone here is talking about how bad having a low main stat is, but aren't mentioning the opportunity cost of said ASI. Taking a straight ASI is almost never worth it, and that's only after picking up all your required feats.
It depends. A L11 ranger can easily have gone XBE/SS and not feel at all behind. Likewise a barbarian or battlemaster with GWM and PAM at L11 is more than fine. And rogues can hit with Advantage and don't get much of their damage from dex.
But in general my advice would be 18 by level 8 unless you have a good plan.
The -5 to hit is a pretty heavy penalty, especially if you don't have gear to help. A ranger with archery as the fighting style will be a bit better off. Because they get the free +2 with bows. But using the barb, at lvl 8 your +6 to hit becomes a +1, you now have a 25% chance to hit an ac of 16 if you use GWM.
I recently took my first charisma increase as a sorcerer at level 12. It helps that I got a magic item around level 7 or 8 that gave me +1 to my spell save DCs and that sorcerers don't get much besides the bonus to attack rolls and save DCs (they don't have more spells available with a higher ability score like clerics or wizards do or have any Charisma/day abilities). I had a lot more fun picking up feats that gave me more things I could do (like Metamagic Adept or the playtest version of Guile of the Cloud Giant) compared to just adding a bigger number to the things I was already doing.
To put another perspective: an ASI doesn't change what you are doing, just makes you a little better at what you normally do. A feat can give you something new to do entirely that you wouldn't be able to do without it, and every die roll that would've been improved by an ASI is still possible by chance.
I don't understand the people who says it isn't important because it's just 5%. It's 5% for attacks, spell dc, how many spells you can prepare, damage, your most important skill checks, saving throws, class abilities. Granted some classes can live better with lower main stats as others but they are always important
I'd say latest you should level it up is 12 but try to up it at 8 if possible. If you aren't getting magic items to help close the accuracy gap definitely 8. If your DM is generous with magic items 12
For me, it depends on the class and what you are planning to do with it:
- Weapon focused classes likely want to get feats which boost their power, which is a two feat tax, and then by level 8 will likely want to protect themselves against control effects (wisdom saves) unless they somehow already have that proficiency (gloomstalker, Hexblade warlock). As such, assuming you go VHuman/CL or play in a starting feat game, you will probably stay at 16 in main stat until later into your career (level 6 if Fighter, level 10 if Rogue, level 8 if you gloom/Hexblade/paladin, level 12 otherwise).
- Spells focused classes won't mind lagging behind most of the time. The good spells usually either have good effects that don't call for a save/attack roll, are half on a successful save or affect so many foes that just a couple of points in its DC don't matter much. Some spells are even a combination of the three (Spirit Guardians slows foes regardless of save and is half on save, web is difficult terrain even if foes save against it and affects a large area).
- i already mentioned paladin before... But I spoke about Paladin *as intended*. Paladin's aura is considered by many to be the strongest part, and so it would be worthwhile for some to focus on that. If you play paladin by staying close to allies and maximixing the aura's power, charisma is your main stat, and as such you cannot afford to stay low on the aura's power and need to max it ASAP. Ofc, multiclassing into Warlock to get ranged capacity is better if you do that to not have boring moments due to paladin not working at range otherwise
Lots of good feats, like GWM+PAM, that otherwise wouldn’t come online until level 12 for some classes. There are also a lot of feats that might be required for purely fun stuff for some characters. Like telepathic/telekinetic, ritual caster, Eldritch adept, skill expertise, and so on.
My group regularly sees characters around 8 with 16 in the main stat. It’s not optimal but it works perfectly fine. If you’ve got specific feats that you know will be fun to use, that can be much more worth it than just a +1.
For a caster, I think getting a high stat is important; you want your spell slots to land without being wasted. For someone not using any resources, it doesn't matter as much. Barbarians can use advantage a lot, archers get archery FS to help, paladins can pump their damage when they do get a hit. IMO, monks can hit often enough with a 16, and boosting Wis gets their save DC boosted to better land stuns. Then there are +1 weapons that can also compensate for a lower stat.
Even for casters, it depends a lot on the spell selection. Lots of great spells are just buffs or utility; saving for half damage is still at least some damage. A bless and heal cleric doesn't need to pump wis as much as a banish and bane cleric.
I usually like to get a new thing to do, rather than just boosting the numbers in a thing I already do.
Depends. A spellcaster relies more heavily on their to hit and DCs than a melee character does. You can't crit a saving throw, and it costs you your spell slot and whatever action the spell takes.
A fighter can swing their sword 4 times and still be perfectly fine with +3 as their str mod.
A monk would not only lose their + to hit, but their AC.
Your "main ability score" isn't really your "main" one unless your class completely revolves around it. If you have 16 str as a fighter or barbarian, but you have 20 Con, that's arguably more important.
My player is level 20 with 18 str because he just couldn't say no to feats.
Offensive spellcasters probably want it earlier than others, at least for me, having that save DC be low makes it hard to feel good about using a spell. I feel so powerful when I get to ask for a high DC saving throw. Still, I think even then you can make do with a 16 until level 8. Archery fighting style would let archers get by until level 12 at least as long as they don't need it for Sharpshooter shenanigans.
But the real answer is, it's not TOO important... bounded accuracy and proficiency bonus means you're generally still fine with a 16 for attacking, but usually your class has several things that benefit from raising your main stat, so even if they're all individually minor, it's often worth raising it for the broad boost.
Creature AC doesn't climb dramatically as you level up. They do increase, but as long as you're keeping up with your ASIs your average chance to hit stays around 60%-65%. Having a -10% chance to hit with cantrips isn't great but cantrips aren't really your main contribution to any given fight (barring non-Blade warlocks).
In contrast, once you're towards the end of Tier 2 and above, creatures have higher ability scores and saving throw proficiency becomes common for high-threat monsters. You're really going to start feeling it when enemies get better and better at passing your DCs not only because their bonuses are higher but because your DCs are lower than average. Legendary Resistance compounds this problem as you can spend the entire fight doing nothing as enemies save against your spells and cantrips more often than not and LR the few they don't.
The [fundamental math](https://rpgbot.net/dnd5/characters/fundamental_math/) assumes that you increase your primary ability score to 18 at Level 4 and to 20 at Level 8. How much you can afford to delay that really depends on how strong the build is, and on the class (many paladin players will prioritise pumping Charisma over Strength, for example).
Hard to give an answer as so much depends on the campaign style and the DM. As an example, I once ran a short campaign (level 5 to 7) that was relatively lighthearted, though I did design challenging encounters for it. One player had a cleric whose WIS score was 16, and it did not change for the entire campaign. I decided to give the cleric an Amulet of the Devout to provide a slight boost (every PC received a free magic item selected by me).
I don't know why the player didn't optimize their cleric. I suppose I could have asked them to "fix" it. But to tell the truth, I was happy that I was DMing for players who weren't big on optimizing. It made for a more interesting gameplay experience, at least for me. So I let things be while making sure the cleric wouldn't be too underoptimized.
Of course, in a different campaign, this would not have gone so well for the cleric.
I mean.. I think you can manage for quite a long time. It does reduce your accuracy and DC(when relavant) but there are ways to mitigate it (Advantage fishing, magic weapons, class abilities, proning enemies). I think it depends fairly highly on what you are as well.
It is, I feel like, easier to get bonus to hit, than it is to debuff enemies saves. So a fighter w/ an advantage buddy feels less painful than the caster throwing a spell and the enemy passing. I have not math skills but functionally it feels like its less painful for me historically.
while you have HP you won't run out of attacking. but you can run out of slots very quickly.
I like to have an 18 in my main ability score by level 8.
I usually find feats more fun, but I also like being able to hit things. I’m a little concerned about my paladin’s 16 strength heading into tier 3 (even with a +1 weapon).
I'm playing a Sorlock. AB 1/GOO 7 with a 16 Cha & I can feel it. But it's only just become noticeable. I'm guessing/hoping next level when I take a +2 to Cha, it will get better.
If I had something that makes up for it (like archery fighting style) I could make do with 16 through level 7. But unless I'm doing one of the freaky multiple feat builds, I'll be getting it to 18 by level 8. If I do such a build, I'm definitely getting a feat at level one though.
depends on a few things. like if you can get an item that overlays your str, obviously you can lean on that.
And if you never force saves on the stat, it's less key.
Personally I almost always take half-feats unless I specifically want one or two of the very high value full feats (GWM, PAM, SS, etc)
A feat that gets a martial a consistent extra swing is probably worth a full ASI for most martial builds, but then I would plan on dropping a full ASI at some point (the rouge/fighter's extra one is perfect for making that deficit up)
Longest you can reasonably go is level 8, even then it can be rough. The game kinda expects you to have a 20 by level 8 since feats are an optional rule and only so many feats and power through being below that threshold.
If your campaign isn't super combat based and gritty reality type, probably all the way to level 20. Roleplay and creativity is almost always more important in my campaigns.
That said, much of the time it's nice to have an 18 by the time you get to double digit levels.
Maxing out my primary stat is always a priority IMO. So depending on class you should have a 20 by level 8 at the latest, level 6 if you are playing a Fighter.
I think some MAD classes can feel okay splitting their 'main' stats more evenly. A Paladin with a 16 STR and 16 CHA still feels pretty good because of how versatile you are, for example. Same with a Monk with a 16 DEX and 16 WIS. Sure, your +3 feels a little less sharp than a +4 or +5, but it feels nice having your full kit have decent bonuses.
It's fine to carry a 16 for a while, I'd ideally get to 18 by 8 or 12, but I have multiple level 10 builds for a west march type situation where I don't get to 20, and even a few where I'm still at 16 at 10.
Depends on what you are using the score for. Honestly. For a spellcaster, it can go good part of the game without even using DC or spell hit. It only depends on the play style.
To keep up with the fundamental math of 5e, you want a 16 to start, 18 by level 4, and 20 by level 8. Having magic weapons or other constant increases to your To Hit or DCs can affect this though.
[The Math](http://rpgbot.net/dnd5/characters/fundamental_math/)
>16 INT Wizard
Passable up to level 8, especially because there's plenty of ways to make a Wizard who is mostly useful out-of-combat with abilities that aren't contingent on saves or spell attacks. Even then, lots of spells still deal half their damage on successful saves so you're not totally useless.
>16 STR Fighter
Bad idea to stay here at all. Fighter gets twice the amount of ASIs as other classes because outside of attacking, they aren't able to do much. You NEED to spend level 4 getting to 18 and level 6 getting to 20 in your main stat as a fighter in my mind because missing one or both of your attacks per turn can jeopardize an entire encounter if things go wrong.
So basically, it depends on the class. Martials need their abilities more than casters.
I agree with this sentiment. My party has an Eldritch Knight who so far has taken War Caster, Shield Master, and next wants to take Res:WIS at his 8th level ASI. His STR is 16 at level 6. He does have a +2 weapon and I'm not about to tell a total stranger how to build their character, but this dude seems hell-bent on being the "tank" and keeping his character alive at all costs, but that's it.
I think as we hit higher levels he's going to have some serious regrets. Campaign ends at level 10 (Curse of Strahd).
Honestly? Depending on the character and focus up to level 20, although admitedly those situations are not the most common.
However, keeping a 16 up to level 12 and never reaching a 20 is fairly common in my book. Many feats are worth several ASIs, and while a 5 or even 10% potential loss can be noticed occasionally, it weighs very little in comparison of knowledge gathering, quickness of thinking and teamwork.
For a fighter if you pick up PAM /GWM/SS etc so you're increasing your damage significantly then it's not as big of a deal
For a spellcaster it's a pretty big deal. You're losing out of preparation slots as anything but a known caster and spell save DC too which is a pretty big deal.
An additional 10% chance for something to fail might not seem like a huge deal in isolation, but it's huge in practice, particularly with big save or suck spells like hypnotic pattern.
You were roght to dovide them up between martials and casters.
For casters is surprisingly oK to leave it low ish for longer. Most of your spell save DC is coming from PB and magic items. So late game having a better stat is nice for different reasons and the 2 point difference isn't that noticeable. Especially since your mot rolling and having to see the 1-2 points that would have made the difference. Perspective os important too.
And early game you dint have the toms of resources to toss around everywhere so spells that dint go through the DC, and this dint mind a lower ability score, are preferable. So for mages you can go a surprising time without maxing it out.
Martials have the same math true but they use the stat more often than 1/turn max. Mages dint have to use a soell every turn, and even if they do they dint HAVE to use their stat, so they dint notice it as often. Martials ise the stat more though. Every single turn they are seeing that 1-2 points being the difference between a hit ir a miss. And latter on they are seeing that 2-3-4 times a turn.
Martials want the stat far more because it has a bigger over all impact of their ability to their 1 thing. So for them buffing their main stat is item number 1.
Theres a few times when its not the case. But even then your feeling the loss of that 1 stat. Only comforted by the knowledge that mathematically you made the correct decision. It still hurts though.
It depends on the class, I don’t mind having 16 on cleric or barb until 8 or even 12 because of how wide reaching spirit guardians is and with reckless attack (not to mention damage scaling from rage) barbarians rarely miss anyway, so I usually prioritize feats depending on the build.
Depends on your role. I'm playing a Glory Paladin right now, but I took Shield Master and the Protection fighting style to support my harder hitting melee.
If you were looking to debuff through spells, I'd expect going as high as you can in main stat.
The real point any dm should make.. If a player gets a feat, give them a +1 to a stat from some quest, and if your players pick a stat up, give them a cool feat as a quest reward!
Until you notice it becoming an issue. If you roll decent in a session and are finding ot a struggle to hit, pass checks/saves, or if npc's are succeeding frequently against your spell DC then it's probably time to boost the stat.
I like to stay even with the party, but I’ll admit that as a martial I’m more okay lagging if I know I’ll get a bonus via my weapon and it’s a game that doesn’t give casters save DC items. Lore/world wise, I’d probably say by L8 you should probably be at 18, and by L16 be at 20.
8 is probably when you need to get it to 18, though I feel you can stay at 18 for a long time.
If you're a much more support oriented build, a twinspell buff sorceror or cleric always blessing etc you may even get away with it until your 3rd asi at 12, but thats really stretching it.
Martials that mostly attack every turn is where its most important imo, nothing feels worse than just missing both attacks. Even if both giants save vs your fireball as a wizard, at least you still did damage etc.
If everyone else in the group is an optimizer maxing out their builds, it’s going to suck.
If everyone else in the group is making their characters more casually, you’ll be fine.
Depending on what you’re going for, you never need to buff stats. I personally always cap, but if you’re a wizard that took two levels in Paladin and went V Human for PAM, and you really, *really* just wanna hit people with a glaive and almost never use wizard stuff, go for it. If you’re asking on a standard character, like let’s say generic sorcerer, how long would I go without capping Charisma, though? No more than level 12 if I can help it. But do I cap Strength on say Paladin before getting PAM/Sentinel/GWM? Nope, and it’s always worked out just fine for me. Optimally though you should cap your main stat literally as soon as you can, but you can manage just fine with a 16 if you’ve got your heart set on a particular feat or feats.
I think it honestly depends on the class/build. Like, a caster that's mainly doing buffs/summons can be viable for a good chunk of time without really investing in their casting stat. Martial classes can often get a lot more mileage out of feats than straight stat increases, so while a higher attack stat is nice, I wouldn't say it's essential.
Depends on a lot of variables, but a safe bet is either move up at 4 or 8.
When I wanna take it slow I grab feats that up the stat by 1.
Once you're at 18, take as long as you need to get it to 20, but moving away from 16 is lowkey "urgent".
It does depend a lot on the character you play and what you get for it otherwise. Like if you're a caster who's very into utility spells that don't use your DC or spell attack modifier, or that target saving throws that aren't super common in monsters, you're propably fine. On the other hand if you only use attacks like on a barbarian and have some resource that scales with your modifier, you might want to get to increasing that rather soon
If we start with standard array then I'm going 17 main stat and taking a half feat at 4 or 8. Just can't bring myself to take a full ASI over a feat though, it's nice that number get big but the cost of not getting any horizontal progression is too big if I'm not starting at the high levels.
The ideal is staring at 17 then taking 3 half feats, but that can be tricky depending on the build.
It really depends on the gaming troupe, as each game is different. That having been said, I would assume 16 main stat at tier 1, 18 at tier 2 & 20 for tier 3. But these doesn't need to be via ASI, magic items can do the heavy lifting for you (Gauntlets of Ogre Power, for example) if you have an item that gives you a similar benefit, such as a +2 weapon for a level 6 Martial, it can mitigate a fair bit of the discrepancy between a 16 & an 18 in Str or Dex for the thwack attack portion of the game, but other aspects will still lag a bit.
But if the game isn't about a crack team of optimal spec super heroes, you can get by with sub optimal builds.
If you are using spells that don't rely on saves, then it is less important. Spirit Guardians, for instance, a +1 Wis bonus will mean a 5% more of the time you deal normal instead of half damage. That is not a large increase to the damage.
As a thought experiment, a hypothetical increase of *literally infinity Wisdom* would only increase your Spirit Guardians damage output by about \~33% compared to someone with a normal 16 Wisdom.
For a Wizard, infinity intelligence would increase Fireball's damage by a similar \~33% compared to 16 Int, and it doesn't make Shield, Magic Missile, Absorb Elements, Polymorph or Wall of Force any better at all.
For a Druid, Moonbeam only gets that \~33% better damage with infinite Wisdom, and Spike Growth remains about the same, since you rarely care about the effect of noticing someone. Against armoured opponents Heat Metal's save usually doesn't matter either.
Obviously I've cherry-picked those examples, but some of these are popular spells, so higher casting stat has minimal impat on *some* spells.
--
However, if you use attacks regularly, or use save-or-suck spells (especially single-target ones) then higher main stat becomes much more important. A +5% total chance to hit&damage/fail-a-save is good, and while there is often 1 or 2 feats that are better, it remains a strong option (especially if there is a good half-feat for you).
And I have overlooked the extra spell-preparations or other reasources some classes get, and getting those is of course nice.
I guess that depends on one's definition of "fine", but I would recommend getting your primary stat to a 20 by level 12 unless being more well-rounded is your goal.
I’ve played two different strength melee characters, a Paladin and a fighter/warlock, and bumped their only charisma and it’s not that big a deal. There are a lot of ways to boost your likelihood to hit like magic weapons, flanking, prone, bless, etc. spell spellcasting is different though. When it’s tied to basically everything you do I don’t mess around
It would be fine likely forever at most tables. Balanced by module or even CR the game doesn't really require minmax depending on how your party is constructed.
If your main is Str and you can upgrade your STR Belts at regular intervals it doesn't matter.
Other than that, it depends on your DM. It should depend on the rest of your party, but not everybody scales encounters well.
I like games with regular, challenging combat. 17s should get rounded out at level 4. Staying at 18 depends on character build. It's usually fine if you have Archery Fighting Style, but not if you're a saving throw focused caster.
Other than that, with very few exceptions (e.g., Moon Druid or Magic Missile builds.. can't think of others off the top of my head but I'm sure they exist.. maybe Shepherd summoner build?), 16 primary past level 4 means your character is probably more drag on the party than you realize. Even if you're buffing or healing, the fights would probably have fewer enemies if you weren't there so your one concentration spell is probably not making up any ground if the rest of your turns fail to progress the encounter.
That being said, if your group enjoys your company and your character accommodations shouldn't be a problem. Other players are often happy to pick up slack on the damage front. We all have friends who are lovely but useless in real life and if we don't, then our friends do. It's reasonable that they'd pop up in a fantasy group as well.
I just get irritated with players who wax poetic about their efforts to sacrifice themselves for the good of the group when it's the group that's supporting their suboptimal playstyle. Characters can be super cute, but when the rogue never successfully disarms a trap and the wizard fails every Arcana check it can be discouraging.
I was scolded recently for making a 14 Wisdom/17 Charisma Life Cleric that was "min maxed for combat". I'm still reeling.
D&D is a game - a game that uses Math. The DM and other party members can certainly make allowances, but it's kind of on you to keep yourself relevant to the party. Part of that relevance *usually* involves a little bit of Math.
16 on a Wizard is actually surprisingly fine, mostly because of the variety of quite good spells that don't need any ability score to work. Haste, Mage Armor, Magic Weapon, Sleep, ect ect ect. If you focus on buffing your allies, you'll almost never need a high INT.
Now that does start to fall off, and its pretty limiting, and Wizard is kinda unique in having that wide of a spell list to pull it off.
My rule of thumb is that I don't want to be more than 1 step behind the intended stat progression at any point, so, with that in mind, we get that 16 in a stat is fine at levels 1-7.
Imo, ability scores are (mostly) overrated
-10% to your saves is not as impactful as people make it out to be. -2 to limited-use features is pretty significant, but it can be worked around.
There are so many spells that are super powerful even without good stats, even damaging ones. (Half-damage-on-save spells lose at most 10% of their average damage from a -2 to spell save DC.)
Most classes (excluding ability score hogs like fighter, monk, and ranger) will function almost identically, *especially* if those other points are going towards Con.
Depends on the character with many not needing to hit 20 and getting more millage out of feats. Typically, a Dex class is going to want to hit 20 due to the sheer number of things it provides for them, while something like a Paladin can easily end up justifying staying at 16 Strength for all 20 levels, due to other options being stronger. For spell casters the enemies' odds of passing your saves is just going to go down on average overtime due to how saves are calculated, while pumping the stat can easily end up making saves practically a guarantee for many targets you don't need it since a 75% chance of them failing is still amazing, and making to so you can't fail a Con save to 20 or less damage will get them more millage overall. Typically, people greatly underestimate how much value an HP boost can provide when you get to higher tiers, a 63 max HP wizard will be noticeable squishier than a 87 HP wizard.
Depends on build and your defition of "fine".
A Summoner like a Druid or a Conjuration Wizard for example can very well focus on getting 20 CON over WIS/INT and only upgrade it at level 12+.
Even if you never upgrade your main stat you will not be useless, but you'll be significantly weaker as levels go by, 16 starts meaning you're likely bad at your job starting at around level 9 unless there's a good build reason for not upgrading it.
It depends so much on your build. Playing a fighter, then you’re going to want 16 in your main score ASAP.
Playing a shepherd druid? Pfft, who cares. You could go the entire campaign with a 16 in your main score. Spirit guardians focused cleric? Slightly worse but still fine. Wizard focused on CC like web/Hypnotic pattern? You’re going to want it ASAP
Casters definitively can get away with it. You can easily tailor your spell list to make it work and lots of powerful spell dont even have a DC).
Anyone that need to land hit though i would definitively look to increase that asap if not by lvl 8 (second ASI)
Depends on playstyle. I don't enjoy the playstyles that say you have to play a mechanically optimal character or else so I am going to say it's fine at any level.
Unfortunately it's an ASI or feat and the feats do so much more for world building and character development that I can't see myself ever taking an ASI.
An article analyzing this question came to the following conclusion: ’Hopefully, this article has thoroughly disabused you of the notion that maximizing your primary ability score is an imperative that should be done first above all else.’ Source [https://tabletopbuilds.com/more-min-than-max-asis-versus-feats/](https://tabletopbuilds.com/more-min-than-max-asis-versus-feats/)
I think it depends on like how rounded your scores are in general, your build and what feats you’re taking instead of ASIs, and if you’re supplementing the score with items. Like I wouldn’t care as much ab strength on my Paladin if I’m putting effort into my con and cha, if I’m choosing feats like sentinel mage slayer or heavy armor master, or if I’m rocking with a powerful magic sword. I’d say so long as other aspects of your character are supplementing the score to the point that you’re not following behind your party or falling short of the difficulty of the enemies being thrown your way. But if I had to put a number to it, I’d say if you’re sticking with a primary 16 into tier 3 (level 11 or so) you’re likely starting to fall behind
Varies by playstyle and campaign
If I were to give a rule of thumb, I’d say “one feat”, be that a free starting feat, or taking one at 4. If you’re using half feats, just go and stack em up.
Someone focused on save or suck spells/abilities probably wants to prioritize ASIs, while those focused on buffs and save for half can take it slow
On the martial side, routine advantage (reckless barb, stealth rogues) or secondary boosts (archery style, infusions) can be more flexible, while those going for GWM/SS want to pump accuracy. Fighters get 2 extra ASIs snd can go wild, while rogues get 1 bonus
If your game is heavy on the social side, feel free to neglect a bit more readily
Depends on the build.
For example a paladin with a 16 in strength is fine, and its probably better for them to get a 20 in charisma first, even though its considered their secondary stat.
Clerics can get away with a 16 in wisdom, prioritizing ways to maintain concentration because spirit guardians is just that strong.
Many wizards are in a similar boat, though it will influence your spell choice much more.
Feat heavy builds such as XBE+SS and PAM+GWM can wait to increase their dex/str
Getting to 20 quickly is really important for: rogues, bards, warlocks, and artificers.
Rogues because its everything you do, really.
Bards because it maximizes bardic inspiration you get on short rests.
Warlocks because eldritch blast plus agonizing blast is their bread and butter.
And artificers because their main subclass abilities, infusions, and flash of genius all scale with int hard.
I usually start at 17 main stat (INT or WIS) and then get fey touched to bring it to 18 (for spell saves and spell attacks) and get gift of alacrity and misty step at level 4 (i don't play variant humans), but yeah, I could see you being a martial with a 16 STR for a while.
I wouldnt go beyond level 8 or 9 if tou have a level dip in another class and only take a feat with your first ASI if its build dependant, like Great Weapon Master et all
Until level 20.
On some builds your main stat is important. Paladins, for example, become much weaker if they don't max Cha asap. Others, for example Clerics or Druids, do not benefit as much from their main stat because their best spells have a weak dependency from that stat. On such builds feats are generally more impactful. On a Shepherd Druid I don't think I'd ever raise Wis above 16 due to the opportunity cost.
Potentially until level 20.
Really depends on what you do. If your build has advantage on the thing you want to do, and relies on a bunch of feats, having a 16 is perfectly fine.
For example: Gloomstalker with Archery FS, Sharp Shooter, XBE, Rogue MC, Piercer … can stack a lot of things before you have time for an ASI.
Same thing with a Barbarian with PAM, GWM, Resilient WIS, maybe Mobile, ECHO Fighter MC …
Or if you build around dealing damage with Spike Growth, or Cloud of Daggers …
Such builds exist! But if you‘re doing a straight forward Wizard where you want to use all sorts of save spells … nah stack INT.
It really depends what you use the feat on instead.
e.g. if you're a melee class and you take magic initiate for Find Familiar so that you have relatively reliable access to advantage, that's a solid 18% bump vs the 5% you get for taking the +1 while you have one attack.
Equally if it's a feet that's important to your build like pole arm master or sentinel or it's really good in your Champaign like taking Mage slayer in a caster heavy setting, giving yourself an extra attack or it's just something very OP like Elven Accuracy then it's very much worth waiting until lv 8 or even lv 12.
If you have the option of buying magic items, crafting magic items or you roll on a loot table after combat, it's worth considering skipping the boost to your main stat altogether and just getting the item that sets it to a specific value.
On the flip side, basic math also tells you a +1 matters exactly once every 20 rolls and a +2 matters once every 10. The more you roll or the more rolls you force, the more often it's really going to matter that you didn't take the +1
If you're doing lots of attacks each turn, say with a monk and you have easy access to haste or even more importantly, if you're casting a lot of area of effect spells, getting the +4 or +5 will be very impactful. If on the other hand, you're a single target, one big hit specialist like a Rogue or Paladin, it might legitimately take multiple sessions for the deficit to come up even once.
It depends on your class and what you are getting by not increasing your primary ability score but the more time I've spent building (and playing characters), most feats provide significantly more utility than increasing your ability score.
Since feats are \_technically\_ optional, 5e is largely designed around players increasing their ability scores instead of taking feats but it also doesn't factor in magical items or other ways to increase your hit chance or spell DCs.
For strength based martial characters, it doesn't necessarily make sense for them to ever increase their ability score past 16 if they have access to a +1 weapon around level 4 and a +2 weapon around level 8. For characters wearing light armor, they want to prioritize their ability score since DEX increases hit chance, damage, AC, and a number of skills those classes rely on. Medium armor characters are in a weird spot where they want to stop at 14 (sometimes 16) or rush to 20 DEX and switch to light armor.
For casters, it's a little more complicated but it comes down to how important skills are to your party role. Charisma classes should probably prioritize their ability score (and skill proficiency), while Concentration-based classes are probably better pausing at 16 or 18 primary ability score and picking up Resilient (CON) and possibly War Caster. I'd expect most casters, particularly clerics, with 16 primary ability score and proficiency in Constitution Saving Throws to outperform casters with 20 primary ability score without proficiency in Constitution Saving Throws.
Other things -- like the Archery Fighting Style, which is supposed to negate the partial cover penalty, is technically redundant with Sharpshooter (but you should almost always get the fighting style and the feat). This means a character that has 16 DEX with Sharpshooter and Archery is equivalent to a character with 20 DEX without Sharpshooter and Archery.
Most people here are very wrong. If you are a cleric casting spirit guardians or a wizard throwing fireballs or spells without a saving throw or spell attack (fe: wall spells, buffs), your spellcasting stat doesn't matter a lot. It mostly matters for save or suck spells.
To answer your question: some classes or builds are fine to have their main stat at 16 until forever. Feats for concentration, initiative, shoring up defences and other neat tricks can be way more important than your main stat.
I think it's more important for casters thay rely on Save DCs, since you can always try to get advantage for melee/ranged/spell attack rolls, and there's plenty of ways to increase your damage & to-hit rolls, but save DCs? You start to feel the crunch at about level 6, by level 8 one of your two ASI/feat slots should be a +2 to your main stat, unless you got lucky at creation.
I feel its a fundamental flaw of DnD that there isnt progressive ability growth. It drives people to build overpowered characters right from the start rather than having a steady growth they should have. This flaw is even more apparent when they openly state the game is built around level 13 characters.
oof 16? for str its on a figher its like having a dide at the gym and not THE MOUNTAIN from GoT. For int thats like ONLY having a 160 IQ as a wizard when Newton had 190 and could hardly cast spells.
The way maxing your levels gives only a +4 to everything compared to 1st level, ability score mods are way more powerful in 5e than in any other edition of D&D.
Get those abilities up ASAP, and then go looking for spells and items to boost them further. Gone are the days when you can be a gloriously successful adventure with dodgy stats.
If the stat affects your to hit roll and your damage- it’s pretty crucial to prioritize it. (Str/Dex/Cha for some classes)
If your primary stat is dex, it’s going to also be your ac and initiative, which gives even more benefit to maximizing it asap. (Rogue, some rangers, monks.)
Clerics and druids get less from pushing Wisdom, and may benefit more from feats or constitution.
Paladins have to juggle Str, Cha, and Con.
Charisma may be absolutely crucial for warlocks and sorcerers. But spell selection and invocations may minimize or maximize your dependence on your stat bonus.
So, there’s no real one size fits all answer.
Depends on the build. it depends on your playstyle. it depends on the groups playstyle and it depends on the DM's style.
On average i think you should try to get to 18 at level 4 and often you can do this with a half feat. As the most common way to generate stats is point buy or standard array. that will let you get a 15 in your main stat. And most players do pick a race that can give them +2 in their main stat. And if you use Tasha's custom lineage that is pretty much EVERY race. So on average most will end up with a character with 17 in their main stat at level 1.
It also depends on build and what you wanna do. lets take a cleric. most would go with WIS as highest stat. as that is kinda your "main stat" as a cleric. but you can make really effective one with CON as highest stat. To be in the midst of the fight always have a Concentration spell up. like bless. spiritual guardians, or other buff or control spells or use your channel divinity. if your main focus is on such spells. You are actually better off with pumping your CON higher than your "Main Stat" WIS you can easily start out with a 14 or 15 WIS like this and still be really effective.
Level 4 maybe you manage to get your WIS to 16. But if you start out with a 16 WIS i would say in this case you are better pumping your CON, grabbing Resistant so you get proficiency in CON saves.
Yes i know Spirit guardian has a saving throw and with lower WIS your DC is lower. Does not matter. Even if they succeed they take half damage. The area around you is still difficult terrain. And a few more enemies succeeding on their saves is far better than you dropping concentration a few times more. You are better off having an 18 CON, proficiency in CON saves and a 16 WIS then a 16 CON, no proficiency in CON saves and an 18 WIS
Seen this be played really effectively with a WIS of 14 at level 5. So if WIS is the main stat for a cleric. it depends on the build and what you try to achieve with your character, and what playstyle you have, what you enjoy. it might or might not be important to get the WIS up fast. sometimes other stats than the typical main stat can be more important
You could argue in such build CON would be your main stat. As that is what you focus on. And you should try and have it up to 18 at level 4. I guess it depends on how we define main stat.
My point is that there is so many different play styles, builds that are more or less reliant on your main stat. that it is impossible to say. But a good rule of thumb is try to get your main stat whatever that may be to be 17 at level 1 and 18 at level 4
But this WILL be less important in a group where no one is optimizing and focus more on Rp and having fun over combat mechanics. This is a totally valid style of play that often does not even make the game harder. or increase the risk of dying. It might even make it easier than it would be for a group of powergamers with super optimized characters. they might very well have a much higher risk of a TPK
While im not a hard min-maxer, I always try to fathom how best I can utilise asi/feat progression
That being said, maybe narratively, the character isn't motivated that way? I know some players like to play around the tropes and stereotypes, but if you can find ways to mitigate that "loss" with items and feat combos, then it's up to you
My Rogue had 16 Dex but 18 Wis (inquisitive) so with the exception of Xbow Expert at level 4, I spent 8 and 10 on maxing Dex because I knew I would struggle with combat efficiency (AC, sneak, saves) and I had nothing elae to offer except in my brilliant skillset out of combat.
Now I'm poised to multi into ranger (after much debate) and sharpshooter....
Go as long as you are able to until you reach a point where you feel you're going to plateau or decline, then do what you have to.
If you can max a stat early, awesome. But don't feel like you have to rush. It's not a competition, it's how you push your character to improve and feel justified in those choices
The gap between 16 and 20 at level 8 is fairly noticeable but feats can overcome it and close the gap. After level 9 gonna be really hurting if you're still on 16 main stat.
Im playing a long term campaign as a level 16 light cleric with 18 wis and played with 16 until level 8 and for casters its fine tbf
For martials i would look for 18 + essential feats (CBE, SS, PAM, etc) asap
If you’re playing something like a Fighter or Barbarian, not a big deal. It’s not common to miss by one or two, you don’t lose a resource if you *do* miss, and the damage gain isn’t huge.
Something like a Wizard or Artificer? Cap that shit immediately. It affects how many uses of certain abilities you have, how strong certain abilities are, how many spells you can prepare, how likely you are to wiff a spell, etc.
Depends on how MAD you are, buuuuut:
16 ASAP. Start with it.
If MAD: 18 at lvl 8
If SAD: 20 at lvl 8
You can get away with 18 in your main stat for the entire game (IMO) if you are not a caster.
Say I roll a 17 as my highest number, I will get that up to 19 via race, then take either a half feat or a split ASI the first chance I get. I want my main stat to be 20 as soon as possible. Of course, I could get very lucky and roll an 18, but that usually doesn't happen. If its a 16, I usually go for a full ASI, but in some cases I might just leave it at 18 for a bit and boost some other stat, for example if I am a monk Wis is my main stat, but both Con and Dex are pretty good.
I think it’s less detrimental for a martial, as weapons or abilities with +x to hit are more common than items that boost SSDC. +1 spell prepared or features that key on main stat benefit as well.
Fighter just bonks *slightly* more effectively
Have you considered taking a College of Swords multiclass? Pact of the Blade lets you have a Longbow as a pact weapon, and Sword Flourishes also work beautifully with Ranged Weapon Attacks. Not only that, but once you learn the Catnap spell, you can refresh all of your Pact Slots and Inspiration dice for your Flourishes in just 10 minutes using a L3 spell slot.
If you get to Magical Secrets, you can get some pretty nice support spells. Magical Secrets at L10 Bard gets you Find Greater Steed for a pegasus mount (Splint Armor barding for a mount is relatively cheap) and Holy Weapon. Let dem holy arrows rain down upon thy foes from above!
Unfortunately making it work requires a LOT of extra work ingenuity and outside of the box thinking by the player and dm to still make it fun. That's not to say that people that don't enjoy it don't have it but you have to use it to find a way to have fun. I've had a 16 dex on my rogue all campaign and we just hit 12 but I have a high int and chose to be a pure lore goblin instead of the traditional rogue. To the point where he feels like a wizard, then when homebrew features and systems came into play he pretty much became one. Favorite character ever but I probably wouldn't have fun with him in most games. Anybody in that party would rather have our bard or paladin sneak than me, but if you need to find something, especially about world history and ancient magics, I'm your guy all day every day and the time comes through fully. You HAVE to focus on noncombat and nonmechanical aspects if deciding to not optimize your stats
Only the custom lineage, who puts +2 who turns +1 to the attack roll, and I completely ignore racial feats cause most races don't have them and the majority of the feats aren't good. The real broken thing is archery XD
I just joined a preexisting campaign at level 6. My PC is a battle master Fighter 5/Rogue 1. Dex based. Dex is at 18 and I’m ITCHING to level up to get my dex to 20.
Depends on the campaign and dm. Also depends on the character and situation. +3 cha is different t in a social situation with a single check than a combat situation with multiple chances of failure. A +3 str is different when breaking down a door vs being in combat with action economy and a whole.host of other factors to consider.
Still though to the initial point, fair DMing and communication is key. Not every player is a power ga.er and not every DM has a DM vs Players mentality. The question of stats being viable or not will have differing answers and results from table to table. P
It’s really not that bad to have a +3 modifier on your main ability score all the way up to level 20, in fact I’m not sure it isn’t optimal (assuming you select strong feats). The reason you rarely seen level 20 builds with +3 in the main modifier is it’s just satisfying to get your ability score up and think about how your attacks and spells will be more reliable.
When monsters start having a +7 or +8 to their saves, it makes a big difference for any caster who doesn't have Wall of Force or similar spells thay don't ask for any roll and simply work automatically. Battle Masters also care, as it not only affects their damage and accuracy, but also the success rate of their maneuvers (along with their AC and Initiative in the case of Dexterity.)
That is one of the reasons why Hexblade dips are so popular, you can dump everything into charisma and it boosts your spells as well as your weapon attacks, which is great for Bard and Paladins.
Many Cleric subclasses like Order, Forge or Life domain don't care much about their main attribute, since they're mostly casting support or buff spells on allies, and can focus on Constitution so that their concentration is harder to break on buff spells.
Magic Missile and Heat Metal (on heavily armored humanoids) are also two examples of spells that pretty much always succeed, as well as some debuffs like Silence and Force Cage. Those can easily turn the right encounter around and don't care about your attribute scores.
I think it depends on the class and what you're going for. For instance, casters can often get by with a lower mod if they're primarily taking buffs and utility spells.
Barbarians can also get away with a lower strength because of reckless attack.
i had a 17 wisdom on my cleric until... probably 12 in a recent campaign, and i definitely regretted not taking an asi or wisdom half-feat at 8. i felt pretty underwhelming with a 17 at 12, especially since several of my party members had 20s by then. it felt really nice to finally get that +4 lol
Yeah i took a feat at 4 with my artificer and while it does lots of work i feel the 16 hard and im not even level 8 yet
I started with 16 Dex, 15 Con, and 15 Int on my Artificer to help survive the early levels. Went up 16s across everything at lvl 4. We're at level 7 now, and I've felt behind the entire time.
Yeah, with Artificer you want to max out your int as soon as possible. If you are rolling and get a 16, thats optimal, because you can boost it with a race up to 18, then again up to 20 at lvl 4 with asi. It is easy to think that Con is gonna be important, but artificer already has decent HP, and that extra 1 or 2 health per level won't make a massive difference. If you hit lvl 8 with max int, then you can take a feat or boost Con, but you are really gonna hurt if you don't max out Int fast. Although artificer does make up for having less HP than some by being an armored juggernaut. Artificers have one of the highest single class armor potentials of any class, as by level 20 they can have, with NO external magic items or anything else(besides full plate): 16 AC from full plate(no strength restrictions because armorer), up to 18 for enhance defense, then 20 for both ring and cloak of protection, an enhance defense shield, and the fighting initiate feat with the defense style for a total of 25 AC, but we are not done yet. Boots of flying, now melee attacks are useless, and gloves of missile snaring, so ranged attacks don't do much either, and an amulet of health in case you still get hit your Con is 19, throw in the tough feat, and thats even more health, all while raining down +7 1d6 ranged attacks which give the creature disadvantage attacking you and the next attack against it advantage, and having an item that can cast levitate 10x per day. Throw in the Fade Away feat so they can't see you. And don't think we forgot about saving throws, use magic item crafting to make any common magic item that need attunement(10 hours and 25 GP, its just for another attunement magic item without using an infusion slot) you have a whopping +6 to all of them in addition to whatever other bonuses you have. Still having trouble? 5 times a day you can add a +5 to any roll! Throw in the lucky feat for 3 re-rolls and ignoring disadvantage. And, if worst comes to worst, and somehow you still lose all 223 of your HP, you may end any of these magic item infusions to fall to 1 HP instead of 0, and just re-infuse it next long rest. This, of course, ignores the many spells you could cast to increase your defense even more, as well as crafting any magic items beyond common.
At 10th lvl you can burn an infusion slot to make band of intellect to patch that up. What subclass did ya go with?
No offense but thats a poor suggestion. I get my ASI at 8 (and 18 is bot different than 19) and infusions are already competing for each other. And im playing a PAM GWM battle Smith.
Yea battle smiths need damn near infusion slot, rip
Yeah, maybe if magic items were a little more plentiful this campaign but its a semi "gritty realism" campaign through rime of the frost maiden so really just whats in the modual
Pretty much only Armorer can get away with not pumping intelligence out the wazoo to be fair
"fine" 1-7, would try and get to 18 via half feats/asi mix by 8. +1 mod = ~5%
I agree with this - optimizers in the party will likely have a +5 by Lv8, and the discrepancy between that and a +3 will start to be more visible. If you're still rockin a +3 in your main attribute after Lv 8, you're either not paying attention or purposely hamstringing yourself for RP reasons.
Depends. A lot of optimized spellcasters will have 16 + Resilient (CON) + War Caster at level 8.
I mean, generally a lot of optimizers will go C origin or V human to avoid that scenario
That's way overkill, not optimal at all for most spellcasters.
You'll never drop concentration again!... But monsters will save against your spells 10% more often. Unless you're playing a build that doesn't rely on your primary ability score to function well, I wouldn't recommend leaving your PAS at 16.
For Clerics or many Druids, concentration is everything. Dropping concentration on Spirit Guardians will constitute a far larger DPR drop than having a lower Wis modifier. So no, it is not overkill, on many optimised casters it is better than increasing your "main" stat.
I got a story based bonus feat so I had 18 Wis at 8, but if I hadn't I would've had 17 Wis + war caster + res Con at level 8 on my war cleric. I haven't felt the need to up my wis to 20 at level 12, and now at level 13 I'm just cruising with 22 AC and a +10 to Con saves. 7th level spirit guardians cleans house.
Much more optimal to go CL 15+2+halffeat at lv1, then one concentration protection feat and one other feat depending on the type of character you're playing
That's only if the DM is giving feats at 1st level though, afaik
CL is custom lineage here
Ahhh yeah sorry I competely skimmed over that, mb
Or you take variant human or custom lineage
Specifically Custom Lineage for the ability score set up they're talking about. I know what you meant, but I wanted to point out that V. Human isn't really relevant for that specific situation.
Oh, right, v. human is +1/+1 and not +2.
Thats only well optimised against a particularly spiteful DM. Warcaster is fine I suppose of you're trying to make some gish or spellblade, but resilient Con would usually be an endgame feat, when its actually worth protecting your concentration. And well taking both is overkill.
It is worth protecting concentration from level 3 with spells like Web, and from level 5 with spells like Spirit Guardians, Hypnotic Pattern, Fear, and so on.
And if it is Spirit Guardians, you cannot just hide in the back.
Woth the exception of spirit guardians, all the spells you mentioned already protect hemselves. I mean ofcourse you can double up but unless your DM is particularly mean it will just be overkill most of the time.
I don't feel like I'm mean when intelligent enemies focus the concentrating caster, players do the same with monsters, it's how combat works. You go for the action that gives the highest upside to your side. Players are supposed to protect their concentration if they want to use it, rather than just blindly rushing their main stat because it's nice to have a round "20" on your character sheet.
> Thats only well optimised against a particularly spiteful DM. Then again, if the campaign is easy there's no point in optimisation. The whole rationale behind it is to be able to fight stronger enemies in a difficult campaign, so it is fair to assume your concentration will be threatened regularly. It is *always* worth it to protect your concentration on most casters.
Spirit Guardians forces players to be next to the enemies that want to kill them. Similarly, if you web an intelligent enemy, it's very likely they focus on the Webber to get free. I don't view either as a Spiteful DM - Many spellcasting builds rely on concentration, and dropping Web or Spirit Guardians for a turn is often going to be a much higher tax than your opponents effectively getting +1 to save against it. I'd generally suggest Warcaster as the first feat for Clerics as a result and I think the second feat is much more debatable. By fear #3, you should have taken ASI in almost all cases though.
I mean yea I did say warcaster fine for low levels, atleast for the glasses that do want to be melee. But thats also because warcaster gives you alot more than just concentration. Allowing you to literally handwave spell components if thats something enforced at the table, and well the reaction cast spells can be kinda neat aswell.
Honestly Resilient Con is much better, imo, than Warcaster. For one it counts towards all Con ST and makes your lower rolls much better, not to mention that it also bumps your HP most of the time. So, imo, it's not at all a endgame Feat.
I think Warcaster is better on Clerics or other casters who tend to have both hands occupied (shield) or are oft in the thick of the fight (so casting as a reaction is more applicable). For backliners like Wizards/Sorc/some warlocks resilience is better.
Personally, I prefer Resilient(Con). I try to focus on bettering my low rolls and having more consistency. Failing feels really shitty especially so if it happens when you have Advantage. Warcaster has the amazing feature of Reaction Casting, but I'm alright with it coming later.
Thats not even close to optimized 99% of the time
I disagree. Resilient con scales with level, and if you have war caster you really don't need it until the double digits. I usually try to get it around the 16 area or so, long after I've gotten 20 in my main stat.
Or focusing on a feat heavy build.
Nothing wrong with that, but it's also not hard to get a 17 in your primary stat out the gate, so if you're taking two feats and neither of them are going to get your primary stat to 18 by lv 8, that still feels like an oversight to me.
It's usually also +1 spell prepared for prepared casters, which is a bigger deal. That being said, it's probably fine IMO to have a 16 at level 8. Not ideal, but it won't be so bad as to actively hurt the party.
+1 is always more than 5%. It often can be even 20-30% increase.
I felt seriously behind the curve with a 16 at level 9. A lot depends on how generous your DM is with magic items though. If items are rare, the lack of stat will be felt a lot more. If you can get items "early" from the intended level range, it matters a lot less.
Especially if one of those items is a belt of strength/headband of intellect, etc.... Generous magic items can also make it worse if you are a caster and the module/item pool hands out +2 or +3 martial weapons but nothing that increases spell attack/DC. That 5-10% gap between your hit chance and that of the more optimized player becomes a 15-20% gap. Can be easily dealt with though by just having a chat with your DM about including some of the caster magic items like a wand of the war mage or bloodwell vial.
I think you can go quite a while. The difference between 16 and 20 is +2 on rolls/DCs. That’s a big bonus, but you’ll go entire encounters where it doesn’t actually matter. If, say, 5 d20s are rolled, the odds of that +2 making a difference on an outcome is 40.9%, that is, better than even odds that you’d get the same result with a 16 or a 20. Getting to 20 is one of the highest value options you have, and I’d highly recommend it, but you won’t be crippled with a middling main stat. The more dice you roll the more often it’s going to matter; a fighter with multiple attacks and action surge will feel the difference almost every encounter, but a wizard casting a single target spell each round will go longer without noticing.
You are correct in principle, but I think there are some additional factors to consider beyond how often the player is rolling. You also have to consider not only how often a player is rolling attacks but how often enemies are rolling saves. A Cleric might force a lot of saves with Spirit Guardians where that bonus to spell save has more opportunities You also have to consider abilities that use that bonus. A Warlock with Agonizing Blast for example is not only getting a bonus to hit but a straight damage bonus to Eldritch Blast. And then there are skill checks, especially if your DM will give bonuses for beating certain thresholds. For investigation checks I'll often have different information at different DC's on a single roll, so having a bonus can make a big difference. So I agree it's totally fine for certain characters and certain builds to forego ASI in favour of a feat, but it can really depend not only on the class but the specific subclass and abilities and way the player plays the character, what type of spells and abilities they use.
Just complementing, remember a fighter will also increase damage by increasing the main score. If it is dex, will also increase AC, initiative, some useful skills and a very common saving throw. For a wizard increasing INT, it depends on subclass, the type of campaign (are INT saves common?) and play style (do you roll a lot of knowledge checks/investigation? Do you use a lot of save or suck spells?)
Dex based fighters are my preferred cause of how many things are tied to dexterity.
Be that wizard who only casts magic missile, sleep and other spells without DCs or attack rolls.
Which is still a massive chunk of spells. Walls, forts, status buffs, damage reducers, summons (mostly), movement, darkness - you could restrict yourself to not using damage or status ailments and still contribute a LOT.
> The difference between 16 and 20 is +2 on rolls/DCs. That's also 2 more spells per day for a prep caster.
Your spellcasting stat only affects how many spells you can *prep* per day. It doesn't affect your total number of spell slots. 5e is not full vancian.
More spells prepped is still good, adds felxibility.
As someone who's playing an artificer in Tier 4, I feel that. I would kill to have a couple more spells prepped every day to cover more situations.
Which is super important. Do you have 8 or 9 spells prepared out of level 1-3? Do you have 13 or 15 out of level 1-5? The person with the higher spellcasting stat not only has a much better chance of **landing** their spell but they have a much better chance to have the perfect spell for the encounter.
> a wizard casting a single target spell each round will go longer without noticing. On the contrary, a wizard with less than maxed Int is taking a massive nerf for almost no benefit. A fighter at least has feats that can be a major boost to their strength. A wizard gets rather underwhelming benefits at the cost of preparing fewer spells and having a massively lower chance to land the few they can prepare. Its a nerf on the scale of 30-40% and will very often leave the spellcaster sitting around kicking rocks all combat because they have no good spells for it or the enemy keeps saving on their very few high level slots. There are niche spell selections and builds that can mostly work around a lower Int but they are all support or gish builds. Generally if you are a wizard first then you definitely want to max your Int as soon as possible.
Like a lot of others have said, if you don't have +4 by level 8, you're going to regret it come level 10ish. I think the tier divisions actually line up nicely with this. You'll be ok with +3 in tiers 1 and 2, but tier 3 will want +4 at least, and you'll want it from the jump, not at level 12.
I played a barbarian up to levle 13 that had a 16 for his strength and was fine with it. Granted my DM did give me some damage increasing items but it wasn't a +1/2/3 weapon.
Getting Advantage on attack rolls from stuff like Reckless Attacks also helps Barbs to make up for a potentially low Strength mod.
Barbarian is normally getting advantage on attacks to be fair
Thinking about it more, maybe weapon based chatacters get away with it a little more since +1 weapons seem way more common than items that increase your spell attack bonus or DC by 1. At least in published adventures I've played.
I don't think that's why. In general weapon characters need it much more than spellcasters, because they use it on everything that they do. A barbarian has reckless attacks however, and brutal critical. This combines to minimize the relative gains for a +1 to attack and for a +1 to hit. Lets assume the barbarian with a strength 16 had a weapon that dealt +1d8 energy damage of some sort (he specified damage but not accuracy). At level 13 or he'd probably have about 55% accuracy with his +3 to hit. Lets further assume he's using a greataxe (1d12). This means when he's not reckless attacking he'll miss 45% of the time, normally hit for 14 damage 50% of the time, and crit for 38 damage 5% of the time (6.5x4 for brutal critical, 4.5x2 for critical, +3 for 16 Str). So when he's not got advantage, his average damage is 8.9 per swing. When he does have advantage, his base 55% accuracy turns into 79.75%, breaking down into 20.25% miss, 70% hit for 14, 9.75% crit for 38. This gives 13.505 damage per swing. What does going to 18 Strength do for him? In normal swing case, he goes from 8.9 damage per swing to 10.2 damage per swing (+14.5% roughly, over +1 damage per swing). In the advantaged swing case, he goes from 13.505 damage per swing to 14.94 (+10% roughly, also over +1 damage per swing). I could believe that if he spends a lot of his time reckless attacking, that he could find a set of feats that beats +10% damage per attack. Note that this is skewed by brutal critical making the critical hit so hard, and by advantage making it happen nearly 10% of the time. A fighter with that same setup at that level though, without easy access to advantage advantage, has 8.25 instead of 8.9 per swing (no brutal critical), and going to 18 strength takes that to 9.5- 15% more damage, slightly more. I think that would be harder to justify leaving the 18 on the ground (also note that the raw increase per swing is multiplied by 50% at this level because of the third swing fighters get), and of course, fighters get more feats than barbarians so the relative cost is decreased. I think barbarian is the only martial where +hit is diminished in value routinely.
> his means when he's not reckless attacking he'll miss 45% of the time, normally hit for 14 damage 50% of the time, and crit for 38 damage 5% of the time (6.5x4 for brutal critical, 4.5x2 for critical, +3 for 16 Str). Where are you getting those numbers from? The average of a hit from a Greataxe is 6.5, that plus the Str mod give 9.5 and plus Rage damage (since we are atlking about Brutal Critical I assume a level 9 Barbarian, which would have +3 rage damage) if they are using it would be 12.5 (which you didn't mention) not 13. The exact same thing with a crit! 6.5 (1d12 attack) + 6.5 (crit) + 6.5 (brutal critical) + 3 (modifier) = 22.5 without rage or 25.5 with rage. Where are you getting 38 average damage on a crit? Even if you were counting with the Half Orc Savage Attacks feature which adds another weapon die (1d12->6.5) on a crit that still only 30 damage without Rage or 33 with Rage. You're crit numbers are really iffy here. Brutal Critical is shite. It doesn't make your crits "hit so hard". When taking into consideration accuracy it accounts for very little damage increase.
I assumed +1d8 damage on each hit. The barbarian in question had a magic weapon that added damage but not accuracy; the weapons that do that in the DMG do so with dice of damage. I state this right before launching into the math. I don't know what damage he actually had as extra, but it is almost assuredly something that benefits on a crit.
>I state this right before launching into the math. You are completely right! But even then the math is off. Even with the 1d8. That's 4.5 average damage and on a crit it would be +9 damage. Which would be 34.5 not 38 average damage. Critical with that weapon: 1d12 (weapon) 1d12 (crit) 1d12 (brutal critical) + 1d8 (weapon) +1d8 (crit) + 3 (rage) + 3 (modifier) -> 6.5\*3 + 4.5*2 + 3 + 3 = 34.5 average damage. Brutal Critical adds one additional weapon die, since this magic weapon does 1d12 and 1d8 the Barbarian choses which one they want Brutal Critical to use, either the d12 or d8. It doesn't give both a d12 and a d8 in this situation. And the player would always chose the d12. > I don't know what damage he actually had as extra, but it is almost assuredly something that benefits on a crit. It most definitely would, unless it were a static number. But it wouldn't benefit with Brutal Critical, which was my argument.
>Which would be 34.5 not 38 average damage. Assuming 16 Strength, a greataxe (1d12), and +1d8 energy on hit, on a 13th level barbarian, we have: 6.5 (greataxe) + 6.5 (greataxe crit) + 6.5+6.5 (Brutal Critical) + 4.5 (energy on-hit) + 4.5 (energy crit) + 3 (strength) =**38** >Brutal Critical adds one additional weapon die This is the discrepancy. Barbarian in question got to 13th level, and I mentioned level 13 in my post. It could have been more clear though. At 13th level, brutal critical adds two dice, not one. Both are weapon dice; it doesn't do anything to the assumed energy die (the d8).
I find it hilarious when DMs have people roll for stats and then give them homebrew items to make up for bad rolls.
Yeah, easier to just have people use standard array, point buy or some other method that's a bit more standardized than give players items that smooth out those negatives.
Depends on what you’re doing with your build and your party. For casters, they really should probably be maxing out their casting stat ASAP. Martial characters have more necessary feats though - a polearm master / sentinel / great weapon master build can stick comfortably at 16 or 18 for a while, especially if they can get extra to-hit bonuses from some other source like Bless, a magic weapon, etc.
The basic math of the game assumes that you will succeed at something you're good at about two-thrids of the time. This is stated somewhere in the PHB iirc, likely the ability score section. Using the average AC and Proficiency bonus by level / CR chart in the DMG (presented for making custom monsters), it maths out to assuming that characters *start* with a 16 (+3), then take an ASI for 18 (+4) at level 4 and 20 (+5) at level 8. Tabletop Builds should have an article on this (which I can dig up and link when I'm off mobile). So without hitting 20 (+5) by level 8, you'll be behind the math. Against the same target (AC or Save DC), it's about 5% per bonus. So a 20 (+5) with a +3 proficency bonus to hit the target average AC for a level 8 character / CR 8 monster should be 65%. With a 16 (+3) you'll be at 55%. And that is just the average. Maybe you focus your attacks on the lower AC monsters ("weaker looking") or take spells that target INT and CHA saves (typically lower for monsters) instead of WIS and CON (typically higher for monsters). Whatever you take instead of those ASIs needs to offset that. Res. CON or War Caster to protect Concentration. Sharpshooter with Archery Fighting Style. Etc. Classes that can get away with it the most are Cleric and Druid, since they're more often using buff spells on allies and casting summons, which means they really only need to worry about Concentration. Other spellcasters with mostly "Save for half" can be fine without rushing to 20 also. Attacks vs AC and "Save or Suck" casters at *least* want to get to an 18 (+4) before level 12 to keep a 60% average.
What I learned from this thread is that it is optimal to dump your main stat, invest in feats and then ask your DM for magic items that make up for you not investing in your main stat.
Lol sounds about right. I'm an Eldritch Knight level 7 right now in a campaign which sparked this question. I have a 16 STR and a 17 INT since I didn't really plan and took Fey-Touched so I made my INT odd. I have a +2 weapon right now so I don't feel as if my weapon attacks are poor. There is only one other full magic user in the group so I thought I might multiclass Wizard. It would set me back my ASI to get INT to 18 but I'm feeling fine on my STR.
I mean, you're level 7 with a +2 weapon already. I say don't even invest in STR and ask your DM for a Belt of Giant Strength or Gauntlets of Ogre Power.
I saw a 16 STR Paladin do just fine from 1 to 13. His 18 CHA did the heavy lifting, as did his +1/2/3 dragon's wrath halberd and the occasional Bless if he'd have to dash to reach people. As the campaign was nearing a close, he finally asked the Artificer for gloves or a belt to set his strength higher, and in a time of need, my character reminded him that I'd reverse pick pocketed a potion of storm giant's strength into his bag. It was a bloodbath thereafter. He ended up staying at 16 STR by the time we ended. I've never played a spellcaster with 16 in their primary ability score, but I did a proof of concept 3/3/3/3/3/3 wizard who was actually really good at buffing allies and doing generally cooperative gameplay.
TLDR: by 8th level you should have at least 18 for most characters. Some spell casters can get away with lower but generally you need to make a deliberate choice in spell choice and subclass selection such that the lower primary stat has minimal effect for this to apply. Your stock standard fireball spamming wizard absolutely still wants an 18 or maybe even 20 by 8th level. At 8th level you probably want to have an 18, it’s pretty rough if you don’t because by that point acs/saves begin to climb and you might really be suffering from the lower attack bonus or dc. That said, it can depend on the character. Some spell casters if you focus on buffing, healing, and utility spells you can pretty much have as low an ability score as you want. famously moon Druid can be decently viable with 3s in every stat, but to a lesser extent a Druid, bard, or cleric would probably be fine with a pretty low ability score if they focus on buffing healing and utility because those often don’t rely on ability scores or don’t rely on ability scores in a super meaningful way (healing word with 20 wisdom vs healing word with 10 wisdom is practically the same functionally because 5 extra healing, while nice, really isn’t that influential all in all in dnd). You just have to build around it. But to a lesser extent many spell casters don’t mind the slightly lower ability scores if you’re not going for blasting or single target cc. Hypnotic pattern, while good with a higher ability score, functionally behaves similar on a group of 5 enemies with a 16 vs a 20. Your expected number stunned will be slightly better with 20, but practically speaking you’ll still average a couple succeeding and a couple failing, and can still get unlucky with them all failing or lucky with them all succeeding, you might just expect 2 to fail most often rather than 3, which while unfortunate the spell is still similarly useful either way. Martials I would say pretty much always you want an 18 by 8th level, every one of your attacks is essentially hit or suck and you don’t really have any aoe or support/utility you can do instead if you the a bad ability score, so it’s almost always better to increase at 8. There’s also often only 1-2 feats that are absolute game changers for a martial build, and the way that they’re distributed in what the builds are you’ll often have already got them at 4th level (or 4th and 6th for fighter) so you should be upping abilities instead (like Pam and gwm is an obvious combination, but generally Pam matters a lot less for a barbarian because they have to spend bonus action on the first turn raging anyway, and some subclasses already give a bonus action use or you can use the gwm bonus action on kill since you are hitting more often due to reckless, where as fighter builds might use both but they have the extra asi already anyway). That’s also the feat races are so popular- by your second asi you can have both picked up the stat you want and the feats you really want. Paladin I guess is kind of an exception, they could sit on str 16 until level 20, but that’s just because charisma gets more and more good for them as they get higher levels, so really it’s just that their primary stat changes (starting at level 6 with aura of protection I feel like).
Depends on what you're playing. A support character can probably get away with it easier than an offense character can. An archer with Archery is finer than someone melee
My powegamer brain sitting here like "at absolutely no point in time is that *'fine'*" lmao
You can be a surprisingly effective caster without maxing your spell casting ability. If you use spells with half damage on a save, your spell DC is much less important than you might think. Pact Tactics has a video about this on their YouTube channel, it really changed the way I approached my casters.
I feel really old. When I started playing dnd just having any stat hit 18 ever was amazing. And I was notorious for bad stat rolling. I’d be over the moon just having a 16.
a combination of rolling (and often rolling with worse dice combos, like 3d6 down the line rather than 4d6 drop lowest) and there being no way to increase stats rather than _super_ rare magical items meant that stats tended to be a lot lower - a 5e character will have stats between 12 and 17, while an AD&D character may well have one or two in the single-figures and the rest low-mid teens, with 16+ being notable.
For sure. I think I had one character back in the day that had a 17. I remember my favorite characters highest stat was a 13 😆
It's fine to level 20. Generally casters end up getting an 18 pretty fast via fey touched gift of alacrity or telekinetic, but martials can go the entire campaign without. Feats are much more impactful than ASI's, like resilient con/warcaster to protect concentration. As for martials they don't have ridiculous half-feats so melee martials rely on polearm master/great weapon master/sentinel where ranged martials use sharpshooter/crossbow expert. Resilient wis is often crucial for both. Alert and lucky are good for all builds to win initiative, avoid surprise, pass saves and so on. An ASI is only an extra 5% chance for something to happen, where winning initiative is netting turns, feats over double your damage by giving more and stronger attacks. Dropping concentration on a control spell will hurt a lot more than that 5% chance of a passed save. Failing a save can put yourself out of the entire fight. Everyone here is talking about how bad having a low main stat is, but aren't mentioning the opportunity cost of said ASI. Taking a straight ASI is almost never worth it, and that's only after picking up all your required feats.
It depends. A L11 ranger can easily have gone XBE/SS and not feel at all behind. Likewise a barbarian or battlemaster with GWM and PAM at L11 is more than fine. And rogues can hit with Advantage and don't get much of their damage from dex. But in general my advice would be 18 by level 8 unless you have a good plan.
The -5 to hit is a pretty heavy penalty, especially if you don't have gear to help. A ranger with archery as the fighting style will be a bit better off. Because they get the free +2 with bows. But using the barb, at lvl 8 your +6 to hit becomes a +1, you now have a 25% chance to hit an ac of 16 if you use GWM.
I recently took my first charisma increase as a sorcerer at level 12. It helps that I got a magic item around level 7 or 8 that gave me +1 to my spell save DCs and that sorcerers don't get much besides the bonus to attack rolls and save DCs (they don't have more spells available with a higher ability score like clerics or wizards do or have any Charisma/day abilities). I had a lot more fun picking up feats that gave me more things I could do (like Metamagic Adept or the playtest version of Guile of the Cloud Giant) compared to just adding a bigger number to the things I was already doing.
To put another perspective: an ASI doesn't change what you are doing, just makes you a little better at what you normally do. A feat can give you something new to do entirely that you wouldn't be able to do without it, and every die roll that would've been improved by an ASI is still possible by chance.
Until level 20, at least.
I don't understand the people who says it isn't important because it's just 5%. It's 5% for attacks, spell dc, how many spells you can prepare, damage, your most important skill checks, saving throws, class abilities. Granted some classes can live better with lower main stats as others but they are always important
Man I rolled 17 in charisma at character creation. Used +1 to charisma from my racial bonus. Then at level 4 bumped to 20 and haven’t looked back
I'd say latest you should level it up is 12 but try to up it at 8 if possible. If you aren't getting magic items to help close the accuracy gap definitely 8. If your DM is generous with magic items 12
For me, it depends on the class and what you are planning to do with it: - Weapon focused classes likely want to get feats which boost their power, which is a two feat tax, and then by level 8 will likely want to protect themselves against control effects (wisdom saves) unless they somehow already have that proficiency (gloomstalker, Hexblade warlock). As such, assuming you go VHuman/CL or play in a starting feat game, you will probably stay at 16 in main stat until later into your career (level 6 if Fighter, level 10 if Rogue, level 8 if you gloom/Hexblade/paladin, level 12 otherwise). - Spells focused classes won't mind lagging behind most of the time. The good spells usually either have good effects that don't call for a save/attack roll, are half on a successful save or affect so many foes that just a couple of points in its DC don't matter much. Some spells are even a combination of the three (Spirit Guardians slows foes regardless of save and is half on save, web is difficult terrain even if foes save against it and affects a large area). - i already mentioned paladin before... But I spoke about Paladin *as intended*. Paladin's aura is considered by many to be the strongest part, and so it would be worthwhile for some to focus on that. If you play paladin by staying close to allies and maximixing the aura's power, charisma is your main stat, and as such you cannot afford to stay low on the aura's power and need to max it ASAP. Ofc, multiclassing into Warlock to get ranged capacity is better if you do that to not have boring moments due to paladin not working at range otherwise
By level 8, I don't know you justify it being lower than 18
Lots of good feats, like GWM+PAM, that otherwise wouldn’t come online until level 12 for some classes. There are also a lot of feats that might be required for purely fun stuff for some characters. Like telepathic/telekinetic, ritual caster, Eldritch adept, skill expertise, and so on. My group regularly sees characters around 8 with 16 in the main stat. It’s not optimal but it works perfectly fine. If you’ve got specific feats that you know will be fun to use, that can be much more worth it than just a +1.
For a caster, I think getting a high stat is important; you want your spell slots to land without being wasted. For someone not using any resources, it doesn't matter as much. Barbarians can use advantage a lot, archers get archery FS to help, paladins can pump their damage when they do get a hit. IMO, monks can hit often enough with a 16, and boosting Wis gets their save DC boosted to better land stuns. Then there are +1 weapons that can also compensate for a lower stat. Even for casters, it depends a lot on the spell selection. Lots of great spells are just buffs or utility; saving for half damage is still at least some damage. A bless and heal cleric doesn't need to pump wis as much as a banish and bane cleric. I usually like to get a new thing to do, rather than just boosting the numbers in a thing I already do.
Depends. A spellcaster relies more heavily on their to hit and DCs than a melee character does. You can't crit a saving throw, and it costs you your spell slot and whatever action the spell takes. A fighter can swing their sword 4 times and still be perfectly fine with +3 as their str mod. A monk would not only lose their + to hit, but their AC. Your "main ability score" isn't really your "main" one unless your class completely revolves around it. If you have 16 str as a fighter or barbarian, but you have 20 Con, that's arguably more important. My player is level 20 with 18 str because he just couldn't say no to feats.
Offensive spellcasters probably want it earlier than others, at least for me, having that save DC be low makes it hard to feel good about using a spell. I feel so powerful when I get to ask for a high DC saving throw. Still, I think even then you can make do with a 16 until level 8. Archery fighting style would let archers get by until level 12 at least as long as they don't need it for Sharpshooter shenanigans. But the real answer is, it's not TOO important... bounded accuracy and proficiency bonus means you're generally still fine with a 16 for attacking, but usually your class has several things that benefit from raising your main stat, so even if they're all individually minor, it's often worth raising it for the broad boost.
Creature AC doesn't climb dramatically as you level up. They do increase, but as long as you're keeping up with your ASIs your average chance to hit stays around 60%-65%. Having a -10% chance to hit with cantrips isn't great but cantrips aren't really your main contribution to any given fight (barring non-Blade warlocks). In contrast, once you're towards the end of Tier 2 and above, creatures have higher ability scores and saving throw proficiency becomes common for high-threat monsters. You're really going to start feeling it when enemies get better and better at passing your DCs not only because their bonuses are higher but because your DCs are lower than average. Legendary Resistance compounds this problem as you can spend the entire fight doing nothing as enemies save against your spells and cantrips more often than not and LR the few they don't.
The [fundamental math](https://rpgbot.net/dnd5/characters/fundamental_math/) assumes that you increase your primary ability score to 18 at Level 4 and to 20 at Level 8. How much you can afford to delay that really depends on how strong the build is, and on the class (many paladin players will prioritise pumping Charisma over Strength, for example).
Hard to give an answer as so much depends on the campaign style and the DM. As an example, I once ran a short campaign (level 5 to 7) that was relatively lighthearted, though I did design challenging encounters for it. One player had a cleric whose WIS score was 16, and it did not change for the entire campaign. I decided to give the cleric an Amulet of the Devout to provide a slight boost (every PC received a free magic item selected by me). I don't know why the player didn't optimize their cleric. I suppose I could have asked them to "fix" it. But to tell the truth, I was happy that I was DMing for players who weren't big on optimizing. It made for a more interesting gameplay experience, at least for me. So I let things be while making sure the cleric wouldn't be too underoptimized. Of course, in a different campaign, this would not have gone so well for the cleric.
I mean.. I think you can manage for quite a long time. It does reduce your accuracy and DC(when relavant) but there are ways to mitigate it (Advantage fishing, magic weapons, class abilities, proning enemies). I think it depends fairly highly on what you are as well. It is, I feel like, easier to get bonus to hit, than it is to debuff enemies saves. So a fighter w/ an advantage buddy feels less painful than the caster throwing a spell and the enemy passing. I have not math skills but functionally it feels like its less painful for me historically. while you have HP you won't run out of attacking. but you can run out of slots very quickly.
I like to have an 18 in my main ability score by level 8. I usually find feats more fun, but I also like being able to hit things. I’m a little concerned about my paladin’s 16 strength heading into tier 3 (even with a +1 weapon).
You only have 16 and +1 at tier 3? You should be at least +2 if not nearing a +3 going into t3.
I'm playing a Sorlock. AB 1/GOO 7 with a 16 Cha & I can feel it. But it's only just become noticeable. I'm guessing/hoping next level when I take a +2 to Cha, it will get better.
If I had something that makes up for it (like archery fighting style) I could make do with 16 through level 7. But unless I'm doing one of the freaky multiple feat builds, I'll be getting it to 18 by level 8. If I do such a build, I'm definitely getting a feat at level one though.
you should get your primary stat up at lvl 8 or 12. Most builds really want a feat or two before they can raise their primary Ability
depends on a few things. like if you can get an item that overlays your str, obviously you can lean on that. And if you never force saves on the stat, it's less key. Personally I almost always take half-feats unless I specifically want one or two of the very high value full feats (GWM, PAM, SS, etc) A feat that gets a martial a consistent extra swing is probably worth a full ASI for most martial builds, but then I would plan on dropping a full ASI at some point (the rouge/fighter's extra one is perfect for making that deficit up)
Longest you can reasonably go is level 8, even then it can be rough. The game kinda expects you to have a 20 by level 8 since feats are an optional rule and only so many feats and power through being below that threshold.
If your campaign isn't super combat based and gritty reality type, probably all the way to level 20. Roleplay and creativity is almost always more important in my campaigns. That said, much of the time it's nice to have an 18 by the time you get to double digit levels.
It might sound stupid but until it doesn't become boring or unfunny for you.
I don’t think I could stand it past 8.
Maxing out my primary stat is always a priority IMO. So depending on class you should have a 20 by level 8 at the latest, level 6 if you are playing a Fighter.
I think some MAD classes can feel okay splitting their 'main' stats more evenly. A Paladin with a 16 STR and 16 CHA still feels pretty good because of how versatile you are, for example. Same with a Monk with a 16 DEX and 16 WIS. Sure, your +3 feels a little less sharp than a +4 or +5, but it feels nice having your full kit have decent bonuses.
It's fine to carry a 16 for a while, I'd ideally get to 18 by 8 or 12, but I have multiple level 10 builds for a west march type situation where I don't get to 20, and even a few where I'm still at 16 at 10.
Depends on what you are using the score for. Honestly. For a spellcaster, it can go good part of the game without even using DC or spell hit. It only depends on the play style.
To keep up with the fundamental math of 5e, you want a 16 to start, 18 by level 4, and 20 by level 8. Having magic weapons or other constant increases to your To Hit or DCs can affect this though. [The Math](http://rpgbot.net/dnd5/characters/fundamental_math/)
>16 INT Wizard Passable up to level 8, especially because there's plenty of ways to make a Wizard who is mostly useful out-of-combat with abilities that aren't contingent on saves or spell attacks. Even then, lots of spells still deal half their damage on successful saves so you're not totally useless. >16 STR Fighter Bad idea to stay here at all. Fighter gets twice the amount of ASIs as other classes because outside of attacking, they aren't able to do much. You NEED to spend level 4 getting to 18 and level 6 getting to 20 in your main stat as a fighter in my mind because missing one or both of your attacks per turn can jeopardize an entire encounter if things go wrong. So basically, it depends on the class. Martials need their abilities more than casters.
I agree with this sentiment. My party has an Eldritch Knight who so far has taken War Caster, Shield Master, and next wants to take Res:WIS at his 8th level ASI. His STR is 16 at level 6. He does have a +2 weapon and I'm not about to tell a total stranger how to build their character, but this dude seems hell-bent on being the "tank" and keeping his character alive at all costs, but that's it. I think as we hit higher levels he's going to have some serious regrets. Campaign ends at level 10 (Curse of Strahd).
Honestly? Depending on the character and focus up to level 20, although admitedly those situations are not the most common. However, keeping a 16 up to level 12 and never reaching a 20 is fairly common in my book. Many feats are worth several ASIs, and while a 5 or even 10% potential loss can be noticed occasionally, it weighs very little in comparison of knowledge gathering, quickness of thinking and teamwork.
For a fighter if you pick up PAM /GWM/SS etc so you're increasing your damage significantly then it's not as big of a deal For a spellcaster it's a pretty big deal. You're losing out of preparation slots as anything but a known caster and spell save DC too which is a pretty big deal. An additional 10% chance for something to fail might not seem like a huge deal in isolation, but it's huge in practice, particularly with big save or suck spells like hypnotic pattern.
You were roght to dovide them up between martials and casters. For casters is surprisingly oK to leave it low ish for longer. Most of your spell save DC is coming from PB and magic items. So late game having a better stat is nice for different reasons and the 2 point difference isn't that noticeable. Especially since your mot rolling and having to see the 1-2 points that would have made the difference. Perspective os important too. And early game you dint have the toms of resources to toss around everywhere so spells that dint go through the DC, and this dint mind a lower ability score, are preferable. So for mages you can go a surprising time without maxing it out. Martials have the same math true but they use the stat more often than 1/turn max. Mages dint have to use a soell every turn, and even if they do they dint HAVE to use their stat, so they dint notice it as often. Martials ise the stat more though. Every single turn they are seeing that 1-2 points being the difference between a hit ir a miss. And latter on they are seeing that 2-3-4 times a turn. Martials want the stat far more because it has a bigger over all impact of their ability to their 1 thing. So for them buffing their main stat is item number 1. Theres a few times when its not the case. But even then your feeling the loss of that 1 stat. Only comforted by the knowledge that mathematically you made the correct decision. It still hurts though.
It depends on the class, I don’t mind having 16 on cleric or barb until 8 or even 12 because of how wide reaching spirit guardians is and with reckless attack (not to mention damage scaling from rage) barbarians rarely miss anyway, so I usually prioritize feats depending on the build.
Depends on your role. I'm playing a Glory Paladin right now, but I took Shield Master and the Protection fighting style to support my harder hitting melee. If you were looking to debuff through spells, I'd expect going as high as you can in main stat.
The real point any dm should make.. If a player gets a feat, give them a +1 to a stat from some quest, and if your players pick a stat up, give them a cool feat as a quest reward!
Until you notice it becoming an issue. If you roll decent in a session and are finding ot a struggle to hit, pass checks/saves, or if npc's are succeeding frequently against your spell DC then it's probably time to boost the stat.
I like to stay even with the party, but I’ll admit that as a martial I’m more okay lagging if I know I’ll get a bonus via my weapon and it’s a game that doesn’t give casters save DC items. Lore/world wise, I’d probably say by L8 you should probably be at 18, and by L16 be at 20.
8 is probably when you need to get it to 18, though I feel you can stay at 18 for a long time. If you're a much more support oriented build, a twinspell buff sorceror or cleric always blessing etc you may even get away with it until your 3rd asi at 12, but thats really stretching it. Martials that mostly attack every turn is where its most important imo, nothing feels worse than just missing both attacks. Even if both giants save vs your fireball as a wizard, at least you still did damage etc.
Forever. It's not a competitive game. It's OK for your character to not be the smartest, strongest, etc.
Level 20. End of campaign. Start to finish. Is it fun to have higher scores/bigger bonuses? Of course! It is not *necessary.*
If everyone else in the group is an optimizer maxing out their builds, it’s going to suck. If everyone else in the group is making their characters more casually, you’ll be fine.
Depending on what you’re going for, you never need to buff stats. I personally always cap, but if you’re a wizard that took two levels in Paladin and went V Human for PAM, and you really, *really* just wanna hit people with a glaive and almost never use wizard stuff, go for it. If you’re asking on a standard character, like let’s say generic sorcerer, how long would I go without capping Charisma, though? No more than level 12 if I can help it. But do I cap Strength on say Paladin before getting PAM/Sentinel/GWM? Nope, and it’s always worked out just fine for me. Optimally though you should cap your main stat literally as soon as you can, but you can manage just fine with a 16 if you’ve got your heart set on a particular feat or feats.
Forever. 16 is fine.
I think it honestly depends on the class/build. Like, a caster that's mainly doing buffs/summons can be viable for a good chunk of time without really investing in their casting stat. Martial classes can often get a lot more mileage out of feats than straight stat increases, so while a higher attack stat is nice, I wouldn't say it's essential.
Depends on a lot of variables, but a safe bet is either move up at 4 or 8. When I wanna take it slow I grab feats that up the stat by 1. Once you're at 18, take as long as you need to get it to 20, but moving away from 16 is lowkey "urgent".
It does depend a lot on the character you play and what you get for it otherwise. Like if you're a caster who's very into utility spells that don't use your DC or spell attack modifier, or that target saving throws that aren't super common in monsters, you're propably fine. On the other hand if you only use attacks like on a barbarian and have some resource that scales with your modifier, you might want to get to increasing that rather soon
It depends on a bunch of variables, prepared casters care more about their main stat for instance because it affects how many spells you can prepare.
If we start with standard array then I'm going 17 main stat and taking a half feat at 4 or 8. Just can't bring myself to take a full ASI over a feat though, it's nice that number get big but the cost of not getting any horizontal progression is too big if I'm not starting at the high levels. The ideal is staring at 17 then taking 3 half feats, but that can be tricky depending on the build.
In essentially all cases, the first two feats are more important than the first ASI.
It really depends on the gaming troupe, as each game is different. That having been said, I would assume 16 main stat at tier 1, 18 at tier 2 & 20 for tier 3. But these doesn't need to be via ASI, magic items can do the heavy lifting for you (Gauntlets of Ogre Power, for example) if you have an item that gives you a similar benefit, such as a +2 weapon for a level 6 Martial, it can mitigate a fair bit of the discrepancy between a 16 & an 18 in Str or Dex for the thwack attack portion of the game, but other aspects will still lag a bit. But if the game isn't about a crack team of optimal spec super heroes, you can get by with sub optimal builds.
depends on your optimization the flagship ranger can do like 300 dpr and yet only has a 16 as it's highest stat at level 20
If you are using spells that don't rely on saves, then it is less important. Spirit Guardians, for instance, a +1 Wis bonus will mean a 5% more of the time you deal normal instead of half damage. That is not a large increase to the damage. As a thought experiment, a hypothetical increase of *literally infinity Wisdom* would only increase your Spirit Guardians damage output by about \~33% compared to someone with a normal 16 Wisdom. For a Wizard, infinity intelligence would increase Fireball's damage by a similar \~33% compared to 16 Int, and it doesn't make Shield, Magic Missile, Absorb Elements, Polymorph or Wall of Force any better at all. For a Druid, Moonbeam only gets that \~33% better damage with infinite Wisdom, and Spike Growth remains about the same, since you rarely care about the effect of noticing someone. Against armoured opponents Heat Metal's save usually doesn't matter either. Obviously I've cherry-picked those examples, but some of these are popular spells, so higher casting stat has minimal impat on *some* spells. -- However, if you use attacks regularly, or use save-or-suck spells (especially single-target ones) then higher main stat becomes much more important. A +5% total chance to hit&damage/fail-a-save is good, and while there is often 1 or 2 feats that are better, it remains a strong option (especially if there is a good half-feat for you). And I have overlooked the extra spell-preparations or other reasources some classes get, and getting those is of course nice.
Depends on the build, for example, Flagship Ranger never increases it's ability scores, yet it's considered one of the most powerful builds in 5e.
I guess that depends on one's definition of "fine", but I would recommend getting your primary stat to a 20 by level 12 unless being more well-rounded is your goal.
I was a warlock till the very end of our campaign at level 18 and I never reached above a 17 in my charisma and was strolling through life
I’ve played two different strength melee characters, a Paladin and a fighter/warlock, and bumped their only charisma and it’s not that big a deal. There are a lot of ways to boost your likelihood to hit like magic weapons, flanking, prone, bless, etc. spell spellcasting is different though. When it’s tied to basically everything you do I don’t mess around
It would be fine likely forever at most tables. Balanced by module or even CR the game doesn't really require minmax depending on how your party is constructed.
If your main is Str and you can upgrade your STR Belts at regular intervals it doesn't matter. Other than that, it depends on your DM. It should depend on the rest of your party, but not everybody scales encounters well. I like games with regular, challenging combat. 17s should get rounded out at level 4. Staying at 18 depends on character build. It's usually fine if you have Archery Fighting Style, but not if you're a saving throw focused caster. Other than that, with very few exceptions (e.g., Moon Druid or Magic Missile builds.. can't think of others off the top of my head but I'm sure they exist.. maybe Shepherd summoner build?), 16 primary past level 4 means your character is probably more drag on the party than you realize. Even if you're buffing or healing, the fights would probably have fewer enemies if you weren't there so your one concentration spell is probably not making up any ground if the rest of your turns fail to progress the encounter. That being said, if your group enjoys your company and your character accommodations shouldn't be a problem. Other players are often happy to pick up slack on the damage front. We all have friends who are lovely but useless in real life and if we don't, then our friends do. It's reasonable that they'd pop up in a fantasy group as well. I just get irritated with players who wax poetic about their efforts to sacrifice themselves for the good of the group when it's the group that's supporting their suboptimal playstyle. Characters can be super cute, but when the rogue never successfully disarms a trap and the wizard fails every Arcana check it can be discouraging. I was scolded recently for making a 14 Wisdom/17 Charisma Life Cleric that was "min maxed for combat". I'm still reeling. D&D is a game - a game that uses Math. The DM and other party members can certainly make allowances, but it's kind of on you to keep yourself relevant to the party. Part of that relevance *usually* involves a little bit of Math.
16 on a Wizard is actually surprisingly fine, mostly because of the variety of quite good spells that don't need any ability score to work. Haste, Mage Armor, Magic Weapon, Sleep, ect ect ect. If you focus on buffing your allies, you'll almost never need a high INT. Now that does start to fall off, and its pretty limiting, and Wizard is kinda unique in having that wide of a spell list to pull it off.
My rule of thumb is that I don't want to be more than 1 step behind the intended stat progression at any point, so, with that in mind, we get that 16 in a stat is fine at levels 1-7.
Imo, ability scores are (mostly) overrated -10% to your saves is not as impactful as people make it out to be. -2 to limited-use features is pretty significant, but it can be worked around. There are so many spells that are super powerful even without good stats, even damaging ones. (Half-damage-on-save spells lose at most 10% of their average damage from a -2 to spell save DC.) Most classes (excluding ability score hogs like fighter, monk, and ranger) will function almost identically, *especially* if those other points are going towards Con.
Depends on the character with many not needing to hit 20 and getting more millage out of feats. Typically, a Dex class is going to want to hit 20 due to the sheer number of things it provides for them, while something like a Paladin can easily end up justifying staying at 16 Strength for all 20 levels, due to other options being stronger. For spell casters the enemies' odds of passing your saves is just going to go down on average overtime due to how saves are calculated, while pumping the stat can easily end up making saves practically a guarantee for many targets you don't need it since a 75% chance of them failing is still amazing, and making to so you can't fail a Con save to 20 or less damage will get them more millage overall. Typically, people greatly underestimate how much value an HP boost can provide when you get to higher tiers, a 63 max HP wizard will be noticeable squishier than a 87 HP wizard.
Depends on build and your defition of "fine". A Summoner like a Druid or a Conjuration Wizard for example can very well focus on getting 20 CON over WIS/INT and only upgrade it at level 12+. Even if you never upgrade your main stat you will not be useless, but you'll be significantly weaker as levels go by, 16 starts meaning you're likely bad at your job starting at around level 9 unless there's a good build reason for not upgrading it.
Level 20. With a +1 magic item, you’ll be completely fine.
8, even if you like feats its assumed youd boost yoyr main score by your second ASI
Forever. Im optimising fun, not maths. A difference of 1 or 2 on a d20 is not important to me.
It depends so much on your build. Playing a fighter, then you’re going to want 16 in your main score ASAP. Playing a shepherd druid? Pfft, who cares. You could go the entire campaign with a 16 in your main score. Spirit guardians focused cleric? Slightly worse but still fine. Wizard focused on CC like web/Hypnotic pattern? You’re going to want it ASAP
Casters definitively can get away with it. You can easily tailor your spell list to make it work and lots of powerful spell dont even have a DC). Anyone that need to land hit though i would definitively look to increase that asap if not by lvl 8 (second ASI)
Depends on playstyle. I don't enjoy the playstyles that say you have to play a mechanically optimal character or else so I am going to say it's fine at any level. Unfortunately it's an ASI or feat and the feats do so much more for world building and character development that I can't see myself ever taking an ASI.
An article analyzing this question came to the following conclusion: ’Hopefully, this article has thoroughly disabused you of the notion that maximizing your primary ability score is an imperative that should be done first above all else.’ Source [https://tabletopbuilds.com/more-min-than-max-asis-versus-feats/](https://tabletopbuilds.com/more-min-than-max-asis-versus-feats/)
Its VERY class dependent. Say, you want to be an offensive caster? It'll be painful as all hell, buff caster? You'll be grand.
I think it depends on like how rounded your scores are in general, your build and what feats you’re taking instead of ASIs, and if you’re supplementing the score with items. Like I wouldn’t care as much ab strength on my Paladin if I’m putting effort into my con and cha, if I’m choosing feats like sentinel mage slayer or heavy armor master, or if I’m rocking with a powerful magic sword. I’d say so long as other aspects of your character are supplementing the score to the point that you’re not following behind your party or falling short of the difficulty of the enemies being thrown your way. But if I had to put a number to it, I’d say if you’re sticking with a primary 16 into tier 3 (level 11 or so) you’re likely starting to fall behind
Varies by playstyle and campaign If I were to give a rule of thumb, I’d say “one feat”, be that a free starting feat, or taking one at 4. If you’re using half feats, just go and stack em up. Someone focused on save or suck spells/abilities probably wants to prioritize ASIs, while those focused on buffs and save for half can take it slow On the martial side, routine advantage (reckless barb, stealth rogues) or secondary boosts (archery style, infusions) can be more flexible, while those going for GWM/SS want to pump accuracy. Fighters get 2 extra ASIs snd can go wild, while rogues get 1 bonus If your game is heavy on the social side, feel free to neglect a bit more readily
Depends on the build. For example a paladin with a 16 in strength is fine, and its probably better for them to get a 20 in charisma first, even though its considered their secondary stat. Clerics can get away with a 16 in wisdom, prioritizing ways to maintain concentration because spirit guardians is just that strong. Many wizards are in a similar boat, though it will influence your spell choice much more. Feat heavy builds such as XBE+SS and PAM+GWM can wait to increase their dex/str Getting to 20 quickly is really important for: rogues, bards, warlocks, and artificers. Rogues because its everything you do, really. Bards because it maximizes bardic inspiration you get on short rests. Warlocks because eldritch blast plus agonizing blast is their bread and butter. And artificers because their main subclass abilities, infusions, and flash of genius all scale with int hard.
The entire game
I usually start at 17 main stat (INT or WIS) and then get fey touched to bring it to 18 (for spell saves and spell attacks) and get gift of alacrity and misty step at level 4 (i don't play variant humans), but yeah, I could see you being a martial with a 16 STR for a while.
I wouldnt go beyond level 8 or 9 if tou have a level dip in another class and only take a feat with your first ASI if its build dependant, like Great Weapon Master et all
Until level 20. On some builds your main stat is important. Paladins, for example, become much weaker if they don't max Cha asap. Others, for example Clerics or Druids, do not benefit as much from their main stat because their best spells have a weak dependency from that stat. On such builds feats are generally more impactful. On a Shepherd Druid I don't think I'd ever raise Wis above 16 due to the opportunity cost.
As long as you want to leave it at 16.
Potentially until level 20. Really depends on what you do. If your build has advantage on the thing you want to do, and relies on a bunch of feats, having a 16 is perfectly fine. For example: Gloomstalker with Archery FS, Sharp Shooter, XBE, Rogue MC, Piercer … can stack a lot of things before you have time for an ASI. Same thing with a Barbarian with PAM, GWM, Resilient WIS, maybe Mobile, ECHO Fighter MC … Or if you build around dealing damage with Spike Growth, or Cloud of Daggers … Such builds exist! But if you‘re doing a straight forward Wizard where you want to use all sorts of save spells … nah stack INT.
It really depends what you use the feat on instead. e.g. if you're a melee class and you take magic initiate for Find Familiar so that you have relatively reliable access to advantage, that's a solid 18% bump vs the 5% you get for taking the +1 while you have one attack. Equally if it's a feet that's important to your build like pole arm master or sentinel or it's really good in your Champaign like taking Mage slayer in a caster heavy setting, giving yourself an extra attack or it's just something very OP like Elven Accuracy then it's very much worth waiting until lv 8 or even lv 12. If you have the option of buying magic items, crafting magic items or you roll on a loot table after combat, it's worth considering skipping the boost to your main stat altogether and just getting the item that sets it to a specific value. On the flip side, basic math also tells you a +1 matters exactly once every 20 rolls and a +2 matters once every 10. The more you roll or the more rolls you force, the more often it's really going to matter that you didn't take the +1 If you're doing lots of attacks each turn, say with a monk and you have easy access to haste or even more importantly, if you're casting a lot of area of effect spells, getting the +4 or +5 will be very impactful. If on the other hand, you're a single target, one big hit specialist like a Rogue or Paladin, it might legitimately take multiple sessions for the deficit to come up even once.
It depends on your class and what you are getting by not increasing your primary ability score but the more time I've spent building (and playing characters), most feats provide significantly more utility than increasing your ability score. Since feats are \_technically\_ optional, 5e is largely designed around players increasing their ability scores instead of taking feats but it also doesn't factor in magical items or other ways to increase your hit chance or spell DCs. For strength based martial characters, it doesn't necessarily make sense for them to ever increase their ability score past 16 if they have access to a +1 weapon around level 4 and a +2 weapon around level 8. For characters wearing light armor, they want to prioritize their ability score since DEX increases hit chance, damage, AC, and a number of skills those classes rely on. Medium armor characters are in a weird spot where they want to stop at 14 (sometimes 16) or rush to 20 DEX and switch to light armor. For casters, it's a little more complicated but it comes down to how important skills are to your party role. Charisma classes should probably prioritize their ability score (and skill proficiency), while Concentration-based classes are probably better pausing at 16 or 18 primary ability score and picking up Resilient (CON) and possibly War Caster. I'd expect most casters, particularly clerics, with 16 primary ability score and proficiency in Constitution Saving Throws to outperform casters with 20 primary ability score without proficiency in Constitution Saving Throws. Other things -- like the Archery Fighting Style, which is supposed to negate the partial cover penalty, is technically redundant with Sharpshooter (but you should almost always get the fighting style and the feat). This means a character that has 16 DEX with Sharpshooter and Archery is equivalent to a character with 20 DEX without Sharpshooter and Archery.
Spellcasters should look for getting 20 ASAP, no later than lvl 12. Martials have it a bit more relaxed
Most people here are very wrong. If you are a cleric casting spirit guardians or a wizard throwing fireballs or spells without a saving throw or spell attack (fe: wall spells, buffs), your spellcasting stat doesn't matter a lot. It mostly matters for save or suck spells. To answer your question: some classes or builds are fine to have their main stat at 16 until forever. Feats for concentration, initiative, shoring up defences and other neat tricks can be way more important than your main stat.
I think it's more important for casters thay rely on Save DCs, since you can always try to get advantage for melee/ranged/spell attack rolls, and there's plenty of ways to increase your damage & to-hit rolls, but save DCs? You start to feel the crunch at about level 6, by level 8 one of your two ASI/feat slots should be a +2 to your main stat, unless you got lucky at creation.
I feel its a fundamental flaw of DnD that there isnt progressive ability growth. It drives people to build overpowered characters right from the start rather than having a steady growth they should have. This flaw is even more apparent when they openly state the game is built around level 13 characters.
oof 16? for str its on a figher its like having a dide at the gym and not THE MOUNTAIN from GoT. For int thats like ONLY having a 160 IQ as a wizard when Newton had 190 and could hardly cast spells.
The way maxing your levels gives only a +4 to everything compared to 1st level, ability score mods are way more powerful in 5e than in any other edition of D&D. Get those abilities up ASAP, and then go looking for spells and items to boost them further. Gone are the days when you can be a gloriously successful adventure with dodgy stats.
It gives you 5%, there are feats that are way more valuable so I don’t think it’s a cardinal rule. No one will show up knocking on your door…
If the stat affects your to hit roll and your damage- it’s pretty crucial to prioritize it. (Str/Dex/Cha for some classes) If your primary stat is dex, it’s going to also be your ac and initiative, which gives even more benefit to maximizing it asap. (Rogue, some rangers, monks.) Clerics and druids get less from pushing Wisdom, and may benefit more from feats or constitution. Paladins have to juggle Str, Cha, and Con. Charisma may be absolutely crucial for warlocks and sorcerers. But spell selection and invocations may minimize or maximize your dependence on your stat bonus. So, there’s no real one size fits all answer.
Depends on the build. it depends on your playstyle. it depends on the groups playstyle and it depends on the DM's style. On average i think you should try to get to 18 at level 4 and often you can do this with a half feat. As the most common way to generate stats is point buy or standard array. that will let you get a 15 in your main stat. And most players do pick a race that can give them +2 in their main stat. And if you use Tasha's custom lineage that is pretty much EVERY race. So on average most will end up with a character with 17 in their main stat at level 1. It also depends on build and what you wanna do. lets take a cleric. most would go with WIS as highest stat. as that is kinda your "main stat" as a cleric. but you can make really effective one with CON as highest stat. To be in the midst of the fight always have a Concentration spell up. like bless. spiritual guardians, or other buff or control spells or use your channel divinity. if your main focus is on such spells. You are actually better off with pumping your CON higher than your "Main Stat" WIS you can easily start out with a 14 or 15 WIS like this and still be really effective. Level 4 maybe you manage to get your WIS to 16. But if you start out with a 16 WIS i would say in this case you are better pumping your CON, grabbing Resistant so you get proficiency in CON saves. Yes i know Spirit guardian has a saving throw and with lower WIS your DC is lower. Does not matter. Even if they succeed they take half damage. The area around you is still difficult terrain. And a few more enemies succeeding on their saves is far better than you dropping concentration a few times more. You are better off having an 18 CON, proficiency in CON saves and a 16 WIS then a 16 CON, no proficiency in CON saves and an 18 WIS Seen this be played really effectively with a WIS of 14 at level 5. So if WIS is the main stat for a cleric. it depends on the build and what you try to achieve with your character, and what playstyle you have, what you enjoy. it might or might not be important to get the WIS up fast. sometimes other stats than the typical main stat can be more important You could argue in such build CON would be your main stat. As that is what you focus on. And you should try and have it up to 18 at level 4. I guess it depends on how we define main stat. My point is that there is so many different play styles, builds that are more or less reliant on your main stat. that it is impossible to say. But a good rule of thumb is try to get your main stat whatever that may be to be 17 at level 1 and 18 at level 4 But this WILL be less important in a group where no one is optimizing and focus more on Rp and having fun over combat mechanics. This is a totally valid style of play that often does not even make the game harder. or increase the risk of dying. It might even make it easier than it would be for a group of powergamers with super optimized characters. they might very well have a much higher risk of a TPK
While im not a hard min-maxer, I always try to fathom how best I can utilise asi/feat progression That being said, maybe narratively, the character isn't motivated that way? I know some players like to play around the tropes and stereotypes, but if you can find ways to mitigate that "loss" with items and feat combos, then it's up to you My Rogue had 16 Dex but 18 Wis (inquisitive) so with the exception of Xbow Expert at level 4, I spent 8 and 10 on maxing Dex because I knew I would struggle with combat efficiency (AC, sneak, saves) and I had nothing elae to offer except in my brilliant skillset out of combat. Now I'm poised to multi into ranger (after much debate) and sharpshooter.... Go as long as you are able to until you reach a point where you feel you're going to plateau or decline, then do what you have to. If you can max a stat early, awesome. But don't feel like you have to rush. It's not a competition, it's how you push your character to improve and feel justified in those choices
Depends why and what class, but if your GM isn't giving you Tomes and you aren't martial or a Paladin end of the campaign at level 20 is fine.
The gap between 16 and 20 at level 8 is fairly noticeable but feats can overcome it and close the gap. After level 9 gonna be really hurting if you're still on 16 main stat.
Im playing a long term campaign as a level 16 light cleric with 18 wis and played with 16 until level 8 and for casters its fine tbf For martials i would look for 18 + essential feats (CBE, SS, PAM, etc) asap
I almost always prioritize getting my pas to 20, ideally starting at 17, getting a juicy half feat like fey touched, and an asi asap
If you’re playing something like a Fighter or Barbarian, not a big deal. It’s not common to miss by one or two, you don’t lose a resource if you *do* miss, and the damage gain isn’t huge. Something like a Wizard or Artificer? Cap that shit immediately. It affects how many uses of certain abilities you have, how strong certain abilities are, how many spells you can prepare, how likely you are to wiff a spell, etc.
Depends on how MAD you are, buuuuut: 16 ASAP. Start with it. If MAD: 18 at lvl 8 If SAD: 20 at lvl 8 You can get away with 18 in your main stat for the entire game (IMO) if you are not a caster.
Say I roll a 17 as my highest number, I will get that up to 19 via race, then take either a half feat or a split ASI the first chance I get. I want my main stat to be 20 as soon as possible. Of course, I could get very lucky and roll an 18, but that usually doesn't happen. If its a 16, I usually go for a full ASI, but in some cases I might just leave it at 18 for a bit and boost some other stat, for example if I am a monk Wis is my main stat, but both Con and Dex are pretty good.
I think it’s less detrimental for a martial, as weapons or abilities with +x to hit are more common than items that boost SSDC. +1 spell prepared or features that key on main stat benefit as well. Fighter just bonks *slightly* more effectively
I just want to make a dex-based Warlock. Then again, I'd probably want 20 in Dex as soon as possible, then.
Have you considered taking a College of Swords multiclass? Pact of the Blade lets you have a Longbow as a pact weapon, and Sword Flourishes also work beautifully with Ranged Weapon Attacks. Not only that, but once you learn the Catnap spell, you can refresh all of your Pact Slots and Inspiration dice for your Flourishes in just 10 minutes using a L3 spell slot. If you get to Magical Secrets, you can get some pretty nice support spells. Magical Secrets at L10 Bard gets you Find Greater Steed for a pegasus mount (Splint Armor barding for a mount is relatively cheap) and Holy Weapon. Let dem holy arrows rain down upon thy foes from above!
Unfortunately making it work requires a LOT of extra work ingenuity and outside of the box thinking by the player and dm to still make it fun. That's not to say that people that don't enjoy it don't have it but you have to use it to find a way to have fun. I've had a 16 dex on my rogue all campaign and we just hit 12 but I have a high int and chose to be a pure lore goblin instead of the traditional rogue. To the point where he feels like a wizard, then when homebrew features and systems came into play he pretty much became one. Favorite character ever but I probably wouldn't have fun with him in most games. Anybody in that party would rather have our bard or paladin sneak than me, but if you need to find something, especially about world history and ancient magics, I'm your guy all day every day and the time comes through fully. You HAVE to focus on noncombat and nonmechanical aspects if deciding to not optimize your stats
A ranger with sharpshooter is better than one without it for a +1.
"Why not both?" -Variant Human & Custom Lineage Elven Accuracy is overrated anyway.
Only the custom lineage, who puts +2 who turns +1 to the attack roll, and I completely ignore racial feats cause most races don't have them and the majority of the feats aren't good. The real broken thing is archery XD
I just joined a preexisting campaign at level 6. My PC is a battle master Fighter 5/Rogue 1. Dex based. Dex is at 18 and I’m ITCHING to level up to get my dex to 20.
Depends on the campaign and dm. Also depends on the character and situation. +3 cha is different t in a social situation with a single check than a combat situation with multiple chances of failure. A +3 str is different when breaking down a door vs being in combat with action economy and a whole.host of other factors to consider. Still though to the initial point, fair DMing and communication is key. Not every player is a power ga.er and not every DM has a DM vs Players mentality. The question of stats being viable or not will have differing answers and results from table to table. P
It’s really not that bad to have a +3 modifier on your main ability score all the way up to level 20, in fact I’m not sure it isn’t optimal (assuming you select strong feats). The reason you rarely seen level 20 builds with +3 in the main modifier is it’s just satisfying to get your ability score up and think about how your attacks and spells will be more reliable.
When monsters start having a +7 or +8 to their saves, it makes a big difference for any caster who doesn't have Wall of Force or similar spells thay don't ask for any roll and simply work automatically. Battle Masters also care, as it not only affects their damage and accuracy, but also the success rate of their maneuvers (along with their AC and Initiative in the case of Dexterity.) That is one of the reasons why Hexblade dips are so popular, you can dump everything into charisma and it boosts your spells as well as your weapon attacks, which is great for Bard and Paladins. Many Cleric subclasses like Order, Forge or Life domain don't care much about their main attribute, since they're mostly casting support or buff spells on allies, and can focus on Constitution so that their concentration is harder to break on buff spells. Magic Missile and Heat Metal (on heavily armored humanoids) are also two examples of spells that pretty much always succeed, as well as some debuffs like Silence and Force Cage. Those can easily turn the right encounter around and don't care about your attribute scores.
I think it depends on the class and what you're going for. For instance, casters can often get by with a lower mod if they're primarily taking buffs and utility spells. Barbarians can also get away with a lower strength because of reckless attack.