Dump Stat: Difference between revisions

** Personality in ''[[Oblivion]]'': there are ways to boost the stat for the infrequent few seconds you need it, and you typically only need it for a few seconds because time freezes when you start a conversation.

** Security (the skill governing your ability to pick locks) in ''[[Oblivion]]'': successfully picking a lock is based more on player skill than anything else; high Security only slows down the tumblers to make them easier to set (which is already easy with practice) and affects what happens when you fail to set a tumbler (each Security "perk" reducing the number of tumblers that fall back into place by one). Additionally, the Open Lock spell makes lockpicking redundant, and the Skeleton Key gives effectively infinite lockpicking attempts. In ''[[Morrowind]]'', on the other hand, lockpicking is based on character skill instead of player skill, so Security is a worthwhile investment . . . at least so long as you didn't bother enchanting items with Unlock spells.

** Luck in ''[[Morrowind]]'': its use is never clearly stated, so it's an obvious place to avoid putting points. On the other hand, for people who know how it works, Luck is the [[One Stat to Rule Them All]]: it affects a large number of actions which involve random chance, including the likelihood of a spell-cast succeeding, the chance of hitting an enemy, and the chance of being hit. This is shown masterfully with [[That One Boss|Gaenor]] in the Tribunal expansion; his absurdly high Luck stat of 770 makes him absurdly difficult to even put a scratch on.

** In ''Morrowind'', there really wasn't any need to bother with the Destruction skill since all the damaging spell effects it incorporated were massively trumped by Mysticism's Absorb Health. ''Oblivion'' partially averted this by making Absorb Health a touch-only effect, but in a sense compensated for that by moving it to Restoration (thus giving all the more reason to invest in said skill). As such, Mysticism became even more of a dump-skill than Destruction. For that matter, with the removal of Levitation and Jump effects between ''Morrowind'' and ''Oblivion'' (combined with the ease of lockpicking in the latter), Alteration got likewise nerfed from one of the best schools to one of the worst.

** In Oblivion, your Luck doesn't affect the loot from containers, but instead gives boosts to nearly all of your skills, meaning putting points into it helps with pretty much everything. It has a minor impact on a couple other things in the game, but the skill increase is by far the most useful, making it an incredibly useful stat when you know what it does, and a likely [[Dump Stat]] for people who don't. [http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Luck See here for details.]

* ''Space [[Munchkin]]'' parodies this trope with "Stat X" a mystery stat in addition to the 6 core D20 stats.

* Each stat in ''[[Arkham Horror]]'' is inversely linked with another. You can take a dump stat but it's always risky: lowering your Will gives you a better Fight but then just seeing the monster drives you insane, for example, and any stat could be called on in a random encounter. Luck of the draw and strategy factor heavily in the game. You can change stats at the start of every turn to adjust to the situation and having the right items can mitigate the risks of having a dump stat.

* INT in ''[[Dragon Quest]]''. Yes, it's useful in the early levels, but it suffers serious decay since it does not determine magic damage. (Magic damage is fixed and then multiplied by elemental resistance.) INT and its cousin, VIT, are still useful, mind: They do raise HP and MP. But after a while, that's irrelevant.

* The Charisma and Wisdom scores are typically dump stats in [[Baldur's Gate]] II. Unless you're playing as a Cleric, Wisdom is only useful for the Wish spell, and even then you can just get a character with high wisdom to cast it. As for Charisma, you get a ring after completing one of the first quests in the city which boosts your Charisma score to 18 when wearing it.

* Certain types of equipment in ''[[La Tale]]'' such as gloves can be enchanted with unique enchantments that tend to be [[One Stat to Rule Them All|prioritized]], but all equipment that can be enchanted can have the base four, strength, stamina, magic, and luck. Strength and magic boost damage for [[Captain Obvious|physical and magical classes respectively,]] but by such a small amount that almost everyone prefers luck (boosts the odds of a critical hit) and stamina (only base stat to boost survivability) over them.

* ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' [[Averted Trope|does away with the concept of Dump Stats]] by giving players only three stats to worry about: Hit Points, Strength, and Magic Power. Defensive boosts are only governed by special accessories that block attacks based on a percentage.