Dump Stat: Difference between revisions

* The particular game requires you to have a dump stat, either implicitly (e.g., a game where a score of 2 in a stat is "average" and you have 3 stats but only 5 points to buy them with) or explicitly (e.g., the same game, but instead of having points to spend, you are simply told to assign one stat a value of 1, one a value of 2, and one a value of 3).

* It's just a stat you don't need for '''this''' character or playthrough. If [[Min-Maxing]] is involved, playing twice with different styles will pay better than playing it with [[Master of None|average in all stats]], so one has to be sacrificed.

 

The phenomenon has many causes. The primary cause is poor game design; ideally, all of your customization options should have some use beyond "flavor". Another common cause is that a game system is designed to handle multiple facets of gameplay, but the game itself only encompasses a few of those facets. If your party ever went into town to barter instead of trawling the depths of this dark dungeon, maybe your Barter stat would see some use. Another common reason is that a game engine has been copied over from a tabletop game to a digital game verbatim; it's really damn hard to make a Charisma stat do anything reasonable when your interaction with NPCs is suddenly governed by cold, unfeeling dialogue trees instead of a reactive and creative game master.

** In GURPS 4ed games where the party have access to firearms, strength is only useful up to the minimum needed to effectively use your weapon. 11 is enough to use nearly anything. Light machineguns or very heavy magnum handguns may require as much as 13, but any more than that is a waste if it's a point short of 20, where things like heavy machineguns become possible. (While HP is also based off of strength, almost any firearm is capable of dealing enough damage to kill you instantly, and so HT, used to save against death, becomes a far bigger deal.)

*** Also, HP can be bought independently of strength, or sold back for points to below what the character's strength would imply, and so is really only based on strength in name only. However, the core rules do recommend allowing HP to only be bought up +30% of its default ST-based value for "normal" human(oid) characters.

* After several years worth of alterations, ''[[World of Warcraft]] [[Expansion Pack|Cataclysm]]'' arrived at a strict and simple system:

** Out of three core stats of Strength, Agility and Intelligence each class is geared towards one of them and the gear with others is mostly worthless and the loot distribution system tries to prevent players from grabbing an inappropriate equipment. One of them is always present on a piece of gear. Stamina is present everywhere and simply gives HP.