In the New Player Checklist I tell people it is a bad idea to give your level 4 stat bumps to anything other than their primary statistics. Some new players question why we usually don't approve characters who don't bump their primary stat, and it's pretty straightforward: it's never a good option. Why is that? Lets take an example of a Dwarf Warden: Dwarf 1: Starting Array: 16/16/13/11/10/8 Racial Bonus: +2 STR / +2 CON Starting Array for Level 1: 18 STR / 18 CON / 13 Dex / 11 Int / 10 Wis / 8 Cha At level 4 (since we start at level 5 this is before you post on the sheet for initial approval, so its basically at character generation) you get a +1 to 2 different Stats. So if you are following the suggestion from the New Player Checklist, those points go into STR and CON. That means the stats for your new Dwarf Warden are as follows: 19 STR /19 CON /13 Dex /11 Int /10 Wis /8 Cha But... what if I want to give myself more Cha? Why don't I just give my level 4 bump to Cha? The short answer is that you will be actually giving yourself a net penalty to Charisma by using your level 4 stat bump on something that isn't a primary statistic. Here is the long version: If you instead gave the bonuses to INT and CHA your stats would look like this: Dwarf 2: Starting (Post Racial bonuses): 18 STR / 18 CON / 13 Dex / 11 Int / 10 Wis / 8 Cha Lv 4: 18 STR / 18 CON / 13 Dex / 12 Int / 10 Wis / 9 Cha So... do we only want you to build munchkin characters? No, we want you to stop shooting yourself in the foot. If you want to have higher int or higher cha, you want to do so at character creation by changing your starting array. You could instead choose to start with this array: Dwarf 3: Starting Array: 15/15/13/12/10/11 Racial Bonus: +2 STR | +2 CON Starting Array for Level 1: 17STR /17 CON /13 Dex /12 Int / 10Wis / 11 Cha Level 4 bump: +1 STR / +1 CON Lv 4: 18 STR / 18 CON / 13 Dex / 12 Int / 10 Wis / 11 Cha By using your level 4 stat bumps on your highest stat it allows you to always benefit from the best array at level 1 to get what you want. Dwarf 2 and Dwarf 3 have identical stats except that Dwarf 3 has +2 Charisma over Dwarf 2. Because Dwarf 2 chose to ignore the suggestion by putting their level up bonus in charisma the net effect was that they had lower Charisma than if they had chosen to give themselves a different array at level 1 and given their bonuses to their highest stats (STR and CON). Hopefully this clears up any confusion relating to this topic. If you put your bonuses in something that isn't your primary statistic, get directed to this post and something in here does not make sense, please bring it up with in Guild Chat. Disclaimer: This is NOT A SUGGESTION TO START WITH DWARF 3's ARRAY. IF YOU ARE NEW YOU SHOULD DEFAULT TO ONE OF THE STARTING ARRAYS. THIS IS BEING USED AS AN EXAMPLE FOR WHY YOU DO NOT WANT TO PUT YOUR STATS IN PLACES OTHER THAN YOUR HIGHEST STATS.
