Do you make all class abilities prime?

[Traveller]

@Ronin77: I think "screw over your character" is a bit strong here. It almost sounds like a backhanded encouragement to min-max. If a human player character rogue chooses charisma and wisdom for his other two primes rather than intelligence and constitution, what can you glean from those choices?

• Dexterity/charisma/wisdom: the rogue is a skillful pickpocket who can charm the knickers off the ladies but is wise enough to know when to cut his losses.
• Dexterity/intelligence/constitution: the rogue is a skilled climber able to cover great distances without tiring, but also smart enough to know that to solve the Gordian Knot you don't try to untie it, but cut it.

It's not a "bad" choice when someone chooses to make an attribute prime that isn't expected for the class of character chosen. I believe the primes can encourage role play by giving the player an idea of what his character's strengths and weakness are. I don't believe that making all attributes prime is a good idea, because in this case art imitates life. No character can be good at everything, and having some attributes be prime while others are not makes this readily apparent.

[Lurker]

No.

But I do allow all races to have 3 primes!!!

I've been thinking about doing that (if I ever get to play/DM again)

How does it work out for you?

@Ronin77: I think "screw over your character" is a bit strong here. It almost sounds like a backhanded encouragement to min-max. If a human player character rogue chooses charisma and wisdom for his other two primes rather than intelligence and constitution, what can you glean from those choices?

•Dexterity/charisma/wisdom: the rogue is a skillful pickpocket who can charm the knickers off the ladies but is wise enough to know when to cut his losses.
•Dexterity/intelligence/constitution: the rogue is a skilled climber able to cover great distances without tiring, but also smart enough to know that to solve the Gordian Knot you don't try to untie it, but cut it.

It's not a "bad" choice when someone chooses to make an attribute prime that isn't expected for the class of character chosen. I believe the primes can encourage role play by giving the player an idea of what his character's strengths and weakness are. I don't believe that making all attributes prime is a good idea, because in this case art imitates life. No character can be good at everything, and having some attributes be prime while others are not makes this readily apparent.

Traveller

Rgr on that I'm 100% with you on that.

I actually preferred running games with characters that were like that instead of just a character that was maxed in the average skills and had no depth of role playing tied to it

[Ronin77]

@Ronin77: I think "screw over your character" is a bit strong here. It almost sounds like a backhanded encouragement to min-max. If a human player character rogue chooses charisma and wisdom for his other two primes rather than intelligence and constitution, what can you glean from those choices?

• Dexterity/charisma/wisdom: the rogue is a skillful pickpocket who can charm the knickers off the ladies but is wise enough to know when to cut his losses.
• Dexterity/intelligence/constitution: the rogue is a skilled climber able to cover great distances without tiring, but also smart enough to know that to solve the Gordian Knot you don't try to untie it, but cut it.

It's not a "bad" choice when someone chooses to make an attribute prime that isn't expected for the class of character chosen. I believe the primes can encourage role play by giving the player an idea of what his character's strengths and weakness are. I don't believe that making all attributes prime is a good idea, because in this case art imitates life. No character can be good at everything, and having some attributes be prime while others are not makes this readily apparent.

And the last line I did say " If you choose to Prime one useful and one that none of your skills are based on you are sacrificing to be more diverse. That is your call." I was not saying I would encourage min/max. Just that its a choice. (I may have started that sentence a bit too strong.)

If I get all my class skills as prime it doesn't really encourage me to prime those abilities does it? If most my skills are DEX I really should choose a different prime. Get all my skills and 3 other abilities as prime also. Wouldn't that be more min/max than making Dex a prime?

For example the Assassin. If I was a human assassin and I got case target (Wis), Disguise (Cha), Listen (wis), and Poison (Int) all as prime And I choose Str and Con as my primes I now get DEX, Str, and Con as prime and 4 skills as prime from 3 non-prime abilities.

Or a human ranger. would get Conceal (Dex), Del/Net Poison (Wis), Move silent (Dex), Scale (Dex), Trap (Wis), Survival (wis), Track (Wis), as prime. So I'd be better off choosing my primes as anything other than DEX and WIS. Might as well choose Cha, Con, and Int. So I can get 3 primes plus 7 skills as prime too.

Sounds more min/max to me to not prime abilities your skills are based on. If you are going to allow all class skills as prime.

[mbeacom]

@Ronin77: I think "screw over your character" is a bit strong here. It almost sounds like a backhanded encouragement to min-max. If a human player character rogue chooses charisma and wisdom for his other two primes rather than intelligence and constitution, what can you glean from those choices?

• Dexterity/charisma/wisdom: the rogue is a skillful pickpocket who can charm the knickers off the ladies but is wise enough to know when to cut his losses.
• Dexterity/intelligence/constitution: the rogue is a skilled climber able to cover great distances without tiring, but also smart enough to know that to solve the Gordian Knot you don't try to untie it, but cut it.

It's not a "bad" choice when someone chooses to make an attribute prime that isn't expected for the class of character chosen. I believe the primes can encourage role play by giving the player an idea of what his character's strengths and weakness are. I don't believe that making all attributes prime is a good idea, because in this case art imitates life. No character can be good at everything, and having some attributes be prime while others are not makes this readily apparent.

And the last line I did say " If you choose to Prime one useful and one that none of your skills are based on you are sacrificing to be more diverse. That is your call." I was not saying I would encourage min/max. Just that its a choice. (I may have started that sentence a bit too strong.)

If I get all my class skills as prime it doesn't really encourage me to prime those abilities does it? If most my skills are DEX I really should choose a different prime. Get all my skills and 3 other abilities as prime also. Wouldn't that be more min/max than making Dex a prime?

For example the Assassin. If I was a human assassin and I got case target (Wis), Disguise (Cha), Listen (wis), and Poison (Int) all as prime And I choose Str and Con as my primes I now get DEX, Str, and Con as prime and 4 skills as prime from 3 non-prime abilities.

Or a human ranger. would get Conceal (Dex), Del/Net Poison (Wis), Move silent (Dex), Scale (Dex), Trap (Wis), Survival (wis), Track (Wis), as prime. So I'd be better off choosing my primes as anything other than DEX and WIS. Might as well choose Cha, Con, and Int. So I can get 3 primes plus 7 skills as prime too.

Sounds more min/max to me to not prime abilities your skills are based on. If you are going to allow all class skills as prime.

This is why I'd personally never prime all class skills automatically. It's essentially giving away free primes. What you'd get is a bunch of PCs with non-class primes outclassing any PC who's primes were in class skill related abilities. And that just doesn't make sense to me. But obviously I support anyones choice to do things differently that works for them.