Shattered Kingdoms

I mentioned this previously. The question is straight forward. Humans should be able to choose what attribute their +3 cap goes towards. This includes half elves choosing the +1 primary. This would allow for more versatility for character concepts, especially for those classes with multiple-attribute-dependency.

Murderously unbalanced, unfair? Fair and balanced? Thoughts? Make it cost loyalty tokens.

Well, this would make human and helf more powerful.

Helf is pretty pathetic, so there's no problem there. I cannot think of -any- class that I would recommend helf for, ever.

Human is pretty good, but, I mean.. it's human. It's hard to imagine an OP human or underpowered human, since human is what we compare everything against. Let's look at some classes that would -definitely- be improved by human stat selection.

Merc or barb- dex. Tanking is all about dex, and it helps win the bash war.

Priest, shaman- int. Aside from voodoo, int is better.

Paladin, hellion- pretty much anything but str. These guys get str, right? Dex, int or cha.

Rogue- str. Backstab. Scouts might like str, too.

Bard- dex? Never thought about it, don't play bard.

Come to think of it, I think that sorc, necro and warlock are the only important classes that actually get their +3 where they want it.

So, would this be OP?

Human tanks would become significantly tankier, making the 'lol I rolled a fey race' tanking advantage even less attractive than it already is, which already only looks hot if you have beer glasses on.

Human would become the only race for priest, except for maybe delf, but those weaknesses aren't worth +2 int, and the only race for non-voodoo shaman, winning over gnome due to better str-dex-con. Would have all the current greatness of human shaman for tanking, plus 23 int.

Paladin and Hellion still suck but would suck a bit less.

Rogue is all about str. Maybe bard would prefer dex to cha, but I don't think about bards.

Primary attribute for bards is Cha. Int is still better than Cha though.

I like this idea and don't see any glaring cons.

I can't really agree with human mercs not picking strength. Carrying cap is too nice and actually affects tanking.

I can't support this idea either because it'd actually be a significant buff to things like priest/shaman. The only reason to -not- go human shaman ATM is if you want more than 20 int.

What if the human gets to pick +2 in another stat instead of +3 in their prime stat?

The problem with MAD classes is, in fact, their versatility. The jack of all trades is a master of none.

I don't feel entirely confident that this would be an effective means of dealing with that.

It would be far more viable to give human fighter classes a virtual size-like bonus to make them function like large characters (including the bonus PE at level 1) than it would be to do anything to their stats. Giving all human mage classes more INT is probably quite effective enough. I'd split adventurer up: bards get int, rogues and scouts get size. Similarly, I'd split clergy up: priests get int, shamans and paladins and hellions get size.

That size bonus is going to be useful no matter what direction you take your character in.

Half-elves could probably still get points. They should, in my admittedly jaded opinion, be discouraged as a racial selection.

The 'functioning as large' sounds awfully similar to the goliath racial trait Powerful Build from 3.5 Races of Stone, I approve.
Basically I just wanted humans to be more versatile than they already are with the added option of allowing the player to have some say in the design of their character. You may be sacrificing optimal mechanics for the sake of being a snowflake in rp, but that decision should be up to the player willing to spend their loyalty tokens. What if I wanted to make a mercenary and work in some backstory of him being a natural leader and a good speaker? I can do that already of course, but the stats wouldn't back it up, why not chose cha as my primary stat? I would lose that sweet +3 str and get +3 cha. Better at rallying cry and what not.

Part of what I'm saying is that I'd like to let roleplay actually translate into mechanics, to an extent. Anyone can RP a merc as being a born leader even if you don't have the stat cha. We can say whatever we like about our character, that he is some tactical genius, or wise beyond his years, but it's all smoke if your int is Dim and you're rping an intellectual badass.

I could go on in regards to possible stat combinations and classes for the purposes of making a snowflake.
Unfortunately, if you're a caster you will choose Int in every case you can; shaman/priest, maybe even paladin/hellion depending which direction they'd like to go with the character.

A modification of this might do well, leave a +1 locked according to current setup, and give them a +2 choice.
This would allow for some nice flexibility in my opinion.
Warriors with 21 Str, and a 22 Dex or Con.
Clergy with a 21 Wis, and 22 Int.
Swash, Bard a 21 Dex with 22 Cha?
Rogue 21 Dex and 22 Str?
No mention needed for Sorc, Necro, Warlock, unless they really wanted to try something different.

Only worry is that humans would become too predominant. (personally I prefer other races for lifespan as well as stats)