History Main / DumpStat

** There are actually a lot of characters who have one trait worse than all the others. [[HeroicSociopath Belkar]]'s is Wisdom, which is so low that he can't even cast the most basic of the spells associated with his ranger training. (He apparently took the training just so he could learn DualWielding.) V's are Strength and Charisma, fittingly for a SquishyWizard. Roy's seems to be Dexterity, if only because all his other traits are above average. And Crystal (? Haley?) is either another Intelligence dumper, or a minmaxer--she seems to have emphasized Dexterity the way Thog emphasized Strength, but it's uncertain how high her Strength and Constitution are, and her Charisma seems to be at least moderate. Celia seems to have dumped Wisdom, being a StupidGood GeniusDitz, Elan's has poor-to-average everything with exception of Charisma, while Eugene Greenhilt is also lacking in the Charisma Department. Xykon's seems to be Wisdom, given his impulsiveness and lack of planning, and his BeserkButton is that he's always being treated like an idiot by wizards despite showcasing average intelligence.

Note that in multiplayer games, this trope is not necessarily a bad thing, at least in some forms -- as long as the stat isn't ''always'' a dump stat for everyone. Optimally, encouraging players to make highly-focused characters allows each player's character an area to shine and ensures that nobody feels overshadowed. In single-player games it often doesn't make as much sense, but many such games use it anyway...

** Luck in ''{{Morrowind}}'' and ''{{Oblivion}}'': its use is never clearly stated, so it's an obvious place to avoid putting points. On the other hand, for greedy people who know how it works, Luck is the OneStatToRuleThemAll: it affects the loot gained from chests and monsters and thus can be exploited by being boosted (by praying at the altar of the god of luck, for example) before entering a random dungeon.

** Speed can be a dump stat. With a few exceptions:
*** Sweepers obviously need a high speed.
*** Wrap, Bind, and Fire Spin let you completely skip your opponent's turn. Also, sleep and confusion moves are even more powerful if you strike first.
*** Agility and String Shot are still useless moves. And Quick Attack trumps any Speed difference.

[[caption-width-right:340:Who needs Charisma if all you do is smash orcs?]]

** There are actually a lot of characters who have one trait worse than all the others. [[HeroicSociopath Belkar]]'s is Wisdom, which is so low that he can't even cast the most basic of the spells associated with his ranger training. (He apparently took the training just so he could learn DualWielding.) V's are Strength and Charisma, fittingly for a SquishyWizard. Roy's seems to be Dexterity, if only because all his other traits are above average. And Crystal (? Haley?) is either another Intelligence dumper, or a minmaxer--she seems to have emphasized Dexterity the way Thog emphasized Strength, but it's uncertain how high her Strength and Constitution are, and her Charisma seems to be at least moderate. Celia seems to have dumped Wisdom, being a StupidGood GeniusDitz, Elan's has poor-to-average everything with exception of Charisma, while Eugene Greenhilt is also lacking in the Charisma Department. Xykon's seems to be Wisdom, as his BerserkButton is being treated like an idiot by Wizards.

[[caption-width-right:230:Who needs Charisma if all you do is smash orcs?]]

[[quoteright:230: [[http://www.epictail.com/2009/04/24/the-dumpstat/ http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2009-04-24-dumpstat_141.png]]]]

Occurs for multiple reasons:
* Maybe the stat is an ill-defined "flavor" stat that doesn't help your character survive the frozen wasteland or kill the evil troll king. After all, how much sense does it make to pump your Orc Barbarian's "Hairdressing" skill?
* Maybe the effect of the stat is overshadowed by, or even made redundant by, the effects of a different stat. If the only purpose of wisdom is to affect your defense, and dexterity affects your defense while also improving your accuracy, why waste points on the less efficient stat?
* Maybe the stat affects absolutely useless aspects of the game. Why put points in stun resistance when a character with the minimum stun resistance never noticeably gets stunned anyway?
* Maybe the stat would be useful if it wasn't nerfed into oblivion at some point in the testing process. Luck increases your chance to instantly kill weaker enemies! ... by .01% per point, and it maxes out at 10. Pass.
* Maybe the stat is glitched so it doesn't do what it's supposed to. Final Fantasy 6's Physical Evasion or Final Fantasy 7's Armor Magic Defense are two notorious examples.
* Maybe the stat actually ''is'' useful, but made redundant by other party members who are potentially more capable with it. Meaning that it's illogical for your character to waste resources in this area. Why bother learning teaching your knight Lock-Picking for Dummies when you have a master thief working for you?
* Maybe the particular game requires you to have a dump stat, either implicity (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 explicity (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).

* Or maybe it's just a stat you don't need for '''this''' character or playthrough. If MinMaxing is involved, playing twice with different styles will pay better than playing it with [[MasterOfNone average in all stats]], so one has to be sacrificed.

** Charisma is O-Chul's. [[spoiler: [[MemeticBadass Which probably means it's in the mid-teens.]] ]]

** There are actually a lot of characters who have one trait worse than all the others. [[HeroicSociopath Belkar]]'s is Wisdom, which is so low that he can't even cast the most basic of the spells associated with his ranger training. (He apparently took the training just so he could learn DualWielding.) V's are Strength and Charisma, fittingly for a SquishyWizard. Roy's seems to be Dexterity, if only because all his other traits are above average. And Crystal is either another Intelligence dumper, or a minmaxer--she seems to have emphasized Dexterity the way Thog emphasized Strength, but it's uncertain how high her Strength and Constitution are, and her Charisma seems to be at least moderate. Celia seems to have dumped Wisdom, being a StupidGood GeniusDitz, Elan's has poor-to-average everything with exception of Charisma, while Eugene Greenhilt is also lacking in the Charisma Department. Xykon's seems to be Intelligence, as his BerserkButton is being treated like an idiot by Wizards.

* DiabloII has Energy, which controls mana. No one, not even Sorceresses, puts a single point into it for several reasons. Your mana pool increases with character level and high level items add a lot of mana as well. Mana steal scales with weapon damage, making it more effective too. There is also a runeword for hirelings that gives the entire party a large mana regen bonus. Meanwhile, very few skills go up in mana cost per skill level. This means if you just wait for a few more character levels, your lack of mana will solve itself. The same applies to strength: the damage bonus is neglegible, so the only reason to invest into strength is item requirements and you can make do with zero strength if you have some + strength items. Therefore 95% of the viable builds in the game require the same stat point distribution: just enough into dexterity to attain max block and everything else into vitality.

* ''{{Oblivion}}'' has a few:
** Personality: 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) is almost entirely a DumpStat. Successfully picking a lock in ''{{Oblivion}}'' 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.
** People who roleplay characters a little bit (or a lotta bit) might have uses for Personality, Speechcraft, etc. Likewise, in Morrowind, lockpicking was totally based on character skill, so Security was a worthwhile investment (although you could always enchant items with overpowering Unlock spells). However, the universal dump stat for both Morrowind and Oblivion was Luck. I doubt many players ever put a single point into it and it was never really clear what it affected.
*** Among minor things like random encounters, Luck also affected what loot you found in chests and on downed monsters. This could be exploited by maintaining a high luck bonus (by praying at the altar of the god of luck, for example) and then running into the nearest random dungeon for phat lewtz. Thus, for greedy people who like sparkly things, Luck was the OneStatToRuleThemAll.
** And Daggerfall was even more full of worthless skills. For every major class of monster, there was a language skill that let you speak with them to have a chance not to have to fight them. Among other things.
* ''Space Munchkin'' parodies this trope with "Stat X" a mystery stat in addition to the 6 core D20 stats.

** People who roleplay characters a little bit (or a lotta bit) might have uses for Personality, Speechcraft, etc. Likewise, in Morrowind, lockpicking was totally based on character skill, so Security was a worthwhile investment (although you could always enchant items with overpowering Unlock spells). However, the universal dump stat for both Morrowind and Oblivion was Luck. I doubt many players ever put a single point into it and it was never really clear what it affected.

* MutantsAndMasterminds and DC Adventures (the 3rd edition of the game) feature this for Presence, which only has the effect of adding bonuses to three solitary Skills, all of which can be bought up for cheaper than spending points in Presence. It was already a weaker option in the 2nd Edition, and the changes in the 3rd Edition made it even worse. The Dexterity stat can also become a DumpStat at times, as anyone who isn't a long-range fighter can just take a "0".

* MutantsAndMasterminds and DC Adventures (the 3rd edition of the game) features this for Presence, which has it's only effect being the bonuses to three solitary Skills, all of which can be bought up for cheaper than spending points in Presence. It was already a weaker option in 2nd Edition, and is now even worse. The Dexterity stat can also become this at times, as anyone who isn't a long-range fighter can just take a "0" easily.

* Attacks in {{Pokemon}} are divided into normal and special; usually a Pokemon naturally has one attack stat higher than the other. By teaching a Pokemon inclined towards Special attacks only Special moves, the Attack stat becomes completely useless. The opposite is also true; similarly, it's not usually worth it to boost either defensive stat for GlassCannon Pokemon who have really bad HP, since they're not going to survive much of anything anyway, or the speed stat for a slow Pokemon, because once you're slower than any likely opponent, the stat doesn't matter anymore (and some attacks/sets benefit from a low Speed stat, like Gyro Ball, which gets more powerful the higher the targets speed is compared to yours, and Metal Burst, which doesn't even ''work'' unless you go last).
** However, some specific Pokemon go for side-order of bulkiness that lets them just barely survive a near-lethal blow, so they can use things like Reversal and the Salac Berry.
** It's always a good idea to have at least one attack that doesn't necessarily get a major damage boost. For example, having a physical move taught to a Pokemon who has a high Sp.Atk means they won't do a lot of damage with it, but there are Pokemon out there with high Sp.Def and low Defense. They can easily shrug off that Flamethrower, but if you use Fire Punch instead, they'll go down. While this isn't such a common tactic in the game because you can simply switch Pokemon, it's a much more viable option in competitive battles against other players because ''they can switch Pokemon too''.
*** Actually, some movesets work with this. Mixmence is, quite frankly, a beast since it hits hard with both physical and special attacks.
*** The problem with this mentality is that in order for a pokemon to go mixed and be successful, it needs to be able to hit whatever counters their normal all-out counterparts hard. It's pointless to slap on a physical move on a special-oriented pokemon if they can't beat Blissey with it, for example.
** There are some EliteTweak builds that emphasize this to the extreme. The most ridiculous example is Shuckle, which actually has ''four'' dump stats - it has speed, physical attack, and special attack stats that are, to be charitable, abysmal. Its hit points are slightly better - which is to say, pitiful. But its defense and special defense are so absurdly high, and its special ability can make it resist any OneHitKill attack, you can afford to use StandardStatusAilments to do all your damage with it. The Shuckle from the Pike Queen in Emerald uses this strategy, introducing many amateur trainers to the first taste of MinMaxing and cheap move combinations.
*** Actually, it's '''five''', since ironically Shuckle's base defenses are both so ridiculous that they wrap right around to dump stats - the difference between a Shuckle with maxed out defenses and one with almost none is very difficult to notice. The stat that everyone pours resources into for Shuckle is HP - a max HP min Defense Shuckle is a much better wall than a min HP max Defense build. Of course, the EliteTweak builds give it points in Defense anyway, but that's really only because those leftover points have to go ''somewhere''.
* "Comeliness" in {{Champions}} does little to nothing with the base rules (its effect on social skills is a recommended houserule), and actually gives ''bonuses'' to Presence Attacks if it's low enough. Since it's also the cheapest stat in the game (1/2 point per increase), most people either sell it back to get an extra skill, or buy it up when they can't think of anything else during character creation.
** In Sixth Edition Hero System, the Comeliness stat has been dropped -- if you want looks that have an in-game effect, you buy Striking Appearance. If you don't care if your looks have any in-game effect, you can define them however you want.

* In pre-4th edition DungeonsAndDragons, Charisma is the default dump stat. Every other stat has an intrinsic value that doesn't require skills or feats to matter. Take 3rd edition for example, and ignoring any class-based effects on these stats. Strength increases melee to-hit and damage. Dexterity factors into your AC (avoiding physical hits), gives a bonus to reflex saves (avoiding non-standard attacks) and increases your to-hit with ranged weapons. Constitution factors into your HitPoints directly, as well as provides a bonus to fortitude saves (protection from insta-kills like poison). Intelligence ties directly into the number of skills you know. Wisdom is added as a bonus to your will save (protection from mind control and similar effects). Charisma has no ''intrinsic'' value.
** Class features, feats and skills can make Charisma worthwhile, and in some builds, it can make Charisma OneStatToRuleThemAll. But the basic core rules give Charisma no special powers.
*** In editions of D&D before Third Edition, Charisma was used to improve NPC reactions and to hire henchmen and make sure that they stayed with you when the shit hit the fan. This was very important in the early stages of the game because your average {{PC}}s started out with little in the way of HitPoints and would often die after one or two good hits, and having more people with you during a battle (along with good tactics and picking your battles carefully) increased your odds of surviving to the higher levels.
** Each D&D build will inevitably have a Dump Stat. One of the keys to good MinMaxing is to identify your dump stats - what don't you need/want to care about?
*** Strength can be the dump stat of most Arcane casters. At high levels, your doomspells are your attack method (if you ARE going to physically attack, you can just Polymorph into a stronger creature, anyway), and at lower levels, if you can't waste a spell, your light crossbow doesn't really need strength, anyway. The only real negative is the encumberance rules. (Bag of Holding, Tenser's Floating Disk, or just a plain old mule can handle that.) Even a bard is better off focusing on Dex and Cha.
*** In fact, the 3.5 community developed the term [=MAD=], or Mutiple Ability Dependency, as a criticism of classes that ''couldn't'' effectively dump several stats, and had to spread their resources too thin to be effective at anything. A classic case of MasterOfNone.
** 4th Edition avoids having a universal Dump Stat. The three defenses (Fortitude, Reflex and Will) are each based on the ''higher'' of two stats; Str/Con, Dex/Int and Wis/Cha respectively, so every stat has some intrinsic value. This still allows specific builds to have dump stats.
*** 4th Ed. isn't entirely immune to this, though. In general, Intelligence is the weakest of the 6 stats. When a character has a choice between boosting Intelligence or Dexterity, Intelligence is usually the safer choice for dumping, as Dexterity gives a bonus to initiative that Intelligence doesn't. Also, the Dexterity-based skills have important uses inside your typical dungeon, while the intelligence spells are good only for flavor (with the exception of Arcana). A knowledge skill may be ''helpful'', but a skill relying on dexterity might very well be ''vital.''
*** Similarly, when a character has a choice between boosting Strength and Constitution, Strength will almost always be the dumpier stat of the two. Constitution factors into both HitPoints and healing surges (the number of times per day a character can be healed). Strength determines your basic melee attacks (close combat attacks that do ''not'' use your class abilities, and which, depending on a character's role, may rarely or even never come up) and how much you can carry. Even the lowest possible Strength score (using the default PointBuy system) can still carry a wide array of weapons, equipment, and light armor, and anyone who really ''needs'' heavy armor or good basic melee attacks is unlikely to fall into the "has a choice between boosting Strength and Constitution" categorty. But ''everyone'' needs hit points and healing surges.
** ''Yamara'' explored this one:
---> '''Blag''': Cause ya see, girlie, nobody cares if ya got an 18 Intelligence. Nobody'd care if you were one o' th' lucky broads with a 18 '''Wisdom!''' All that counts is a nice, round 18--
---> ([[http://www.yamara.com/yamaraclassic/index.php?date=2005-06-02 see the right answer]])
** ''ForgottenRealms'' has [[http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Gayrlana_Bloodsword one classic character]] (AD&D 1 campaign set and ''[[http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/downloads Gold and Glory]]''), apparently existing just to give a decisive answer two questions: "who needs topped out ''Charisma''?" and "[[WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway What Kind Of Lame Power Is]] ''Mindlink'' Anyway?". Not that many adventurers ever get ''one'' [[WhenTreesAttack treant]], [[ChestMonster mimic]] ''or'' [[EyeBeams beholder]] hireling...
* R. Talsorian's ''Mekton'' and ''Cyberpunk'' games effectively made every stat except Reflexes (and possibly Body) a Dump Stat. The Reflexes stat was the OneStatToRuleThemAll: all-important to every aspect of combat and if your character ''did'' happen to get hit, Body determined how hurt he was. Several of the others - Empathy, Cool, and Technical Ability, were worthless. The most {{egregious}} of these was Attractiveness. No. Use. At. All.
** That said, house-rules can save other stats - something so simple as a "Luck Save" will convince PlayerCharacters not to skimp on anything. [[ButtMonkey Except Attractiveness]].
** ''Cyberpunk 2020'' also had two dump skills. The Brawling skill was added to a character's Reflex score when they made an unarmed attack. The Dodge & Escape skill was added to a character's Reflex when they tried to avoid an attack or escape when grabbed. But the Martial Arts skill was added to a characters Reflex score when making an unarmed attack ''and'' when avoiding an attack or escaping when grabbed, and was added to the damage of unarmed attacks, ''and'' gave the character an additional bonus with "key" attacks (e.g., kicking for Muay Thai, throws for Judo, holds for Wrestling). This was supposed to be offset by the fact that each Martial Art had a difficulty factor, by which you multiplied the cost to improve the skill during play ... but some Martial Arts (like Wrestling and Boxing) had difficulty factors of 1. This made Dodge & Escape useless unless your GameMaster didn't let you use Martial Arts for dodging non-melee attacks, and making Brawling completely useless for anything other than role-playing a character who had no formal combat training.

** Or, if you're playing the old WoD, put most of your mental attributes in Perception (being able to spot what's trying to kill you can come in handy), and don't bother with the rest unless you're playing a character specialized in knowledge/occult skills.
* In ''DevilSurvivor'' if you make your PlayerCharacter a magic user ([[LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards you should]]) increasing strength serves no purpose except when you run out of MP (which you shouldn't if you increase [[OneStatToRuleThemAll magic]] properly), don't have any other physical attackers on your team, and need it to use certain spells/passive abilities.
** There's a point early on where you ''need'' to dump points into your strength stat, though; a certain boss can only be harmed by one attack, which only the main character can use. Yep, it's a physical move. Once that's over with, though, you're free to basically ignore your strength stat.
* The first KingdomHearts makes you choose a dump stat. Odd, in that its effects on your stats is minimal, but its effect on when you learn which abilities is massive. Very much a GuideDangIt.

* In ''WorldOfWarcraft'', this is an EnforcedTrope, because your choice of class and talent spec specifically determines which attributes are valuable to you. If you aren't a physical damage-dealer, Strength and Agility are worthless. If you aren't a spellcaster, Intellect and Spirit are worthless. Before Blizzard optimized all the high level gear, it was amusing to identify noobish characters by their choice of items with worthless stats, such as a Warlock outfitted in random cloth items with Strength on them, or a Paladin in Stamina/Spirit plate. Further, many builds have one or two stats that are effectively OneStatToRuleThemAll, making even other normally worthwhile stats into dump stats.
** At one point in the game's evolution, Spirit was next to worthless for all casters except for Druid and Priest healers. This was changed in ''Wrath of the Lich King'' to where every cloth and leather-wearing caster had talents to make use of Spirit; in some cases making it a case of OneStatToRuleThemAll. Meanwhile, plate and mail wearers still get no use out of it and don't even have it on their gear. In ''Cataclysm'', Spirit is back to being a regen stat for healers only, although Druids and Shaman get a special rule exception to simplify their gear choices. (In fairness, Spirit does improve health regeneration slightly for all classes, although this is so trivial as to be a joke except at very low levels. It also improves mana regeneration for all classes, but only when they didn't cast anything for five seconds or more. Most healers are given a talent that allows them to retain a percentage of that while casting, while offensive casters either don't have it or don't need it thanks to their own means of regaining mana, such as Evocation or Life Tap).** ''Cataclysm'' changes generally boil down to merging DumpStats with a related OneStatToRuleThemAll, such as Intellect with Spellpower and Spirit with Mana Regen (this one could go either way depending on your class). Also, armor will be more attractive through the introduction of the Mastery Stat and it being rewarded in small amounts just for wearing your intended armor class (previously, armor was glanced over as irrelevant to any non-tank for raiding, which led to Warriors desiring leather equipment intended for rogues (which can't equip higher armor classes).
* {{GURPS}} carefully avoids a universal dump stat, partly thanks to using a PointBuildSystem. However many character designs benefit from picking one. i.e. A brilliant telekinetic can afford to drop his ST down pretty low in order to get points to enhance his powers instead.
** Still although lacking an official Charisma stat, many players tend to saddle themselves with social problems for more points.
*** Even so this pattern can get players in a lot of trouble if they are in situation where they ever need to pump NPCs for info (just because you can kill some one with your brain doesn't mean you can scare people to get the info you need).
* In ''FinalFantasyVI'', you can boost your Strength, Magic, Speed, Stamina, HP, or MP when you level up with the correct Espers, but you only get so many levels. For those players who want to max their stats, boosting your HP or MP for more than a few select levels turns out to be a waste -- not because of the stats being useless, but because HP and MP increase with levels anyway, and come pretty close to the max without Espers. The true DumpStat is Stamina. All it does is improve your resistance to instant death attacks (which can be blocked entirely anyway), and increase the power of Poison or Regen when afflicted to the character. That's right, boosting your Stamina ''increases'' the damage you take from Poison. The Regen boost isn't worth the bonuses you could be getting in Strength, Magic, or Speed, so a savvy player won't bother deliberately boosting Stamina.
** [[GoodBadBugs Physical Evasion does literally nothing]] in the [=SNES=] version. Boost your magic evasion instead; it'll cover both effects.
* DiabloII has Energy, which controls mana. No one, not even Sorceresses, puts a single point into it.
** To elaborate on this, your mana pool increases with character level and high level items add a lot of mana as well. Mana steal scales with weapon damage, making it more effective too. There is also a runeword for hirelings that gives the entire party a large mana regen bonus. Meanwhile, very few skills go up in mana cost per skill level. This means if you just wait for a few more character levels, your lack of mana will solve itself.
** The same applies to strength: the damage bonus is neglegible, so the only reason to invest into strength is item requirements and you can make do with zero strength if you have some +strength items. Therefore 95% of the viable builds in the game require the same stat point distribution: just enough into dexterity to attain max block and everything else into vitality.
* Charisma in ''Murkon's Refuge'' just reduces the rates you pay at inns and clinics. And the inn in the first town is always free, so if you keep that as your home base, it only affects clinic prices. (In the pre-web version, it instead affected how often monsters were friendly, a feature which the creator decided to dump for the web port
* For a long time, moxie became a bit of a dump stat in KingdomOfLoathing, to the degree that having a high level of it would make the final boss battle exponentially harder, with the main attractiveness of the moxie classes (the special Moxious Maneuver) being less than useless. This disparity has since been modified. A bit.

* 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.
** Arguably Lockpicking, since having a low Lockpicking skill does not prevent you from picking Very Hard locks, and later in the game becomes redundant with Open Lock spells, or, if you're not a spellcaster, the Skeleton Key, which in effect gives you infinite lockpicking attempts.
*** Security (the skill governing your ability to pick locks) is almost entirely a DumpStat. Successfully picking a lock in ''Oblivion'' 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).

* Each stat in ''ArkhamHorror'' 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. 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.

* In the doujin game ''[[TouhouProject Labyrinth of Touhou]]'', points put into stat and skill advancement, equipment enhancements to them, and points from gaining experience levels all act as a percentage multiplier to the base score. Thus it's hard to avoid emphasizing a character's initial strengths and weaknesses. Beyond that, every character (and monster) has one common dump stat; due to an unfixable bug in the game engine, ''it is impossible to avoid attacks''. Therefore, Evasion is completely useless (for a Touhou game, something of a WallBanger).

* [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0044.html Intelligence]] is [[OrderOfTheStick Thog's]] dump stat. Could you tell?
** And Charisma is O-Chul's. [[spoiler: [[MemeticBadass Which probably means it's in the mid-teens.]] ]]
** There are actually a lot of characters who have one trait worse than all the others. [[HeroicSociopath Belkar]]'s is Wisdom, which is so low that he can't even cast the most basic of the spells associated with his ranger training (he apparently took the training just so he could learn DualWielding.) V's are Strength and Charisma, fittingly for a SquishyWizard. Roy's seems to be Dexterity, if only because all his other traits are above average. And Crystal is either another Intelligence dumper, or a minmaxer--she seems to have emphasized Dexterity the way Thog emphasized Strength, but it's uncertain how high her Strength and Constitution are, and her Charisma seems to be at least moderate.
** Celia seems to have dumped Wisdom, being a StupidGood GeniusDitz, Elan's has poor-to-average everything with exception of Charisma, while Eugene Greenhilt is also lacking in the Charisma Department. Xykon's seems to be Intelligence, as his BerserkButton is being treated like an idiot by Wizards.

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