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Some classes have favorite dump stats. Spellcasters in general dump Strength, the brute types dump Charisma, tin cans dump Dexterity, etc, etc.

In what combinations does it make sense to make Constitution a dump stat, from a metagaming perspective? I mean, what race/class combination would prioritize stat on all other five leaving Con as the dump stat?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ The only reason I could ever think to "dump" Con, is if your rolled stats were so poor that you'd qualify for a re-roll anyway. On a more serious note: an archer bard may be the only build I would seriously consider it on, and they are quite MAD and tend to stay out of the danger zone anyway. \$\endgroup\$
    – Weckar E.
    Commented Dec 7, 2016 at 16:40
  • \$\begingroup\$ I wanna say related. It doesn't answer your question specifically, but it does point out the negatives. So if none of those apply to you, then go for it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ben
    Commented Apr 17, 2017 at 14:03

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Basically, only when you make it stop mattering. When you are or plan to soon be a (non-living) construct or undead, you lose your Constitution anyway. There are also (generally considered overpowered) options for using a different ability score for HP, like the Faerie Mysteries Initiate feat which makes your HP based on Intelligence. But every creature using it for HP should have good to great Constitution. A character with Con 12 is already what I would consider “low,” to say nothing of scores of 8 or 6.

Basically, Con just gives too much HP over the course of the game to do anything else. On top of that, the classes with the least need for HP, are also heavily SAD (single ability dependent) classes that need nothing after their casting stat, and they have small HD to boot, so even if they could get away with it, there’s no reason for them to.

So the only time you can truly dump it is when you’re not going to have it because you’ll be Con — or using something else to determine HP.

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    \$\begingroup\$ GITP also has a list of ways to add a different stat to hit points. \$\endgroup\$
    – IllusiveBrian
    Commented Dec 6, 2016 at 15:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ @IllusiveBrian Noted, but aside from unholy toughness and Faerie Mysteries Initiate, those don’t do enough to justify dumping Con: most of them only give another ability to HP once, not per level. And unholy toughness is only available on one “playable” monster, the salt mummy, but practically speaking that isn’t really playable, no matter what the rules say. The dragon warrior does get Wisdom to HP at each of its class levels, which might be enough, though the bonus is on top of Constitution so you could (and should) do both. So yeah, it’s pretty much just Faerie Mysteries Initiate. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Commented Dec 8, 2016 at 19:00
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You seem to suppose you can only have one dump stat, that's not true !

You can dump Con if you already dumped less interesting stats and still need more point to min-max your build. For example if you absolutely need this 16 in Int for your wizard (or to max your knowledge: The Planes if you are playing Pun-pun), with a point-buy of 10 and your GM asked you not to dump any stat lower than 8, you have no other choice than dumping every stat but the Int, Con included.

Yes, it's a pretty niche case, but it can happen !

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Your math is off; with 20 points, you can have 18, 12, 8, 8, 8, 8—so you can have Int 18 and Con 12. That’s low, but it’s not the same as dumped. An array of 18, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 is a point buy of 16, not 20. And even then, Int 16, Con 14 is superior in all but the most contrived of cases. Still, you’re not technically wrong—one could imagine such contrived cases—so I haven’t downvoted. But this answer would be much improved if it acknowledged how contrived a situation needs to be before dumping Con becomes a good idea. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Commented Dec 6, 2016 at 14:59
  • \$\begingroup\$ I don't know the math for this, so I used an online calculator (which apparently was a 5ed one, and it seems to be different). Anyway I edited the answer, it should be correct now. \$\endgroup\$
    – Anne Aunyme
    Commented Dec 6, 2016 at 15:15

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