Everyone talks about how some stats are more important than others but their reasons are not always clear. So what I have done was assigned each stat a power rating and will explain the reason for the rating. Now it is true that the importance of each stat is a little varied for each style but what each stat affects never changes. Now to the good stuff.
Will -- Rating 8 -- Your will affects the starting skills for attack, parry, defense and decisiveness. In ADM when you can raise your stats above 21 you can also gain Initiative skills. Your will grants you a modifier to your HP's which is extremely useful. Will is the key stat for your character's endurance. Will is also the stat that affects your stat raises. Break Points: 15, 17 and 21. Downside: You gain the same starting skills at 14 that you gain at 9.
Wit -- Rating 7 -- Wit is the main stat of skill learning. Wit effects the starting skills of initiative, riposte, attack, defense, and decisiveness. All weapons have a minimum with requirement to use effectively. Break Points: 13, 15, 17 and 21 Downside: Wit's downside is its upside. Your wit basically only affects your skills. It is a stand alone stat only relying on itself so high wit is almost a necessity for any long term character that you want to hold his own weight.
Deftness -- Rating 7 -- Deftness and wit are so close to each other in importance that it is hard not to give them the same rating. Deftness affects your starting skills of Initiative, riposte, attack, parry, and defense. Deftness gains more starting skills at the same stat level as wt, (ex. Def -- 13 gives you 26 starting skills and wit -- 13 gives you only 24.) Deftness works with speed to get your coordination. And all of the weapons have a minimum Deftness requirement to use effectively. Break Points: 11, 13, 15, 17, and 21 Downside: Deftness doesn't affect your Decisiveness. Its weapon requirements cause you to have to put points here.
Size -- rating 6 -- your size affects your defense, parry, and initiative. Size also gives you a bonus to your hit points. Your damage is highly affected by your size. The bigger you are the more damage you are likely to do. Some weapons also have a size requirement. Break Points: Sizes 3 and 5 have a bonus to Defense and Parry. Sizes 15, 17 and 21 have a bonus to initiative. Downside: You cannot add points to size during creation or train size up later on causing you to hope for a rollup with a good size for the weapons and style you want to run. If they would allow you to adjust your size at creation then size would be an even bigger factor.
Strength -- rating 6 -- Strength affects your starting attack and parry skills. Encumbrance is also greatly affected by how large your strength is. With this stat is also where you can have some control over your damage capablity. Encurance is also affected by strength. All weapons also have a minimum requirements to use effectively. You can also train strength from 7 to 14 without burning any skills. Break Points: 7, 15, 17, 21 Downside: Strength relies on the help of poor stats mainly constitution and size. And your encumbrance relies on this stat being larger than constitution.
Speed -- rating 5 -- Speed affects your starting initative, riposte, defense and decisiveness. The most important of these is the Decisiveness. you can usually get the riposte, defense and initiative you need from other stats. Speed also helps with your coordination. Break Points: Just try to hit an odd number. Downside: Pretty much all of the other stats do what speed does and most of the time they do it better. Make sure you hit a solid number in Deftness before you add to speed.
Constitution -- rating 3 -- The lowest rated stat, but the lowest rated is often turned into the most neglected. Constitution affects three of the most important areas in my opinion. Encumbrance is affected by your constitution. Your con has reduced to the same as Strength. Endurance is also affected by your con making it to be equal to or lower than your strength when figuring encumbrance or else con will be the third stat to affect Endurance. Now for constitution's greatest ability, hit points. Con is the main stat for your HP and if it is too neglected then you have a higher chance of losing and even worse dying. Break Points: None Downside: You gain absolutely no skills from Constitution which causes people to ignore it causing low HP characters that die if they don't win fast. There is a silver lining to the downside though. Seeing that you don't gain skills you can train con without worry of burning your skills.
Well I hope that this helps someone with understanding how the different stats work by themselves and with the others. If someone feels that I have something wrong or would like to add something, please diplo me. So may we share the blood that stains the sands in the heat of battle. But let yours be more than mine.
-- Diaretic, The Dark Tides (1234)