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I realize that D&D allows for anything to house-ruled.

However, by the 4e rules, can a character start with two 8's?   How about a 6?  

In the Method 2 version in the PHB, it says to start with 8, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10 and 22 points to spend.   Below that, it talks about a -1 going from 10 to 9 or 9 to 8.   Could a character then start with 8, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10 and 24 points to spend?   If you made an 8 into a 6, could you then have 26?

Sep 7, 2012 -- 11:50AM, SwampDog wrote:

I realize that D&D allows for anything to house-ruled.

However, by the 4e rules, can a character start with two 8's?   How about a 6?  

In the Method 2 version in the PHB, it says to start with 8, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10 and 22 points to spend.   Below that, it talks about a -1 going from 10 to 9 or 9 to 8.   Could a character then start with 8, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10 and 24 points to spend?   If you made an 8 into a 6, could you then have 26?

No.

Only if you use the dice method.

You don't get extra points for lowering a stat.

  AFAIK, there is nothing that allows a character to reduce their stats like that, and all of the stat-boosting stuff (other than the racial modifier) is reserved for epic tier, so 8-20 is the limit at the outset.

18 is the upper limit at level 1, before racial bonuses. To get a stat of 19 or 20, you have to roll/buy the stat at 18, then get a +2 racial bonus to get to 19 or 20. For instance, an elf gets +2 Dex, and +2 to either Int or Wis. That means that, as an elf, you only have the possibility of having a 20 in those 3 stats at level 1.

As far as lower limit. With the point-buy method(method #2), it's not saying you can buy a stat from 10 down to 9 for -1. It's saying that a stat value of 10 costs 0 points. A stat value of 9 cannot be directly bought. If your stat is 8, then you can spend 1 to bring it up to 9, or 2 to bring it up to 10, at which time you can then improve it again(ie. 2 points to bring 8 up to 10, then 3 points to bring it up to 13).

That's not correct.  You can buy (sell?) a single stat down to 9 or 8, and this gives you back a point each time - you can't buy more than one stat down below 10, though.

I think you start with five stats at 10 and one stat at 8.
You are not getting points back, you are simply not spending points to bring your self up to 10. 

True, I suppose it depends how you look at it.

You still have to spend the points to get up to 10.
you start with 10,10,10,10,10,8. You can't buy any of them down from there.
9   -(1)    means you can't buy down to 9, but you can buy the 8 up to 9 for 1 point. the - and the (1) are different numbers, not the same as -1.
10  0(2)   means that the 10s cost nothing. it costs 2 t obring the 8 up to 10. from there, you can buy the stat up again.