forum.ferretdev.org

Why is stats necessary? Demon has an ability and trait to define "stats".
"Since you have not invested in str, the physical abilities are useless" is boring.

Hmm... but things shouldn't be "useless" even with zero investment? Even if you have only a 1 in the stat, you'll get 75% of the listed effect of the ability in question. It's certainly less useful, but plenty of things can be all manner of effective even with no investment.

For example, in the experimental build (which is looking likely to become a real build next week), many single-target status effect abilities, even for things like Panic and Charm, are running at 70-85% base success rates. Even at minimum Cunning, these will still work roughly 55-70% of the time, and are still almost certain on a target Weak to their type.

As far as attacks/healing go, they'll definitely do less, but I don't know if I'd agree they're useless. Even starting from 75% effect, buffs, debuffs, hitting Weak points can still get you to a fairly decent result.

Apart from that, stats are also how I try to keep builds distinct, rather than everyone gravitating towards the same jack-of-all-trades sort of things. Having to make some investment in one direction or another to get the best use of things encourages a bit of specialization, but I've tried to keep it from being too heavy-handed.