Deciding on stats for new player

d&dis4fun

I'm having trouble understanding which stats are most important for classes. I am currently making a Elf Druid and have a roll of 92 and my stats are Str 3 / Dex 19 / Con 17 / Int 8 / Wis 18 / Cha 18 with a total of 9 points left to assign (STr and Int are as low as they can go). Is Str important for a Druid if I am casting spells? Is Cha very important?
I would also like to make a Sorcerer and Cleric, and would appreciate any advice on which stats can be dumped for those classes as well and which stats should prioritized that might not be apparent to a new player to those classes. Obviously Wis is important to a Cleric, but what else? Could I make a ranged cleric and ignore Str or does it need to be maxed. Int for Sorcerers but what else is important?

TheArtisan

I highly recommend against skimping on Strength. Your encumbrance depends on your strength stat so having a strength of 3 means you won't be able to wear any equipment or even move when carrying anything.

Sorcerers are weird in that they have no need for most stats. A high dexterity and 16 in constitution is usually all you need.

As for clerics, strength is very useful because slings, the only ranged weapons they can use, deals more damage with high strength.

lolien

If you play no warrior class, than 16 con is enough. Int is really important only for arcane magic users. Cha is the universal dump stat for all.

moody_mage

Drop CON down to 16 and push the remaining points in STR. If your Druid is going to be the party leader than CHA is good, however if you are considering another party member as leader then I would drop it down and try to max STR.

A good STR is always useful on any character. A Druid like it or not will get into melee at times. Also getting encumbered due to a low STR is really annoying.

Yulaw9460

Deleted.

BillyYank

The problem with dumping CHA for all your characters in IWD is that you'll miss out on some dialog choices. There's a couple of places where you get a better reaction if you talk to someone with a high-CHA character, so it's nice to have a party member with a 16 or better. I would use the sorcerer for that, since they don't really have a required stat, and 3rd edition sorcs used CHA as their primary, so it fits from a role-playing perspective to me.

Belanos

I would agree that it's not a good idea to dump your Strength score, especially for a Druid. They're not strictly spellcasters, they also engage in melee combat as well. So they won't do a lot of damage if their Strength is too low. And as mentioned, you won't be able to carry squat.