Originally Posted by
justagame
The phrase "CON is not a dump stat" always bugs me, not because hit points don't matter (they do!), but because CON is only a small part of the problem. The difference between a 280 hp toon in shroud and a 400hp toon in shroud isn't that they started with a 10 con instead of 14. It's the lack of toughness and enhancements, the lack of a CON item, GFL, etc.
Heck, take any toon that started with a base 14-16 CON (which most sane people would agree is solid), and has 450 to 600 hp at endgame (depending on class, race, etc.). Starting with a CON of only 10, and holding everything else equal, would bring hp down to the 400 to 550 range -- nothing we would describe as extraordinarily gimpy all by itself, except in the case of a pure tank. Similarly, you could start with a 16 CON, but ignore toughness, items, tomes, GFL, etc. and have 300 (or less!) hp at endgame.
As a real life example, when I did a GR of my first toon, a cleric, and converted from a 28 to 32-pt build, among other things I bumped starting CON from 12 to 14. That netted me 20 hp. Nice, but not game-changing. However, I also re-did my feats and added toughness + racial enhancements (42), and shortly afterwards crafted my shroud hp item (45). Now THAT made a noticeable difference, and allowed me to play less gingerly.
In short, "CON is not a dump stat" might mis-lead newcomers a bit, because it's insufficient. I realize it has a nicer ring to it than something like "Hit points matter", but it's potentially misleading nonetheless. Whenever I hear someone smugly comment about a low hp toon "CON is not a dump stat", I often wonder if starting CON is the real problem for the player in question, or if perhaps they left other HP-enhancing things out of their build.