Why do SPECIAL can't go below 4?

[Addramyr]

I was wondering why the rules say SPECIAL can’t go below 4 for the PCs?

I mean, a stat below 4 would still lower the chances to get a success, so why the hard limit?

[Modiphius-Nathan]

I discussed this elsewhere:

@Modiphius-Nathan

Basically: if your target number for a skill test is too low, the odds of success, even with extra dice bought, becomes too small. At 4, you’ve only got a little over 1 in 3 chance of passing a difficulty 1 test with the base two dice.

So, we set a hard minimum of 4 for PCs, partly to avoid those low numbers and partly to curb extreme min-maxing.

[keltheos]

Isn’t that low end of 4 kinda baked into the 2d20 system too?

[Modiphius-Nathan]

On a game-by-game basis we’ll build a minimum value into character creation, but sometimes it’s higher if the game assumes a high level of base competence (such as in Star Trek).