What I mean by main stat is the stat that's generally considered the most important for what your character does. Say, a crafter with low Dexterity, or pretty much any user of supernatural abilities with a low casting stat, or a teacher with low Communication... That sort of thing. (I imagine things that require the Gift will have more of these, because beggars can't be choosers given how rare the Gift is.)
I'd say that the character I've played with the lowest "main" stat for their role was definitely Reginald, a Giant-Blooded Hermetic magus with a whopping -5 Intelligence. His lab totals were of course terrible, and in fact he started play rather old simply because no magus wanted his younger, even more mentally challenged self screwing up their lab work. Joke's on everybody else, as he went on to write some of the best books the Order has on Magic Theory and made several Breakthroughs integrating Folk Witch stuff into the Order, but the -8 lab totals compared to every other magus I've ever played made things feel dicey at times, and I had a lot of trouble staying in character with somebody who was... Not bright. People also tended to disregard his input, but that was intentional on my part so no hurt feelings there. Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable saga, and the character eventually performed some CrMe Rituals for himself to get his head in the game, so to speak (though that wasn't till pretty close to the end of the saga, and it was more because he suddenly had a lot of Mentem vis after slaying the second of his four collective apprentices when she turned to diabolism).
What about you guys? What's the lowest main stat you've ever had on a character? How did they cover for it as they went about their lives? And what kinds of reactions did other characters give them for their supposed deficiency? I'm interested in hearing about it.
I don't have a maga that is that dumb. I do have a maga who's intelligence is only +1, but her Stamina is +3, and she's a combat/field maga rather than a lab rat. She did manage to acquire a familiar who is smarter than she is and is constantly saying, "you're doing it wrong. If only I had hands, and could work magic, I'd just do this myself."
My most stupid magus character was my "Pig Farmer" Criamon. He had, I don't remember, I think Intelligence -3. He was genuinely a pig farmer, that turned out to have the Gift and was picked up and trained by the Criamon. The thing is that he understood the whole "break the chains of material, to release the spirit" motiff of his master way too literally, and focused on literally breaking and destroying human bodies and earth (PeCo and PeTe). He was quickly nick-named "the pig farmer" and was an embarassment for his clutch, but he was socially clueless and they were too kind to make that explicit. So he ended up in the covenant, after his master and clutch sent him there to keep him away from them.
He never saw much play, but eventually he was going to really destroy his body and transform himself into a pure spirit. That was the idea, anyway.
Well, I once played a Soqotran Sorcerer with -2 Communication and the Mute Flaw. It was a tricky experience, to say the least. He saw relatively little play throughout the saga, as I was far more interested in my companion Richtor (a white merchant), but he was there learning constantly, and he became fairly strong despite his limitation, actually successfully defeating a magus in protracted combat with the help of his Spirit Aide at one point. In hindsight, he had decent Intelligence, so I'd have probably had more fun with him if I tried to make him codify Soqotran magic into a Theory, but eh, the past is in the past.