D&D 5E Point Buy vs Rolling for Stats

[Maxperson]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] - just a note here. I think I can see where the issue lies in our disagreement. You keep focusing on the randomly generated numbers as the source of realism. However, I see a problem there. It's not the numbers that makes for realism. After all, any die rolled array that fits into the 27 point buy doesn't suddenly make 27 point buy more realistic.

Right, and that's because if you use point buy, you are selecting the numbers you get, while if you roll those numbers randomly it's more realistic. It's not the end numbers that make it more realistic, it's the method of getting there.

No, the issue is in the choosing. You're right that people don't get to choose whether they are strong or smart. But, EVERY PC chargen system allows the player to choose stats. Changing the numbers or randomly generating the numbers isn't the issue. It's the simple fact that every stat is chosen by the player. In the DM's case, every stat is chosen by the DM and likely any die roll will be ignored at the DM's whim, making even the idea of die rolling pretty laughable.

You assume quite a bit there. First, that the DM will likely ignore any die roll. In my experience that's simply not true. The DM isn't likely to ignore any roll. It will happen rarely, but the vast majority of the time if the DM needs a specific number, he doesn't roll in the first place. The DM is also not playing the same way as the players. As the person who runs the entire world, he necessarily has to be able to pick and choose when he needs to. The game would fall apart and cease to work if he had to roll everything in it randomly. That's not the case with players. Second, stats numbers are not chosen by the player who rolls. Even rolled stats that are placed by the player into specific stat types are more realistic than picking both the stat number and the stat type like point buy and array.

No, the bigger issue is the fact that the player chooses where to put those stats. How can you argue for realism in a system which is inherently unrealistic at its roots?

And yet one more time, it's a matter of degrees. Rolling will always be more realistic than point buy or arrays due to it's random nature. Rolling straight down without being able to place the stats will always be more realistic than rolling and placing.

 

[Maxperson]

That choice comes with an opportunity cost that takes other decisions away from you. For example, you can't have a 15 in your highest ability and have a 12 in your lowest ability, or a 13 in your second lowest. Those decisions are mutually exclusive, so you aren't choosing only that number.

Buy you are choosing all numbers. You know how many points you have to spend, so you know what stats will be available for you to pick from later on. For example, if I pick a 15, a 15, and a third 15, I have also picked 3 8's since I know the costs and results. Yes it's a different way to get there than the array, but the result is still 6 selected numbers.

Okay, but if the realism issue is really about whether you select the numbers from a list or have the numbers randomly generated for you by some dice, then I don't understand how one is more realistic than the other. Does anyone actually believe the character is either doing the selecting or rolling the dice? I wouldn't think so. I would think that these and other acts of character creation are done by the players in director stance, "separately from the character's knowledge or ability to influence events." That's why I think realism is an unintentional red herring, diverting from the actual issue that for some players, dice-rolling for ability scores is more immersive because decision-making in director stance is incompatible with feelings of immersion.

Nobody is selecting anything in real life. The single selection of rolling randomly and placing those numbers does not mirror real life, but it is more realistic due to the random rolling than selecting both the numbers and the placement.

It provides only a default method to roll for adventurers. You can use it for other types of characters if you want to, but it isn't a default method for them.

There is no default rolling method for only adventurers. No rule anywhere in 5e limits 4d6-L to adventures only.

I agree. You can use it for types of characters other than those for which it was designed and intended.

Which, since no rule limits rolling to only adventurers, and other rules say you can roll for all NPC stats, includes all NPCs. If you want to claim otherwise, you are going to have to show rules that say what you are claiming.

 

[smbakeresq]

I still think the point buy vs rolling comes down to people and how games are run.

People are still afraid of a person getting ahead of them or them being behind so they choose the knowable and safe as opposed to the random.

If everyone rolled (we use 4d6-L) for stats in front of everyone else the problems would disappear. It is possible to be happy that someone else hit an 18 in an ability score.


When you are getting the next campaign going, schedule to first session for PC building and then adventure through 1st level. I think if you try it your group will be better as a whole and your game will be more enjoyable for everyone.


Sent from my iPhone using EN World

 

[Caliban]

I still think the point buy vs rolling comes down to people and how games are run.

People are still afraid ...

And there it is. Starting off with derogatory language right off the bat.

If everyone used point buy, the problems would also disappear. It's possible to be happy even if no one has an 18 ability score to start with. For some of us anyway.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The full normal range is 3-20 after racial adjustments. You can only go above or below that by special means. Having access to the full normal range is meaningfully different than being limited to 8-15.

8-17 since you include racial adjustments, and up to 20 with ASIs. Then the same 1-30 range "by special means." So, no, not all that meaningfully difference in the range of possible stats.

The difference is not in the range of a given stat that might occur, but in the range of relative power among the resultant PCs. Random generation can deliver a character that has multiple scores on the high end of the 'normal range' or one with few or none or even, in theory, though it'll probably be thrown out, all quite low scores. ASIs can bring a given stat up from as low as 10 to the normal max of 20, but no other stat gets raised in the process and feats are off the table. The PC that starts with a 20, gets to load up on feats or on secondary stats.

 

[Hriston]

Buy you are choosing all numbers. You know how many points you have to spend, so you know what stats will be available for you to pick from later on. For example, if I pick a 15, a 15, and a third 15, I have also picked 3 8's since I know the costs and results. Yes it's a different way to get there than the array, but the result is still 6 selected numbers.

I think we're in agreement on this. The end result of point-buy is you're picking one of sixty-five arrays of six numbers each, not that you're picking six specific numbers in isolation from one another. No method I know of lets you do that.

Nobody is selecting anything in real life. The single selection of rolling randomly and placing those numbers does not mirror real life, but it is more realistic due to the random rolling than selecting both the numbers and the placement.

But it isn't the character that's doing either the selecting or the rolling. It's you, the player at the table, so I don't see how one method can better represent reality than another. When you create your character, you aren't playing your character. Your character's backstory isn't that it created itself! Your character's backstory is that it was shaped by environmental factors into the person it is at level one. When you, the player, create your character, you are taking on the role of the environment that made your character what it is, playing God, so to speak. Alternate methods of ability score generation only represent reality inasmuch as they represent factors of the environment that determined those scores. Dice-rolling can represent a reality where the hand of fortune randomly deals out strengths and weaknesses to brave adventurers. Point-buy (or standard array) can represent a reality where the abilities of adventurers are predetermined by what fate has in store for them. Or the entire operation can be viewed as a non-representational method for determining some ability scores for your character. Neither approach is more or less valid, and neither representation of reality is more or less realistic.

There is no default rolling method for only adventurers. No rule anywhere in 5e limits 4d6-L to adventures only.

You keep saying this, even though it doesn't remotely respond to anything I've said.

Which, since no rule limits rolling to only adventurers, and other rules say you can roll for all NPC stats, includes all NPCs. If you want to claim otherwise, you are going to have to show rules that say what you are claiming.

Your claim is that the 4d6 drop lowest method is intended for use in all cases where a character's abilities are rolled. Correct? My counter-claim is that 4d6 drop lowest is only given as the rolling method for adventurers (including any NPC with an adventuring class), but can otherwise be used by a DM however he or she wishes, since no prohibition on its use for other purposes exists.

My claim is supported by the first sentence of the chapter in which the dice-rolling method is given, which says, "Your first step in playing an adventurer in the Dungeons & Dragons game is to imagine and create a character of your own." Further down the page, adventurers are again referenced in the first sentence of the second paragraph, which reads, "Before you dive into step 1 below, think about the kind of adventurer you want to play." This makes it clear that what's given in this chapter is a step-by-step method for the creation of characters that are adventurers, and that when the chapter subsequently refers to "your character" (as in the sentence "You generate your character's six ability scores randomly."), it is referring to an adventurer.

What textual basis do you have for your claim?

 

[Tony Vargas]

But it isn't the character that's doing either the selecting or the rolling. It's you, the player at the table, so I don't see how one method can better represent reality than another.

Roll-and-arrange, not really, no. Roll-in-order, though, can claim better 'realism' in the sense that an aspect of the characters (innate talent) out of the control of the character is also out of the control of the player.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I still think the point buy vs rolling comes down to people and how games are run.

People are still afraid of a person getting ahead of them or them being behind so they choose the knowable and safe as opposed to the random.

If everyone rolled (we use 4d6-L) for stats in front of everyone else the problems would disappear. It is possible to be happy that someone else hit an 18 in an ability score.

That is one thing I like about my group, and maybe its less common than I assumed, is none of the players are competing with each other. They do get fired up when a fellow player rolls nutty stats during PC creation since they know he should be effective in helping the party do what they are doing. Of course that PC usually ends up dying withing seconds of the rest of them, but there is no complaining about Frank having 2 18's when Bill only has a 16 max stat. I keep reading how Pole Arm Mastery is broken, and I see the POV but the rest of the group is loving having Pole Arm Pete along for the ride. Of course we are a stable group of players and not a random AL table.

 

[Satyrn]

In the USA maybe. In Canada we haven't had pennies for a few years now...

Well . . .

I've got a bucket full of them I've never bothered to redeem. I could sell them to you for a nickel a piece if you want some.

 

[Arial Black]

The end result of point-buy is you're picking one of sixty-five arrays of six numbers each, not that you're picking six specific numbers in isolation from one another. No method I know of lets you do that.

My main group has been using the 'Choose Whatever Stats You Want' method for over twenty years now, without issue. This is a method that lets you choose six specific numbers in isolation from one another.

Of course, I can see that this method would not work for AL or competition play.

But it isn't the character that's doing either the selecting or the rolling. It's you, the player at the table, so I don't see how one method can better represent reality than another.

Although we can quibble about the specifics of how flat or not the bell curve is, no-one here has denied that the reality of populations is modeled by bell curves; how loose or how tight is up for debate, but the bell curve itself is not.

So we can have a bell curve of 3d6, a skewed curve of 4d6k3, a tight curve from 15d2-12(!), and so on, and they will be 'realistic' to a greater or lesser extent by simply using a bell curve.

But imagine a method which says, "Toss a coin for each ability: heads it's 18, tails it's 3, and if it lands on its edge then it's 10". This is not a bell curve! It is absurd, and as a method of character creation it is totally unrealistic (where 'realism' = 'verisimilitude').

But nobody uses such a dumb system, right?

Well, that's point-buy!

If I use point-buy, and choose three 15s (and en passant also 'choosing' three 8s) then this is not a bell curve either. It is just as absurd as the 3 or 18 coin toss just mentioned.

And yet, point-buy PCs seem to have come from a population where their Str and Dex scores were not on any bell curve but from a population that is either Str 15/Dex 8 OR Str 8/Dex 15.

You don't see how one method can better represent reality than another? If one method is totally unrealistic and another is less unrealistic, then one IS more realistic than the other.