PC Creation: Pointbuy or Roll?

[Nifft]

Players often love dice rolling; it gives them brief joy, longer lasting if they roll an 18. But it makes the campaign less fun for them.

I agree with this, up to a point. I think it only makes the campaign less fun if they get attached to their PCs, or if there is a big penalty for death.

In a meat-grinder dungeon, rolling for stats seems perfectly "balanced" and natural. Sure, you'll probably die, but so will the guy who rolled four 18s. (Eventually. )

-- N

 

[Fieari]

I love point buy with a passion. While rolling the dice is fun, I find something appaling about the concept of rolling once and having that effect the game from then on. You don't roll for feats, why roll for stats?

On the other hand, my players, as a general rule, disagree with me, and much prefer the dice rolling method. We've come up with an interesting system for that. I roll 4d6 drop lowest in secret, and they roll 4d6 drop lowest in the open. For each stat, they can either choose their roll, or mine sight unseen. This tends to get rid of more outlying low stats, as it's pretty rare that both they and I roll under 10 at the same time. The additional chance element appeals to their sense of drama as well.

I'd still prefer point buy though.

 

[Ibram]

I've used both, and prefer point by. Not that I'd have a problem with playing in rolling game (or running one if the players were dead set on using it).

As a DM the point buy system lets my players create characters on their own, I can just say "32 points, all stats start at 8 before modifiers". It also helps me keep the power level balanced among my players (which helps when I set up encounters).

As a player I enjoy the added element of control.

 

[Fishbone]

4d6, drop lowest results in about an average of 30 point buy, I believe. So offering 30 point buy does a few things that I like
It ups the power of the party a bit: Everybody can choose the stats they want, and this keeps from those poor just barely making the cut and 5 point back outliers from dragging the party down. It also makes classes with a lot of MAD more viable, you don't have to roll sick stats to make your Monk not blow chunks, its reasonably effective right out of the gate. It also makes it easier for me as DM to balance an encounter. If I've got a wide spread in stats I don't really know what to do, but if everybody starts with 30 points I know just to juice the encounters up a bit. Lastly, all the little tinkering with the base rolling can drastically alter the power of a party or a character. Most DMs probably don't realize that all the little tinkering could raise the stats of a PC by 10 points over the intended baseline on average and lead to some real 40+ unbalancing freaks of nature. Those are the 4 reasons I like point buy over random roll.

 

[MonkeyDragon]

Another bit. If after two sets the player is not happy with either set, they have the final option of scrapping both and ME rolling them a set. It matters not how bad it is, if it's legal, they have to keep it. I think it's only happened once or twice.

We also do a thing where if there are two ones in a set of 4d6, the dm will reroll one (or sometimes both) of the ones. It cuts out a lot of really bad stats, but not all of them. afterall, you can still get a six.

 

[dither]

I support point-buy all the way. As GM and even more often as a player using point-buy, I simply use the "elite array" because it represents the best balanced array of ability scores to me. 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. You don't need any more than that to play any kind of D&D.

 

[Jdvn1]

If the player's PC's got stat-mods totalling +4, but another player's PC has stat-mods totaling +13, the first player is going to -- rightly -- consider his PC substandard.)

I've tried throwing out excessively high stat-mod totals in the same manner one would throw out excessively low stat-mod totals. It worked with some success, though a player with a string of bad rolls gets frustrating for both the GM and the player.

 

[Jdvn1]

Who wants fair and balanced, yeah, the world is really like that.

The world might not be like that, but IME, games are more fun when parties are fairly balanced.

 

[Nightfall]

Choose your own stats. It allows one to make up the character they want to play exactly.

And people call me a power gamer.

 

[frankthedm]

17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12 {lower as desired] has taken over the D&D games of our group's.

I allow aging to 'old age' when i run.