PC Creation: Pointbuy or Roll?

[Mercule]

Point buy.

If I was in an old-school dungeon crawl (Rappan Athuk, for example), I'd be fine with dice. In that case, I'd probably go with "roll 'em in order". But, my group tends toward more refined development.

 

[Crothian]

And people call me a power gamer.

The last campaign I had the players pick stats no one had a score higher then 16, no one had two scores higher then 14, and everyone had at least two scores under ten. Allowing players to choose ability scores has no bearing on people being a power gamer. Actually, it works becasue people come up with a solid concept first and then have the ability scores to perfectly fit their concept.

 

[Glyfair]

The last campaign I had the players pick stats no one had a score higher then 16, no one had two scores higher then 14, and everyone had at least two scores under ten. Allowing players to choose ability scores has no bearing on people being a power gamer. Actually, it works becasue people come up with a solid concept first and then have the ability scores to perfectly fit their concept.

I think you could learn a lot about a group by giving them the exercise of creating characters for a campaign with them choosing the stats and seeing what stats they end up with. I also suspect with most groups you'd get different results if you had them do it in isolation and had them do it as a group exercise.

 

[Crothian]

I think you could learn a lot about a group by giving them the exercise of creating characters for a campaign with them choosing the stats and seeing what stats they end up with. I also suspect with most groups you'd get different results if you had them do it in isolation and had them do it as a group exercise.

You are free to go ahead with these social experiments and post the results!!

 

[sydbar]

I prefer 4D6 drop lowest, arrange as wanted, i even used it when the dm's had people roll 8 sets of scores, and choosing 1 score from each set, unless you rolled the same number 3 times(3 12's in the set) which became the chosen stat for that set. which meant my characters were underpowered compared to the others, but i don't care, i just want to have fun.

 

[Nifft]

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

"lower as desired" means you can voluntarily lower the 12? (with no upside?)

Thanks, -- N

 

[Crothian]

"lower as desired" means you can voluntarily lower the 12? (with no upside?)

Thanks, -- N

I think playing a character with lower stats is the upside.....

 

[Nifft]

I think playing a character with lower stats is the upside.....

Hey! Go to the House Rules forum, please. There's someone who needs help with an Awakened Ooze, and it looks like you're awake.

Thanks, -- N

 

[Staffan]

I voted "prefer rolling" on all three, because that's my preference. However, I think that in the future I will allow players the choice: either roll, with only the "sucky character" filter from the PHB (at least one 14+, total stat bonus +1 or more), or 28-point buy. Since the average of a rolled character (with the filter applied) is something like 30-32, that means they can either take random chance and maybe get a really good character or maybe just a mediocre one; or they can take the safe choice and get a guarantee of a decent one.

 

[ranger89]

I said it before and I'll say it again: If you're not going to roll the dice, you might as well just stop playing (IMHO ). Point Buys are for video games. If my DM suggested it, I'd have to hit him in the head with my PH, PH2, and bag of pewter dice.