D&D 5E Point Buy or Standard Array

[Aimian_Silverflash]

The human cleric went with point buy, as the one good wisdom array had pretty bad charisma and a 5 strength! The point buy was insurance to allow anyone to play a concept they had walking into the character creation session. No one was jealous of anyone else's monster stats because they could have had the exact same ones. We blasted through character creation in an hour and finished a whole adventure (a converted Pathfinder module, the Hangman's Noose) in one day!

Ha, I've had that problem before as well. I ran a campaign where I was pretty skimpy on the number of points in the point-buy. All that meant was the dump stats were even lower...

But I gotta say, there were some seriously funny roleplay scenarios created by the Dwarf fighter with 6s in intelligence, wisdom and charisma!!! Haha

 

[Sunseeker]

I don't allow point-buy. It's too time-consuming and people fret too much over the "perfect numbers". You may dice roll or use the array. I'm a little bit more generous with each at my table but I find dealing with high-powered characters easier than low-powered ones, though I admittedly do not much like gritty fantasy.

 

[redrick]

It makes your character stronger but is that better?

That is my question.

I believe that there is only 1 or 2 optimal layouts for each race and they all rely on 2 or 3 dump stats.

I don't think that is a good thing. Maybe the best way to go about this is to make a thread to discuss the optimal point buy layout in 5e. I did edit my OP to include the possibilities that I see.

The suggestion of only allowing one 8 might be the simple solution of allowing point buy while encouraging diverse character stats. I will have to play with that to see what the possibilities are.

Some might disagree that having 3 dump stats is optimal. I certainly wouldn't want to be -1 in 3 of my abilities just so I could get two more stats up to 16. While Dex, Wis and Con are the most common, all saves are important. Skills are important. Carrying things is important. (Even if you aren't tracking encumbrance, I think a GM should take note if a significant portion of the party is dumping strength.)

 

[Sunseeker]

Some might disagree that having 3 dump stats is optimal. I certainly wouldn't want to be -1 in 3 of my abilities just so I could get two more stats up to 16. While Dex, Wis and Con are the most common, all saves are important. Skills are important. Carrying things is important. (Even if you aren't tracking encumbrance, I think a GM should take note if a significant portion of the party is dumping strength.)

I tend to agree, even when it comes to optimizing you want to be careful with having more than 2 dump stats. Beyond that, when you start leaving half your stats at lower than 10, I feel like you start creating really poor characters, or really exaggerated caricatures that don't make for an enjoyable RP experience IMO.

 

[ad_hoc]

Some might disagree that having 3 dump stats is optimal. I certainly wouldn't want to be -1 in 3 of my abilities just so I could get two more stats up to 16. While Dex, Wis and Con are the most common, all saves are important. Skills are important. Carrying things is important. (Even if you aren't tracking encumbrance, I think a GM should take note if a significant portion of the party is dumping strength.)

What if the choice was to either have a +2 in a stat you barely use and a +2 in a stat that you use all the time or a +1 in the stat you barely use and a +3 in a stat you use all the time?

The actual situation is a -1/+3 or a 0/+2. I would rather put the bonus where it is best used.

You can't be the best at everything. You can be mediocre at everything though.

All of the saves aren't actually important. I wish they were, but they just aren't.

I tend to agree, even when it comes to optimizing you want to be careful with having more than 2 dump stats.

Why?

Beyond that, when you start leaving half your stats at lower than 10, I feel like you start creating really poor characters, or really exaggerated caricatures that don't make for an enjoyable RP experience IMO.

Which is why I am going to use the standard array. I don't want to punish players who want to have reasonable characters.

 

[Ramius613]

I'm going to try Party roll. For a party of 4 each person rolls 4d6 drops lowest, DM rolls once, and lowest roll gets to roll a second time. Those 6 results are your ability scores, distribute as you like.

 

[redrick]

What if the choice was to either have a +2 in a stat you barely use and a +2 in a stat that you use all the time or a +1 in the stat you barely use and a +3 in a stat you use all the time?

The actual situation is a -1/+3 or a 0/+2. I would rather put the bonus where it is best used.

You can't be the best at everything. You can be mediocre at everything though.

All of the saves aren't actually important. I wish they were, but they just aren't.

...

Which is why I am going to use the standard array. I don't want to punish players who want to have reasonable characters.

My game has had a bunch of strength saves. Obviously plenty of dex saves, wisdom saves and con saves. We've had some charisma saves. Not sure how many INT saves we've had.

Sucking at one save is fine. Sucking at 3 saves? And, again, how do you see your skills lining up? Personally, I'd rather my character be great at one thing, good at something else, ok at 3 things, and bad at one thing. If I used the point buy, it would just be to avoid odd numbers in stats that I had no intention of raising further. Remember, a character might choose to play a race that gives +1 to a non-primary stat. Because players are like that.

We went with 4d6 drop 1 (use stats in ordered that they are rolled with one swap) for the campaign that I am DM'ing. It worked out ok, but, if I were to do it again, I'd just go with the array or point buy. The variation in power levels between characters has ended up frustrating for me.

 

[Bupp]

My last group I did a "rolled array".

I had two players. Each rolled 4d6 drop lowest 3 times. Those 6 scores became the group's "standard array" to arrange as they saw fit.

I like rolling for stats, but with this method, no one had a better character because of lucky dice rolls.

 

[ad_hoc]

My game has had a bunch of strength saves. Obviously plenty of dex saves, wisdom saves and con saves. We've had some charisma saves. Not sure how many INT saves we've had.

What were the secondary saves? Charisma saves are usually just to avoid being banished back to your home plane. I am curious.

Sucking at one save is fine. Sucking at 3 saves?

I think you may be overestimating the difference between -1 and 0. I would also rather have a +3 on something like Con where I am going to be making a lot more saves than the 3 secondary ones combined and they will likely be more important (str. saves are usually to avoid being pushed. Con saves are to avoid dying).

And, again, how do you see your skills lining up?

I'd rather be good at more things than mediocre at most.

Personally, I'd rather my character be great at one thing, good at something else, ok at 3 things, and bad at one thing. If I used the point buy, it would just be to avoid odd numbers in stats that I had no intention of raising further. Remember, a character might choose to play a race that gives +1 to a non-primary stat. Because players are like that.

We went with 4d6 drop 1 (use stats in ordered that they are rolled with one swap) for the campaign that I am DM'ing. It worked out ok, but, if I were to do it again, I'd just go with the array or point buy. The variation in power levels between characters has ended up frustrating for me.

Yeah, it's not just the variation in power levels between characters. There is also the lack of character growth. When you start off with stats that are already as high as they can go, where do you go from there?

And if you use feats it is more troublesome because there is no trade off.

I think I will either use standard array or just say that you can only have 1 8.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I don't believe I've ever been in a game with a player who took more than one stat below 10. Generation gap?