D&D 4E Is 22 points the best point buy for 4e?

[Stalker0]

What brought up this thread ideas was some thinking about our old 3e days. When I first started playing 3e, we all used dice roll for our stats but over time our games converted to point buy.

However, even though the core recommendation was 25 points...we never used it. That was way too few points, we always went with at minimum 28, and often would do 32. I know from old posts that many groups did something similar to my group.

With 4e, the core assumption is 22 point (with a different point buy system of course).

How many people have tried changing that value, going higher or lower? What has been the experience?

 

[Crothian]

We've only done the 22 point buy. It has been just fine for the PCs.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I have been fine with the standard 22 point buy, though I ask my players not to buy an 18 to be boosted to 20, as I do not like how the 20 in one stat hurts the rest of the character sheet.

 

[Piratecat]

I allow players one extra point (for a 23 point build) if they contribute history, lore or other campaign background to our wiki. It seems to help without being unbalancing.

 

[malraux]

We've only done the 22 point buy. It has been just fine for the PCs.

Same here. I haven't really felt underpowered because of it.

 

[Mouseferatu]

It's important to note that, in 4E, higher stats have a stronger impact on the game's math than they did in prior editions, and that characters in 4E have more opportunities to raise their stats.

I'm not saying that going for higher than a 22 point buy is automatically going to break things, but you need to at least be careful, because it can.

 

[Iron Sky]

We used rolled stats in all editions prior to 4e and when we made our first characters for 4e. The rolled character's CB point-buy values range from 25 to 51(!) due to the vagaries of the dice. Most of us are around the 40-45 point range due to some amazing stat rolls.

The biggest downside that I've noticed with this - aside from the dramatic difference in effectiveness between a 45 point and 25 point character - is that it puts the recommended encounter guidelines on shaky(-ier?) ground. For example, our DM threw a Level + 3 encounter for 5 players against 3 of our players last night(since 2 of us were busy and didn't get to the session until late) and the 3 of them breezed through it.

Granted, since our point-buy group is only up to level 11 and the fore-mentioned characters are 18, I can't compare two groups of similar level. I don't think we should be regularly blowing through level+5/+6 encounters. While it's fun to rock foes that are supposedly way beyond us, it means the DM has an extremely hard time trying to challenge us or make us feel threatened in combat since the recommended guidelines are pretty much moot for us.

So, long story short, yeah, I'm a fan of point-buy, as a DM AND as a player.

 

[Iron Sky]

I will use this double-post as space to sum up my previous post: what Mouseferatu said.

 

[WalterKovacs]

My personal experience with 4e:

22-point buy has been the 'standard', but I had some variants, usually involving dice rolling. The concept was that the highest "point value" after rolling amongst the players became the standard, and everyone else could "buy up" to the total ammount.

For small boosts in points you can make slightly more powerful characters. 24-point allows for 2 starting 17's (before racial mods), and 25-point by can get 18/16 (before racial mods). While it could help out some MAD classes (or help to have 3 good saves), it's also possible for certain builds to be slightly more optimal (getting the extra +1 to hit/damage and +1 to rider effects based on secondary stats).

Overall, my experience with overstatted characters wasn't too bad. With the rolled stat characters (which included a barbarian with 16-20 in everything but intelligence) the party was able to run through the Dungeon Delve book (plus sidequests) with relative ease. The group was run through 6 encounters straight, with the last one being Irontooth and they won in a close battle.

EDIT: I forgot to note, the party was 4 PCs, and I was running the Dungeon Delve, etc, as is, with the 'balanced for a party of 5' assumption. It was comparible to my experience with point buy PCs in a 5-person party against comparible threats.

Assuming you are going "by the book" in terms of XP budget, the higher point buy can be useful for a quicker campaign (easy/normal/hard fights can all become relatively harder, and thus give out more XP per encounter). It gives them a headstart, and they'll keep it for the rest of the game, but it shouldn't spiral out of control too quickly (it will make lots of feat prereqs easier to acquire, etc).

It isn't exactly necessary (they put in stuff like the expertise feats and the defense boosting feats, etc to give options to shore up gaps instead of just increasing stats), but for a faster paced campaign, it can work.

 

[Cadfan]

I actually have my group use the 16/14/13/12/11/10 array. It works fine, even though its technically underpowered for most builds. This is a pretty resilient area of the game.