Fighter, Rogue, Blaster, Healer . . . Balanced?

[N'raac]

Now if you really want unorthodox characters, the only way to be sure is rolling stats in order. I actually like doing that, although it almost never happens because I'm one of the few, but I'm definitely a "combat as war" type. I can still have fun with "inefficient" characters, although not every system supports them well, in some system where balance is assumed too much, "inefficient" may be too close to "incompetent".

Who wants those unorthodox characters? If the players want them, they can roll and adjust to point buy limits. So you could end up with that 16 STR, 16 INT fighter or wizard. But you don't get that 16 in the usual "off stat" for free - your wizard can't have the same stat array as the guy who optimized, plus bump your STR to 16 with all the advantages that carries.

If you want, sure, you can have less stats than the point buy would allow - but you have chosen to have a less powerful character than the other players.

Now, if the GM wants these unorthodox characters, it's certainly his campaign, but recognize that you are imposing your playstyle on your players. Will you enforce it - sit there, roll 4d6, drop the lowest, six times and no matter what you roll, that's the character you play? Will the players accept that? Most importantly, will that approach make the game more fun for all involved?

 

[Dozen]

No, my point was that if you give the Wizard free time to prepare then of course that's a major advantage to him. Turn the ambush around, and the Wizard is dead.

So is everyone else. And that proves exactly nothing at all regarding how wrong the Tier System is.

However, the real issue was his apparent claim that you could cast the spell repeatedly on the same object to stack up massive damage - hence the references to 600d6 'bombs'. The problem is that the effect here doesn't stack, it overlaps - cast it 100 times and you get a grand total of 6d6. (Why? Because one interpretation is broken and game destroying, and one isn't. Which do you think is correct?)

I think both is depending on houserules, but I agree to one thing. The 600d6 is impractical and boring. It would take months to create or would burn trough your higher level spellslots like firestorm, and every day there's a chance it goes off. I would let them do it if we agreed beforehand, but it doesn't say much about the players.

And that attitude there is why so-called 'optimisers' have no place at my table.

That has nothing to do with Optimizer 'attitude'. I have a policy to let my players do whatever they want. I know they aren't going to brake my game lest I throw them out, and everything else can be countered by me, since I have access to everything they do. And if I fail, cudos to them.

 

[Bluenose]

A couple of things about his examples:

- He pits an optimised wizard against a non-optimised dragon, gives the wizard an arbitrary amount of time to prepare, lets him choose the time and the place of the confrontation, and grants him a free ambush. Of course that skews things in the PC's favour! And what's more, doing so skews things further in the favour of spellcasters than it does non-spellcasters, because they benefit more from preparation.

- That's a planned assassination, not an adventuring encounter. It would be just as valid to have the dragon ambush the party, use a quickened maximised breath weapon attack plus a bite in the surprise round, followed it winning initiative in the first round and launching a full attack... and then declaring that the barbarian and the rogue are clearly the most powerful classes because everyone else is dead.

Well done to the Rogue and Barbarian for making a saving throw against Frightful Presence, especially as Will saves are one of their weak points. If they'd failed they would be almost as out of the fight as someone who was dead. Probability must have been on their side that day.

 

[Empirate]

Will you enforce it - sit there, roll 4d6, drop the lowest, six times and no matter what you roll, that's the character you play? Will the players accept that? Most importantly, will that approach make the game more fun for all involved?

Well, that certainly depends on your group's preferences and playstyle, doesn't it? Can't we leave the "roll or buy" debate behind already? It's not as if there's an objectively right answer waiting just around the corner. I do prefer point buy, and I have good reason for it. Nevertheless I'm considering a draconian "3d6 times six, in order" for another (less 'serious', more darwinist) campaign I'm hoping to DM at some point. If my players ever agree to it, that is, although it's not the stat generation that puts them off.

Now people, stop pointing out the badwrongfun others are having, and just play your game.

 

[Dozen]

Well, that certainly depends on your group's preferences and playstyle, doesn't it? Can't we leave the "roll or buy" debate behind already?

They did. This is another one!

EDIT: Reading the below posts, apparently they didn't. Oh well.

 

[delericho]

How often do we see a 4d6, drop the lowest character whose stats are sub-par? No, we throw that sheet away and roll again. Has anyone ever seen a 4d6, drop the lowest character with a "3"?

Yes. Over on the "doing it the hard way" thread, I mentioned a one-shot with kobold characters. One of those characters had a '3' for Int.

1 in 1,296 rolls on 4d6 is double snake eyes, and we roll 6 times for each set of stats - that should mean one in 216 characters has a 3. So where are those characters? In the wastebasket, I suggest.

Bear in mind that the by-the-book method allows for a reroll if the highest stat is low, or if the net modifier is 0 or less. An array including a '3' is very likely to fall under that "reroll" threshold.

Now, if the GM wants these unorthodox characters, it's certainly his campaign, but recognize that you are imposing your playstyle on your players. Will you enforce it - sit there, roll 4d6, drop the lowest, six times and no matter what you roll, that's the character you play?

On the rare occasions when I've used random rolls for character generation, I did indeed enforce the rolls that were made. That was the trade-off - if they wanted the chance at better characters, they had to accept the chance of worse ones also.

And the players did indeed accept that, including going so far as to play 'fair' with the characters - no accidentally losing the character sheet, no trying to get them killed, and so on. That said...

Will the players accept that? Most importantly, will that approach make the game more fun for all involved?

I think it's important that character generation isn't simply a matter of DM fiat - there needs to be some back and forth with the players. That's why my players accepted low stats when they rolled them - it had been a matter of negotiation going in, they knew I'd been fair with them, and so they played fair in turn. But if I'd declared "3d6 in order, no rerolls", I wouldn't have had anything like the same response.

FWIW, going forward I intend to offer each player a choice: roll using 4d6-drop-lowest (by-the-book rerolls), or 28-point buy, or a standard array of 16/15/13/12/10/8. Largely because I've decided to stop fussing over it and just get on and play, and partly because these days I only play with actual honest-to-Gygax adults.

 

[Jacob Marley]

I've never played at a table where the DM will force you to play something you don't want to play just because the dice told you to.

Nor have I. When we have played using rolled stats its because we chose to roll stats. The decision was self-inflicted.

Which is why I do like point buy.

I also like point buy; I am currently playing in such a game.

Telling someone, "sorry, you can't play the character you want to play for the next thirty or forty hours of game play" just because I happened to roll badly on chargen is not something I would ever do to a player. Nor would I want to play at a table where that is enforced. Not interested in playing characters that I don't want to play. My unnamed fighter would be falling on his sword at first opportunity and I'd be rolling up a new character ASAP.

Nowhere in my initial post did I say anything about a DM saying "sorry, you can't play the character you want..." I merely stated that most people I have played with find it illogical to chose a class before rolling based on potential issues concerning MAD in 3rd Edition.

Go find someone else's position to misrepresent.

 

[TerraDave]

Wow, I have not seen this much wrong-bad-funissim in a thread in a while.

So before its locked, one practical lesson we can draw: rolling for stats is a good way to keep players you don't want out of your game.

 

[N'raac]

Bear in mind that the by-the-book method allows for a reroll if the highest stat is low, or if the net modifier is 0 or less. An array including a '3' is very likely to fall under that "reroll" threshold.

So we like weaknesses, but not TOO weak (or only in one shots). But the whole point was a system the group liked, and that may be part of it.

On the rare occasions when I've used random rolls for character generation, I did indeed enforce the rolls that were made. That was the trade-off - if they wanted the chance at better characters, they had to accept the chance of worse ones also.

And the players did indeed accept that, including going so far as to play 'fair' with the characters - no accidentally losing the character sheet, no trying to get them killed, and so on. That said...

I think the players have to buy in, which would mean no suicide characters. I do recall, some years back, suggesting players rolling could define, in advance, that their character could not have a 3 (it would be an auto-reroll) if they similarly defined they could not have an 18. That system was straight 3d6, so the odds were equal. No 4's? OK, but no 17's either. The risk of a low roll and the chance of a high roll went together. IIRC, that was a Call of Cthulhu game.

I think it's important that character generation isn't simply a matter of DM fiat - there needs to be some back and forth with the players. That's why my players accepted low stats when they rolled them - it had been a matter of negotiation going in, they knew I'd been fair with them, and so they played fair in turn. But if I'd declared "3d6 in order, no rerolls", I wouldn't have had anything like the same response.

FWIW, going forward I intend to offer each player a choice: roll using 4d6-drop-lowest (by-the-book rerolls), or 28-point buy, or a standard array of 16/15/13/12/10/8. Largely because I've decided to stop fussing over it and just get on and play, and partly because these days I only play with actual honest-to-Gygax adults.

That seems reasonable (assuming your group is OK with the possibility of an extra-powerful, or extra-weak, character from the random roll). Not sure why you'd leave the array - it's just a possible 29 point buy (3.5; one point bonus for all those off numbers?) You could write up any number of possible 28 point arrays. 16/16/14/10/8/8 would get you that strong wizard, if desired.

 

[Empirate]

Well done to the Rogue and Barbarian for making a saving throw against Frightful Presence, especially as Will saves are one of their weak points. If they'd failed they would be almost as out of the fight as someone who was dead. Probability must have been on their side that day.

Nice catch, although I'm forced to point out that Frightful Presence only makes its targets shaken, unless they're seriously low level (and would die anyway against any dragon with the Frightful Presence ability).

Nevertheless, your point holds that dragons that get the drop on you aren not exactly any 'better' for the Barbarian or Rogue than they are for the Wizard!