Never saw anything remotely like that, myself. Not that people didn't ever pick races that suited their class, but not even close to always.
I believe it could happen, though!
Nod. Not that consistently (there's gotta be some exaggeration for effect or observer effect or something going on), but it certainly happened that some races were perfect for some classes stat-wise, and some others got lavish feat support to make them better at a class their stats weren't so suited for (Dwarven fighters, for instance, not ideal stats, but great feat support).
The impression I got from early 4e, that way, looking at the Ranger, for instance, an Elf is a perfect archer ranger. That's a very intuitive concept, it's basically Legolas, something a new player might very well want. Glance through the elven archer-ranger for a few minutes and you'll see powers that do stunts Legolas did in the movie.
So, yeah, you could min/max or optimize some in 4e, it was /very/ easy to do so. The benefits for taking it to the next level and acquiring profound system mastery were a lot more muted, though.
IDK if that was intentional or just a happy accident, a result of prioritizing balance while retaining something close to 3.5 levels of player customization options.
:shrug:
Provably false. My latest PC is an Aasimar barbarian whose stats (after racial adjustment, 27 point buy) are Str 14 Dex 14 Con 16 Int 8 Wis 8 Cha 14. Do you really thing that I want this character to have 8s in Int and Wis? Of course I don't! But point-buy forces me to choose whether I can live with those 8s or whether I could have 10s or 12s and have lower Str/Dex/Con/Cha.
It allows you to choose between those two, as opposed to just giving you three 8s or no 8s to deal with if rolled randomly, or exactly the same one 8 as everyone else in array. There's simply more choice with point buy, you can use that choice to get as close as possible to the character you actually want to play. In the above example, you actually wanted to play a character with a 16, three 14s, and two 8s, more so than one with a couple of 10s and only a 14 con. So you did. Don't blame the tools that let you do it. Blame yourself for not living up to your own standards. ;P
f point-buy 'allowed me to control what exact character I am playing', as you claim, then my main stats would be as-is while my Int/Wis would be 12.
Why not all 18's while you're at it?
Rolling has strengths: a more realistic population
The general population probably shouldn't be rolling 4d6. For that matter, most NPCs, even if adventures, probably shouldn't be generated exactly like PCs. So that's just silly. It might 'make sense' to roll the general population on 3d6, but that's a lot of rolling to no particular purpose. ;P
Point-buy definitely has strengths: you can build a PC before the game starts because 'fairness' (if not 'verisimilitude') is built in, you can play whatever concept you want to play (but only if it adds up to 27 points!
Thus 'fairness,' yes. Don't play an OP concept, don't play a gimped concept, as doing either is unfair to your fellow players (and to you, really).
But point-buy, just like rolling, has weaknesses: I've mentioned some already, so I'll concentrate on the weakness that smbakeresq was getting at: point-buy encourages min-maxing, to a greater extent than rolling.
That's only a weakness if you think 'min/maxing' is a sin. Clearly, you do, and consider yourself a sinner, since you couldn't bring yourself to playing a character closer to the one you say you wanted, one with less dramatic weaknesses in the above example. I'm sorry you feel that way, I hope you find salvation some day.
But for those who are able to either control or accept those impulses, or who don't view playing the game by the rules and trying to do so effectively abhorrent in any way, it's not a weakness (or a strength) it's just fair. Which is something games should be, at a bare minimum.
Sure, when you roll six scores and are free to assign those scores to any stat then there is an element of min-maxing right there; why would I 'waste' that 14 on Str when my wizard would benefit more from a high Dex or Con? I'll put my lowest roll, 9, in Str. But point-buy allows you to lower that Str even more (to a minimum of 8) and use that point somewhere else. And it makes perfect sense to do so!
No difference, really, other than the granularity. Point buy is more customizable and better-balanced. Random is more, well, random (it's really just as fair, since everyone has the same chance to roll a great or pathetic set of stats - at least, as long as everyone is stuck playing that one random-rolled character until the campaign ends).
There is an evolutionary pressure to make the best use of your points to support your concept.
Exactly. Your concept needn't call for a min/maxxed stat array, it could call for a generalist. Because point buy is scaled, stats over 13 costing more per point, there is a benefit to going that way. Consider a standard human who takes as many 13s as possible in point buy...
With point-buy I can lower my Str to 8 and my Int to 10 and raise my Wis to 16. This is even more min-maxed! I could even lower my Int to 8, raise my Con to 15, ending up with Str 8 Dex 16 Con 16 Int 8 Wis 16 Cha 8. Yes, three 16s and three 8s, only made possible by point-buy.
I seem to remember that there was a limit of at most a single score under 10 in the point buy option.
This embodies the very definition of 'min-maxing', and point-buy enables it so much more than just rolling.
Rolling enable min-mining and max-maxing. Play your character with two 18's and nothing under 12 alongside the guy with a high score of 13. ;P
I also feel like now is a good time to reiterate that I've no problem with min/maxing. It isn't in conflict with roleplaying, it doesn't affect other players, it's fine.
Agreed.
