D&D 5E Point buy vs roll

[DollarD]

I've been in a campaign where rolling had bit discrepancies between different players characters, and although they didn't complain, it was obvious some players were more in the spotlight due to increased skill checks and generally better performance in combat. I was someone who didn't roll a single score below 10, with a 17 in there, and by the end, I started to feel bad about taking the spotlight quite a lot, compared to another player who had nothing above 14, and two scores below 10.

When I DM'd my first campaign, though, I didn't want that to happen, so I have everyone point-buy. Sigh. Turns out that's a good way to get a bunch of characters with 15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8 stats. And a party with 4 players with 8 INT, one with 10 INT, and no one with proficiency in Investigation. Players often choose to optimize themselves, rather than the party, if not prodded to do so.

We tried a few of the other methods, but they all seem to come down to players either trying to optimize effectiveness, or trying to optimize away weaknesses, and then suffer for their choices.

No one wanted to pick the standard array, since they always feel like they can do better with point-buy, or rolling. At least, until they've rolled.

So I tried my own hand with it, and devised an array from various sources that no player is unhappy with, or even want to consider rolling to try and get better.

Heroic Array: 17, 15, 13, 12, 10, 8

Players seem happy, and I've seen different behaviours from players, as with the 17, they still need to spend an ASI even after racial modifier to get it up to 20, or use a feat. Some choose to take a full feat instead, as they feel their characters don't need to full 20 in an ASI yet. Their 'dump' stats are differently organised, leaving fewer holes in terms of skills. And they certainly feel heroic.

With the lower stats even, and the higher stats uneven, ASI's vs Feats become more competitive, I dare say. You can shore up a weakness with a measurable impact via ASI, or use a half-feat to enhance a strong ASI etc.

It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's been working for me. Even if I do add a 1 - 3 levels / characters to the party's CR depending on how difficult I want a combat to be.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yeah, point buy can lead to minmaxing. What I did was to start with an array of 14, 12, 12, 12, 10, 8, and then some (rather generous) point buy on top of that. It leads to more well rounded characters, I feel.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Turns out that's a good way to get a bunch of characters with 15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8 stats.

I'm not surprised this was your experience but I still find it a bit odd personally because (as a player) I loathe having 8's or 9's.

Using normal point-buy, my favorite array is 14, 14, 13, 12, 10 ,10; which with racial ASIs I can boost to 16, 14, 14, 12, 10, 10. Having a +3 for your main "thing", a couple +2's and even a +1 makes me pretty happy, since I also don't have any penalties.

If the PC is human, I adjust it slightly and use the racial feat to get the missing +1 ASI, so the array is the same.

Heroic Array: 17, 15, 13, 12, 10, 8

Interesting. This is the standard array 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 with the racial ASIs already factored in, bumping the 15 to 17 and the 14 to 15.

Giving racial ASIs on top of that is a bit on the heavy side for my tastes, but appropriate you call it the "Heroic Array". I'm happy to hear it works well for your group!

With my own preferences, I would probably use the +2 racial to bump the 8 to 10 (so no penalties anywhere) and the 13 to 14. Once we are playing, my first two feats would be half-feats bring the 17 to 18 and the 15 to 16. I've never felt like I needed a 20 to be happy with my character, so ASIs after that would all be for feats. If later feats happen to bring a +1 ASI, it is just happenstance.

 

[Oofta]

I've been in a campaign where rolling had bit discrepancies between different players characters, and although they didn't complain, it was obvious some players were more in the spotlight due to increased skill checks and generally better performance in combat. I was someone who didn't roll a single score below 10, with a 17 in there, and by the end, I started to feel bad about taking the spotlight quite a lot, compared to another player who had nothing above 14, and two scores below 10.

When I DM'd my first campaign, though, I didn't want that to happen, so I have everyone point-buy. Sigh. Turns out that's a good way to get a bunch of characters with 15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8 stats. And a party with 4 players with 8 INT, one with 10 INT, and no one with proficiency in Investigation. Players often choose to optimize themselves, rather than the party, if not prodded to do so.

We tried a few of the other methods, but they all seem to come down to players either trying to optimize effectiveness, or trying to optimize away weaknesses, and then suffer for their choices.

No one wanted to pick the standard array, since they always feel like they can do better with point-buy, or rolling. At least, until they've rolled.

So I tried my own hand with it, and devised an array from various sources that no player is unhappy with, or even want to consider rolling to try and get better.

Heroic Array: 17, 15, 13, 12, 10, 8

Players seem happy, and I've seen different behaviours from players, as with the 17, they still need to spend an ASI even after racial modifier to get it up to 20, or use a feat. Some choose to take a full feat instead, as they feel their characters don't need to full 20 in an ASI yet. Their 'dump' stats are differently organised, leaving fewer holes in terms of skills. And they certainly feel heroic.

With the lower stats even, and the higher stats uneven, ASI's vs Feats become more competitive, I dare say. You can shore up a weakness with a measurable impact via ASI, or use a half-feat to enhance a strong ASI etc.

It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's been working for me. Even if I do add a 1 - 3 levels / characters to the party's CR depending on how difficult I want a combat to be.

I wonder if the "everyone has an 8 int" is just because people don't have experience with 5E and/or point buy? I just checked my player's stats, out of 6 players 2 had an 8 strength, 1 had an 8 charisma and the rest had a low of 10 in any ability score. On the other hand, if you roll 4d6 drop lowest, on average the low and high ability score for any individual will be 8 and 15. Assuming you allow placement of ability scores, on average (and of course the odds of everybody being average are minimal) you would likely see the same thing.

Unless you enforce placing rolls in the sequence that they were rolled, point buy versus rolling isn't going to change how people prioritize their ability scores. Point buy just puts a minimum value on it. There's nothing wrong with coming up with custom array(s), I just don't think it really changes anything. Unless every ability is average or above, people are going to put that below average number in the ability score they value the least.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I wonder if the "everyone has an 8 int" is just because people don't have experience with 5E and/or point buy? I just checked my player's stats, out of 6 players 2 had an 8 strength, 1 had an 8 charisma and the rest had a low of 10 in any ability score. On the other hand, if you roll 4d6 drop lowest, on average the low and high ability score for any individual will be 8 and 15. Assuming you allow placement of ability scores, on average (and of course the odds of everybody being average are minimal) you would likely see the same thing.

Unless you enforce placing rolls in the sequence that they were rolled, point buy versus rolling isn't going to change how people prioritize their ability scores. Point buy just puts a minimum value on it. There's nothing wrong with coming up with custom array(s), I just don't think it really changes anything. Unless every ability is average or above, people are going to put that below average number in the ability score they value the least.

I was once in a game where the smartest character in the party was the cat (tressym, Int 10). It was Storm King's Tunder and no one wanted to play a wizard.

Intelligence in 5e is one of the safest dump stats. Dumping str, dex, con and wis all have downsides for all characters (to varying degrees). You can dump charisma with little to no downsides so long as someone else is playing the party face.

The real discrepancy is: before the Artificer, Intelligence was only used by wizards, who aren't extremely popular. Charisma is used by bards, paladins, sorcerers and warlocks - all of whom are individually about as popular as wizards (I think warlocks might e more popular that wizards by themselves.) So the odds of the who party dumping charisma are very low, while the whole party dumping intelligence wasn't rare. Strength builds are popular enough (indeed, I think the most popular individual subclass is still champion, and I'd bet dex-champions aren't dominating that group), so a whole party dumping strength is rare (though I have seen that).

I haven't seen any numbers (nor played enough new games) since Artificer was added to Tasha's, so I don't know if they've had an impact. I feel like they have, but my sample size is tiny.

 

[DollarD]

I wonder if the "everyone has an 8 int" is just because people don't have experience with 5E and/or point buy? I just checked my player's stats, out of 6 players 2 had an 8 strength, 1 had an 8 charisma and the rest had a low of 10 in any ability score. On the other hand, if you roll 4d6 drop lowest, on average the low and high ability score for any individual will be 8 and 15. Assuming you allow placement of ability scores, on average (and of course the odds of everybody being average are minimal) you would likely see the same thing.

Unless you enforce placing rolls in the sequence that they were rolled, point buy versus rolling isn't going to change how people prioritize their ability scores. Point buy just puts a minimum value on it. There's nothing wrong with coming up with custom array(s), I just don't think it really changes anything. Unless every ability is average or above, people are going to put that below average number in the ability score they value the least.

Well, it is true that only 1 of the players had more than a campaign's experience with D&D, which might be why that happened.

But when they have 3 8's, it says nothing about how they value CHA, INT and STR, for example. When they had to decide which gets the 8, 10 and 12, I saw more variety.

I guess their first campaign had them a bit skittish about going down, as they prioritized towards high primary stat, high CON, and high DEX. With the new array, I don't think anyone dumped INT to 8, with it mixed between CHA/STR depending on the character concept, with DEX going to 8 for the paladin. So it did vary the builds by enough.

Perhaps it could simply be inexperience/casual players trying to minmax, and after a few campaigns point-buy will result in a similar situation that you find with your players.

 

[Oofta]

Well, it is true that only 1 of the players had more than a campaign's experience with D&D, which might be why that happened.

But when they have 3 8's, it says nothing about how they value CHA, INT and STR, for example. When they had to decide which gets the 8, 10 and 12, I saw more variety.

I guess their first campaign had them a bit skittish about going down, as they prioritized towards high primary stat, high CON, and high DEX. With the new array, I don't think anyone dumped INT to 8, with it mixed between CHA/STR depending on the character concept, with DEX going to 8 for the paladin. So it did vary the builds by enough.

Perhaps it could simply be inexperience/casual players trying to minmax, and after a few campaigns point-buy will result in a similar situation that you find with your players.

I find that using a variety of ability checks and skills helps, as well as making reasons to have saving throws for the various abilities. It's going to vary a lot by table and individual of course, like most things. Personally I don't run 8 int PCs as making intelligent decisions, but I know a lot of people ignore it unless a D20 comes out.

I just checked my wife's campaign's PC's ability scores and only 1 had more than 1 8, that was the wizard who had the 8 strength and charisma. Nobody put an 8 in intelligence, most common was strength and charisma. Most of the players were new to 5E and point buy as well, so while it doesn't mean a lot all I can say is that experiences vary.

If I were to use the array option, I'd probably come up with a handful that made sense to me. On the other hand, an 8 isn't really that bad, it's just slightly below average.

 

[Oofta]

I was once in a game where the smartest character in the party was the cat (tressym, Int 10). It was Storm King's Tunder and no one wanted to play a wizard.

Intelligence in 5e is one of the safest dump stats. Dumping str, dex, con and wis all have downsides for all characters (to varying degrees). You can dump charisma with little to no downsides so long as someone else is playing the party face.

The real discrepancy is: before the Artificer, Intelligence was only used by wizards, who aren't extremely popular. Charisma is used by bards, paladins, sorcerers and warlocks - all of whom are individually about as popular as wizards (I think warlocks might e more popular that wizards by themselves.) So the odds of the who party dumping charisma are very low, while the whole party dumping intelligence wasn't rare. Strength builds are popular enough (indeed, I think the most popular individual subclass is still champion, and I'd bet dex-champions aren't dominating that group), so a whole party dumping strength is rare (though I have seen that).

I haven't seen any numbers (nor played enough new games) since Artificer was added to Tasha's, so I don't know if they've had an impact. I feel like they have, but my sample size is tiny.

That's why you need to make intelligence checks Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature and Religion helpful in game.

Personally I find strength then charisma the most commonly dumped values. Personally for me it's dex, especially if I'm playing a cleric in heavy armor. Going last to see who needs to be healed can be beneficial.

 

[billd91]

Unless you enforce placing rolls in the sequence that they were rolled, point buy versus rolling isn't going to change how people prioritize their ability scores. Point buy just puts a minimum value on it. There's nothing wrong with coming up with custom array(s), I just don't think it really changes anything. Unless every ability is average or above, people are going to put that below average number in the ability score they value the least.

It may not change how people prioritize, but point buy doesn't just put a minimum value to it. It makes the stat values dependent on each other rather than independent like rolling does. In order to get the higher values, lower values must be taken.

 

[TwoSix]

But when they have 3 8's, it says nothing about how they value CHA, INT and STR, for example. When they had to decide which gets the 8, 10 and 12, I saw more variety.

Agreed. I actually prefer arrays to point buy because then scores can't be flattened. Choosing between 12, 10, 8 in your three poor stats gives the character a little more texture than going 8, 8, 8 or 10, 10, 10 if you're negative averse.

Personally, I favor arrays with at least one score in the 6-7 range, because that's the level of negative that generally gets players to recontextualize their character.