D&D 5E (2014) Is Point Buy Balanced?

[Thomas Shey]

However: An imbalance coded into the system can create a mismatch in expectations or a general incompatibility.

Because we've literally heard from folks on here--IIRC Charlaquin, or possibly Steampunkette?--how their innocent pursuit of thematic stuff for a character caused them to become stupidly powerful (e.g. taking Incantatrix because they thought "oh cool, my character loves tinkering with spells, this perfectly expresses that!"), while other players at that same table, equally innocently pursuing thematic stuff for their characters, caused them to end up being far weaker and far less able to contribute.

Though its not particularly directly relevant here (it wasn't a D&D game or even fantasy) I sometimes tell the story about my wife putting together a Mutants and Masterminds 2e character and talking to me about it (we were both players in the game) and her watching as a look of dawning horror came over my face as I realized she'd quite innocently stumbled into a really, really bad corner case in the rules that was going to blow up the first time she used an ability she was talking about taking on her character. I use it as an example of design mistakes having potential implication that reaches well beyond deliberate abuse.

I mean, we can literally see how the design of 3e did exactly that. The designers expected people to play the game precisely as they did 2e, as though all the benefits and detriments were unchanged. In fairness, early on, most did just that. Then people started playing the game actually presented to them, and rather a lot of problems appeared.

I still maintain that there must have been either very limited blindtesting there, or those in charge of it must have ignored results that seemed off from anything they'd seen in direct playtesting. It seems impossible some of the problems that became endemic later would have remained unseen otherwise.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That thus depends fully on the DM/group style if that works or not, and imho that's not balanced! In the social setting the the combat person is useless, and in the combat the social person is useless. You're essentially playing different games, with different people, and the rest of the people wait for you to finish the others game before you continue their game. This tends to be not fun for all involved. And the more sub games you have the longer the wait becomes. This is the same issue as splitting the party with a single DM, running different games while others wait around.

There should be player/character involvement in all aspects of the game, everyone should be able to participate in combat, in social, and exploration. And this is what I mean with building characters as a group, not to have an expert in each field, but to make sure there are no extremes and no 'holes' in both the group AND the characters. It's also to get everyone in the same mindset for the adventure/campaign.

I've seen at least one game that tried to assure that and got an astonishingly hostile response from people because it forced people to come some ground that otherwise they might ignore.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sorry friend. I roll a PC and I make the most of it.

I just don't see the value in "balanced".

The value in "balanced" is not everyone sees it the way you do, and they'd like to play too.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The only thing any of us have to ask is….are we having fun? Anything else is just people debating which version of fun is the right version.

No, they're asking that games support their version. That's not a judment call, that's just stating their wants and needs.

 

[KYRON45]

The value in "balanced" is not everyone sees it the way you do, and they'd like to play too.

Didn't I also say: "If it is to you then go forth and balance to your hearts content."?

 

[KYRON45]

No, they're asking that games support their version. That's not a judment call, that's just stating their wants and needs.

I've made it clear that I am all for people finding their own fun.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I've made it clear that I am all for people finding their own fun.

The problem is that this is not one of those cases where if the wants are strong, you can have it both ways. If the game system actually rewards high rolls and punishes low ones, a system that provides point distribution for people who don't want that isn't going to solve the problem used in conjunction with a random one, unless the latter compresses the result. That's because a couple of the things may matter to them is both them feeling useful, and feeling other characters are holding up their own ends, and strongly random systems can fail at both of those.
If those things don't matter to you in a way that random gen impacts, its going to be kind of a foreign idea, but it absolutely impacts other people, and, again barring compressed numbers even more than D&D 5e seems to do, you can't make the two pieces of rope meet in the middle.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I'm not glossing over anything.
Once i realize that I'm not having fun i make adjustments to have fun.

I wouldn't know what an unbalanced/balanced character (or group of stats) looks like because to me playing the stats you roll IS the game. I'm ok with a a low ability score the same way that I'm ok with a high ability score. That's just literally what I've been dealt.

To me balance is not important.
If it is to you then go forth and balance to your hearts content.

You're not picking up what I'm laying down. No one, especially me, is telling you what your fun should look like. What folks are telling you is that your view is not a universal view. That's the glossing over bit I'm talking about.

The reactions you're getting are because of this post of yours. Of course everyone's view of fun is different. Read your post again.

"Sorry friend. I roll a PC and I make the most of it.

I just don't see the value in "balanced".
If every PC is GREAT then none of them are.
I believe the kids call this diversity."

Kind of dismissive of any viewpoint but your own right? No one's upset, but that's the card you played, hence the reactions.

What folks are telling you is that there is nothing wrong with the way you play. Aspects of it both objectively and subjectively can and do hinder the fun for others though.

 

[Cergorach]

Except that in most cases we're not talking about that scenario. Instead we're talking about scenarios where there's a wide range of competencies and abilities that may or may not be in different aspects of the game.

So you might have the football player who is really good at getting in the way of things but useless at much else; i.e. a natural goalkeeper. Put him at forward and he's hopeless, but that doesn't make him less useful to the team.

I'm not saying everyone should be the same, I'm saying they each have an active and useful role in whatever situation. A useless goal keeper is still going to frustrate everyone. One player uses melee combat to deal damage, another ranged combat to deal damage, someone else uses spells to control the combat, etc. And that's not just for combat, but the same happens in social situations.

I've seen at least one game that tried to assure that and got an astonishingly hostile response from people because it forced people to come some ground that otherwise they might ignore.

I would walk away from that game.

In the game I DM I asked them to either choose species that all had dark-vision or species that didn't, mixing those two would make my life more complicated then necessary. And if someone really wanted to play an elf in the human party, we would then say that the elves dark-vision was damaged.

In another game with a Heist theme we're participating in the DM asked that we either would both be very good in stealth and perception or all not at all good. When these simple requests from a DM takes some of the stress and work from the DM's shoulders, why not work with it. It's not as if now my game night is ruined. Why play with hostile people at all or people that become hostile when you ask them to give and take a little...

 

[ECMO3]

Look, it's like a ball sport where everyone is very competent and one isn't. While that might be fun for a while, eventually the strong players will get annoyed by the weak player, and the weak player gets annoyed because they don't really contribute like the rest does (and don't get the ball).

I don't really see that and I play with some groups that have extreme optimizers in the group and another player that barely understands the rules.

Where I see frustration by some (sometimes even me) is not in terms of character build or inherent PC competency but rather in obviously poor choices/tactics in game.

For example, my biggest frustration in the past 4 years as a player was with another player who always played a fighter or barbarian, always dumped charisma and then always insisted on leading all the social encounters (this was a 2014 Fighter where they were not inherently good at those). He pretty much elbowed out the other players at the table when it came to social encounters and I was rocking a high charisma Rogue with proficiency in all the social skills and expertise in Deception and Persuasion.

The reverse where the weak player tries to make everything into an extended role-playing scene outside of combat is going to annoy the folks that don't mind the occasional RPing encounter, but are starting to get annoyed by that one player that thinks when they buy a a couple dozen arrows in town, it should be a two hour RP encounter...

I think this is players playing the game they want to play. While I don't design my characters for "the party" I very much do design them for the game I am playing in and you should figure that out in session 0 at the latest (usually before session 0).

If 3 players show up for a hack and slash and one player shows up for a game with no combat (and these do exist) it is an obvious problem, but that is different than 3 players showing up that are optimal in combat and one that is optimal out of combat.