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

[CleverNickName]

A bigger issue is that I'd say about a quarter of possible rolled stat arrays, despite being legal, will get written off as being "too" bad, and thus the actual average shifts up. It's not cheating, but it is unfairly biasing rolled stats to have even further favor--the average result is slightly better to begin with, and then human interference makes it moreso, removing the worst parts of the curve.

I would not be at all surprised if rolled stats, on average, actually do objectively better in both raw scores and ability mods, even if not a single person cheats. The problem is, as I and others have said, that ability roulette means you MIGHT get stuck with something just barely not horrible enough to get re-rolled.....which is precisely why the "well those stats suck...ah just re-roll it and see what you get, but you have to take it" thing (or something like it) happens.

No argument here.

Rerolling your stats is a house-rule (in 5E, anyway... it might be different in other editions.) The criteria for rerolling, if any, is up to your group.

In my opinion, if you're capping the 4d6 results at the low end, you should cap them at the upper end also. Otherwise you are shifting the graph... you're favoring higher results, as you said.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That might be why some people feel the 4d6 method generates higher stats than point-buy does. On average the 4d6 method will give you 72 points, which is about same as the standard array--but most people who use point-buy will choose an array with fewer points.

As above, I think the bigger issue is that when we have already controlled for "at least one stat must be 14+, your sum-of-mods must be positive" and "oh damn, that array sucks even if it technically counts...ah, just reroll it."

Because 14 10 10 10 10 8 is technically a valid stat array (it has a net modifier sum of +1, and one 14), but most GMs I know would be very likely to say, "Eh....that sucks, and is a lot worse than anyone else's stats. Roll it again." Or something similar.

The moment you let squishy human preference push up the minimum floor, you open the door for rolls to significantly exceed PB. Because now it's not "one set of rolls vs PB". It's "2 or 3 or 4 or...(etc) sets of rolls, vs PB." And of course that's going to make values get bigger.

Personally, I think what this means is that stats should be determined by shuffled cards rather than rolled dice. Because the cards function as genuine randomness...that has the limits of point-buy. And you can even give extra cards of every number 1-6, that way GMs can tailor their stat generation the way they like. Want something 3d6-strict like? Use equal numbers of every card, or start from that and add in some extra 1s and 2s. Want strong stats? Favor big numbers. Etc. If you use only 18 cards, every array is guaranteed to have the same value; if you use more than 18, some "hands" might be more valuable than others, but never by more than a handful of points, enough to perhaps get an extra +1 here or there.

E.g. if the deck were 1+1+2+2+3+3+4+4+4+4+4+5+5+5+5+6+6+6, then you might get lucky and draw one 18...but that means your next-highest-stat can't be higher than 15, and if it is 15, your third highest stat can't be higher than 12. A much more likely occurrence would be, say, {5,1,2}{4,3,4}{6,4,5}{4,5,1}{2,4,6}{5,6,3} = {8,11,15,10,12,14}--which is more or less the standard array. And while it's possible to get a mere 4 as one of your stats, the odds against that are pretty significant, and essentially guarantee that you'll have otherwise solid stats in other places (since that makes your second-lowest-possible score only 8.)

Still random. Still has the possibility of being assigned-in-order so you end up with a character you did not choose. Doesn't have various ills that dice-rolling would have. And is, to some extent, mildly realistic; few people are absolutely horrible at everything, few people are ridiculously amazing at everything, and generally folks who have a significant deficiency in one area compensate for it by having developed themselves more in other areas (e.g. a blind person usually has better smell and hearing than a sighted person).

Rerolling stats is a house-rule (in 5E, anyway... it might be different in other editions.) The criteria for rerolling, if any, is up to your group.

If you're capping them at the low end, you should cap them at the upper end also. Otherwise you are shifting the graph... you're favoring higher results, as you said.

Yes, but folks don't see it that way. It's the exact same perception issue as the one that drives the 60%-65% hit rate thing.

A run of bad luck on your stat rolls feels bad to a much worse degree than a statistically-equivalent run of good luck feels good. A run of bad luck feels more bad than a run of good luck feels good. (An ironic counter-pattern I've seen, though, is that good luck on a single pivotal roll has more good-feel impact than bad luck would have bad-feel impact. My guess is because we correctly "feel" the probability when it's one isolated single roll.) People don't cap the upper end because that feels like taking away """earned""" success, while capping the bottom end feels like preventing unearned suffering.

That's the sort of underlying secondary reason why I don't care for rolling. Most groups take several steps which make rolling theoretically a lot better........but my luck continues to be bimodal, assiduously avoiding the center of the distribution to favor the two tails instead.

 

[CleverNickName]

That's the sort of underlying secondary reason why I don't care for rolling.

I mean, people have all sorts of reasons for liking the things they like; I'm not out to change anyone's mind. I was focusing on the math alone and whether point-buy is balanced with the other methods. I think it is.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, I will never use rolling.

Which is fine, and why rolling and point buy/array should be equally default rules.

Yet I've seen it happen.

It's literally 1 in a million or very close to it. You don't design a game around such long shots happening.

You do you, I'm just expressing my opinion. Rolling for ability scores adds nothing as far as I'm concerned.

For you. You can't say it objectively adds nothing. It does in fact add quite a bit for a lot of people, which is why it should be an equally valid default option with point buy/array.

Other than practically guaranteeing some people will have inherently more powerful characters than others because of a one time roll of the dice, I see no reason to use rolling.

Then don't use it.

 

[Clint_L]

I mean, people have all sorts of reasons for liking the things they like; I'm not out to change anyone's mind. I was focusing on the math alone and whether point-buy is balanced with the other methods. I think it is.

Specifically, it is balanced with the other two options as presented in the current PHB, and in the sense that all three produce about the same total score on average.

But as soon as you start introducing house rules that benefit the roll option (do-overs, reroll 1s, etc.), the average total for rolling goes up, and point buy/standard array are no longer balanced against it.

 

[Lanefan]

No argument here.

Rerolling your stats is a house-rule (in 5E, anyway... it might be different in other editions.)

3e by RAW had a cutline: if either (or both) of...

a - all your rolls are 13 or lower
b - your total aggregate bonus is less than +1

...is true, you [can] reroll. I don't remember if it was 'may' reroll or 'must' reroll, though.

1e had a vague suggestion somewhere that characters needed two 15s or better but that wasn't hard-coded anywhere (except one class - Illusionist - that required both a 15 and a 16).

IMO and IME a good guide to what the game actually expects (as opposed to what it theoretically allows) are the pre-generated characters in official modules. If the stat average given by the RAW rolling method is 12.1 (which is about what 4d6 rolling provides) yet the pre-gens tend to average 13.5, then the game likely expects in practice a 13.5 average and you should adjust your rolling mechanism such that this is what it provides.

 

[Maxperson]

3e by RAW had a cutline: if either (or both) of...

a - all your rolls are 13 or lower
b - your total aggregate bonus is less than +1

...is true, you [can] reroll. I don't remember if it was 'may' reroll or 'must' reroll, though.

It was "may."

 

[Lanefan]

No. It "should" not be any specific thing. It is a design choice.

Yes, a very very poor design choice.

You are conflating "this is how 1e does it" with "this is how all games should do it". Both are valid. They're just different.

Even point-buy tends to bell-curve the stats - the higher the stat, the more points it costs - which doesn't mesh with a linear bonus system.

None of which actually addresses my core point. You are asserting that characters should have very high variability. I'm telling you they should not have high variability. They should in fact actually be mostly similar! Because, as it turns out, most people really are mostly similar. Comes with being a species and all. Your very foundational principle--the idea that characters should be highly variable--is inherently unrealistic. Anti-realistic, even. It is there solely to produce an actively un-realistic aesthetic that you personally prefer. Hence, an argument for it which claims to be based on realism is presumptively wrongheaded (since the alternative is to assume bad intent).

Don't you think a system which can produce outrightly unplayable characters has a clear hole that should be fixed? That sounds like a pretty serious flaw. Folks love to crack jokes (or rarely, actually criticize) Traveller for being able to die in character creation. I should think "you can do character creation and be literally unplayable after the second step" is something needing fixing.

If it's only the first or second step, who cares? You've lost a minute or two, tops.

Now if it was the 30th step of 35 that determines whether the character will be playable, that's a problem; because it probably took half an hour or more to get to that point.

Seriously, why bother? That's such a blatantly unrealistic, rules-forward way of altering player behavior, when we could just...not. Like we could literally just say that characters already did their training....since that's literally what the books already say. A level 1 Fighter is not simply some random town guard or peasant with a pitchfork. They're an actual warrior, with fairly extensive combat training, whether or not they have actually seen their first battle (but the text strongly implies most Fighters already have real combat exposure before level 1.)

This is where we differ greatly.

In your preferrred edition, there's a vast game-mechanical gap between a town guard or peasant and a 1st-level Fighter. In my preferred version that gap is much smaller, to the point of being mechanically about the same as the gap between 1st level and 2nd level as a Fighter.

Uh...you're the one who brought that up. I did not mention that number at any point in my post. I simply spoke of "low extremes", which in this context would be anything 7 or lower (at least as far as I'm concerned). Someone who is two standard deviations below the mean--meaning 97.5% of people are stronger than they are--absolutely should not be even attempting strength-based challenges, both because they will be objectively terrible at it and because, presuming at least a modicum of rationality, they won't want to do things they know they're really, really bad at.

Agreed. Someone with Str 7 ain't cut out for strength-based challenges, but probably is suitable for other types of challenges.

Perhaps. You have advocated score requirements with no physical representation, character creation rules that can create truly unplayable characters as in the rules forbid you from playing them, and variability which does not actually capture what most people really are. Even under 3d6 strict, you get +2 and even +3 modifiers much too often.

In a linear bonus system, yes. But in a bell-curve bonus system where -1 starts at 7 and +1 starts at 14 you don't see nearly as many +/-2s and 3s.

Ooooor...we could just recognize that people already did get better at it...by recognizing that their ability scores at first level represent a mixture of both innate predisposition AND developed skill/intuition/ability. Which is much, much more realistic than the outrightly anti-realistic notion that the entirety of your strength or intelligence is innate and unchanging.

What you roll is what you are. Says nothing about what you could potentially become (that's what level-based ASIs are there for).

Again, though, this comes back to the idea that a 1st-level character is already a veteran of some adventuring or similar activity, a default which I disagree with.

I was told Cha was THE god-stat of early-edition D&D because it controlled reaction rolls and the ability to recruit followers, which could utterly transform the experience of fighting through a dungeon--because you could recruit your opponents, bolstering your own forces while weaking the dungeon's guardians.

IME not many tables or groups took this approach, though a few have and to (usually) good results.

But yes, Dex, Wis, and Con are varying degrees of too powerful, while Strength and Intelligence are weak in 5e, especially the latter. Charisma is more or less balanced as it has clear uses, but is not useful everywhere, and some things contextually make it more useful (like Blade Pact Warlock). 4e did quite a lot of work to address this:

• Constitution only increases your HP at first level in 4e. Technically, each point of Con mod also gives you another Healing Surge, but it doesn't change how much value you get out of them (unless you're a Dragonborn.) Hence, Con is MUCH less powerful in 4e--and this is partially compensated by giving it a skill, Endurance, which gives Con value in exploration and logistical challenges.
• Dexterity, while still very powerful, is less so because your Reflex defense (=Reflex save from 3e, just reformatted so attacker rolls), and light-armor AC, can come from either Dex or Int, whichever is higher--making Int more valuable. More could have been done, but it's not a bad start. Or if either of them also worked for Initiative, it'd work just fine.
• Wisdom is still a god stat and, of course, could be brought down a peg. (Personally, I think Perception should be divorced from Wis just as Initiative should be from Dex.) It doesn't need massive nerfs, though. Just pulling out Perception would probably be enough; being the "anti-mind-control" stat is a pretty good thing, and it is used for other skills (Healing and Dungeoneering--aka "dungeon survival skills"--are pretty solid.)
• I'm still unsure what to do with Strength. Athletics is a good skill, but other than that, it's entirely feast or famine. Encumberance isn't doing the trick--and not just because lots of folks ignore such things because they aren't engaging.

It really wouldn't take that much effort to find an initial solution. The actual effort would be doing the playtesting to see if the stats are in fact balanced against one another, and iterating on that until you reach the desired outcome (where players are reluctant to dump any stat, because all of them have important, desirable uses). I have no confidence that WotC as it exists today has the desire, let alone the werewithal, to do either the kind or the amount of testing required.

In 5e, taking Perception away from Wisdom and giving it entirely to Intelligence might sort those two stats out right there.

Maybe taking any and all melee to-hit and damage bonuses away from Dex and giving them all to Strength might be a start (yes, this very intentionally means no more 'weapon finesse', ever). Then, as you say, divorce initiative from Dex and make it an unmodified roll.

No idea what to do with Charisma, though, as 5e doesn't lean into henches and hirelings etc.

 

[Lanefan]

A bigger issue is that I'd say about a quarter of possible rolled stat arrays, despite being legal, will get written off as being "too" bad, and thus the actual average shifts up. It's not cheating, but it is unfairly biasing rolled stats to have even further favor--the average result is slightly better to begin with, and then human interference makes it moreso, removing the worst parts of the curve.

Point-buy and standard array are also by default removing the worst end of the curve as well. You simply can't start with anything lower than an 8, where with rolling 7s and (less so) 6s are relatively common.

The difference is that they also remove the best end of the curve, which rolling does not.

I would not be at all surprised if rolled stats, on average, actually do objectively better in both raw scores and ability mods, even if not a single person cheats. The problem is, as I and others have said, that ability roulette means you MIGHT get stuck with something just barely not horrible enough to get re-rolled.....which is precisely why the "well those stats suck...ah just re-roll it and see what you get, but you have to take it" thing (or something like it) happens.

The best character I've ever played was one of the bolded. A 3e character; at roll-up she barely made the by-RAW cutline, then - in a fairly lethal game - proceeded to last 7 real-world years and over 250 sessions.....and wasn't exactly a hide-in-the-backline type!