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

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. This reduces the landscape of possible score arrays from 54,264 to 12,232. A reduction in diversity of 42,032 but I can live with 12,000 arrays.

I rolled up the base scores for three Monks:

Monk A, equivalent to 25 points (Str 10, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 8)

Monk B, points are unevaluatable* (Str 11, Dex 15, Con 13, Int 7, Wis 13, Cha 13)

Monk C, points are unevaluatable** (Str 13, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 9, Wis 15, Cha 11)

* Unevaluatable because of the 7, but everything else adds up to 27 points.
** Unevaluatable because of the 17, but everything else adds up to 23 points.

Well, we can extrapolate patterns from the existing rules.

8 is treated as the 0 point, but we could instead treat 10 as the 0 point and call it (27-12) = 15 point buy. Adding 3 points gets you to 13, at which point costs increase. Hence, we should expect to remove points down to -3 with equivalent results.

So a 7 should be worth "-1 point", while 6 would be worth "-3" and 5 would be worth "-5".

Conversely, again using 10 as our center, modifiers increase to 2 per point of stat at 14. If we have a similar "three values each" pattern, then that would imply that you'd have to spend a total of 9 points (three to get to 13, six to get to 16), and then 17 would itself cost 3 points, for a total of 12. Shifting back to the 8-based method, that would imply it costs a total of 14 points to get to 17.

If we did do this, then Monk B would have an array worth 26 points, which is pretty well in the right area. Monk C, however, would have an array supremely valuable: 23+14 = 37. Which, yeah, looking at those scores that makes sense to me. Your sum-of-modifiers is a whopping 1+3+1-1+2+0 = +6, before racial/background stat bonuses. With +1 to three stats, you can bump that sum-of-modifiers up to 2+4+1-1+3+0 = +9. Considering the absolute best you can get with the regular point-buy is only +6, and that only by having painfully average stats (e.g. the three-13s/three-12s array), yeah, your Monk C is WAY ahead of the curve.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Typically I try to broadcast it to the players through RP. For example a street thug may not respond to persuasion but will to intimidation. So they may respond with "Pretty words don't mean a thing" or I'll just portray them as cowardly but self-centered. As I said above insight checks or even something like a history check come into play as well. If you know the history of the region you may know that soft diplomacy is viewed as a weakness, at least as part of first contact.

Most of the times I don't wait for the player to ask for an insight or history check, I'll just tell them to make one if I think it makes sense for the scenario.

I have never once seen a situation like this.

Never. Not once ever have I seen a situation where Intimidation definitely would work, it definitely would not have nasty consequences, and Persuasion/Diplomacy/whatever definitely could not work no matter what.

I find it frankly really hard to envision any situation where it is literally impossible to persuade someone, but it IS possible to intimidate them, but doing the latter never has any serious consequences.

 

[AlViking]

I have never once seen a situation like this.

Never. Not once ever have I seen a situation where Intimidation definitely would work, it definitely would not have nasty consequences, and Persuasion/Diplomacy/whatever definitely could not work no matter what.

I find it frankly really hard to envision any situation where it is literally impossible to persuade someone, but it IS possible to intimidate them, but doing the latter never has any serious consequences.

The reaction of NPCs to any interaction is going to be up to the GM. In games I run sometimes intimidation will work where persuasion will not. Sometimes either will work. I've had plenty of DMs over the years that allowed intimidation to work. Repercussions from using either persuasion or intimidation will be based on the situation and the NPC. For example an evil NPC may be persuaded but will think it makes the character weak and vulnerable where an intimidation check would have made them more cautious.

Your experiences are not universal.

 

[Lanefan]

Con has the objectively universal applicability of giving you more Do Not Die Points. It 100% guaranteed always does that, in every edition, no matter what. It gives different amounts, to be sure, but it gives them all the same. And since, as stated, you are always eventually going to make Perception checks and Initiative rolls, you are going to use those things. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. That cannot be said of Cha. Some games it can be. Plenty of others, it can't.

No argument from me on any of this.

So how to fix, or at least mitigate?

You've already suggested divorcing initiative from Dexterity. Good idea. Divorcing offense in combat from Dexterity would be the next step, with the intended end result being that Strength helps offense, Dexterity helps defense.

Could perception somehow tie in to both Int and Wisdom? E.g. on an easy check you use the higher bonus, on a normal check you use the average of the two bonuses, and on a hard check (but not hard enough to give disadv.) you use the lower of the two - could that work?

As for making Charisma more important more of the time, it'd help greatly if some 0e-1e conceits hadn't fallen by the wayside over the years. Charisma was the main stat in those versions for attracting and retaining henches, hirelings, and followers; all of which were rather important to one's career as both an adventurer and - later - as a domain keeper. And even with that, Charisma was often seen as the best stat to dump; I'm not sure that's ever changed.

In 5.5e a bit of this might be revivable via the Bastion rules, but that's again a bit niche and not all campaigns will use them.

It would take a fairly big adjustment to how people think of things, but one could in part define Charisma as being "strength of spirit/soul". Once you do this, then anything affecting the soul or spirit (most notably, death saves, which are another near-inevitability) would exclusively run through Charisma; as would revival from death if any uncertainty gets introduced there.

 

[Lanefan]

This precise attitude is what ensures Intimidate will always suck.

Unfortunately, @Maxperson is bang-on right: intimidation in real life works exactly as he says it does. Many (most?) of us have direct experience with this.

If the intent is for it to work differently in the game they should probably have put a different name to it.

 

[Lanefan]

2 and 3 is the same for Intimidation (especially if you happen to have the same modifier and DCs).
And what reasons in the fiction are there for there to persuasion to fail but intimidation to work? How do you communicate this in game so that the players understand this and can take this into account?

Through your roleplay of the NPC, ideally.

If the NPC comes across as prideful or self-confident or courageous than persuasion is more likely to work.
If the NPC comes across as diffident or insecure or cowardly then intimidate is more likely to work.

 

[Lanefan]

Same here...personally I'd just let the player reroll if they were unsatisfied with the results, or let them switch to Point Buy. As long as they aren't annoying everyone by rolling over and over again trying to get multiple 18s or whatever, I won't mind. (I'd also try to talk them into using point buy if they were looking for something specific.)

Problem is, oftentimes the "something specific" a player might be looking for can't be achieved in point buy.

How, in point buy, can I get a wizard with 18-Int and 7-Wis (which is for me the ideal stat setup for a wizard)? That's right, I can't. And maybe I can't with rolling either, but at least rolling gives me the chance of hitting it.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Problem is, oftentimes the "something specific" a player might be looking for can't be achieved in point buy.

How, in point buy, can I get a wizard with 18-Int and 7-Wis (which is for me the ideal stat setup for a wizard)? That's right, I can't. And maybe I can't with rolling either, but at least rolling gives me the chance of hitting it.

For the record I would allow you to lower your Wisdom score to anything less than what you rolled. But your not getting anything for it. I detest dump scores.°

° Low scores are not dump scores. Dump scores are scores that are low in order to make other scores high.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Well, we can extrapolate patterns from the existing rules.

8 is treated as the 0 point, but we could instead treat 10 as the 0 point and call it (27-12) = 15 point buy. Adding 3 points gets you to 13, at which point costs increase. Hence, we should expect to remove points down to -3 with equivalent results.

So a 7 should be worth "-1 point", while 6 would be worth "-3" and 5 would be worth "-5".

Conversely, again using 10 as our center, modifiers increase to 2 per point of stat at 14. If we have a similar "three values each" pattern, then that would imply that you'd have to spend a total of 9 points (three to get to 13, six to get to 16), and then 17 would itself cost 3 points, for a total of 12. Shifting back to the 8-based method, that would imply it costs a total of 14 points to get to 17.

If we did do this, then Monk B would have an array worth 26 points, which is pretty well in the right area. Monk C, however, would have an array supremely valuable: 23+14 = 37. Which, yeah, looking at those scores that makes sense to me. Your sum-of-modifiers is a whopping 1+3+1-1+2+0 = +6, before racial/background stat bonuses. With +1 to three stats, you can bump that sum-of-modifiers up to 2+4+1-1+3+0 = +9. Considering the absolute best you can get with the regular point-buy is only +6, and that only by having painfully average stats (e.g. the three-13s/three-12s array), yeah, your Monk C is WAY ahead of the curve.

Thank you for this effort. As long as we can agree on the extrapolation then we can compare all of the arrays.

Another way to compare them, independent of extrapolation, is comparing total modifiers. That would mean some of the 65 possible 27-point arrays are lesser than others.