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

[Lanefan]

But it did point out a certain .... unfairness, and made for a helluva time planning encounters. I do think I'd be better today as a more mature geezer, but ... let's hold onto that thought for a second.


^^^
That's what I had to deal with as a result of a randomly generated Glock, tho. And I had to deal with it at fifth-seventh level. I'm going back into the grey matter hard, here, but IIRC, at sixth level, Glock was pushing 76 hp or something obscene, and overusing the thinky bits, I think the next in line was Ronwind in the mid-forties, and then the various rangers, with the nature cleric and bard holding up the back end of the bus in the mid-thirties.

In redesigning the wheel, I've gone with the 5e idea of d6 for the squishies.

But you raise an interesting concern for which there may be a simple solution: cap dice earlier for fighters and let the squishes get dice until 12/14th level?

Right now the crew I'm running range from a Fighter with just over 100 h.p. all the way down to a Thief-Illusionist who is in the low 30s I think. Level range is about 8th-11th; what really makes the group tough to scare is their massive healing resources: in a party of nine (including henches) they've got 28 levels worth of Nature Cleric and a 7th-8th Fighter-Cleric as well, plus devices.

Lets them punch way above their weight sometimes, that's for sure.

As for the idea of capping hit dice at different levels, one of the relatively few things the warrior types consistently have going for them at higher levels is lots of hit points, I wouldn't want to take that away from them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

If you've got an array setup that sets at least one score sub-normal, I don't know what to call placing that score in the place it will least matter other than a dump score. Its "dumping" the low stat after all.

 

[Moving Pictures]

Right now the crew I'm running range from a Fighter with just over 100 h.p. all the way down to a Thief-Illusionist who is in the low 30s I think. Level range is about 8th-11th; what really makes the group tough to scare is their massive healing resources: in a party of nine (including henches) they've got 28 levels worth of Nature Cleric and a 7th-8th Fighter-Cleric as well, plus devices.

Lets them punch way above their weight sometimes, that's for sure.

As for the idea of capping hit dice at different levels, one of the relatively few things the warrior types consistently have going for them at higher levels is lots of hit points, I wouldn't want to take that away from them.

How the frig does a high level (10-ish) character only have 30 hp?

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

If you've got an array setup that sets at least one score sub-normal, I don't know what to call placing that score in the place it will least matter other than a dump score. Its "dumping" the low stat after all.

"...in the place it will least matter..."

Yeah, I agree. It's like dumping the trash; we're dumping the low score somewhere we can forget about it. Because we're dumping it in an Ability that will least matter, that's what makes it a dump score rather than simply a low score.

One way to avoid dump scores is the Classic method of rolling scores in order. This way, we remove our ability to choose where the low score goes. In the analogy above, our trash goes on the ground, and we have to live with it just blowing around in the wind as litter. But, I'm not advocating for that.

Don't get me wrong, creating a random character is fun, but most of the time we want to create specific characters: fighters, clerics, goliath bards, etc. So we allow ourselves to rearrange the scores, and then we are faced with the dump score problem. Take for instance the Standarard Array; we're faced with that low score of 8. It doesn't matter what specific vision we have for our character--it's going to have a low Ability. Many times I've faced this dilemma, haven't you? I mean, when faced with where to place this score I'm thinking I didn't really imagine this character as stupid, or weak, or sickly, but I guess it'll have to be.

Point Buy has the same problem. It's a case of arranging the Points rather than the Scores themselves. And when we apply optimization guidelines to the arrangements we are usually left with 2 or 3 pretty low scores. So we place them in 2 or 3 Abilities that matter the least. Not that they don't matter, they just matter less than other scores, so we "dump" them by choosing to spend less points on them even though they started at 8 to begin with. Even if we don't apply optimization guidelines we usually run low on points after we distibute them to the scores we're focused on.

Rearrangement of Scores and arrangement of Points generally forces us to pigeon hole our characters into predictable archetypes: Dumb, daft, or dull fighters; weak or weak-willed wizards, etc. We have to try really hard with Point Buy to avoid these predictable characters because we only have 65 options, of which about 2/3rds are sub-optimal.

Now we also have the opposite problem when it comes to rolling scores in order. What if we imagined our character is very sickly but we rolled a 15 in Constitution and the lowest score we rolled in the set was a 10? I would allow you to lower your Constitution score to any value below 15, but this does not impact any other scores. If I wanted a sickly character I'd probably lower the score to 6 or 7. This may be a low score but it is not a dump score.

Low scores are low; dump scores are lower so that another score can be higher.