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

[Lanefan]

When it comes to XP, I've never had to dangle any additional carrots in front of the noses of players. They're playing a game after all - if they wanted to sit home and drink they didn't have to show up to the game. Meanwhile I want the players to do what they want their characters want to do, not what I'm going to bribe them to do.

With a certain type of risk-averse player (with which I have far too much experience), if you don't either reward them for having their characters take risks or punish them for staying safe then one of two things will inevitably happen:

--- nobody wants to take any risks and the whole game grinds to a halt or near-halt
--- other characters take the risks and suffer for it, then their increasingly-resentful players have to watch as the non-risk-taker gets the same (or even better) rewards as they do.

The second thing there also allows a more competitive player (another thing I'm very used to) to all too easily game the system in the mid to long term by hanging back and reaping the rewards of others' risk-taking.

 

[Horwath]

If a character can earn xp for doing nothing, where's the incentive to do anything or take any risk?

The fun of playing the game, maybe?

we didn't use XP since 01 or 02 probably.

game runs so much smoother that way.
everyone is same level, new character comes in, also same level, gear if given to approximate gear level of the party, but limited to basis +X items if any magic items are allowed to new player.

it's simply not fun to play a character 2 or 3 level lower than the party, plus it's headache for the DM to balance that out for encounters.

also capstone leveling removes another mental load from DM on how to give what XP for specific PC for roleplaying.

 

[TwoSix]

With a certain type of risk-averse player (with which I have far too much experience), if you don't either reward them for having their characters take risks or punish them for staying safe then one of two things will inevitably happen:

--- nobody wants to take any risks and the whole game grinds to a halt or near-halt
--- other characters take the risks and suffer for it, then their increasingly-resentful players have to watch as the non-risk-taker gets the same (or even better) rewards as they do.

The second thing there also allows a more competitive player (another thing I'm very used to) to all too easily game the system in the mid to long term by hanging back and reaping the rewards of others' risk-taking.

Shouldn’t characters who don’t help simply get murdered at camp? I’m thought that was how your games rolled.

 

[AlViking]

With a certain type of risk-averse player (with which I have far too much experience), if you don't either reward them for having their characters take risks or punish them for staying safe then one of two things will inevitably happen:

--- nobody wants to take any risks and the whole game grinds to a halt or near-halt
--- other characters take the risks and suffer for it, then their increasingly-resentful players have to watch as the non-risk-taker gets the same (or even better) rewards as they do.

The second thing there also allows a more competitive player (another thing I'm very used to) to all too easily game the system in the mid to long term by hanging back and reaping the rewards of others' risk-taking.

It's never been an issue with my games. Probably in part because I don't care how the player runs their character but also because if you're hiding in the back it just makes it easier for you to get eaten without the others noticing. As far as competition between players - I don't see that as a virtue.

I stopped using individual XP and just gave the same amount to everyone the group in 2e and got rid of it altogether in 3e when they got rid of different leveling speeds. The only real change was less overhead.

 

[TwoSix]

My character is surviving at home and gaining xp while the others are dying off in the field and thus no longer gaining xp.

Realistically, day-to-day living should cause XP loss, proportional to the amount of total earned XP, representing the natural erosion of the edge life-or-death experiences give.

Training and practice can ameliorate this decline, but not arrest it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Problem is, achieving more or less exact balance in every situation seems to be the point for some here. And that just ain't gonna happen.

I think to insert "exact" into that is misreading people's posts.

 

[Horwath]

Problem is, achieving more or less exact balance in every situation seems to be the point for some here. And that just ain't gonna happen.

didn't we already had that with 4E?

 

[Thomas Shey]

didn't we already had that with 4E?

Not really. 4e had the virtue that you had to make some effort to fall into a genuinely incompetent character design, even without knowing the system well (this was a notable change from 3e) but there were still ways to get better or worse characters. They just weren't forced on you by dice in character gen.

 

[Lanefan]

The fun of playing the game, maybe?

we didn't use XP since 01 or 02 probably.

game runs so much smoother that way.
everyone is same level, new character comes in, also same level, gear if given to approximate gear level of the party, but limited to basis +X items if any magic items are allowed to new player.

it's simply not fun to play a character 2 or 3 level lower than the party, plus it's headache for the DM to balance that out for encounters.

The math in 5e is, or seems to be, fairly forgiving when it comes to variable levels within a party; much like BX-1e-2e were.

also capstone leveling removes another mental load from DM on how to give what XP for specific PC for roleplaying.

I assume you mean milestone, here?

I agree that giving xp for roleplaying can be a pain, which is why I don't do it. instead, I give xp for the results of said roleplaying when warranted. Roleplaying or talking your way through an encounter gives the same xp as resolving it via combat would, etc.

As for mental load, working out xp is a fairly quick job that I can do during the week (usually in the few minutes before people arrive for the session); and I've got a system that makes it easy to record on the fly which characters got involved with what encounters.

 

[Lanefan]

Shouldn’t characters who don’t help simply get murdered at camp? I’m thought that was how your games rolled.

Depends greatly on who-what is in the rest of the party. They're not all bloodthirsty killers.

Also depends on how subtle or careful the player is about hanging back, particularly in key moments of risk. A given character might be the first to charge in against (what look to be) weak foes but when something big comes along that character fades into the back a little.

A good litmus test for this is to now and then throw an obvious level-drainer out there (everyone's scared of those!) where they can see it coming, but a bit too close for blast spells to be safe, and see how they react. Who steps up? Who hangs back? And, most importantly, is there a repeating pattern?