D&D 5E (2014) Is Point Buy Balanced?

Lakesidefantasy said:

Merry Christmas! and Happy Hanukkah!

54,264 Ability Score Combinations. The Total Points column was made for Pathfinder 1e Point Buy where all scores start at 10 and you can buy down to 7 or buy up to 18.

@EzekielRaiden

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Alright, from my own stuff playing around in Google Sheets, I have determined:

• There are 65 different arrays which are valid under 27 PB. I am, of course, ignoring any array which could be valid but hasn't spent all the points yet.
• Of these, only three arrays fail the "at least one stat 14+" test. They are: {10,13,13,13,13,13}, {11,12,13,13,13,13}, {12,12,12,13,13,13}. Essentially, the maximally-evenly-distributed array, and two slight variations.
• Of the 62 arrays that meet this requirement, 44 meet the further requirement of having at least one other 14+, and of that group, 29 have it so that one (or more) of those values is 15.

Given we have either +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 from background (or race, in 5.0), we can then look at those 29 arrays which have those solid baselines and try to ensure that we have either 3 odd stats (which can then be increased to even with three +1s) or 1 odd stat. Others have noted that there can be value in an odd stat if you know your character will reach level 4, but...well. Given my personal experience with 5e, I will lean in a more conservative direction and assume that we want to avoid odd stats if possible.

Applying all of these requirements (at least one 15, at least one further 14 or 15, exactly 3 or 1 odd stat before BG/race bonus), there are 11 arrays you can generate with 27 point buy. If we relax the "at least one 15", aka allowing arrays with two 14s, we get another nine arrays. They are, respectively, the following groups:


So, out of the 65 arrays that you can validly make in the first place, 11 of them are "great", and roughly 20 of them are "solid", as far as character optimization is concerned. Very few arrays (only three) are "bad", in the sense that they don't allow even the possibility of starting with a 16+ in any stat, and rely heavily on actively trying to spread your points out as much as possible and require you to have a crapload of odd stats.

Given players will naturally be more likely to choose even stats over odd ones, except insofar as they can bump an odd stat up to an even one using BG/race bonuses, it's unlikely any player would accidentally stumble into those arrays. I think it is reasonable to simply exclude them from the overall discussion.

If you do exclude those three arrays, then the remaining 62 options are...I mean obviously they're not absolutely perfectly balanced, because perfection is an impossible standard outside of very boring stuff. But they're pretty reasonable. You're deciding how broad vs focused you want your character to be. The three-15s/three-8s build is hyperfocused and is going to be taking risks unless those three dumped stats genuinely do not matter. (Best I can think of for that is a casting-focused Cleric who uses shillelagh or true strike, since that allows them to get around dumping Str while still being effective in melee--but they're still going to be very vulnerable to certain kinds of attacks.) Likewise, the three-13s/three-12s build theoretically has more total stat points, but is going to be at a mild disadvantage in their "core shtick" until level 12--though that means others will be picking up feats or improving secondary stats, but on the flipside you won't have any totally "bad" saves, and you'll be something of a dabbler in everything. Could work particularly well for a Warlock who starts out purely utility-focused and then shifts to Blade Pact later on--so your focus on Charisma doesn't hurt you later on.

So, overall? Yes, I would say 5e's 27 PB is actually very well-balanced. It is not perfectly balanced because almost nothing (that isn't trivial) is perfectly balanced. I don't demand perfection of balance from anything, generally speaking. Certainly compared to most other parts of 5e's rules, its point buy rules are highly well-balanced, and any unbalanced (usually underpowered) things are really easy to see so long as the player understands how ability score modifiers work (e.g. that odd stats suck).

Ulorian - Agent of Chaos said:

Sort of. 'Is it balanced?' needs to consider 'Is it fun?'. Fairness in rules, some measure of equality in the ability to affect the outcome of the game between players, are necessary to have fun for at least some players (I would say the vast majority in fact).

The pursuit of balance is not the same as falling over dead if not all things are 100% equal as if this was some sort of extreme OCD behaviour, which is unfortunately how this gets characterised by some. Like just about everything life, this discussion is gray.

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Exactly.

If a game isn't even fun to play in the first place, then balancing it isn't worth bothering about.

If a game does contain fun, then it is worth investigating balance. Generally, that balance is going to be dynamic and asymmetrical: that is, there are genuinely different paths to the same/similar/equivalent results (asymmetric), and there will be shifts and changes in the exact effectiveness of any given option over time relative to other options (dynamic). Perfectly symmetrical balance is almost always possible, and nearly always really, REALLY boring, so it's extremely rare outside of outright actual board games. (And even there, truly perfect balance is extremely difficult to achieve--chess has to have alternating players start first, because "go first" is a clear and measurable advantage, but too difficult to precisely nail down how much it's an advantage.)

So, if we're already considering a game that (a) actually is fun to play in at least some configurations, (b) employs dynamic and asymmetrical balance, and (c) still contains problematic components, then it is worth doing serious analysis to try to minimize the problems and maximize the space in which there are multiple distinct paths of approximately equivalent potency.

This is worth doing because...well, I mean, that's how you make it so context, taste, and creativity become the primary drivers of choices. When there are certain paths that are clearly superior to other paths, context, taste, and creativity will yield to brute calculation, to mere "make number go up". When you can still choose poorly, but most paths look pretty much the same, then it genuinely comes down to the little details of each situation, to the specific preferences and style of each player, and the creative ways that player can recombine elements into patterns unexpected.

That's why I speak so strongly against unbalanced games. Unbalanced games punish creativity, because there's clear "correct" solutions. Unbalanced games mock taste, because choosing flavor means choosing weakness, and choosing power (generally) means choosing blandness. Unbalanced games throw context to the wind, because you can invalidate most contextual factors with just "my numbers are too big for that to matter".

If you want games that are engaging, that require you to not merely calculate but actually evaluate, that is, to make real judgment calls rather than mere rapid-pace mental arithmetic, then you want a game where there are numerous paths to more-or-less the same amount of raw power. When you do that, you make it so the grace notes, the subtle interactions, the clever deployment of utility effects, the smart arrangement of pieces into a more harmonious whole, are where any real gains in power will come from.

Or, in simpler terms, you make it so optimization requires creativity, context, and taste; so that playing "smart" and playing "fun" are the exact same thing. The powergamer has to engage with the world and the story and the other characters--because that's the only way they can get the advantages they need in order to "win", by whatever metric they've declared counts as "winning".

An effective build is when my pc wins all the encounter. Standard array or point buy is a middle approach so a baby hero can have a -1 in a stat so he needs buddies to adventure and +1 stat so he can help his buddies who have negative waves.
D&D has rarely had pc classes which are equal in Damage per round or what ever you what to judge them.
If you want pcs to be effective next to each other, you will have know all the books you are using in your campaign and send your players to pc class.