Ability Points Buy System how many ?

[Rashak Mani]

From many many comments regarding low number of points and toad familiars being favorite (which only makes sense in low point PCs)... when you do use (or IF you used) Point Buy system how many points are Characters built with ?

If you ROLL click on equivalent level...

One DM we have allows 4d6 (reroll 1´s once ) or 32 point buy... if the Rolls are bad you can change for a 28 point buy.

But normally we use the 32 point buy and we dont think its high power... and when we do roll its very common to have over 35 point characters...

 

[KDLadage]

Actually, I use a completely new method these days based on something I read. I use playing cards.

There are 6 ability scores, each needing three "dice" to generate the ability score itself. This means I get 18 playing cards:

7 -- x1 card
6 -- x2 cards
5 -- x4 cards
4 -- x4 cards
3 -- x4 cards
2 -- x2 card
A -- x1 card


I then have the players shuffle, and deal them out into six piles of 3 cards each. then can then arrange these piles in any order forming the stats.

Maximum rolled stat: 19
Minimum rolled stat: 5
Total of all rolled stats: 72
Average stat: 12

I have used this for minor NPCs (major NPCs I never roll stats for; I assign them) as well. The card mix gets changed to this, however:

6 -- x1 card
5 -- x3 cards
4 -- x5 cards
3 -- x5 cards
2 -- x3 cards
A -- x1 card

Maximum rolled stat: 6+5+5 = 16
Minimum rolled stat: 1+2+2 = 5
Total of rolled stats: 63
Average stat: 10.5

 

[Zappo]

Since an average person (three stats at 10, three at 11) is worth 15 points, and considering that being able to distribute the points the way you want is an advantage in and of itself, we use 12 points point buy. We feel that using any other method would be munchkin.



More seriously, we use 25 point buy because I'm the DM and I said so. The reason for which I said so is that to increase/decrease a campaign's power level I prefer to act on the characters' level instead of their stats. I found it makes CRs, wealth/treasures, and overall game balance work better.

 

[Rashak Mani]

25 points doesnt make for more than one 16... awfully little it seems... makes Demi-humans more appealable ?

 

[mikebr99]

I tend to the high end of the point scale... that way I get to tweek any and all the monsters for the MM...

Geez... A Troll MONK???

Barbarian ORCS??!!!

keeps the guys on their toes...

 

[HellBlazer]

I tend to lean toward the high end of Ability Scores....Here's what I do

Ability Scores: To create ability scores roll 1D10 then add the result of the roll to 70. The total result is your ability points that you may distribute on a one for one basis among your six abilities. Racial bonuses or penalties no longer apply.
When distributing the ability points use the following guidelines: No starting ability score may exceed 16 unless otherwise noted: Dwarves: 18 Constitution Max. 14 Charisma Max.
Elves: 18 Dexterity 14 Constitution Max.
Gnomes: 18 Constitution Max. 14 Strength Max.
Half-Orc: 18 Strength Max. 14 Intelligence Max 14 Charisma Max.
Halflings: 18 Dexterity Max. 14 Strength Max.

 

[Arkham]

In the current game I am running, I gave the
Players a vote, either high stats, but
very low magic, or low stats and very high
magic.

In the last game, we tried to break the system
with high stats and very high magic... It stood
up well.

The vote was unanimous, high stats, low magic.

So I am using 48 point-buy, or 5d6 drop 2 lowest,
choose best of 3 sets of stats. If the rolls come
up bad, then they can use 38 point buy.

Only 2 people chose to roll, and both came up with
41-43 point characters.

I found that with the higher number point buy,
the PCs had a much higher diversity in stats than
they had in any lower point-buy games we did.
And the sorcerer didn't take a toad familiar,
either.

 

[Thaumaturge]

When we use point buy humans get 36 points and demi-humans get 32. I'm not going to explain all of the math involved, but if you give a human the same as a race with stat modifiers the human ends up 4 points down in most score spreads. This way the demi-human ends up 2 points down only if they try to give themselves all 14s. hmmm... crappy explanation, but I'm at work sans books, so when I get home perhaps I can give a better example.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Victim]

IIRC, someone worked out that average amount for the 4d6 drop the lowest method in the PHB including rerolls came to about 30 points. I think it was Dr. Rictus.

Considering that most people will reroll poor sets of stats, 32 points isn't bad at all.

Considering that most of the characters I see are human or races not in the PHB, the slight advantage that pointbuy gives demihumans seems to actually work out for the best. I hate going without that extra human feat and skills, and it seems that most of the people that I play with have a similar mindset.

 

[Kichwas]

My groups seems to have settled on 28 for all of the DMs. Though one of them occaisionally talks about trying 25. Might be interesting to see how different it is.

25 gives:

15 14 13 12 10 8

The 'Iconic Spread' or 'default array' as it's called in the DMG.

THis is a very viable character given how 3E is designed and balanced.

We go up to 28 only to give a little more flexability while not affecting the power level too much.