Ability Points Buy System how many ?

[Rashak Mani]

So how many points are necessary to make a +1 ecl ? 6 ?

Would you choose Aasimar qualities (+1) or 6 points in point buy system ?

 

[Storminator]

I've taken to rolling a small die and adding it to a point total to get a little randomness. I've been using 1d6 +25 points, but just last night I came up with the following:

1d8 + 24 points

roll a single PC with the 4d6 drop low method. Then you have the choice between the rolled PC or the point buy. I chose this because I like random weirdness, but I want a floor on PCs that doesn't require endless rerolling of PCs.

So of course, the first guy rolls 17,17,15,14,14,12!!!

PS

 

[Conaill]

I've taken to rolling a small die and adding it to a point total to get a little randomness. [...] I chose this because I like random weirdness

You know, I've heard about this approach before, and the more I think about it, the less it makes sense too me.

Most people - I think - choose point buy because they want to avoid power imbalances between the characters.

And when people say they like some randomness, I think most people mean they prefer some randomness in how the ability scores are distributed, rather than allowing them to be min-maxed out the wazoo.

Now, the above method (doing point buy using a randomly determined point total) seems to combine the worst of both worlds! It explicitely adds power imbalances (however minor) by assigning different point buy totals to characters, and it allows people to min-max their ability scores.

Contrast this to a method I've suggested before (but haven't gotten a chance to try out yet), where you wind up with randomly generated ability scores which are guaranteed to have a fixed point buy total. (For example, you could rolld 4d6, and then have some mechanism to reduce or increase the stats to reach the desired total.)

These methods seem diametrically opposed to each other, and for the life of me I can't figure out why one would use point buy with a randomized total. Could anyone enlighten me on this?

 

[Rashak Mani]

Insanity ?

Some overcomplex way of getting higher stats without the DM noticing ?

 

[Jack Daniel]

I voted for the 28 point buy, but it's really a subjective thing based on the difficulty of the campaign. Most games can run with 25 points, but RttToEE would be very hard with anything less than 28 or 32 points...

 

[F5]

Contrast this to a method I've suggested before (but haven't gotten a chance to try out yet), where you wind up with randomly generated ability scores which are guaranteed to have a fixed point buy total. (For example, you could rolld 4d6, and then have some mechanism to reduce or increase the stats to reach the desired total.)

Is this an actual method that someone has come up with, or is this just hypothetical? I'd be interested to see how it's done.

 

[Zappo]

I voted for the 28 point buy, but it's really a subjective thing based on the difficulty of the campaign. Most games can run with 25 points, but RttToEE would be very hard with anything less than 28 or 32 points...

What about using 25 point buy and giving the characters an extra level? Just curious, I don't have the module.

 

[Conaill]

F5:

It's not too hard to come up with a couple different variants of this. For example:

1) Roll 4d6-drop lowest. If higher than the desired point-buy value, lower the highest roll until the total is close to (but not lower than) the desired. If too low, increase the lowest stat likewise. This should get you within at most 2 points of the desired point-buy value.

2) Roll 4d6-drop-lowest three times. The remaining three stats are equal to 25 minus the previous three rolls (max 18). This one isn't point-buy balanced, but it is approximately balanced with respect to the total sum (75 in this case).

3) Roll 4d6-drop-lowest. Keep the three highest rolls, and let the player pick the other three to match the desired point-buy total.

4) Make a little table with 20 sets of balanced stats. Let the players roll 1d20 to pick one of them.

 

[ForceUser]

32 points is too much, 25 too little. I use 28. With 28, you can get one 18 or two 16s or four 14s (for those monks), interspersed with one or two 8s or 9s. Perfect. A couple of nice stats, a few average ones, and one or two bad stats to balance it out and keep the character down to earth.