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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ARandomGod" data-source="post: 2478144" data-attributes="member: 17296">Sure. Or for people who want that 18 in (primary stat) and still want to have all 10's... or want to have that 18 and yet also get a high charisma for purely roll playing reasons, without overly sacrificing from secondary stats. (I've done this before, I wanted a leader type, I wanted him to have a Cha of 14, he was just a fighter, with no Cha based abilities or feats).Possibly so. But somehow people still prefer the point buy when it's not a punishing one. They get what they *want*, guaranteed. And noone has to worry about relative party balance, because everyone has the same total amount of points.Here you're touching on my actual preferred method, which is a MOD buy instead of a point buy. But for some reason a number of people have a hard time understanding the concept. A linear point buy of 25 is the same thing as 'normal' point buy of 25, with the exception that you can buy a high stat without lowering your total modifier points. So I can put more of my modifier +'s in one score... that just makes the wizards and single stat based characters more well rounded. AND it allows concepts where someone isn't sacrificing his one chance at an 18 by having all his other stats at least ten (can't do that in a 25 point buy or less system using the "We Hate Hero's" point buy method).You can't get higher than a +8 total modifier using either system, The 4d6 drop the lowest comes pretty close to a 32 'punish the hero's' point buy (actually 31.(something), I believe., when you take into account dropping characters that don't meet the minimum listed in that section of the DMG).I agree that raising an attribute from a 16 to an 18 generally gives you more power than raising it from 12 to 14, and that's why it costs more in that point buy version. But it's "generally" gives you more power, and that 'generally' is mainly for certain mono-focused classes, ones that are going to get an 18 anyway! Punishing them for doing so by making them have fewer points to spend on intelligence or strength or charisma is what, IMO, makes them static, dull, min/maxxed. They're going to get that max anyhow, trust me, they are.  ^_^I counter that for the powergamer that you're talking about, min/maxing is the way to go even if you're offered the traditional point buy, and further that the traditional point buy goes a long way to enforce the min/maxing that you seem to disapprove of... in that it makes it more difficult to get that 18 and still have decent non-primary scores. You don't have to be a 'powergamer' to want your wizard to have an Int of 18. In fact, I believe that in general feats and spells and items and monsters and modules are based around the assumption that wizards will start with an 18 int. (And sorc's with 18 charisma. Wisdom based casters it's not so very important.) That affects your save DC for any spells with a save DC, you know. And arcane casters are all about save DC.In fact, you HAVE to have an intelligence (or related spellcasting stat) of at LEAST 16 to start with if you're planning a character that will span 20 levels. Otherwise you won't be able to cast 9th level spells without artificial help (and that is an important concept to some people). Well, if your Int is 15 you can cast them at level 20... which pretty much doesn't count because that's game over. I find that as a character it allows me to be more well rounded (and not just when playing a caster!), and as a GM it allows me to flesh out my adventures more. I don't have to take into account that characters *will* have glaring weaknesses... Anyone who still has an 8 in a stat did it because they wanted to.  Sure it makes life easier on min/maxxers. But it makes it easier on everyone. And, to top it off, it's easy to explain!</blockquote>

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