innerdude
Legend
I was gonna say, "Thanks for reminding me why I gave up on D&D / d20 altogether."
character point buy system
- Thread starter messy
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I was gonna say, "Thanks for reminding me why I gave up on D&D / d20 altogether."
it works using magecraft's system.
yep, the character i posted uses exactly the 215 points allowed.
eh, i'd rather be able to make the character work the way the system intends rather than optimizing.
but thanks anyway. 
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I'm presuming that you mean something along the lines of "this is unbalanced"?
If so, I suspect we'll just have to agree to disagree on what constitutes "balance," since I disagree. The reason is that I'm not of the opinion that balance is something found in the rules for how the game is played that, when followed rigorously, will eliminate differences in ability between players with differing levels of skill. Chess has a great degree of "rules balance," but a skilled player will still utterly demolish an unskilled one, usually in just a few moves. Certainly, class-based RPGs have little claim to mechanical balance, for all the many, many books, supplements, articles, etc. that have been published over the years - just look at all of the "wizards are gods, fighters are clods" discussions each edition of D&D has had. Heck, just look at Pun-Pun.
If that's the sort of "balance" you're looking for, then it's not something you're going to find in an RPG that's as complex as D&D/Pathfinder, point-buy or no.
Rather, I'm of the opinion that balance is something that's (largely, but not totally) found in the underlying agreements between the players and the GM. It's in - for a point-buy game - what abilities are available and why (remember, as I said up-thread, that a point-buy system probably shouldn't be used carte blanche), and in how often situations come up during game-play that play towards various characters' abilities, weaknesses, quirks, etc.
To put it another way, stacks and stacks of books that end up providing no greater balance than a single book with just as many (or more) options reminds me of why I gave up on class-based systems.
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Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I'll look again, but there's really a lot of calculating going on with his system - that said, I'm not sure how your character can end up with exactly that many points used, when the other classes it's based on use almost exactly the same amount while still having far less. The bard, for example, uses 214 points...but it's only advantages are a few bardic music abilities, and 6 skill points per level. Are those - and that remaining 1 point - really worth a huge bump in Hit Dice, a third full-progression save, full BAB, fast movement, and quite a bit more?
In other words, can you walk me through the numbers?
eh, i'd rather be able to make the character work the way the system intends rather than optimizing.
Well, the "intention" of a class-based system is to constrain the available choices into class-based packages, so as to keep characters in various niches and, ostensibly, to preserve "balance" between them. The whole point of using a point-buy system is that it's more open than that. If you were worried about what the d20 System in general (or Pathfinder in particular) intended for you to do, why are you using a point-buy system to make a character more powerful than what the standard classes offer, after all?
based on popular opinion of these classes, such a mix doesn't seem to be unreasonable.
or maybe i should just be a fighter/monk gestalt.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
based on popular opinion of these classes, such a mix doesn't seem to be unreasonable.
or maybe i should just be a fighter/monk gestalt.
I'm guessing that that popular opinion is largely from the internet echo-chamber of how well these classes function (e.g. "they're just tier 4's! Why bother playing them?!" or something to that effect). To which I'd say the answer to why bothering to play them is "because how 'powerful' they are isn't really related to how much fun you'll have."
Certainly, we can all agree that being fun to actually play - rather than theory-craft - is what the game really intends.
yep:
d12 hd (50 cp)
strong bab (25 cp)
all strong saves (16 cp)
barbarian's skill points and class skills (43 cp)
simple and martial weapons (25 cp)
sneak attack (21 cp)
wisdom to ac (4 cp; 1 cp x 4 for being acquired at level 1)
fast movement (4 cp; 1 cp x 4 for being acquired at level 1)
evasion (4 cp; 1 cp x 4 for being acquired at level 2)
uncanny dodge (4 cp; 1 cp x 4 for being acquired at level 4)
bard spellcasting (19 cp)
that's 215 cp.
is it really more powerful? it doesn't get many class features, like the fighter's bonus feats, the rogue's rogue talents, the barbarian's rage, or the monk's supernatural abilities.
and even if it more powerful than the standard classes, without full spellcasting it's still underpowered according to the min-maxers.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
yep:
d12 hd (50 cp)
strong bab (25 cp)
all strong saves (16 cp)
barbarian's skill points and class skills (43 cp)
simple and martial weapons (25 cp)
sneak attack (21 cp)
wisdom to ac (4 cp; 1 cp x 4 for being acquired at level 1)
fast movement (4 cp; 1 cp x 4 for being acquired at level 1)
evasion (4 cp; 1 cp x 4 for being acquired at level 2)
uncanny dodge (4 cp; 1 cp x 4 for being acquired at level 4)
bard spellcasting (19 cp)
that's 215 cp.
Okay, this is something I'll definitely want to look at in more detail over time. That said, that it's put bard spellcasting as being so much cheapter than d12 Hit Dice is rather suspicious, at least to me. Hit Dice are important - but to say that they're that much more important strains credibility.
Many, if not most, of these are static abilities that don't compound over time, and are only used in particular circumstances; in exchange for that, you're bumping up most of the "spine" aspects of your character - e.g. the central mechanics that will come into play near-constantly (in combat). Throw on top of that that you're keeping a mid-range type of spellcasting, and a handful of other abilities, and it's a pretty hefty build. True, it lacks the versatility of a "top-tier" spellcaster, but having that bardic spellcasting will still allow for a fairly broad range of responses to various situations, which his enhanced "spine" mechanics will then probably be able to carry him through.
There's a reason why they call them "min-maxers" - they tend to equate "not as powerful as absolutely possible under every permutation of the system" with "underpowered."
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I'm a little confused by your statement here - there's a lot of differences between the class you want, and Pathfinder's ninja. For example, the ninja doesn't have full BAB, it has only one good save, no spellcasting, etc.
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