Cutting Back the Power Level

[Cheiromancer]

I'm glad you like it!

I've also thought about doing that in reverse; using a high point buy (42 or more) at 1st level, to boost survivability at those difficult lower levels, but then subtract 1 point from every stat every 4 levels. To make high level games less overpowered.

I think my players would kill me if I tried it, though.

If you are looking for neat variants, you might try having the characters reroll their hit points every time they level up. If there new total is higher than their old, they keep it. If not, they keep the old one. It helps compensate if someone rolls poorly early in their career. And it's fun rolling lots of dice. If you go for point buy, then the reroll hit points variant will make up for all those 4d6 drop lowest that they didn't get to roll.

 

[Thanatos]

Aagh! No! That is just criminally cute.

Hope Jynx is recovering well.

Thank you, she is....Doc said another 2 weeks she see her back to the prime of kitten health.

 

[Dragonbait]

I had this problem too, when my players latched on to 32 points. I sat down with them and gave them a long, drawn-out presentation of the difficulties of finding proper balance with the 32 stat points, along with other house rules, and the pre-genned adventures as written. I also showed them several pre-genned fights and what 32 points+our house rules did. They eventually saw things my way.. Or I just bored the hell out of them and they agreed just so I'd stop. So, they are no longer so power-gamy.

If you are looking for neat variants, you might try having the characters reroll their hit points every time they level up. If there new total is higher than their old, they keep it. If not, they keep the old one. It helps compensate if someone rolls poorly early in their career. And it's fun rolling lots of dice. If you go for point buy, then the reroll hit points variant will make up for all those 4d6 drop lowest that they didn't get to roll.

Another idea to add to this list is giving either max hp for a few levels, or changing the hp rolling so that the PCs get a majority of the hit points per level, like rolling 2 dice each time and taking the higher score, or doing something like this:
original hit dice = new method
d4 = 2+1d2
d6 = 3+1d3
d8 = 4+1d4
and so on. I remember a game designer made this one up. It's hidden away on the WoTC page.