Does anybody else hate the Point Buy Sell Off?

[kalgani]

lowest value allowed for my players is a 8 and this only in 1 stat!
but im playing with pointbuy 20, so it is not so hard to get some nice stat withonly 1 minimum 8 and the rest 10+

 

[prosfilaes]

To me, having people on the very low end of a bell curve doesn't strike me as too heroic.

So the extremely sickly Raistlin wasn't heroic? It's never heroic to play a character without the intelligence to comprehend the world around him, but the faith to go forth and do what needs to be done?

I've never played things with dump stats and I groan when I see 6 Wisdom and 4 Charisma.

My current character has a 6 Charisma and 8 Wisdom. It was a victory of my mini-maxer over my roleplayer, but it's still be fun to play. Mechanically, I've learned never to dump Wisdom with this DM; I haven't been able to go the first round of almost every combat because I didn't make my spot check.

I groan when I see characters playing the equivalent of the severely mentally handicapped and small players with less strength than some of the most feeble of humans.

I assume you mean small characters? I think it's specieist to assume that a halfling can't be heroic unless he meets human standards of strength. Going by the 3d6 curve, a halfling with a strength of 6 is stronger than 5% of adult humans, which is pretty impressive given that he's shorter than 99.99% of adult humans.

 

[ahayford]

Its not so bad when you have 1 character that has dumped wisdom or charisma....its gets stupid whenever they are all that way.

 

[Fishbone]

I understand why a small person would have 6 strength, particularly if they wind up devoting themselves to magic, whatever the source may be. But wow, there are lots of 5s and 7s running around with Pathfinder. I dislike what the did to point buy tremendously. Granted, almost nothing is more house ruled and changed than how abilities are determined and this is universal throughout RPGs.

Pathfinder took one step forward and two steps back on race ability scores and sell off. I am still getting into it, though. I've talked about Pathfinder much more than I've played it!

Edit: Who is Raistlin? I'm not familiar with that.

 

[nightwyrm]

So the extremely sickly Raistlin wasn't heroic?

If you look up his published AD&D stats, the "extremely sickly" Raist has 10 con. Yeah, his constant illness was fluff and characterization.

 

[IronWolf]

Edit: Who is Raistlin? I'm not familiar with that.

Raistlin Majere - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Henry]

I don't see the problem: Let natural selection happen. That adventurer with a 7 STR, 7 WIS and 7 CHA is weak, weak-willed and shrinks away when people actively confront him or her. He's got a -2 to Will saves, right out of the gate and couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag. He'll reap the rewards of his min-maxing the minute he fails a hold person save and gets his throat slit by a villain, or he insults the innkeeper who knows a vital clue that will let them circumvent a major fight that drains a large part of their resources, when they could have made nice with him and avoided it for an quick XP award. Did he just find a 10 lb silver cabinet worth 1000 gp? Oops, sorry, he can't carry the thing without his speed and dex dropping significantly, because his clothes, dagger, spellbook, backpack, water, food and other gear weigh about 15 pounds!

Those dump stats will be their own punishment as time goes on, and that 20 INT but 7 WIS character will have to work harder to survive than the 16 INT but 14 WIS and 12 CHA character who's a full 4 points better on his will saves at all times, and 3 points better at sweet-talking and bluffing people.

 

[ahayford]

Edit: Who is Raistlin? I'm not familiar with that.

A wizard character from the original Weis and Hickman Dragonlance novels.

 

[gamerprinter]

I hate point buy, and don't use it, so this means little to me. We roll our individual stats, as we've done since 1e.

 

[Angrydad]

I offer a choice between point buy an rolling... I don't think that anybody has taken point buy....

If someone has a low stat in my game you can bet that it sees use. For that matter, if I'm playing somebody with a low stat you can bet that it will see use, even if it is only the low dex PI knocking drinks off the table with his elbows.... Otherwise, why bother?

The Auld Grump

I swear, you're like some alternate version of me. My players have zero interest in point-buy systems. Sure, everyone ends up equally as powerful on their stats, but they tend to prefer rolling as it offers a little more spice. Additionally, if your DM doesn't make sure your crappy stat comes into play frequently, s/he's a crappy DM.