Generation: rolling vs. point buy

[Bad Paper]

Who rolls? Who buys points? I'm curious to see which side "wins" in this poll. In our campaigns we always roll (we do 4d6, drop the lowest). My most recent characters, if bought with points, would have been a 30pb and a 37pb, respectively.

 

[EPRock]

For standardization our groups use Point buy, as there is no one with insane stats, and no one with poor stats.

 

[hazmat]

We usually do 4d6 drop the lowest. But one of my players thought up a variant where you do 4d6dl but the set has to be at a mimimu equivalent to a certain point buy (in our case 32).

 

[Thanee]

Both.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Crothian]

Pick your own ability scores. That's when I run, though the other games I'm playing in one is point buy and one is roll stats.

 

[DrSpunj]

I've always run Point Buy as I prefer a game with strong character concepts. That's the first thing I ask my players: "What type of character do you want to play?"

IMO, Random Rolling leads to an entirely different question: "What type of character do you want to play given these stats?"

I think either method can lead to a fun game, but I definitely prefer the former. So much so that I actually took that a step farther and used Crothian's Method (tm?) for my current campaign. I told everyone to pick their stats (ranging from 3-18 before Racial Mods applied), but the sum of their Ability Modifiers had to all equal the same number. I started with a flat distribution of 25-Point Buy (which would be 13, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12 = +6) and went from there. I'm happy to say we've had no problems and everyone enjoys the flexibility at character creation.

Thanks!

DrSpunj

 

[Benben]

Depends on the style and theme of the game. If it's more of a beer and pretzel game then you roll randomly. 4D6 , possibly reroll 1s.

For my story oriented or long term games I use a mix of both. I pull out 2-6 in a deck of cards. I shuffle these and have the player deal out 6 piles of 3. The player has 2 cards left over and may replace them with any card in the any pile, and discards the old card. This results in an attribute total somewhere around 76. It gives a good feel or randomness and the equality of point buy.

 

[Ero Gaki]

I personally only roll for stats; I can't stand point buy. I like for PC's to be different; point buy makes them too similar stat wise. Plus I like the ability to have multiple 18's.

 

[moritheil]

I will note that this forum is known for having players astute at min-maxing, and that usually assumes some sort of point buy or, at the least, stat assignment option is in effect.

 

[Darkness]

Point-buy (36 points).