Has Point Buy become standard? What Points?

[Voss]

Does any one know why they upped the costs to get higher stats? Do they really hate higher stats?

If the math is so robust then why does a linear system need higher stats to cost so much more? Shouldn't things scale on their own?

My guess would be to eliminate the cliche that every fighter has an 18 str, and to simulate the idea that higher stats are harder to roll. Still the upshot is that characters in my experience tend towards the middle or to the extremes. In other words all stats around 14 or one 18 and lots of tens.

It doesn't eliminate that at all. In fact if (with racial bonuses) you don't have an 18 in your attack stat, you're character probably won't do very well.
Even the 'standard' array doesn't avoid that, horrible as it is- blowing 3 of your 22 points on your 5th and 6th stat to get an 11 and 10 isn't worthwhile for any character, since you won't use those stats for much of anything (tertiary skills, at best). So the standard array is functionally built on 19 points rather than 22. But you can still get an 18 with that 16 and racial bonuses.

With the point buy, the common arrays you'll see will be
18/13/13/10/10/8 or 17/14/14/10/10/8
you might see some using a 16 and/or a 13 to get points in a 4th stat, but it isn't very worthwhile for most character builds.
You might see 16/16/12/12/10/8 too.

The higher costs are pretty much because even though its linear, its still much more effective. Especially since you can't accrue at pile of +1 bonuses from various sources to crank your attack roll.

 

[Surgoshan]

Actually, from the Players Handbook
8 (-2)
9 (-1)
10 0
11 1
12 2
13 3
14 5
15 7
16 9
17 12
18 16

And yeah, the standard is 22 points.

Not really. What it actually says is

Score  Cost   Score  Cost
  9    -(1)*    14    5
 10    0(2)*    15    7
 11     1       16    9
 12     2       17    12
 13     3       18    16

In other words, the implication from your post is that you can reduce scores, getting points for it. The PHB implies that you can't do that, because 9 isn't something you can go down to, only up from 8 (the numbers in parentheses being the cost to raise from 8).

 

[KKDragonLord]

You're right, i misread that...

either way, its something im applying in my game, if my players want to have a 4 i'll let them, its kinda strange if no one is ever weak, clumsy, frail, stupid, clueless or unattractive.

 

[Jhaelen]

either way, its something im applying in my game, if my players want to have a 4 i'll let them, its kinda strange if no one is ever weak, clumsy, frail, stupid, clueless or unattractive.

Emphasis mine. No player character is going to have a 4 in any ability. Player characters start as heroic characters. Even their weakest characteristic will still be on par with your average joe.

I don't know if the DMG will contain optional rules for a low-power campaign, but for the default campaign, all player characters will be heroe-material right from the start.

 

[2eBladeSinger]

Emphasis mine. No player character is going to have a 4 in any ability. Player characters start as heroic characters. Even their weakest characteristic will still be on par with your average joe.

I don't know if the DMG will contain optional rules for a low-power campaign, but for the default campaign, all player characters will be heroe-material right from the start.

Depends on what you mean by 'hero'. The Greeks felt that a hero would have a major flaw.

 

[SSquirrel]

I like a more heroic blend in stats. 1 each of 13-18 is my preferred method recently. Besides, then you don't have anyone seeing someone else's character sheet and questioning if the DM witnessed the rolls or anything stupid

 

[Lanefan]

Emphasis mine. No player character is going to have a 4 in any ability. Player characters start as heroic characters. Even their weakest characteristic will still be on par with your average joe.

I don't know if the DMG will contain optional rules for a low-power campaign, but for the default campaign, all player characters will be heroe-material right from the start.

And one must ask, on a design-level scale: why?

If you start out as a hero, where can you go from there, other than become a bigger hero. Far more fun, and far more rewarding, to take an ordinary Joe and *make* a hero out of him...or see him die in the attempt.

Lanefan

 

[Ahglock]

There are no stat boosting spells or items, but you get more stat boosts more often when you level.

If you really must start out with a 20 in your primary stat, you need to pay for it.

Works for me.

It works for me as a option, but it does not work for me as the only point buy presented. Point buys enforce a style of character generation a increased cost style point buy develops a different style of character than a flat cost style. Sure I can create my own but it would of been nice if the already play tested and roughly balanced with the other option was there. I generally like to give my players multiple options on character creation that roughly work out to be statistically the same. This in my experience facilitates them creating the character they want instead of the one I want them to have.

 

[Alkiera]

And one must ask, on a design-level scale: why?

If you start out as a hero, where can you go from there, other than become a bigger hero. Far more fun, and far more rewarding, to take an ordinary Joe and *make* a hero out of him...or see him die in the attempt.

Lanefan

For some reason, some people don't like playing characters that are ineffective. Even more people dislike spending an hour building a character that dies before experiencing any real character development.

When they say 'heroic' when refering to low level 4e PCs, they don't mean Batman... a first level fighter is that guy who managed to kill 3 goblins in the attack on the Mearl farm, or the guy who chased off the bobcat that had cornered those kids who'd snuck off that one time. A low level Wizard is that weird smart guy that the villagers are kinda afraid of, but they're sure he'll be very powerful one day. There that story about the town thug getting drunk and picking on him, and the wizard froze him, slowing him down until he passed out in the middle of the town square.

They're people with a little notoriety... in a town of 300. They're the people who do things, rather than trudge along doing the same thing they always did. They do the things that the trudgers gossip about during lunch.

D&D is about emulating fantasy; the main characters are rarely Just Another Wheat Farmer. They're a wheat farmer whose father is ex-military and has taught him all about tracking and fighting, or an orphaned child with a strange birthmark, or a girl who defied her parents and hung out with her crazy aunt who claimed to talk to spirits. That's who 1st level D&D PCs are; the people who stand out in a village.

That said, I like the point-buy and array systems. Give players a choice. Random stats are good for certain types of campaigns (one shots!) or if you don't have an idea what you want to play, maybe. But I'd prefer to have players on equal footing when it comes to base stats. My current game had the players use a point buy kinda similar to the one in the 4e PHB, but with a few more points. You could have an 18 in a stat easy, but that and a 16 meant most of your other stats were mediocre.

 

[Blackeagle]

Depends on what you mean by 'hero'. The Greeks felt that a hero would have a major flaw.

What a heel.