D&D 5E (2014) Is Point Buy Balanced?

[Lakesidefantasy]

It's more balanced than rolling attributes, less than using Standard Array.

In the end, it comes down to personal preference and the kind of game you want. I've seen one game where the PCs started with all 18's, and one 19. That was some time back in 3E, BTW.

Hmmm, maybe we could analyse all the permutations of the Standard Array and see how they effect things.

Does anybody know how many permutations of six values there are? Is it 6^6. That seems like a lot.

 

[Remathilis]

Someone upthread posited that there's a trade-off between balance and freedom.

For me, it's more a trade-off between balance and interesting*. Too balanced = boring (point-buy falls squarely into this category for me). Not balanced at all = interesting*.

* - or enteratining, either works.

You realize the Chinese phrase "May you live in interesting times" is a curse, right?

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I'm guessing that there is only a dozen or so combinations that are chosen 99% of the time with point buy.

Quick search shows the standard array 15,14,13,12,10,8. The Min/Max of 15,15,15,8,8,8. The Balanced array 13,13,13,12,12,12.

There was a discussion like this about a decade ago on the Paizo fora. It was fun! We collected a maddening array of different ability score generation methods and tried to compare them against each other.

I collected about 80 point buy arrays from the 'wild' to get a sense of what limited set of arrays people were buying. I forget what the results were. Anyway, I think D&D Beyond has released that information for 5e.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I find this a weird question, because I don't think it follows the intent of point buy. Not all possible combinations are equally good, but that was never the expectation.

In term of actual play at the table - if anything it might be too balanced since it's easy enough to get good scores on two or three abilities, and that's all that really matters.

Yes, I agree. Everybody has an equal opportunity. However I'm curious if it really leads to balanced outcomes. I mean will my character by handicapped if I choose the Balanced Array (13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 12)?