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

[Cergorach]

Eh. People have been used to D&D forcing combat to one degree or another on every character for decades. I don't see it as intrinsically any worse to force some capability in other spheres.

The problem isn't D&D, the problem is overly hostile people when your propose something to 'improve' the game. And apparently the game wasn't perfect already because someone thought it was a good idea to propose...

As for 'forcing' combat in D&D, I would say that it's traditionally been very combat focused. And while 5e allows for more other activities then for example 2e, on the other side I do see on some levels a reduction on functionality outside of the combat cycle (spells, magic items, and even monster statblocks).

Personally I've identified many situations were there are opportunities to RP in my current campaign, but the players choose pretty much combat each and every time as the solution to all their problems. That's fine, if they enjoy that. I won't force social situations on them either. It might also be that due to how we've developed (Foundry) VTT usage, combats have become extremely quick, so they can do many different combats in a four hour session, while in the past in person combat wasn't all that quick, especially when things got a bit more complicated. And social situations tend to eat up a LOT of time, the players often feel a lack of progress.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'd say the real answer is there is no useful compromise within a single play group. The desires are simply incompatible.

Now within a game system I find no really credible reason not provide both options unless you're sure your market simply doesn't care about one of them (as is the case with most superhero gamers). It may be other elements of the game system make one or the other impractical, but that's a different issue.

As above, I think there is a compromise. "I roll, you don't".

You gain a more variable - and thus, both more realistic and believable - set of characters.

Really? People aren't that variable IRL. Like genuinely. There was some vague loose notion in the early editions that ability score modifiers correspond to standard deviations. 68% of people have |z|<1; 95% of people have |z|<2. Even though that's only on a single score, going with the 95% figure, .95^6 = 73.5% of people lack even a single ability score modifier bigger than +/- 1. 10% of people have no nonzero modifiers of any kind. The vast majority of people are, in fact, very minimally variable.

It is an artificial, genuinely unrealistic expectation that characters should have highly variable stats--doubly so when we start factoring in a dangerous world that has razor-thin margins of error, as is typical in early-edition D&D play. Under those conditions, it's actually quite unrealistic to expect that some Fighters have a strength of 6 and some have a strength of 18/00 and some have 14 etc. We not only can, but should expect that extremes, especially low extremes, should be quite rare--because few people who have such shoddy strength would do all three of (a) bother trying to be a Fighter in the first place, (b) stick with being a Fighter through all the training where they failed and failed and failed and failed and (etc.), and (c) never got any better at Strength things as a result of their training. Like...failing at something a lot of times but never getting even the slightest bit better at it is kind of crazy, and reflects either a profoundly damaged human being (since most characters in early-edition D&D are human) or someone incapable of growth and adaptation...which means they shouldn't survive their first dungeon, let alone their tenth.

My point here is just...people only get as variable as the dice indicate when you look at the extremes. And when you do look at the extremes, you're necessarily going to see extremes that...work with what they have, or that got better at what they sucked at. Which means most Fighters are going to be fairly strong (or dextrous, if that's their bag). Most priests are going to have a little wisdom, even if some are lower than others. Etc.

That's fine. Flip side: if just one player doesn't want to roll then that player can use a point-buy tweaked to give numbers vaguely-equal to the average provided by the rolling system being used (I put it this way as there's so many different rolling systems out there).

Sure. Though, with the way most people feel about ability scores, it seems unlikely that only a single player would prefer PB or something similar. And certainly, if one is using a rolling method that differs, then one should use a PB method that differs as well. Because that expectation? That's a desire for balance. It's expecting everyone at the table to be held to some common standard, whatever that standard might be.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that players should be given an incentive to have crappy numbers in "good" stats like Dex, Con, or Wis. That way, players actually want to opt in for "these stats make my character succeed less, but experience more interesting things". However, that also kinda requires that "succeed less" does not directly translate to "die more", since that creates far, far too big an incentive in the other direction. This is one of the difficulties of game design. It is entirely natural that players should want to fail less and succeed more. It is entirely natural that a player should examine the rules and determine from them smart courses of action.

Agreed, though @AlViking seems to think one non-roller ought to be able to force the whole table to play that way.

Given I have been guilty of it myself, perhaps it is wise to not presume the thoughts of another user.

 

[CreamCloud0]

what about total balance compromise, the people who wanna roll, roll, and the people who wanna point buy, point buy, but then, after the rollers have rolled you translate their scores into point buy cost, if it's more than standard PB the point buyers get to add that many more points to their arrays, if the rolls turn out less then they get to add to theirs until they meet the PB.

 

[Cergorach]

what about total balance compromise, the people who wanna roll, roll, and the people who wanna point buy, point buy, but then, after the rollers have rolled you translate their scores into point buy cost, if it's more than standard PB the point buyers get to add that many more points to their arrays, if the rolls turn out less then they get to add to theirs until they meet the PB.

I would advise that only if everyone agrees unconditionally. As that opens the door to all kinds of shenanigans.

 

[AlViking]

You gain a more variable - and thus, both more realistic and believable - set of characters.

Your second sentence disagrees with your first, in that you are saying I shouldn't roll unless everyone else actively wants to. That implies (to the point of almost outright saying) that one non-roller should be able to force the whole table not to roll, hardly what I'd call majority rule.

For me, I'm happy with rolling being the default* as I've always seen D&D as first and foremost being a game of chance. It's a great big long-form rogue-like.

* - with one exception: if it's a tournament game (remember those?) or similar and pre-gen characters are not provided.

You can get more variety by creating a number of arrays from point buy and roll for which array you use. Some will start with a 15 as a high, some with a 13 (with 5e you get a +2 and a +1 to add for a 17 or 15 high number). But the 15 will have some pretty low numbers, the 14 will gave all numbers above average. Everything from 13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 12 to 15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8.

As far as being "realistic", realistically I view adventurers as potential professional athletes, you don't become a pro unless you're naturally gifted. Besides, its a fantasy game and most people in my experience don't want to run a character that is significantly less capable than the rest of the group. Of course if someone really wants to run a character that has a suboptimal score they don't have to spend all their points. If I'm running a game we all use point buy because it means there will be no winners or lovers in the dice roll lottery.

You must realize by now that your group and the style of game you run is pretty unusual, right? That's fine, it's great that it works for you. But it is very exceptional and not the experience or expectation of the vast majority of people that play. You aren't starting up a brand new group with people you've never played with or running campaigns where the expectation is that most of the characters will be played for a year or more. So yes, I think it's best for most groups to use point buy. If rolling for ability scores went away with the next revision, I wouldn't see it as a bad thing. If someone really wants to roll they can always homebrew it, but then again most people responding to these threads use a homebrew version of rolling anyway. I know we did.

 

[AlViking]

what about total balance compromise, the people who wanna roll, roll, and the people who wanna point buy, point buy, but then, after the rollers have rolled you translate their scores into point buy cost, if it's more than standard PB the point buyers get to add that many more points to their arrays, if the rolls turn out less then they get to add to theirs until they meet the PB.

You'd have to use the PB from 3e but that would work. On the other hand I doubt that would give the claimed benefit of "variety" which I can't help but see as anything but "we want winners and losers of the dice lottery".