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

[Clint_L]

I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. This reduces the landscape of possible score arrays from 54,264 to 12,232. A reduction in diversity of 42,032 but I can live with 12,000 arrays.

I rolled up the base scores for three Monks:

Monk A, equivalent to 25 points (Str 10, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 8)

Monk B, points are unevaluatable* (Str 11, Dex 15, Con 13, Int 7, Wis 13, Cha 13)

Monk C, points are unevaluatable** (Str 13, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 9, Wis 15, Cha 11)

* Unevaluatable because of the 7, but everything else adds up to 27 points.
** Unevaluatable because of the 17, but everything else adds up to 23 points.

To illustrate what a difference a few points can make, compare Monk C to my point buy monk. Assume at Level 1 I put my background increases into Wis (+2) and Con (+1) for 13/17/14/9/17/11. At level 4, I take a feat such as brawler for 13/18/14/9/11/11. At level 8 I take a feat such as shadow-touched for 13/18/14/9/18/11.

My point buy monk is currently level 8 with 10/17/14/8/16/10 and one feat (brawler). The rolled monk C, above, is a feat ahead with as good or better rolls in every category. So the gamble of rolling can make a substantial play difference. An extra feat is a big deal!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yeah. We don't alter it into a wildly different thing for the sake of convenience. What you want isn't intimidate. You want persuasion 2.0. Intimidate does in fact have good uses. I've seen it, and I've done it. It's just not as useful generally as persuasion, because it's a DIFFERENT skill with a DIFFERENT purpose.

No. I want something that isn't incredibly stupid and self-harming 100% of the time.

Because that's what makes Intimidate suck. It doesn't do anything Persuasion or Deception cannot do, but everything it DOES do causes you harm. Always. It always makes enemies. It always screws things up. And because GMs believe Intimidate needs to have """consequences""" for its usage, it will ALWAYS blow up in your face, sooner or later, when people you previously intimidated now make your life much, much harder than any benefit you might've maybe possibly squeezed out of it.

And that's if you SUCCEED! If you fail, God help you for no one else will.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I have yet to meet a DM who didn't treat it like some sort of morale check against enemies. I've intimidated many groups to stand down instead of fighting us, and had players in my game do the same.

sure, but i mean an actual, codified, morale system for it to interface with, rather than it being left to GMs to each individually decide off the cuff who can be intimidated and how hard it would be, give it some consistency across the board.

 

[ECMO3]

No. I want something that isn't incredibly stupid and self-harming 100% of the time.

Because that's what makes Intimidate suck. It doesn't do anything Persuasion or Deception cannot do, but everything it DOES do causes you harm. Always. It always makes enemies. It always screws things up. And because GMs believe Intimidate needs to have """consequences""" for its usage, it will ALWAYS blow up in your face, sooner or later, when people you previously intimidated now make your life much, much harder than any benefit you might've maybe possibly squeezed out of it.

And that's if you SUCCEED! If you fail, God help you for no one else will.

I play a lot of high charisma characters and I usually take intimidate over persuasion, not because it is 'better" per se but because it fits the character better. On a lot of them I have both though and I almost always have Deception on those PCs.

I don't know that Intimidation always makes enemies, but nothing wrong with having some enemies if that is what your PC's personality is. You run into a lot of people IRL that like to intimidate others and they don't make enemies of everyone.

Charisma is one of the most "fun" abilities in the game for me. I would say of all 6 abilities it is often the one that is my main/highest ability. It nearly always is my highest ability on Fighters, Sorcs, Paladins and Warlocks. Sometimes it is my highest ability on Rangers and Rogues too and it is almost always the third highest ability on these two classes when it isn't the highest.

I only dump Charisma on Wizards and Clerics (I rarely play the other 3 classes I didn't mention)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

sure, but i mean an actual, codified, morale system for it to interface with, rather than it being left to GMs to each individually decide off the cuff who can be intimidated and how hard it would be, give it some consistency across the board.

Exactly. What's the point of doing a thing if 25% of GMs will actively hound you for ever doing it even once, 25% will make it ridiculously difficult in any situation where it would actually matter, 25% will run it kinda-sorta reasonably but you'll get guaranteed blowback sooner or later, and only the remaining 25% even considers letting it just...y'know, work reasonably well with appropriate costs and benefits.

It turns out that when there's no consistency whatsoever, it becomes a lot harder to sell anyone on participating. Imagine that. It's almost like rules--real, consistent, reliable rules--actually matter!

 

[AlViking]

More comparisons of the three methods (Standard Array, Point-Buy, and 4d6.)

Let's talk about ability score modifiers.

With the Standard Array, you have the following stats: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8. The modifiers for these stats are +2, +2, +1, +1, +0, and -1, respectively. And if we add up those modifiers, we have a total of +5.

With the Point Buy method, there are only 65 valid sets of numbers to pick from. I used Excel to calculate and sum all of the ability score modifiers for each. And if we add up those modifiers and average them, we get +5.12. That's pretty close to the Standard Array, but remember that probability is meaningless with the Point Buy--you get to pick the result you want to use.

Out of the 65 possible results, two are +3, twelve are +4, thirty are +5, twenty are +6, and one is +7....in other words, all but 14 are going to be equal to or greater than the Standard Array in this respect. (And in case you were wondering which set gives you a +7, it is 14, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12. Anyway.)

For the 4d6 Method, we head off into the realm of probability and statistics. I again used Excel to generate a set of stats, then had it calculate the ability score modifiers for each, and then add them together. And then do it 163,800 times, and then average the result. The average was +5.89.

So if you use the 4d6 method, nine times out of ten your ability score modifiers will add up to a number between +5 and +7, just like the Point Buy method.

View attachment 425950

Of course this all goes out the window when you start adding house-rules. But that brings up an interesting point: what would a fair and balanced house-rule for the 4d6 method look like, to keep it close (power-wise) to the Point Buy method?

I propose this one:

1. Roll your stats using the 4d6 method.
2. Add up your ability modifiers.

- If the result is +2 or less, reroll.​

- If the result is +8 or more, reroll.​

3. Otherwise, keep what you rolled.

This would keep the ability score modifiers within the same range as the Point Buy, but not necessarily the stats themselves.

Anyway. To bring this back to the topic of the thread: I still think that Point Buy is balanced with the other methods, and the math supports that conclusion. Also, math is fun.

Your graph seems a bit off because 4d6dl is skewed to higher numbers.

Spoiler: Numbers for the graph

Result	%	Cumulative		Result	%	Cumulative
3	0.08	0.08	100.00		18	1.62	1.62	1.62
4	0.31	0.39	99.92		17	4.17	5.79	98.38
5	0.77	1.16	99.61		16	7.25	11.42	94.21
6	1.62	2.78	98.84		15	10.11	17.36	86.96
7	2.93	5.71	97.22		14	12.35	22.45	76.85
8	4.78	10.49	94.29		13	13.27	25.62	64.51
9	7.02	17.52	89.51		12	12.89	26.16	51.23
10	9.41	26.93	82.48		11	11.42	24.31	38.35
11	11.42	38.35	73.07		10	9.41	20.83	26.93
12	12.89	51.23	61.65		9	7.02	16.44	17.52
13	13.27	64.51	48.77		8	4.78	11.81	10.49
14	12.35	76.85	35.49		7	2.93	7.72	5.71
15	10.11	86.96	23.15		6	1.62	4.55	2.78
16	7.25	94.21	13.04		5	0.77	2.39	1.16
17	4.17	98.38	5.79		4	0.31	1.08	0.39
18	1.62	100.00	1.62		3	0.08	0.39	0.08

One thing I find interesting is that the odds of getting an 18 are about the same as getting a 5 or lower. The odds of a 17 or higher are about the same as a 17 or lower.

But the real issue I have with balance is the balance between characters. A while back I did some finagling and figured out how to set up a group of 6, roll 4d6dl and compare. Anyway I calculate the point buy score using 3e's version of point buy to compare the best and the worst of the groups. I just did it for 100 groups and got one low set with 13, 10, 10, 8, 8,5 and one high with 18, 17, 17, 15, 11, 7. I don't think it's balanced to have one person with a single 13 and another with an 18 and two 17s (even if they did have a 7). It may be one in a million to get those specific numbers, it's not unusual to get that much of a split. For grins I did it for 20 groups and got 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 7 and 18, 17, 16, 15, 15, 12.

It's not unusual to have a very wide disparity of results with rolling. If you're house ruling so you don't get results like this, then how random is it really?

note: I was using the built in system randomizer for rolls which isn't really all that random. So I spent a bit of time yesterday getting a list of 1000 numbers from 1-6 from a true random number website and then I just start at a random starting point in that array. So the distribution of die rolls should be good.

 

[Maxperson]

No. I want something that isn't incredibly stupid and self-harming 100% of the time.

We already have that in intimidation.

Because that's what makes Intimidate suck.

Then great news!

It doesn't do anything Persuasion or Deception cannot do, but everything it DOES do causes you harm.

False.

1) And this is the big one. Lots of time it doesn't cause you harm. Someone not liking you and/or what you just did =/= harm.
2) Deception can fail and then what?
3) Persuasion can fail and then what?
4) There will be times that persuasion is an auto fail for reasons in the fiction, but intimidation can work.
5) There will be times, albeit very rarely, when deception will auto fail for reasons in the fiction, but intimidation can work.

There are lots of things intimidation can do that persuasion and/or deception cannot do.

Always. It always makes enemies.

False. Dislike =/= enemy. In fact, people intimidated can later become fast friends. Sometimes necessity requires intimidation to get something done and the ones intimidated later realize it was the only way to save people, often including themselves.

It always screws things up.

Very false. It often does not screw things up.

And because GMs believe Intimidate needs to have """consequences""" for its usage, it will ALWAYS blow up in your face, sooner or later, when people you previously intimidated now make your life much, much harder than any benefit you might've maybe possibly squeezed out of it.

Nope. This is just as wrong as the other wrong claims above. It can sometimes blow up in your face. Deception will just as often blow up in your face. Persuasion can also blow up in your face.

None of them come anywhere close to always blowing up in your face.

 

[Maxperson]

sure, but i mean an actual, codified, morale system for it to interface with, rather than it being left to GMs to each individually decide off the cuff who can be intimidated and how hard it would be, give it some consistency across the board.

We tried codifying everything that "needed" it and got 3e, which is my favorite edition, but did make a lot of DMs and players feel stifled by the rules.

I have no problem with DMs running things like intimidation a bit differently. And what intimidation is FAR from being, is something that is 100% bad for the PCs and will always bite them in the rear. It very often will do no such thing.

 

[Maxperson]

Exactly. What's the point of doing a thing if 25% of GMs will actively hound you for ever doing it even once, 25% will make it ridiculously difficult in any situation where it would actually matter, 25% will run it kinda-sorta reasonably but you'll get guaranteed blowback sooner or later, and only the remaining 25% even considers letting it just...y'know, work reasonably well with appropriate costs and benefits.

And 112% will just invent percentages out of thin air to try and prove a point that isn't correct.

It turns out that when there's no consistency whatsoever, it becomes a lot harder to sell anyone on participating. Imagine that. It's almost like rules--real, consistent, reliable rules--actually matter!

There's no consistency in a TON of 5e rules and rulings. What you guys are asking for is a return of 3e and codified rules for everything under the sun, and a lot that isn't under the sun.

 

[AlViking]

We tried codifying everything that "needed" it and got 3e, which is my favorite edition, but did make a lot of DMs and players feel stifled by the rules.

I have no problem with DMs running things like intimidation a bit differently. And what intimidation is FAR from being, is something that is 100% bad for the PCs and will always bite them in the rear. It very often will do no such thing.

It's always going to vary by DM in current iterations of the game but I try to mix it up. Depending on the NPC, persuasion may be considered an insult and intimidation the proper approach. If that is the case and I don't think it's obvious I'll usually give people an insight check first.