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

[Lanefan]

But it did point out a certain .... unfairness, and made for a helluva time planning encounters. I do think I'd be better today as a more mature geezer, but ... let's hold onto that thought for a second.


^^^
That's what I had to deal with as a result of a randomly generated Glock, tho. And I had to deal with it at fifth-seventh level. I'm going back into the grey matter hard, here, but IIRC, at sixth level, Glock was pushing 76 hp or something obscene, and overusing the thinky bits, I think the next in line was Ronwind in the mid-forties, and then the various rangers, with the nature cleric and bard holding up the back end of the bus in the mid-thirties.

In redesigning the wheel, I've gone with the 5e idea of d6 for the squishies.

But you raise an interesting concern for which there may be a simple solution: cap dice earlier for fighters and let the squishes get dice until 12/14th level?

Right now the crew I'm running range from a Fighter with just over 100 h.p. all the way down to a Thief-Illusionist who is in the low 30s I think. Level range is about 8th-11th; what really makes the group tough to scare is their massive healing resources: in a party of nine (including henches) they've got 28 levels worth of Nature Cleric and a 7th-8th Fighter-Cleric as well, plus devices.

Lets them punch way above their weight sometimes, that's for sure.

As for the idea of capping hit dice at different levels, one of the relatively few things the warrior types consistently have going for them at higher levels is lots of hit points, I wouldn't want to take that away from them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

For the record I would allow you to lower your Wisdom score to anything less than what you rolled. But your not getting anything for it. I detest dump scores.°

° Low scores are not dump scores. Dump scores are scores that are low in order to make other scores high.

If you've got an array setup that sets at least one score sub-normal, I don't know what to call placing that score in the place it will least matter other than a dump score. Its "dumping" the low stat after all.

 

[Moving Pictures]

Right now the crew I'm running range from a Fighter with just over 100 h.p. all the way down to a Thief-Illusionist who is in the low 30s I think. Level range is about 8th-11th; what really makes the group tough to scare is their massive healing resources: in a party of nine (including henches) they've got 28 levels worth of Nature Cleric and a 7th-8th Fighter-Cleric as well, plus devices.

Lets them punch way above their weight sometimes, that's for sure.

As for the idea of capping hit dice at different levels, one of the relatively few things the warrior types consistently have going for them at higher levels is lots of hit points, I wouldn't want to take that away from them.

How the frig does a high level (10-ish) character only have 30 hp?