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

[TwoSix]

I kinda want to see what players would do with that. Why not be all superheroes for once?
I guess multiclassing will become a lot more attractive...

Hmm.

Features that provide stat swapping don’t matter. You can basically ignore ASIs and just take feats. You essentially have Jack of All Trades and a bunch of bonus save proficiencies. You have a lot more freedom around types if you find good magic armor.

Cross-stat multiclassing becomes much more viable. Paladin/cleric or paladin/wizard becomes just as viable as as sorcerer or warlock.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I kinda want to see what players would do with that. Why not be all superheroes for once?
I guess multiclassing will become a lot more attractive...

For once? We don't need high scores to be superheroes in this game. It's the default.

 

[Lanefan]

I picked one simple metric because it was easy to calculate. In my scenario B is also better at everything outside of combat as well, not to mention just something as simple as having a far better initiative.

It's funny, in a way: discussions like this are the closing of a circle that began in the early TSR days. To explain:

In, say, 1e all members of a given class are mechanically close to identical. Class features come online in a regular predictable fashion as the character levels up, with no choice involved; with the only real variable being what spells an arcane caster might have acquired. And, in various (sometimes unintentional!) ways the classes are surprisingly well balanced - or were until UA came along - in the long term, i.e. over a 1-10-ish level span; and short-term imbalances were obvious enough that players could work around them.

For some of us, this is just fine. As player I can take two mechanically-identical characters and have them come across as night-and-day different (and, to the eye test, highly imbalanced!) in play, to the point where you'd never know that under the hood they're exactly the same. I don't need mechanics to differentiate my characters from each other, and the resulting simplicity in char-gen is a wonderful and very desirable side effect.

The flip side of mechanical sameness in classes in 1e, however, was the randomness inherent in rolling for stats and hit points (along with a few other character-build elements); you never knew what you were going to get to work with.

For others, though, mechanical sameness within each class wasn't good enough; and "others" here clearly included the designers of every edition since, who have bent over backward to expand the game-mechanics of classes along with adding reams of class-agnostic feats and abilities, such that any difference in character is or can be mechanically reflected. Add to this the vast expansion in PC-playable species and there's never been so many options for character building. The cost, however, is that character generation has become almost its own little solo mini-game and a tedious exercise, and inter-character balance at the design level becomes much more difficult (that is to say, nigh-impossible) because there's just too many moving parts.

Add to this a much lower focus on long-term balance in favour of a focus on short-term or even immediate balance (IMO a fool's errand at best), and you get 5e.

And to counter this, some want to harshly rein in the randomness of rolling for stats, hit points, etc. in order to - in theory - enforce balance from a different direction.

In effect, all this does is replace cookie-cutter classes with cookie-cutter stats. Cookie-cutter classes, however, are IMO far easier for a player to paper over with good roleplay and characterization.

 

[ECMO3]

Player B will hit more often and do more damage when they do hit. They do double the damage of A.

This is not true in play. You act like this is deterministic and it is not. It is a random process.

Comparing 1st level characters; when B swings his sword, the most common damage done is 0, that is the mode average. 0 is also the mode average for A. Against any AC over 10 zero damage is the most likely outcome of an attack for both fighters. You can change the comparison to two identical fighters with a 16 strength and this is still true.

Assuming the foe they hit has at least 23 hps and no resistance or vulnerability, there are 16 other possible damage outcomes for B that occur less frequently than 0. These are all integer numbers from 8-23. Other possible outcomes for A are all integer numbers from 5-20. If we were comparing fighters with 16 strengths it would be all integers from 6-21.

We are talking about balance here, and the difference in ability scores has almost no affect on it.

They have 40 more HP at 8th and it's not going to be noticed?

Did you read the post you replied to? I bolded "PEOPLE WOULD NOTICE" and you even quoted the bolded text, yet you somehow still missed it?

People absolutely will notice. They will notice when the PC with more hit points goes down first in combat and they will notice when a PC with fewer hit points goes down first.

Again, having the identical hit points does not change this. They are not going to run out of hit points at the same time just because they start with the same amount.

So "stats don't matter" even when they have significant impact on play. As I predicted.

I never said stats don't matter. You reply to me with quotes around something that I did not even post while you ignore what I did post?

What I said, and I what I illustrated mathematically, is ability score disparities have very little effect on game balance. Having players with equal ability scores will NOT make your game more balanced no matter how many times you say it will. It is just not factually true.

Game balance is dominated both quantitatively and qualitatively by things other than ability scores, even when we are talking about PCs that are otherwise identical and make identical decisions in play. If we take the qualitive side out of it we are still left with highly variable and random quantitative processes. Balance is an extremely unlikely outcome whether the abilities scores are identical or not and making the ability scores equal will not make the game significantly more likely to be balanced.

 

[AlViking]

It's funny, in a way: discussions like this are the closing of a circle that began in the early TSR days. To explain:

In, say, 1e all members of a given class are mechanically close to identical. Class features come online in a regular predictable fashion as the character levels up, with no choice involved; with the only real variable being what spells an arcane caster might have acquired. And, in various (sometimes unintentional!) ways the classes are surprisingly well balanced - or were until UA came along - in the long term, i.e. over a 1-10-ish level span; and short-term imbalances were obvious enough that players could work around them.

For some of us, this is just fine. As player I can take two mechanically-identical characters and have them come across as night-and-day different (and, to the eye test, highly imbalanced!) in play, to the point where you'd never know that under the hood they're exactly the same. I don't need mechanics to differentiate my characters from each other, and the resulting simplicity in char-gen is a wonderful and very desirable side effect.

The flip side of mechanical sameness in classes in 1e, however, was the randomness inherent in rolling for stats and hit points (along with a few other character-build elements); you never knew what you were going to get to work with.

For others, though, mechanical sameness within each class wasn't good enough; and "others" here clearly included the designers of every edition since, who have bent over backward to expand the game-mechanics of classes along with adding reams of class-agnostic feats and abilities, such that any difference in character is or can be mechanically reflected. Add to this the vast expansion in PC-playable species and there's never been so many options for character building. The cost, however, is that character generation has become almost its own little solo mini-game and a tedious exercise, and inter-character balance at the design level becomes much more difficult (that is to say, nigh-impossible) because there's just too many moving parts.

Add to this a much lower focus on long-term balance in favour of a focus on short-term or even immediate balance (IMO a fool's errand at best), and you get 5e.

And to counter this, some want to harshly rein in the randomness of rolling for stats, hit points, etc. in order to - in theory - enforce balance from a different direction.

In effect, all this does is replace cookie-cutter classes with cookie-cutter stats. Cookie-cutter classes, however, are IMO far easier for a player to paper over with good roleplay and characterization.

I do not know, nor have I ever known the specific stats of anyone at the table. I can generally guess occasionally if someone is particularly low. The few times I have looked people have all sorts of variety. All in the same rough range but that's the point of point buy.

I don't see how stats affect roleplaying much for most people.

 

[Thomas Shey]

In effect, all this does is replace cookie-cutter classes with cookie-cutter stats. Cookie-cutter classes, however, are IMO far easier for a player to paper over with good roleplay and characterization.

If you're going to try and sell me that a constrained point-range in a point build or array selection method limits a character's distinction as much as, say, the OD&D Fighting-Man did, that's going to be a hard sell.

(Of course the real solution, at least at the point buy end, is to have other things besides just attributes in the resource pool so the choices are not degenerate, but that's never going to happen in the D&D sphere).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I do not know, nor have I ever known the specific stats of anyone at the table. I can generally guess occasionally if someone is particularly low. The few times I have looked people have all sorts of variety. All in the same rough range but that's the point of point buy.

I don't see how stats affect roleplaying much for most people.

I think its not uncommon in broad strokes; people will often play a character with relitively-high mental stats different than one with relatively-low ones in particular. Of course with a point assign system that often is because they've assigned those points in the first place based on the character concept.

The big problem you can run into in this area in the D&D sphere is that some attributes are so tied to certain classes that you're somewhat liable to see some lockstep to that relationship, but that happened even with random roll, since people weren't picking their classes before they rolled.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I think its not uncommon in broad strokes; people will often play a character with relitively-high mental stats different than one with relatively-low ones in particular. Of course with a point assign system that often is because they've assigned those points in the first place based on the character concept.

The big problem you can run into in this area in the D&D sphere is that some attributes are so tied to certain classes that you're somewhat liable to see some lockstep to that relationship, but that happened even with random roll, since people weren't picking their classes before they rolled.

Yes, because of Arrangement both the Standard method and Point Buy have the Dump Score problem. However, I would say that most Point Buy characters with a low intelligence (or any other low score) have it because there were no points left to spend on it.

It seems that our cookies have a top half and a bottom half determined by the Class we want rather than the Character we want. The top half is 2 or 3 abilities that are useful to the Class whereas the bottom half is 2 or 3 abilities that aren't.

So, when Arranging our scores we usually don't have much left to distribute to the bottom half, and our cookie, frustratingly, takes shape right before our eyes almost every time.

 

[TwoSix]

This is not true in play. You act like this is deterministic and it is not. It is a random process.

Comparing 1st level characters; when B swings his sword, the most common damage done is 0, that is the mode average. 0 is also the mode average for A. Against any AC over 10 zero damage is the most likely outcome of an attack for both fighters. You can change the comparison to two identical fighters with a 16 strength and this is still true.

Assuming the foe they hit has at least 23 hps and no resistance or vulnerability, there are 16 other possible damage outcomes for B that occur less frequently than 0. These are all integer numbers from 8-23. Other possible outcomes for A are all integer numbers from 5-20. If we were comparing fighters with 16 strengths it would be all integers from 6-21.

We are talking about balance here, and the difference in ability scores has almost no affect on it.




Did you read the post you replied to? I bolded "PEOPLE WOULD NOTICE" and you even quoted the bolded text, yet you somehow still missed it?

People absolutely will notice. They will notice when the PC with more hit points goes down first in combat and they will notice when a PC with fewer hit points goes down first.

Again, having the identical hit points does not change this. They are not going to run out of hit points at the same time just because they start with the same amount.




I never said stats don't matter. You reply to me with quotes around something that I did not even post while you ignore what I did post?

What I said, and I what I illustrated mathematically, is ability score disparities have very little effect on game balance. Having players with equal ability scores will NOT make your game more balanced no matter how many times you say it will. It is just not factually true.

Game balance is dominated both quantitatively and qualitatively by things other than ability scores, even when we are talking about PCs that are otherwise identical and make identical decisions in play. If we take the qualitive side out of it we are still left with highly variable and random quantitative processes. Balance is an extremely unlikely outcome whether the abilities scores are identical or not and making the ability scores equal will not make the game significantly more likely to be balanced.

The obvious argument here then, is if the stats have such a limited impact that the difference between high and low isn’t noticeable at the table, why are we maintaining them in the first place?

Freeform text descriptors of our characters would seem to do a better job of differentiating characters, if the numerical stats aren’t actually providing meaningful mechanical differentiation.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yes, because of Arrangement both the Standard method and Point Buy have the Dump Score problem. However, I would say that most Point Buy characters with a low intelligence (or any other low score) have it because there were no points left to spend on it.

It seems that our cookies have a top half and a bottom half determined by the Class we want rather than the Character we want. The top half is 2 or 3 abilities that are useful to the Class whereas the bottom half is 2 or 3 abilities that aren't.

So, when Arranging our scores we usually don't have much left to distribute to the bottom half, and our cookie, frustratingly, takes shape right before our eyes almost every time.

Well, it doesn't help that in D&D and adjacent, the point assignment is about attributes and only attributes. Though not an unmixed blessing, in other games with point based building it's often an option to assign less points to other things to boost up attributes if they're a priority to you (its also not uncommon for a wider range of characters to care about a wider range of stats, too).

Though some of gets back to the player's conceptual process as to how good a character should be overall being out of sync with the game's assumptions about this.