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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 5730368" data-attributes="member: 22424">It's not just the disparity between good and excellent ability scores that is the issue - there's also the question of how the magnitude of these mods compares to other mods in the system. The difference between a +1 and a +3 on rolls is rather less important if there's a whole bunch of other factors that are going together to make up a total bonus of +25 or more.This is especially true if what is actually at work is a whole series of trade-offs, so that the character who is less likely to hit does more damage, or has some other effect on a hit, or has better defences, or something.(The 4e powers are actually good in this regard - IIRC, the last time I played a 1st level Fighter my at-wills were some sort of precise attack power (giving +2 to hit) or Tide of Iron (which gave no bonus to hit, but moved opponents). That's a really good trade-off - you gain in one area but lose in another, and it makes for a nice choice.)But with ability scores you tend not to get that - the 4e Fighter is pretty much always just better off pumping strength, and a high strength is always better than a low one.Sure.Regarding "point-buy being poisonous for new players getting into the game":I'm very much of the opinion that, if at all possible, new players should create and play their own custom character. A lot of the fun of RPGs is telling your own stories with your own characters, so best to get into that.Now, it should be obvious that random rolls for ability scores are better for new players. Explaining the concept behind the ability scores is dead easy - people grasp what Strength is without any fuss, and even the Int/Wis split isn't particularly difficult.So, with random rolls, they can build a picture of their character (easy), decide whether he should be strong or smart (easy), roll the dice (easy), and assign the numbers (easy-ish). Done, and one step closer to the fun.But with point-buy there's just a whole lot more that needs to be understood - the mapping between points and stats (not 1-1 in 3e, 4e or PF); the mapping of stats to modifiers; the notion that a 12 isn't much different from a 13 now, but might be later on; how the various trade-offs work...This is great for veteran players, but it's a hassle for new players. Even with players experienced in other systems but new to D&D it can be an issue - when starting my current 3.5e campaign the experienced D&D player had his Rogue's stats done in 5 minutes; the others took a good 20 minutes and were getting quite frustrated by the end.Regarding stats being too important to be left to random chance:On average, 4d6-drop-lowest would seem to be roughly equivalent to an inexpertly done 28-point buy, which in turn is roughly equivalent to an expertly done 25-point buy. (Of course, both PF and 4e use more generous point-buy systems. Even in 3e, when was the last time you saw someone use 25 points?)However, the big risk with random rolls is if one player rolls significantly better or worse than the others.(In the worst instance I ever saw, I watched one player roll 10-17-18-18-18-14. To this day, the player in question swears he wasn't intentionally cheating, and FWIW I believe him; however, those dice were not rolled cleanly - there was almost no bounce between rolls. Meanwhile, another player rolled stats barely above the 'reject' threshold for 3e. Unfortunately, this then interacted with system mastery in the worst way, so we got an optimised super-stat Elf Wizard and an unoptimised barely-acceptable Halfling Bard (3.0e), with her skill points spread thinly across a lot of skills. The upshot was that the bard was useless, while the elf was a better rogue than the rogue, a better fighter than the fighter, and so on... (In case you're wondering, I wasn't the DM of that one.))Even ignoring disparities within the group, there's still the issue that almost every roll that is made in 3e/4e/PF is modified by some stat, and that the stats serve as gatekeepers for many of the feats and high-level spells (and, in 1st and 2nd Ed, for classes). They're really important, both at the start of the campaign and throughout.Another example: My current campaign is shortly going on hiatus (for Christmas and then a wedding). I've told my players that when we come back they can perform a character rebuild, which is exactly what it sounds like - they have to keep the core concept of the character the same, but anything else they want to change they can do. Now, over the last few months the player of our artificer has spent quite a lot of time reading up on the system and developed quite some system mastery. Having seen his first draft of a rebuilt character, the change is pretty dramatic - the character both fills his role much better, encapsulates the concept that was drawn up for him much better, and is considerably more powerful... largely due to drawing points away from a 'wasted' stat across to where they will be much more useful.Ultimately, I think my preference is to switch to something close to the old BECMI model (but not quite; I would go for 1-3 -3, 4-6 -2, 7-9 -1, 10-11 nada, 12-14 +1, 15-17 +2, 18+ +3), eliminate almost everything that modifies stats, and eliminate stats as a gatekeeper for feats. Put together, this makes stats less vital (but still useful), and should enable the game to work quite happily with random-roll and a suitable point-buy co-existing.</blockquote>

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