D&D 5E Neo Point Buy

[Xeviat]

Hi everyone. I'm fiddling around with a new way of rolling stats, but for it I may need to "price" ability scores below 8. Here's what I have so far:

8: 0
9: 1
10: 2
11: 3
12: 4
13: 5
14: 7
15: 9
16: 12
17: 15
18: 19

Basically, the costs are related to the modifier you're buying. But when dipping into negatives, how should it go? Because of min-maxing, a negative is going to hurt you less. So my thought was to slow the progression.

3: -3
4: -2
5: -1
6: -1
7: 0?

Here's how the idea was going to work. Players roll 4d6k3 in order, tallying up their point buy total as they go. The moment they go over, they round down and go 8s the rest of the way. If they reach Cha, then all of their excess goes into Charisma.

I'm curious to see how this plays out at a Session 0 coming up. I want the players to not make characters until they're together to work together. I think getting random stats could flex their character creation and turn it into a little game.

 

[Satyrn]

I'm sure you saw (or will see) this in the other thread, but I'll copy it yere, anyway since it's relevant. It could get you the same result you're looking for I think.

When I made my current character (the gnome battlemaster), I built him using the Standard Array, but I placed the svores randomly:
1d6 to determine where to place the 15 (count down from the top)
1d5 for the 14, skipping where the 15 went
1d4
1d3
1d2

You might be able to get your players to buy in to something like that.

 

[TwoSix]

Basically, the costs are related to the modifier you're buying. But when dipping into negatives, how should it go? Because of min-maxing, a negative is going to hurt you less. So my thought was to slow the progression.

Not entirely sure I agree...if you're rolling the stats in order, you can't mitigate the negative quite as much. And really, if the player is really unlucky enough to get a natural 3 on 4d6k3 (1 in 1296 odds), don't they deserve a boost?

Here's how the idea was going to work. Players roll 4d6k3 in order, tallying up their point buy total as they go. The moment they go over, they round down and go 8s the rest of the way. If they reach Cha, then all of their excess goes into Charisma.

If I was going it, I'd probably go baseline 10 (or maybe alternate 10s and 11s, so it looks more organic) once point-buy is exceeded, lower the point buy total a little bit, and make the last stat Con. Guarantees no one will have a Con under 10, and players who don't roll well will, at minimum, be pretty tough, which will make playing that Str 12, Dex 13 fighter at least kind of bearable.

 

[bid]

Because of min-maxing, a negative is going to hurt you less. So my thought was to slow the progression.

Players roll 4d6k3 in order,

You can't minmax when rolling in order, you're only left with your racial pick.

You are saying that rolling 18-3 is worth more than rolling 17-12, one is much better than the other.

Also, because of the "in order", Wis classes might be hard to get. Depending on the point total, you might end up with most characters at Wis8.



My plan to fiddle with stats generation is:
- ignore racial stat bonuses
- roll 4d6, assigning a +1 to the matching stat (aka 1=Str, ... 6=Cha), those are your "racial bonuses" no matter the race you pick
- apply the basic array as desired
- pick a race for its RP potential

You could end up with a +4 to a single stat, but I bet you'd 15 14 13 16 10 8 instead of getting a 19.

 

[Xeviat]

You can't minmax when rolling in order, you're only left with your racial pick.

You can min/max once the character is made. If you roll a 6 Int along with a 16 Str and a 14 Con, you're going to pick a class that doesn't utilize Intelligence. You are minimizing your weakness.

 

[MoonSong]

Hi everyone. I'm fiddling around with a new way of rolling stats, but for it I may need to "price" ability scores below 8. Here's what I have so far:

8: 0
9: 1
10: 2
11: 3
12: 4
13: 5
14: 7
15: 9
16: 12
17: 15
18: 19

Basically, the costs are related to the modifier you're buying. But when dipping into negatives, how should it go? Because of min-maxing, a negative is going to hurt you less. So my thought was to slow the progression.

3: -3
4: -2
5: -1
6: -1
7: 0?

Here's how the idea was going to work. Players roll 4d6k3 in order, tallying up their point buy total as they go. The moment they go over, they round down and go 8s the rest of the way. If they reach Cha, then all of their excess goes into Charisma.

I'm curious to see how this plays out at a Session 0 coming up. I want the players to not make characters until they're together to work together. I think getting random stats could flex their character creation and turn it into a little game.

Why don't you price it from six?
6: 0
7: 2
8: 3
9: 4
10: 5
11: 6
12: 7
13: 9
14: 11
15: 13
16: 16
17: 19
18: 23

then allow reducing up to 3

5: -1
4: -2
3: -3

 

[bid]

You can min/max once the character is made. If you roll a 6 Int along with a 16 Str and a 14 Con, you're going to pick a class that doesn't utilize Intelligence. You are minimizing your weakness.

You have an interesting definition of minmaxing if it covers this. Not picking wizard is merely common sense. And whether you got Str16 or Str18, you'd make the same choice. Where's the mental effort to squeeze some juice out of that rock?

In fact, your "game" of generating stats doesn't offer any choice at all. It's a purely random process that punishes whoever managed to roll Int18 by giving them Cha3.


Try generating a few charaters that way, see if it's balanced or not. It should be easy to generate 6 random 4d6k3 and adjust the last stats to match your rule.

 

[Shiroiken]

When I was working on options for my new campaign, I offered the "build-a-bear" option of point buy. I reconfigured the chart to start from 3 and go to 18, with 94 points to spend (equivalent to standard).

3: 0
4: 1
5: 2
6: 3
7: 4
8: 6
9: 8
10: 10
11: 12
12: 15
13: 18
14: 21
15: 24
16: 28
17: 32
18: 37

 

[Horwath]

You can min/max once the character is made. If you roll a 6 Int along with a 16 Str and a 14 Con, you're going to pick a class that doesn't utilize Intelligence. You are minimizing your weakness.

Lets see how you work around 6 constitution...

 

[ro]

When I was playing around with this idea, I came up with the following point buy.
From 12 going up, matching the point buy guidelines in the PHB, each score cost is equal to its modifier plus the next lower score's cost.
From 7 going down, each score cost is equal to its modifier minus 1 plus the next higher score's cost.
Using normal 27-point buy works fine with these costs.
Expanding to match 4d6 drop lowest probabilities would be a 31-point buy.

[TABLE="width: 136"]
[TR]
[TD]Score
[/TD]
[TD]Cost
[/TD]
[TD]Modifier
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-30
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-5
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-24
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-4
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-19
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-4
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-14
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-3
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-10
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-3
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]6:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-6
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-2
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-3
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-2
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-1
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]1
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]-1
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]2
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]11:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]3
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]12:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]4
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]1
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]13:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]5
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]1
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]14:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]7
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]2
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]15:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]9
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]2
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]16:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]12
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]3
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]17:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]15
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]3
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]18:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]19
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]4
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]19:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]23
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]4
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]20:
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]28
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]5
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]