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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Asha'man" data-source="post: 5889313" data-attributes="member: 52424">True. But then, in most point buy games, the only constraint on what perks and abilities are available to the PCs is their points budget, which is decided on a metagame level before play even starts. (There are usually few, if any prerequisites or wholly derived stats, is what I'm saying -most things can be bought directly.) The only purpose of the point buy system is to ensure a notional equality between characters of the same point total. If the players want more abilities, you have the option to simply give them more points.I disagree, those aren't equivalent at all. The whirlwind attacking orc is simply ignoring the rules of the game. The prodigy is (in most point buy systems at least, including M&M, Shadowrun and GURPS, but possibly not all), a meta-game consideration. The only reason you can't have one PC that's vastly more points than the others is that the other players would presumably object. If you can make it work, go ahead! But the analogy to this is having one PC that's higher level than the other PCs (or is a king, wealthy merchant, or whatever) -not having a PC who can do things that other characters of the same class, race and level can't. Because that breaks the deepest foundations of the game system.Absolutely, so adding levels to a system like that has to be done with some thought or it won't serve any purpose. It might be done to make sure that only high-pointed characters can access certain abilities, (Dark Heresy does this with its Career system, but there doesn't seem to be any real reasoning behind the advancement tables, so  I've always seen it as pointlessly restrictive) or to give another dimension for challenge evaluation. M&M does this with its Power Level, which describes the level of the character's most powerful attacks and defenses. It is theoretically completely independent of points, but taken together with the character's spesific powers it gives a good idea of the challenge they pose in direct confrontation."Odd" results? That depends on your goals. I personally care much more about the rules reflecting a coherent reality than about whether the CR formulae are accurate. CR is easy to ad-hoc.Unfortunately you're right in that the balance provided by all point buy systems I've ever played is almost entirely notional. GM oversight is always required in character generation.Yes, actually. Racial traits reflect the innate abilities of a certain kind of creature. Class levels reflect kind and degree of training and/or experience.  Now training and experience isn't discrete like levels, there isn't a quantum jump of ability whenever you've defeated four "fair" challenges, but there's absolutely a correspondence: A troll is a troll. A fighter is a fighter. The troll has 6 HD, which reflects a certain in-game reality: A troll is innately tougher and fiercer than an ogre, but not as tough as a hill giant. A troll fighter might have access to special techniques that his human counterpart doesn't (his inborn ferocity gives him a higher BaB to start with, which lets him qualify for certain feats earlier -and his size, claws, regeneration and keen trollish senses might let him qualify for special feats) but any other trained warrior with the same attributes could learn or develop equivalent abilities.Now points, in a point-buy game, don't reflect any in-game reality. They're far too abstract for that, and used for too many different things. They're purely a meta-game construction. But the traits they buy do. If Cyclops has a +9 melee attack bonus, that (in conjunction with the established benchmarks) means he's an elite hand-to-hand combatant. If his optic blast has a rank of 10, that means it's powerful enough to punch through steel. It doesn't just mean that the numbers need to be that way for him to be a "balanced" PL 10 character and the fiction can be whatever.(M&M is a very flexible game, and far more narrativist than simulationist, so if you care about benchmarks you largely need to make them yourself before you start, but I do, so that's how I play M&M.)Perhaps that's the root of the difference, that levels are far more hardwired to spesific traits. Perhaps the better analogy for "points" is XP, which are similarly abstract.I agree with this, see above. Hence why I actively avoid systems like that in D&D, but use them happily in M&M.</blockquote>

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