D&D 4E Point buy, 4e & you.

[Intense_Interest]

Why is this a bad thing though?

Previously people have mentioned that more well rounded PC's are better but at the end of the day, if you have a primary stat, then it's better to have that maxed.

The ideology that weighting encourages a more even spread of points is flawed. Most people I know and most characters I see made are given the highest score in their primary stat, which in turn means less points to distribute for a more even spread.

It works against itself, in other words.

With point for point, you're still having to spend more points to get higher scores, you're just not punished for it.

Most "weighted" systems are laughably so. I would hardly call them anything but Timmy Tools for players that want to force GMs to comparably twink out his encounters.

For example, anything based off of 4d6 drop the lowest and arrange to suited would give you a chart like this:

Ability 	Point Cost (Assumed Statistical Outcome)
Score
6                -1
8	        0
9	        1
10	       3
11	       7
12	       13
13	       21
14	       30
15	       42
16	       53
17	       65
18	       77

You'll get about 16.4 per assumed roll, so about 98 for your basic 6 set.

You hardly will see 18 11 11 8 8 8 characters under this system. Throwing another 17 points into the system (suggesting a 7 rolls of 4d6 drop lowest) will get you to 18 11 11 11 11 10 easy, but gosh you aren't going to be good at anything else and likely are going to be more of a detriment than a help half of the time. Its far more common to see 16 14 11 10 10 9 to 16 14 13 10 10 10.

The only time you would ever see anything like 18 16 10 8 8 8 is if you had 153 points to spend, or above 9 rolls drop 3. 16 16 12 10 10 8 is more like 125 or below roll 8 drop 2. 14 14 14 14 12 8 would be *above* that (133) and is a little over roll 8 drop 2.

All your issues are based on your flawed metrics.

 

[Spatula]

Not quite sure what you're getting at by posting the optimal array when that array is impossible to get under the 4e point-buy system when it's maximum is 32 points.

The point buy is whatever the DM says it is. It has no maximum.

Anyway, you were advocating a flat 22 points applied to base scores of 8, to which Celebrim proposed (18, 18, 12, 8, 8, 8) as what an optimizer would do with that in 4e. Each class appears to have two relevant ability scores, so an 18 for each of those, then a 12 for whichever Defense value (fort, ref, will) is not covered by those two 18's, and then the rest of your scores are totally immaterial.

Why is this a bad thing though?

Previously people have mentioned that more well rounded PC's are better but at the end of the day, if you have a primary stat, then it's better to have that maxed.

The ideology that weighting encourages a more even spread of points is flawed. Most people I know and most characters I see made are given the highest score in their primary stat, which in turn means less points to distribute for a more even spread.

It works against itself, in other words.

With point for point, you're still having to spend more points to get higher scores, you're just not punished for it.

It's a trade-off. Either you can go for being "the best" (18) but you suffer for it elsewhere, or you can settle for being merely incredible (15-17) and be good at other stuff too. Single-minded vs well-rounded.

The impact of a high score is not really linear even though the scale is. A 14 is twice as good as a 12. An 18 is twice as good as 14, or four times better than a 12. Having an 18 is a huge benefit, especially in 4e when most of what your character does in combat will be keyed off of that one score. So if you want that extra edge, you have to pay for it elsewhere - your class' secondary ability will not be as strong, and you'll have at least one weak defense.

 

[Ondo]

But, primary stats are worth more than less valuable stats.

This is obviously true, and it makes me wonder - couldn't you get even more variety if you did point buy where the primary stat for your class was more expensive than other stats? It'd be tricky to get right, but done properly it could make having another stat higher than your primary a viable choice.

Obviously, it'd be more complexity, and of debatable worth, but I find it interesting to consider.

 

[fedelas]

You sound like someone who's never played with a) The DMs girlfriend ...

Ehi my girlfriend PC has the same stat bonus as the other people in my group!!!

Yes we use point buy system

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This is obviously true, and it makes me wonder - couldn't you get even more variety if you did point buy where the primary stat for your class was more expensive than other stats? It'd be tricky to get right, but done properly it could make having another stat higher than your primary a viable choice.

Obviously, it'd be more complexity, and of debatable worth, but I find it interesting to consider.

In 3E, this would mean that people would multiclass after 1st level . It won't work that well in 4E.

A more favorable approach might be to just give a high primary stat by default, and let the players shuffle around the secondary and unimportant scores as he sees fit.

Maybe offer two stat sets:
18, 15, 14, 12, 10, 8
16, 16, 14, 12, 12, 10

Also interesting: Linking ability scores - if you want a high X, you also get a high Y, or if you want a high X, you always get a low Y. Assign priorities to each linked set (A-C).
Priorities: A = 18/14; B = 14/12; C = 10/8 or A = 18/8; B = 16/10; C = 14/12
Possible Links: Str/Wis, Dex/Cha, Con/Int; or Str/Dex; Con/Wis; Int/Cha

Mastering Iron Heroes also had a few interesting ideas on stat generation - like weighing stats according to importance in the campaign - in a city-politics campaign, you might want people to have a high Charisma, and reduce the point buy cost for improving Cha, and similar ideas.

 

[Tclynch]

Personally, I prefer the "assign stats that make sense to your character" method. No rolling, no point buy. It's all about making a CHARACTER, after all....

 

[Ahglock]

Hopefully there are a lot of stat creation systems and not one to them is declared the core method...(yes its your game, house rule blah, blah, blah)

Weighted point buy, non weighted point buy its just another way of saying you have to have fun the way I tell you to. There always will be min-maxing whether that means 3 14s or 2 18s it doesn't matter both will create amongst the power gamers a boring predicable stat array. One isn't superior to the other, but they both enforce a game style. So have fun there way your DMs way or whatever because that is what the option you get.

 

[Alkiera]

Hopefully there are a lot of stat creation systems and not one to them is declared the core method...(yes its your game, house rule blah, blah, blah)

Weighted point buy, non weighted point buy its just another way of saying you have to have fun the way I tell you to. There always will be min-maxing whether that means 3 14s or 2 18s it doesn't matter both will create amongst the power gamers a boring predicable stat array. One isn't superior to the other, but they both enforce a game style. So have fun there way your DMs way or whatever because that is what the option you get.

Somewhere was noted they suggest the weighted point buy we've seen in the pre-gens, and also several score arrays so you can just assign them without doing any math (they work out the same as the 32-point buy) I'd guess there's still some random methods like 4d6-drop-lowest listed too.

 

[Weazie]

Assuming a 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 8 start with a 22-buy, the unweighted min-max result will be 18, 18, 16, 10, 10, 8 (and heaven forbid a 22 20 10 10 10 8 array (or its cousin 32 10 10 10 10 8)...for first level). Except for the MAD classes, everyone will be +4 in their primary and secondary stats, +3 in their tertiary stat, and dump the rest. And that's before the racial bonus. We're all good at everything! We win! (And reducing the unweighted point buy-in really won't change things because 4e's weighting doesn't even kick in until you push past 13.)

Using 4e's weighting system, you can't even have two 18s, let alone chasing them with a 16. You can't even have three 16s (without a racial bonus). But you could have two 16s and a 13 (+3, +3, +1) or 16 and two 14s (+3, +2, +2). Deciding where to put that little bit of extra requires extra thought, as the opportunity costs are higher.

Weighing forces you to chose between being really good at one thing, pretty good at two things, or decent at many things. Unweighted means just deciding which stat block will be slightly less awesome than the others.



Personally, I would rather play in a system where a starting character with a 20 would be rare, two 18s would be noteworthy, one 18 and decent other abilities would be ideal, and three 16s would be viable. They're all heroic (albeit the 20 or two 18s would have some glaring weaknesses) without being overpowered.

 

[mattdm]

The weighted system has the drawback of being a little harder to explain to younger players, which is why I might lean towards the 22pt-non-scaling-cost system.

Why not the array option, then? Based on the earlier thread, offer them one of these arrays:

17 14 14 10 10 8
16 16 13 11 10 8
16 16 12 10 10 10
16 15 14 11 10 8

and then say if they really want to have an 18 to start (really, a 20 with racial modifiers), they could pick something like:

18 14 11 10 10 8

And of course say that if they'd like to work with the more complicated point-buy, go ahead.

The above offers a decent amount of flexibility and variation without being overwhelming, and with no really poor choice.