Point Buy and Ability Score Increases

[erf_beto]

This is not a house rule, yet. Just some random thoughts I haven't seen anyone else mention on the forums. I'm not sure it should be on General, so I'm posting it here, because it might become a House Rule.

I've been thinking about how Point Buy at character creation and stat increases (at 4th, 8th, 11th... levels) are hadled differently. The first assumes that raising a higher score is much harder than raising a mediocre one. I think that is a fine representation of testing and breaking your own limits: the better you want to accomplish something, the harder you need to train for that.

But as soon as character creation is over, D&D (3e, 4e) throws that out of the window: +1 to any ability score, no matter how high or low it was in the first place. And you don't even need to be using it, but that's not the issue here.

So, why not have ability increases cost more for higher abilities than for lower ones? It's not such a wacky idea in games, others RPGs have done it: in White Wolf's World of Darkness, you spend an ammount of experience points equal to the next level of the ability you want to increase. It's the whole "diminishing return/rewards" thinking: you do it faster at first, but slower later. D&D experience to level up already works like that.

As a possible house rule implementation, we could award an increasing number of stat points to buy ability increases using the point buy costs (which I don't have handy nor remember well, so I'm not sure if this would work). Something easy like 5 points at Heroic, 10 at paragon and 15 at Epic. Or say that +1 ability increases at levels 14 and 18 counts as +2 if you want to raise an ability below 16, and at 24 and 28, +3 below 14 and +2 below 20. Or something else, I'm not the numbers guy for this...

What would be the consequences of this?

At first, I'm thinking this actually softens (solve?) the NADs disparity problem at higher levels: people are bound to want an immediate reward (therefore increasing a lower stat), instead of saving those points for later (to increase an already higher ability). It's human nature. If the cleric has only one point remaining, and needs 5 points to increase his wisdom from 21 to 22, but it's just 1 to get his Dexterity from 8 to 10, and not suck so badly at Dex based skills, initiative...

But, it adds another level of complexity - though it happens outside of the game, so it shouldn't matter that much. Also, overspecialization could be over and as characters become more well rounded, it might make them "look" the same, with the same ability scores. Maybe it won't even accomplish anything, as people with feel the need to pump their primaries everytime just to keep up with the game.

Or not. I don't know.

So, what do you think? Am I [on to] or [missing] something?

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

So, what do you think? Am I [on to] or [missing] something?

The game assumes that you jack up your best stats, especially in 4e. Optimizers know this, but many casual players don't. So your idea would likely result in optimized characters being even better than casual characters.

And it wouldn't do much for the NAD problem. Players who jack low stats to boost their low NADs will just end up with more consistently low defenses.

 

[malcolm_n]

The way I see it is similar to how you describe it at level 1; you work harder before becoming an adventurer at some things over others.

It does have a limiting factor of more work for greater reward beyond level 1. A fighter with a 16 strength must go out and be an adventurer in the world for 8 levels before he can reasonably push or drag as much as his farmer brother who stayed behind, never gained levels, and had an 18 Strength score to start with. Now, it is ultimately more work for more reward, since that 8th level fighter can probably run circles around his level 1 brother when wrestling after he returns with his +4 to attacks, checks, and defenses.

The experience requirements is how it gets harder and harder to get that extra point at each interval. By the time you've fought off the challenges that 3-4 levels brings, a +1 to your strength should be the least of what you've gained. I hope that makes sense.