Point buy and humans vs other races?

[Shard O'Glase]

To answer plane sailing: I use a non sliding scale point buy, all stats start at 8, you get 20 points to spend. By the numbers a 18 is no better than a 16 than a 14 is than a 12. With the only possible exception I can think of being str with 2 handed weapons. So far the small number of points has been enough motivation for people to avoid too many 18's in their characters. At best, or worst I guess I could see an 18,18,8,8,8,8 before racial mods. But as a general rule if you want an 18, your other stats will be average. If your willing to settle for less than a 18 you can get multiple good stats without sucking it up in other areas.

 

[Johno]

Some guys I know are worried about the discrepancy between Human and demihuman stats, as stated by the original poster.

I seem to recall that they gave humans a further +2 to their discretionary points for stat purchase. They use 28 point buy, IIRC, so humans get 30.

Personally I think the extra feat and skill points are worth quite a bit, and really don't see a need to adjust the stats. The extra feat really comes in handy for those classes with few feats to go around, such as bards, clerics, druids.

Not to mention the extra skill point every level, for the fighter types and rogues. The only class I've ever seen that doesn't know what to do with their skill points is the Wizard.

 

[Thanee]

Well, there's always a cross-class skill you can learn...

Wizard's usually spend their skill points on Spellcraft, Concentratrion and Knowledge (Arcana, The Planes, etc.), while remaining skill points can increase their Spot or similar always useful skills.

Everyone can use skill points and everyone (even Rogues, or especially Rogues? ) has too few of them!

Fighters and Clerics seem to have it the worst here.

About the stat increase for demihumans, sure you can minmax here, but all in all the races are pretty balanced. Some races are better suited for some classes as others, but humans seem to be good in any class and can hardly be seen as a bad race, really!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Plane Sailing]

Thanks for all the feedback guys.

I've used the 4d6 drop lowest all the while up to now, but it has led to some startling inequalities between PCs. When one guy rolls two 18's in front of me, and someone else gets and 18 & a 17, while others are getting much closer to the average of about 13... it can lead to player disatisfaction.

There was resistance to point-buy when I originally talked about it with them, but I realise that we have used it very happily in Bushido (and other games) so I'm all for giving it a go.

Anyhow, thats when I started thinking about the issues with scaling point buy and non-humans. As a simple example of the kind of thing, in 25 point buy a human rogue could have 18 Dex and 10 in every other attribute. An elven rogue could choose to have 16+2=18 dex, 12-2 = 10 con and then have an additional 4 pts that he could use to give himself 14 Int (for example) - whoo, two extra skill points per level and bonuses on Int skills

I think, on balance, I'm going to go for 72 points split how you want (max 18 in any one stat, of course!) Bonus points for a good background and if the last character died heroically (the "karma" bonus )

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

Not to mention the extra skill point every level, for the fighter types and rogues. The only class I've ever seen that doesn't know what to do with their skill points is the Wizard.

Interestingly, this is an excellent reason for wizards to take a level of Rogue or Bard at 1st level. Sure, you get a slightly slower spell progression - but most of the skills that you would want to purchase "cross class" now have a cap of level+3 instead of half that! As you noted, the wizard tends to have lots of skill points due to a high intelligence. A human with 18 Int gets 7 per level - and if you keep the concentration, spellcraft and scry (say) at max, you can keep two of your other "cross-class skills maxed too - Spot is a great candidate here, and tumble would be another. I quite like the idea of a 16th level wizard who has spot 19+ and tumble 19+

Cheers

 

[Darklone]

Sigh

I don't think humans deserve anything extra for being one of the best races in 3rd edition

As for character creation: I like point buy systems AND roll systems. We used several different ones, usually I let a character create 3 characters with very few points and let them raise an attribute EVERY level till level 8 or 10.

 

[Thanee]

If you don't like point buy and have problems with the drastic differences 4d6dl can produce, maybe the system we used last would be good to try. This is a variation of an old system from AD&D Unearthed Arcana.

Put your stats into a fixed order, e.g. planning a Wizard you might set them up like this: INT, CON, DEX, WIS, CHA, STR.

Roll 9d6 (keep three highest) for your first stat.
Roll 8d6 (keep three highest) for your second stat.
Roll 7d6 (keep three highest) for your third stat.
Roll 6d6 (keep three highest) for your fourth stat.
Roll 5d6 (keep three highest) for your fifth stat.
Roll 4d6 (keep three highest) for your sixth stat.

If you don't like the rolls, start over again, but you have to keep the stats rolled the second time, so choose wisely!

Now decide on race and class (you obviously should already have an idea when you order your stats, but might have changed it after rolling in some extreme cases).

This results in above average stats (obviously better than 4d6dl), but you don't have as much control about where your best stats will end up. This leads to interesting characters without minmaxed stats (as common with point buy), yet they do have a heroic profile. It also leads to a quite good balance among the characters.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Fesperse]

In my last campaign, I followed the standard random generation method for the characters (4d6 six times, dropping the lowest, assign to stats as desired) with full hit points at first level. When characters levelled up they rolled the appropriate die, but if they rolled a '1' I allowed them to reroll it by spending a skill point. Seemed a reasonable trade.

Regards,
Steve