Point Buy: How Much Are Points Worth?

[ValhallaGH]

Taking the 25pt game, would you play an Aasimar if you then got ... 19 points to buy scores, or, when it came to actual playing, would you feel the loss of score purchase points was too heavy to make building the character worth it?

As a LA +0? Maybe. It's cooler than being a standard human but their's no power advantage. It would come down to what character I wanted to play, really.

Yeah, -4 feels more natural, though I doubt it actually accounts for all their abilities. Of course, as long as no one feels upstaged then there's no problem with the race, no matter what its abilities.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Your Aasimar is probably worth about 9 or 10.

he's got +2 to two stats--assuming you're going to use one of those bonuses to increase a stat from 16 to 18 (and it's a good idea to write your rules with the posibility of min/maxers in mind), then the statbumps alone are worth 8 points.

That leaves them with racial skill bonuses, daylight, energy resistances, and outsider traits. that's probably worth 2 or 3 more points, but they're also losing out on the feat and skills from being human, so add only 1 or 2 points for a total of 9 or 10.

You are being too harsh here - don't forget that a race with +2/-2 to stats can take the 16 to 18 (saving 6 points) and use 2 of those points to offset their poor stat at a medium level (taking it from 8 to 10, say) and still have 4 extra points left over!

 

[arscott]

I have to completely disagree. If the goal were to turn the Aasimar into a LA -1 race then I would completely agree with arscott, but the goal is to turn it into a LA +0, which means it ends up as powerful as every other race, not weaker.

Four points for the ability scores. Lots of LA +0 races have stat bumps as well as stat penalties that never mean anything in that character's career. Also, of the two boosts the get, neither one is very useful unless he becomes an accolyte.

But it's my contention that you have to write your rules with the assumption that the Aasimar becomes an accolyte. The dwarf wasn't balanced with the assumption that he'd become a sorcerer. The elf wasn't balanced with the assumption that he'd become a barbarian. When making rules/balance decisions, it's always wise to assume that the players will be making good use of what you give them.

I also disagree that the stat penalties never mean anything in the course of a character's career. In fact, the penalties usually hit the characters where they're already at their weakest--the halfling, whose small size and generally poor weapon selectin makes him a poor melee damage dealer, is made even worse by a STR penalty. The elf, whose best class choices have bad HD and poor Fort saves, is penalized in both of those areas. Under point buy, this means that in order to significantly shore up those weak points will cost a lot.

Three energy resistances, which are about equal to three Tough Hero talents. Tough Plus shows us that two talents are worth a feat, so I'll call this one point.

First, the tough talents give energy resistance equal to your CON modifier. The aasimar gets about twice that. Second, even if Tough Plus is balanced, taking two energy resistances at the same time breaks the rules of the feat--you cannot select more than one talent from a single talent tree. I'd say this more like 3 or 4 feats. Two minimum.

Skill bonus that equate to a +4, so I'll call this equal to the human's bonus starting skills, or equal to the Dwarf and Elf skill bonuses even though both of those races get better bonuses.

I agree with you here. +2 spot and listen is cool, but not especially valuable.

Darkvision and Archaic Weapons. This pair is trickier, since those are both worth (at least) one feat, giving the Aasimar a total of three unpenalized feats. On the other hand Elves get the same benefit and Dwarves get even more; so I'll ignore the vision and chalk the Archaic Weapons up to making up for all those free ranks that humans get at levels after first.
Outsider seems a wash. Immunity to a short list of spells and powers but cannot be revived from death, ever. The Field Medic will be disappointed that he doesn't get to raise the dead.
Spell-like ability. Light isn't very useful for an aasimar. It works great as a distraction for guards and it can be used to help his allies, but built in NVGs mean that he doesn't get any direct benefit. Probably worth another point since his caster level equals his character level.

I'll admit to some sloppiness here. I've been thinking about D&D, not d20 Modern. The Aasimar's free martial weapon proficiency is a lot more useful in D&D, where it's not an automatic benefit of being a shadowkind, and where there aren't any firearms. Likewise, the list of spells and powers that won't have an effect is bigger, as native oustiders they can be raised, and their spell like ability is a 3rd level light spell, not a 0 level one. And for that matter, the energy resistances are slightly less useful.

I'll revise my estimate to 8 points, and include that caveat that I think a few of the +0 LA shadowkind are worth about 1-3 points.

Still, since I'd guess a level is worth about 10-12 points, I'd still choose the pointbuy cost over the actual LA if I was ever playing an Aasimar.

 

[ValhallaGH]

The elf, whose best class choices have bad HD and poor Fort saves, is penalized in both of those areas. Under point buy, this means that in order to significantly shore up those weak points will cost a lot.

When did a d8 become a bad hit die?
Fast Hero Elves are awesome. Five points to get that 11 Con and an Elf is set for life, while their 18 Dex is easily worth the ten points spent on that 16. Sure that's most of their points but the character has gotten his two most important stats to their most useful levels, and saved four points off of a human character with the same final ability scores.

First, the tough talents give energy resistance equal to your CON modifier. The aasimar gets about twice that.

Depends upon the Tough Hero. If your Tough Hero has +2 con then indeed, the aasimar gets about twice that (acid and cold are joke energies that I have yet to see in game, and electricity resistance 3 makes a character just as immune to stun guns as electricity resistance 5).

Second, even if Tough Plus is balanced, taking two energy resistances at the same time breaks the rules of the feat--you cannot select more than one talent from a single talent tree. I'd say this more like 3 or 4 feats. Two minimum.

You are correct that a character cannot use Tough Plus to gain two energy resistances at the same time. Even so, I disagree with your evaluation. The aasimar's energy resistances are worth a feat and a half (as any three talents are); they might be worth more (all of two feats), as an aasimar with a 6 Con still has the values at 5 but maybe not, since an aasimar with a 23 Con still has the energy resistances at 5.

Of course, Mr. 6 Con has a whole lot of other concerns besides whether or not he'll take any cold damage.

I agree with you here. +2 spot and listen is cool, but not especially valuable.

Whew. I was affraid that we weren't going to agree on anything.

Darkvision and Archaic Weapons. This pair is trickier, since those are both worth (at least) one feat, giving the Aasimar a total of three unpenalized feats. On the other hand Elves get the same benefit and Dwarves get even more; so I'll ignore the vision and chalk the Archaic Weapons up to making up for all those free ranks that humans get at levels after first.
Outsider seems a wash. Immunity to a short list of spells and powers but cannot be revived from death, ever. The Field Medic will be disappointed that he doesn't get to raise the dead.
Spell-like ability. Light isn't very useful for an aasimar. It works great as a distraction for guards and it can be used to help his allies, but built in NVGs mean that he doesn't get any direct benefit. Probably worth another point since his caster level equals his character level.

I'll admit to some sloppiness here. I've been thinking about D&D, not d20 Modern. The Aasimar's free martial weapon proficiency is a lot more useful in D&D, where it's not an automatic benefit of being a shadowkind, and where there aren't any firearms. Likewise, the list of spells and powers that won't have an effect is bigger, as native oustiders they can be raised, and their spell like ability is a 3rd level light spell, not a 0 level one. And for that matter, the energy resistances are slightly less useful.

Quite alright. I'm sure everyone here has made the same type of mistake from time to time.

I'll revise my estimate to 8 points, and include that caveat that I think a few of the +0 LA shadowkind are worth about 1-3 points.

Still, since I'd guess a level is worth about 10-12 points, I'd still choose the pointbuy cost over the actual LA if I was ever playing an Aasimar.

I still say an aarsimar is only about 6 points, and in my view the only +1 LA shadowkind that may be worth less is the half-ogre (not likely with all that natural armor and those hit points).
I do subscribe to your theory that there is no hard and fast rule for ability points and level adjustment, as each race has thier own quirks that have to be considered individually.

 

[Aussiegamer]

Though I see the taking points for the ability point score a good idea, but it does have many problems.

1.
Say as said the assamir has a 5 point drop, four only drops off the bonus. the other than getting some minor abilities you are basically back to square one for stats. the intent is to give a bonus to stats by off setting the experince required.

Now we have a say +4 LA, going along simple maths we make the buy say around 18 points lower. On a 25 point, they get 7 points, considering it costs 12 to get the abilities to all 10, then this means the PC is weaker than the normal. So they don't even get back to standard monster array, without the stat bonuses.

This is going to seriously undermine the PC start, yes they get some nifty stuff but in the end its way worse than the requirement for more xp or being 4 HD below the rest of the party IMHO.


2.
So are you going to convert monsters to this as well? As this will adjust the characters base and will mean that the same CR monster is tougher when compared.

Take a template that has a LA and CR mod. If you just apply the LA then the monster is tougher as it still uses it standard array.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Here's an additional question: Do you think that in d20Modern, Powerful Build is worth +1 LA on its own?

Responses:

I wouldn't use this method for monsters or anything of the like. I was thinking more along the lines of a few small setting-appropriate selections as opposed to the Shadowkind races available for UA, and probably nothing with a 3-4LA.

Nor, would I think, it would scale linearly toward higher LAs. It would have to taper off.

--fje

 

[ValhallaGH]

Do you think that in d20Modern, Powerful Build is worth +1 LA on its own?

No.
Remember, Modern uses 3.0 weapon sizes, so the biggest constant advantage a Powerful Build character would get is the ability to use a light fifty as a rifle instead of as an emplaced weapon (or a greatsword one-handed for a melee build). Useful but if that breaks your game then using a light fifty at all would probably break your game.
The other advantages are counting as one size bigger when beneficial. It makes the character one heck of an offensive/defensive lineman (or wrestler) but this comes up a lot less in Modern games than in D&D.

(Please attribute any percieved insult to my talent of being an unintentional jerk.)

 

[Achan hiArusa]

I just go with 40 since its the mathematical equivelent for a starting White Wolf character with a 7/5/3 split (if you treat a 1 in a stat as 8 as per the GURPS: Vampire the Masquerade/Werewolf the Apocalypse/Mage the Ascension conversion rules).