Point Buy Method: What is a good number?

[Darkness]

I use 32 points but also allow the PCs to reduce stats below 8 (using the same cost scheme as for high stats).

Extreme min/maxing is rare, however, as my adventures are complex are varied, leading to an early demise of most one-trick ponies. I also insist on the disadvantages inherent in low stats: e.g., if you have a low Cha, you'll have a very hard time with my NPCs - which are "living," "breathing" characters rather than cardboard cutouts and/or slavering, mindless hordes of cannon-fodder.

 

[Yuan-Ti]

I actually have a 40 point system I used for my current campaign.

Now I know that'll elicit gaps of horro and cries of munchkinism, but consider the following:

1) I'm a tough DM most of the time. I throw tough challenges at them. The campaign is not going to be a gentle one, and they'll need to be tought to survive it.

2) In this case, I did want the PC's to be 'special', and clearly a cut above even normal adventurers. The campaign has the possibility to become a truly world-shaking event.

3) These are excellent roleplayers I'm working with. Since I run an online game, I've vetted who takes part carefully. When I first proposed running the game on www.roleplayinggames.net, before I'd even put it up on the list of games looking for players, several people who I knew to be excellent rp's from past experience already showed an interest. I feel I am lucky enough to have a kind of rp'ing 'dream team', who can be relied on to not dive into the realms of munchkinism at the expense of rp'ing. I do indeed want characters that have been thought over to make them fairly powerful, but I can be happy in the knowledge that none of these players will decide to overly power-game at the expense of the role-playing and story aspect of the game.

So 40 points does me well.

Edit: Oh, and note that there are 8 PC's IMC, and even despite high scores they're still going to need each other and make use of each others strengths and weaknesses.

Blah, blah, blah! Are you finished, Carnifex?

Good: HORROR! MUNCHKINISM!

 

[Carnifex]

HORROR! MUNCHKINISM!

LOL!

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Originally posted by Carnifex
gaps of horro

yes, it's a typo, but I'm stealing that to use as a place name...a lot of evil could be done to PCs as they delve deep into the terrible Gaps of Horro.



Best,
tKL

 

[Old Fezziwig]

We use a 45 point for the two games I run in the Forgotten Realms.

How's that working out? I'm thinking of starting an on-line game in the FR, but I'm still working on the backstory. Are you using a different value system, or just the straight deal out of the DMG only with 45 points? I think 45 points is higher than I want to go, but I'm curious nonetheless.

thanks,
tKL

 

[Kichwas]

I agree with BigGeekus.

I really like the 'standard array' of 15 14 13 12 10 8.

That's the point on which DC's, Saves, CR's, EL's, Spells, Skills, to-hit rolls, and so on were all balanced. Those mechanics were designed under an assumption in that range.

Party co-hession is an important issue here. Your game session shouldn't be full of American style action heroes, it should be full of team heroes like in 'Scooby Doo' or what you see in many non western action flicks.

Put the stats too high and you'll get action heroes. PC's who don't have as much need for each other and teamwork. Or can easily make themselves believe such until it's too late.

That said my own ideal is at 18 points. It gives similar results to 25 but the extra 3 points give just a bit of 'wiggle room' for tweaking the numbers around.


Oh and if I wanted tough, I'd give them 22 points and toss them into the Temple of Elemental Evil. That's tough.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The following is not a flame:

I honestly don't understand when people say that they are runing a "tough" campaign so the players will need more power. Aren't all encounters relative to the players? Why not have a 25/8 point game and start out at 2nd level (or higher) if you want to give out harder encounters?

I tend to agree with you but let me be the devil's advocate here for a moment.

Why give better stats?

(1) You want to run a magic poorer campaign but still keep the power level similar to standard.

(2) You as a DM are less comfortable with high level magic spells. Stats make you better at what you already are, not qualitatively different.

(3) Monks & Paladins are hosed by lean stats. Higher point totals let them beef up those supporting attributes to 12 or 14 on the cheap, falling only slightly behind characters to are pushing into the 16's & 17's at high prices.

 

[Zerovoid]

I try to run my campaigns with 28 pt buy. I feel it gives you a decent well rounded set of scores, something like:

16
14
12
12
10
10

Alot of other DM's run games with 25 pt buy, which really makes me mad. I hate the 25 pt buy. First of all, its basically the same as 24 pt buy, since the odd point is useless. I don't have enough points to make the characters I want, without feeling like a munchkin, since the only way to have decent stats is skimp on charisma and wisdom. So, be stingy with points all you want, but it won't REALLY hurt my character. The stats above become:

16
14
12
12
9
8

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Ridley's Cohort,

That makes sense. I can see where a DM might want to run a game with a little more "punch" yet still be nervous about the spells/abilties. I've tried designing a few CR 30 encounters for fun and its pretty hard.

aracdy,

Thanks! Also, the standard array prevents people from accidently nerfing their own character by dumping all their points into one or two abilties and leaving the other four at "8". I love the standard array!

 

[Reprisal]

The Problems with Point-Buy

1) One of my players, for some unknown reason to me, absolutely hates the idea of point-buy character generation. He's never put it into words, and therefore, I question the validity of the "argument."

2) The tendancy of people to utterly maximize their stats so that they do get all even numbers. While there's nothing wrong with that objectively, personally, I hate it! I'm thinking of requiring that at least two of the stats be an odd number if I ever use point-buy character generation.

Whenever I say, "Hey guys, how about you make point-buy characters instead?" They grimace at me like I said we were playing GURPS instead of D&D (they dislike GURPS, hell, I dislike GURPS, but I don't point-buy should equate to something that we all dislike...).

It's frustrating because I think point-buy has way more benefits than detriments...