Point Buy Recommendations

[Ferrix]

I think I'll go with the 30 or 32 point buy system. It allows for a more heroic spread. I'm not gonna comment anymore on the community supporter bit, I still don't like it, must be old school Eric board symptom kicking in.

~Ferrix

 

[Storminator]

Go for an odd number of points. Even points can easily be dumped into all even stats. Force them to think about which stat goes up next.

So use 31 points.

PS

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I've run and played in 28, 30, 32, and 36 point buy campaigns.

25 point buy is the standard array of playtest characters (or so I'm told). I've never run a campaign that low but I think it'd be interesting and fun. If I run another campaign it will be 25 or 28 points.

28 points is what I'm told 4d6 drop lowest averages out to after hopeless characters are discarded. It seems to allow for a good variety of characters who can either be quite powerful or quite weak depending upon construction.

30 points is what my RtToEE character (and all the other characters) was built on. We made it to the Crater Ridge Mines with a grand total of two deaths (and one of them wouldn't have been a death if the player hadn't insisted on playing a half dragon barbarian--good armor class and insane strength but low hp=dead barbarian).

32 point buy is what my Living City and Living Arcanis characters are built on. By this point, characters are definitely larger than life. Having played at this level for a while, I'd say that 32 point buy is very close to being equivalent to 1 ECL above the normal character level.

36 point buy is where I ran my first campaign. It's hard to build a 36 point buy character who doesn't kick serious butt. Having run that campaign for a year and half, I'd say that 36 point buy is probably equivalent to ECL 1.5 or so when compared to 28.

Above 36 point buy, you start getting superman characters who are effectively a couple levels higher than their experience would indicate.

I would recommend 28 point buy with 30 points if you want powerful characters. You might find it interesting to use 32 point buy but allow characters to play ECL +1 races at no penalty if they only use 25 points for their stats.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I did a 25 point buy, but a point is a point, it didn't cost more to buy a stat past 14. My reasoning is that the benefits increase at a standard rate(+1 per 2 past 10) so the cost should as well. Or IOW a 16 is no better than a 14 than a 14 is better than a 12.

And still at the 25 point level it still is a hefty investment to give your self an 18.(Asuming you don't want any penalty stats you could have a 18 a 15 and 4 10s good but not absurd) And on top of that it doesn't inflate non-humans by letting them get higher stats for lots cheaper, for a big point savings.

The problem is theoretically you could have a character with 2 18s and a 13 and 3 8s. And if you have players who would tend to min/max this much it aint a great plan, unless you are good at focussing in on players weak spots.

 

[bret]

I did a 25 point buy, but a point is a point, it didn't cost more to buy a stat past 14. My reasoning is that the benefits increase at a standard rate(+1 per 2 past 10) so the cost should as well. Or IOW a 16 is no better than a 14 than a 14 is better than a 12.

I strongly disagree.

For character classes that have one main ability, especially the spellcasting classes, a high ability is much more valuable.

At a 14 Int you only have a bonus 1st and 2nd level spell. If you had an 18 instead, you would get a bonus 1st to 4th level spell and by the time you got there (9th level) you could have a bonus 5th level spell as well. It makes a big difference in how many spells you have at each level.

Getting an 18 Str is a huge boost to many skills and melee. Pumping this up every chance you get, you will find that the character can do a fair amount off the ability modifier alone.

There are a lot of skills that use Dex. The difference between a 14 Dex and an 18 Dex is worth 2 levels in skills. This is a big deal for a rogue.


I think that charging differently for the higher attributes is a good idea.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I strongly disagree.

For character classes that have one main ability, especially the spellcasting classes, a high ability is much more valuable.

At a 14 Int you only have a bonus 1st and 2nd level spell. If you had an 18 instead, you would get a bonus 1st to 4th level spell and by the time you got there (9th level) you could have a bonus 5th level spell as well. It makes a big difference in how many spells you have at each level.

Getting an 18 Str is a huge boost to many skills and melee. Pumping this up every chance you get, you will find that the character can do a fair amount off the ability modifier alone.

There are a lot of skills that use Dex. The difference between a 14 Dex and an 18 Dex is worth 2 levels in skills. This is a big deal for a rogue.


I think that charging differently for the higher attributes is a good idea.

How much better are those mellee skills and attack bonuses. Lets see, oh yeah +1 for every 2 past 10. It's the same thing, the same exact rate of advancement. And every class needs more than1 stat. I don't care what class you are but dex, con, int, and wis are good stats to put into for the saves and for ints case the skil points, chr is great so you can actually interact with people outside of a fight, and str is usefull for virtually everyone since virtually everyone gets in fights.

IMO about the only legitimite reason to use their point buy is if you are trying to set up a certain campaign style that casts the players as more ordinary individuals.(I prefer to design my campaign style after I see the characters) Other than that its usually just a GM enforcing his ideas on what players stats should look like on players. And IMO that should be entirely up to the player. He wants to start off as brilliant, or super strong go right ahead, I'm not going to artificially penalize someone who likes to make more specialized characters than the Mr. generalist.

 

[niastri]

One of my group's favorite campaigns involved high level characters (14th level) and started with a 46 point buy. The fact that one of them played a Half-Djinn and the other a Githyanki didn't hurt the power levels.

At this level of power, you will need to count them all as +1 characters, maybe even +2. Even with half the compliment of PC's, the party would RIP EC's of even level without expending any resources much of the time. They could kill the opponent without the other guy getting a turn most of the time.

It is really annoying when you ambush them with a dragon, both of them Evade the Breath weapon, and they rout an Adult dragon by giving it 250+ hit points of damage in one round.

Needless to say, the campaign was VERY role playing oriented, as combats were very short and deadly most of the time.

Be very aware of the high end point buys

 

[bret]

How much better are those mellee skills and attack bonuses. Lets see, oh yeah +1 for every 2 past 10. It's the same thing, the same exact rate of advancement. And every class needs more than1 stat. I don't care what class you are but dex, con, int, and wis are good stats to put into for the saves and for ints case the skil points, chr is great so you can actually interact with people outside of a fight, and str is usefull for virtually everyone since virtually everyone gets in fights.

IMO about the only legitimite reason to use their point buy is if you are trying to set up a certain campaign style that casts the players as more ordinary individuals.(I prefer to design my campaign style after I see the characters) Other than that its usually just a GM enforcing his ideas on what players stats should look like on players. And IMO that should be entirely up to the player. He wants to start off as brilliant, or super strong go right ahead, I'm not going to artificially penalize someone who likes to make more specialized characters than the Mr. generalist.

How much better is a 14 Str than an 18?

If you are using a two handed weapon, it is an extra 3 points of damage.

How much better is a 14 Dex than an 18 Dex?

If you are looking at skills, it is an extra two levels. It would take two levels to make up the difference in attribute bonuses.


As for legitimate reasons for use of point buy, how about some measure of fairness? If you randomly roll characters, there is a good chance that some characters will be much more powerful than others. At least with point buy, they started out with the same resources to allocate.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

How much better are those mellee skills and attack bonuses. Lets see, oh yeah +1 for every 2 past 10. It's the same thing, the same exact rate of advancement. And every class needs more than1 stat. I don't care what class you are but dex, con, int, and wis are good stats to put into for the saves and for ints case the skil points, chr is great so you can actually interact with people outside of a fight, and str is usefull for virtually everyone since virtually everyone gets in fights.

Allow me to say it first. Utter nonsense.

You're missing several things in this analysis. First and most importantly, stats make more difference the higher they get. Take a human fighter with a greatsword for instance. He could have 14 strength without penalties under a weighted system or 16 strength under normal point buy for the cost of an 18 strength under unweighted point buy. Now consider a normal situation: he's facing off against a typical first level foe: an orc in scale mail and a greataxe. The fighter is at +4, +5, or +6 to hit depending upon strength (we're assuming he's got weapon focus). The 14 strength fighter hits 55% of the time. The 16 strength fighter hits 60% of the time, and the 18 strength fighter hits 65% of the time. That may not seem like much but the 10% difference in the 18 and the 14 str fighters' chance to hit is analogous to a 20% miss chance from Blur or Obscuriing Mist.

Now, looking at damage: the 14 strength fighter does a minimum of 5 points of damage. The 16 strength fighter does a minimum of 6 points of damage, and the 18 strength fighter does a minimum of 8 points of damage. If the 14 strength fighter hits the orc, he's only staggered and he can still make an attack. Not so for the 16 strength fighter. With the 18 strength fighter, you can give the orc a barbarian level and max hit points (doubling his CR) and he'll still drop him in a single blow even if he only does average damage. Consequently, the 18 strength fighter is much more likely to single hit kill foes than the weaker fighters and is consequently more likely to survive longer. And because both his attack rating and damage go up with his strength, his average damage per round increases exponentially rather than arithmetically with strength increases.

And all stats are not equal for all classes. A fighter can get by perfectly well with just strength and con. A fighter with an 18 strength, an 18 con, 12 dex, 9 int, 10 wis, and 8 cha. (possible under an unweighted 25 point buy) is simply put a far better fighter than a fighter with 15 strength, 14 con, 13 dex, 12 wis, 10 int, and 10 cha. Similarly, a wizard with an 18 int, 18 con and 13 dex, 10 wis and 8 str, and cha will be a far better wizard than one with the iconic spread. The wizard will know more spells, have DCs 2 points higher (which is like giving the spell focus feat for every school for free), and will have bonus 4th level spells at level 7 and a bonus 5th level spell at level 9 and a bonus 6th level spell at level 12 (unlike the iconic wizard) because of high int.

Not to mention that this wizard will have more than twice as many hit points. And his only disadvantage? He can't carry much without a Heward's Handy Haversack and his melee capability is utterly pathetic (as if that weren't true of all wizards).

IMO about the only legitimite reason to use their point buy is if you are trying to set up a certain campaign style that casts the players as more ordinary individuals.(I prefer to design my campaign style after I see the characters) Other than that its usually just a GM enforcing his ideas on what players stats should look like on players. And IMO that should be entirely up to the player. He wants to start off as brilliant, or super strong go right ahead, I'm not going to artificially penalize someone who likes to make more specialized characters than the Mr. generalist.

There's nothing artificial about it. Specialized characters are just plain more effective in D&D than generalists are. (Bards and Rangers are good generalists and look at how many people complain about how underpowered they are). Just try playing a fighter with a 14 strength next to a fighter with an 18 strength and tell me it doesn't make a difference. The high strength fighter feels like he's doing twice as much damage with every swing. . . .

 

[Darkness]

Technically, a Wood Elf could do it with just 36 points as long as it's Strength, Dex, and Wisdom Of course, he'd have 3 6's besides, but hey, who needs skillpoints or hitpoints?

-Nate, aka The Souljourner

Yeah, wood elves are more orcs than elves, stat-wise...