Point Buy vs. Die Rolling Ability Scores

[The Souljourner]

I hate getting consistently overshadowed by other members of the party. If I'm playing a fighter whose highest stat is a 14 and the rest are 12s or less, and the other fighter of the party has 18 strength and 16 con, I'm going to feel useless in battle, that's all there is to it.

Party balance, once you start the game, is controlled by the DM. He passes out equipment, XP, directs the plot, etc etc. If the party gets out of balance, it's his fault. This is why starting out balanced is so necessary. If the party starts out at 3rd level and the monk has 12 AC and 19 hitpoints and the fighter has 21 AC and 33 hitpoints... there's quite the imbalance there. Not killing the monk while still challenging the fighter is going to be really difficult.

And I don't know what some people are calling character concept, but if I decide I want someone who's a superb archer, and the best I can do is 12 strength and 13 dex, I'm going to be upset when joe random rogue with his 20 dex decides to pick up a bow and outshoot me.

Ability scores are so central to D&D that they shouldn't be left up to chance. Or at the very least, they should be sufficiently de-randomized to prevent huge power gaps.

-The Souljourner

 

[Dash Dannigan]

Hyper- hadn't thought of Pbem (haven't tried it yet) that's very good point. Sounds real good.

Souljourner- You also bring up some very good points about party balance. I see how point-buy makes the DMs job a whole heck of a lot easier in maintaining party balance in play, especially if the DM sought to balance each individual PC over the course of play. And you're right it IS a DMs job to maintain a balanced party.

It's been mentioned previously that trying to balance individuals though would be a bit excessive, it is afterall a group game, and for a DM to try and metagame to balance individuals seems a bit harsh (a bow for the archer because he's weak, bracers for the mage because he's weak, barbarian loses axe because he's too strong...) When I run a game I keep things out of hand but I don't scrutinize every PC for weakness/strength and try to fix them. I usually don't do this during play either, not to that extent. Hmmmm. Usually a DM would only alter somethings if they was something WAY off-base or out of whack right? I don't think stats alone would qualify as being too "big" out of whack and needing a fix (like point-buy) though.

Incidentally, wouldn't the big, bad hero get smacked regularly, being selected out for his large size and strength more often than the smaller fighter? Monsters should be able to recognize significant threats in battle and I'd think that big-bad fighter would be targeted more often than not. Yes?

 

[Celtavian]

Re

I prefer rolling for stats in my usual games. Rolled stats better reflect genetic diversity in my opinion. I have good role-players in my group, who can play a lesser role if someone rolls good stats and plays the uber hero. If the roleplayers are good, it makes a great story.

I do agree with Hypersmurf about PbeM's. It is easier to use the point buy method when you don't know the players particularly well.

The strength of the point-buy system is equity. Everything is fair and equal, and no player can complain.

 

[Crothian]

And I don't know what some people are calling character concept, but if I decide I want someone who's a superb archer, and the best I can do is 12 strength and 13 dex, I'm going to be upset when joe random rogue with his 20 dex decides to pick up a bow and outshoot me.

Well, at first level there will be more then that one person who can out shoot you. But you will have two more feats then him, and by level 4 you'll have 5 feats to his two. That's a lot of archery feats. So, sure you might not be the best when it all starts but as long as you devote yourself to it as the concept suggests you will be much better at the higher levels.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Some prefer the control of the point buy, some dislike the sameness that results.

As a result, I plan to offer either the 4d6 method or the 28-point buy for new characters in my game. Due to the high variability of the 4d6, if a character ends up with a result that would be more than a 32 point buy or less than a 24 point buy then we'll wrangle the numbers.

John

This isn't meant to be a smart ass comment but.... if they dislike the sameness that results, why wrangle the numbers latter on with the 4d6 method? Won't you just be shoehorning them into the sameness that they hate?

 

[bret]

Ahem, for those punks who don't like randomness and prefer the rigidity of point-buy system, why roll dice at all then? Just sit down and roll out the Ol' game mat and start moving those minis around playing chess, er a more systematic version of D&D with thousands of charts to look up and no die rolls.

Maybe some of them actually know a little about Statistics.

The attributes give a bonus to all future rolls. A high strength is going to hit more often than a low Str.

You only roll for attributes at the beginning of the character's life. After that, the attribute modifiers apply to all future rolls governed by that attribute.

Dicing for skills, combat to-hit, saving throws, etc. happen many times (assuming the character survives). Over the course of a campaign, unless the dice are loaded, the results are pretty predictable.

So what you have when you roll for attributes is a situation where someone over the long run is going to have a significant advantage over another character. There is no handicapping for the character with lower attributes, they are just going to be inferior for the whole life of the campaign.

After seeing this for a couple of decades of gaming, it gets really old.


Just a note, there are times when you don't even have to roll the dice in D20. It is called Taking 10 or Taking 20.

 

[Benjdragon]

In the campaign I am currently playing in there are 7 players.
We created our characters by rolling 4d6, drop the lowest. We were allowed to roll 3 sets and pick the best set. After we had all made 5th level the DM asked us what our point totals would be if our characters had been built with a point build. My stats added up to 56 (I got some really good rolls). One other players stats added to 58, one added to 23 (I witnessed the rolls for this character and all three sets were really poor). Some of the others I remember were a 28 and a 31, the other two were in the 40's.
With the broad range in stats the higher stat characters far overshadowed the others. What was a challenge for the lower stat characters was a walkover for the higher stat ones and a challenge for the higher stat characters was nearly deadly for the lower ones.

Our two fighters were the 28 an 58 point characters.
In one fight, against the same type creatures, the 58 point fighter killed his in 3 rounds while the 28 point fighter took seven rounds. and in those first three rounds the 28 point fighter missed all of his attacks while the 58 point fighter hit with all of his even though he rolled lower than the 28 point fighter in two of those rounds. His greater stat bonuses allowed him to hit when the other could not. The 28 point fighter was hit numerous times in the fight, at least 4 times which if he had the same AC as the higher stat fighter (was only higher because of better Dex bonus) he would have been missed. The 58 point fighter finished his fight down only 6 hit points, the 28 point one was down 31 hit points.

The obvious inequality between the two was what caused the DM have us all recreate our character with us all having the same build points. The fact that the lower point level characters could do so much less than the higher made the game a lot less fun for them and it showed in their behavior and comments made during the games. The games have been better with all characters being able to contribute to the adventure more.

 

[Pax]

An excellent example of why die-roleld attributes can create a "fun imbalance" in a group.

I mean, just think -- having more positive than negative attribute score modifierss is considered to be worth a +1 level adjustment at LEAST, for any Race of Monster-Race ...

 

[Benjdragon]

The point is that it was not a 'fun imbalance', but a frustrating experience for the players the rolled poorer characters. The characters with the higher could do herioc feats but the lower stat characters had a hard time just surviving and ended up staying in the back of the party so they would get killed, and thus not doing anything to help the adventure along.

In a campaign years ago using the first edition ADnD rules we were supposed to roll 4d6, drop the lowest, in stat order of STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA. One player wanted to play a Paladin, which required a CHA of 17. He rolled 143 sets of stats before got a 17 in his CHA stat. His next highest stat was a 12. If he got to roll the 6 stat numbers and place them where he wanted he wanted, he would still have taken 36 sets of rolls before he got a 17. (He wrote down all of his rolls to see how long it would take)

Another character in the same game want to play a wizard. But since we had to roll the stats in order he ended up with a STR-18, DEX-16, CON-18, INT-7, WIS-8, CHA-11. A great fighter character but a lousy wizard one and he hated playing fighters.

Many of the people I play with have a certain character type in mind when that start the character. Being force to play a weak version of a class or a different class because of poor rolls is just not fun.

 

[Simulacrum]

Oh god, it's like cancer it wont go away. Die rolling stats in a game like D&D that is 1. made for avarage built chars
2. absolutely linear 3. depends totaly on 6 stats
is just ridiculous. I truly hope that they finaly undo the die rolling system.
If a character has say total bonus of +9 (quite normal)and another character gets a total mod of +13 (munchkin) this character should be ECL +2 at LEAST.
Anything else is just imbalanced and takes the fun out of the game FAST.