D&D 5E Point Buy vs Rolling for Stats

[Hriston]

Point buy is more meaningful in setting your power level, not less. You can literally point buy 3 15's in the exact stats you need for your class and concept. The odds of getting 3 15's or better when rolling is much lower than the 100% of point buy.

Those three 15's are offset by the three 8's you're forced to take along with them, making all choices available through point-buy theoretically equivalent. You may disagree, but I think that's the intent behind the system, not that everyone is going to pick the one, most optimal option. Also, it's only 100% if you choose them, a choice which is available to anyone else who's also using point-buy, remembering there are 64 other arrays available.

We've been talking about rolling, point buy and array with respect to world build(general population) for the entire time. So yes, when you moved the goalposts to stances, I moved them back.

We've also been talking about player decision-making vs. randomness, but you don't seem inclined to address either of my arguments, so I'll move on.

There's no other method it could be referring to.

Of course there is! There are many other methods for rolling ability scores (some of them have been talked about in this thread), and there is no constraint placed on the DM to use any one of them, or prohibition against devising new ones. 5e is a game which gives the DM full latitude. This should be assumed and kept in mind in specific cases when it isn't stated directly.

First, it's false to say that it only gives a system for rolling the scores of adventurers. The method in the PHB is not only for adventurers and that fact proves your statement false.

Citation?

Second, 5e is meant to be a flexible edition, but it cannot expect people to go to other editions to answer questions it creates. That's design of such incredible crappiness, that my 4 year old could do better. An edition has to be playable in and of itself or it's junk. For 5e to be playable in and of itself, it has to answer the question of what rolling means when the DMG talks about it in the NPC section.

I'm sorry you're so dissatisfied with the current edition.

The words "paramount importance" are irrelevant to my point and focusing on them is an evasion.

Well, then you've failed to understand the context of what it is you've posted.

You've been claiming that anything the PHB does that talks about adventurers, is for adventurers and not commoners.

I've made no such claim. I think it's clear, though, that adventurers are not commoners, and commoners are not adventurers.

You realize that you're arguing that the DM and all his NPCs(other than adventurers) and creatures have no access to anything in the PHB, right?

No, I'm not.

It's abundantly clear from the way other books access everything in the PHB, that it's a fact that everything in the PHB is not just for players or adventurers. But by all means, keep harping on "citations".

You asked me to cite "rules" to support my claim that step 3, along with the other steps in Chapter 1, is specifically intended for the creation of adventurers. I've done that. You, on the other hand, are unable to provide a shred of textual evidence that supports the claim that any NPC that has rolled ability scores is meant to have its scores rolled by the method given in step 3.

There quite literally cannot be another set of PCs in the same campaign that has scores outside of the 8-17 range. The PCs you are running the campaign for are the only ones in it. By definition, every other being in the campaign you are running outside of the one party of PCs, is an NPC.

Now, I suppose you could mean campaign setting and not campaign, in which case you could be running the game for multiple groups of PCs, but even then the only way to have stats outside the 8-17 range would be to allow rolling for at least one of those groups.

I'm using campaign the same way the PHB uses the word, i.e. "an ongoing story". A campaign can span generations of PC groups and multiple settings. Or you could have multiple campaigns that take place in the same setting. Anyway, I haven't misused the word, and I know what I mean by it.

My point is that point-buy has no bearing on the distribution of scores in any characters other than those who are created using it. And of course some PCs could be created using point-buy and some using dice-rolling. Why not?

 

[Maxperson]

If the normal range of stats is what PCs use at creation, then, tautologically, whatever system the DM chooses to create PCs defines that range.

There is only one system in 5e. Rolling AND array. Optionally you can add point buy to that system. That means that unless you house rule rolling out of the system, it's still a part of it and even if nobody opts to roll, the range of rolled stats is still a part of the system. If you do house rule out the rolling portion, that's fine, but it the house rule has no place in a discussion about the 5e stat generation rules.

Rather, to consider realism, we have to take into account that everyone out there is not a young would-be adventurer, there's children, the elderly, the disabled, and there are presumably actual and experienced and retired adventurers, as well exceptional persons of other sorts.

First, no you don't. Realism is a graded thing and you don't have to consider anything else at all for you to argue and want realism with rolled stats. Second, those are not part of the normal range of stats which is 3-20. They would be part of the special circumstances that can result in stats higher or lower than the 3-20 normal range.

 

[Lanefan]

How is that different than anything else in the game? You have rich people in your game world don’t you? How do I get that as a pc during chargen?

Sorry Bork, you have 251 gp to your name. You can’t be an adventurer.

Not in Hussar's game, maybe; but there's a place for you in mine.

(we roll for starting wealth, and for previous profession/secondary skill which can include wealth-inducing things like nobility etc.; also certain classes start out with one or more significant possessions e.g. a spellbook)

Commoners are not adventurers. Commoners do not generally venture into dungeons or the untamed wilderness. Therefore, the items described are not "of paramount importance" to them because their lives don't depend on said items. I think that's all quite clear from the context.

Commoners can certainly become quasi-adventurers quickly enough:

- anyone else remember the days of hirelings and porters and other support crew that a party would bring into the field?
- anyone else use the old trope of having a merchant caravan (presumably staffed mostly by commoners) or a farm being attacked by monsters as a campaign or adventure hook?
- anyone else ever have their PC parties rescue a group of commoners from whatever peril and then have said commoners help out en route to safety?

And so on....

Lan-"should adventurers thus be called uncommoners?"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

There is only one system in 5e. Rolling AND array.

Er...Max? That's two quite different systems...

Optionally you can add point buy to that system.

...and this would be a third.

 

[Satyrn]

Er...Max? That's two quite different systems...

They really aren't.

5e presents the system like so: "Roll dice like this or skip that step and pretend these numbers were the result."

 

[Maxperson]

Er...Max? That's two quite different systems...
...and this would be a third.

Those would be 3 methods of generating stats that the stat system gives you.

An analogy. Xbox is the game system(stat system) and it came with three different games(methods of rolling stats).

 

[Tony Vargas]

They really aren't.

5e presents the system like so: "Roll dice like this or skip that step and pretend these numbers were the result."

Array is a legit method, that both random and point buy can deliver the exact same array, notwithstanding.

That's two quite different systems...
...and this would be a third.

The default method in effect gives the player an option of two methods - a rare, almost unique, player privilege in the context of 5e - the random mentioned in the thread title and the array omitted by it.
The PH also presents a Variant, point buy, that the DM can use instead of giving players that choice - which is pretty fair since in return for giving up a choice of 2, they gain a choice of 65.

So, I suppose it's one method, with a player alternative and a DM alternative.

 

[Maxperson]

Array is a legit method, that both random and point buy can deliver the exact same array, notwithstanding.

The default method in effect gives the player an option of two methods - a rare, almost unique, player privilege in the context of 5e - the random mentioned in the thread title and the array omitted by it.
The PH also presents a Variant, point buy, that the DM can use instead of giving players that choice - which is pretty fair since in return for giving up a choice of 2, they gain a choice of 65.

So, I suppose it's one method, with a player alternative and a DM alternative.

Point buy does not say it an alternative method that replaces the first two. It's billed as an option that players can take if the DM allows, making it an addition to the previous two options.

 

[Hussar]

Not in Hussar's game, maybe; but there's a place for you in mine.

(we roll for starting wealth, and for previous profession/secondary skill which can include wealth-inducing things like nobility etc.; also certain classes start out with one or more significant possessions e.g. a spellbook)

No upper limit? Do you use exploding dice or something like that?

There's always been a rolling for starting wealth and previously it was divided by class. But, that still comes with a IIRC, 200 (ish) gp limit.

So, anyone at +1 over that limit is disqualified as an adventurer according the logic presented in this thread.

Commoners can certainly become quasi-adventurers quickly enough:

- anyone else remember the days of hirelings and porters and other support crew that a party would bring into the field?
- anyone else use the old trope of having a merchant caravan (presumably staffed mostly by commoners) or a farm being attacked by monsters as a campaign or adventure hook?
- anyone else ever have their PC parties rescue a group of commoners from whatever peril and then have said commoners help out en route to safety?

And so on....

Lan-"should adventurers thus be called uncommoners?"-efan

Remember how those hirelings had no stats? How you weren't even expected to roll or generate the stats of hirelings or followers (as opposed to henchmen)?

 

[Hussar]

In other news, it does look like die rolling is becoming a dying breed.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...hod-does-your-group-use&p=7275079#post7275079