Oofta
Legend
You can't really compare because point buy only does 8-15, but if you limit to that range then 27 is slightly above average. If you roll, for every 18 there's going to be a 5 or less.
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D&D 5E Point Buy vs Rolling for Stats
- Thread starter Klaudius Rex
- Start date
You can't really compare because point buy only does 8-15, but if you limit to that range then 27 is slightly above average. If you roll, for every 18 there's going to be a 5 or less.
Hussar
Legend
Fair enough. I'm pretty sure that multiple character campaigns aren't that common anymore, so, this likely works better for you than for others. But, you missed my point. Since you have no problems with die rolled characters, what's wrong with my character starting two levels higher than yours. It's the same result after all. So, it should be perfectly fair.
I'm two levels higher because my natural talent equates me to a 3rd level character. You're level 0 because your natural talent is that poor. Or vice versa. Doesn't matter who gets what character. Since we're trying to force D&D into being a simulator of some sort, and fairness doesn't matter, then it should be perfectly groovy for one player to start two levels higher than everyone else. What's the problem? And, if that's a problem, why isn't die rolling a problem?
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I'd also point out that "make do with what you've got" isn't really true. Since you roll the dice then pick your class, it's pretty obvious that people are going to pick the class that fits those stats. If we get an 18 Str and a 5 Int, most people are likely not going to make a wizard after all.
So, people optimize anyway. The only difference is, they optimize based on random die rolls instead of actually getting to play what they want to play.
Well every PC should be optimized stat wise for what they want to play. Someone who has been training to be a warrior should be physically superior than the guy who's been reading books all of his life studying to be a wizard. Just like he should be mentally superior. The game assumes that you've been working on becoming your class before your adventuring career has even begun, even if you plan on multiclassing. So the whole idea of making players have the possibility of being inadequate at their class or having to choose a different class because he couldn't make the one they wanted to play.
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Hussar
Legend
Fair enough. But, what if I don't want to play a wizard? Because that's the whole point. Obviously, if you don't care what character you are going to play, then fair enough, roll away. But, for anyone who actually has a character in mind, what they want doesn't matter?
And, then there's the balance issue. An 18 die rolled stat, bumped to a 19 or 20 for racial adjustment, is the equivalent of one or two free ASI's. Would die rollers be happy if I played a standard array character with two free feats at first level?
Sure, I understand that this is a preference thing, and fair enough. But, I think that a lot of the pretty large balance issues that come out of die rolled characters gets ignored in these conversations. Back in 1e or Basic/Expert, it didn't matter all that much. 14 or lower didn't net any bonuses, and, by and large, even 15 and 16 wasn't a big deal. I mean, there's no difference, really, in the effectiveness of a 15 Str fighter and an 11 Str fighter.
But, 5e doesn't work like that. There's huge differences between 16 and 20. It impacts virtually every aspect of the game. Your casters spells work 10% more often. They get bonus spells to use. They heal more per spell. The fighter's attack bonuses and damage really matter between a 15 and a 20, particularly when we're talking about bounded accuracy. It's not that easy to get +2 to hit in 5e. This isn't 3e where you had fifteen different sources of bonuses and your stat probably didn't matter that much.
I mean, a 10th level 3e fighter had a +10 BAB. Even with a 20 Strength, he only went to +15. Add in the buffs on the character and magic weapons and whatnot, and that +5 wasn't really making any difference. And if you had +3, you were still hitting just as often. In 5e, that's a much, much larger difference. A 1st-3rd level fighter with a 16 Str only has a +5 attack bonus. With a 20, he has +7. A 50% (thereabouts) jump in bonus. That's HUGE. And it's not like you're going to have six different buffs on you at high level and swinging a +4 sword, plus feats giving you attack bonuses and whatnot. With a 16 Str, your +5 only becomes a +7 at 10th level. IOW, that 20 Str fighter is attacking with the same bonus as a character NINE levels higher.
This is why I don't like die rolled characters.
Ilbranteloth
Explorer
Well, first because I don't think that an optimized character is necessarily one or two levels better. Your natural talent doesn't mean that you get to start at 3rd level, although it might mean that you are as good as a 3rd level character at some things.
Fairness comes in many approaches. Everybody rolling dice means everybody has the same probabilities, so that's fair. So is a point buy system.
It's true that somebody who is born with great strength is probably more likely to gravitate toward physical activity. But they don't always do that. Sometimes they go with something they love, even if it's not what they are best at. More importantly, when you're rolling for stats, you more frequently roll a character that could be decent at a couple of classes, and you need to make a choice. In addition, you still get to add your racial modifiers (I use a version of the variant human that allows you to add up to a +3 divide as you'd like). I think that's reasonably representative of somebody putting their focus in a certain direction for the first 15 to 20 years of their life.
It's not that people won't optimize. But the chances you'll get a perfectly optimized character is pretty slim, though.
I still do S, I, W, D, C, Cha, so what would you do with these characters I'm rolling up right now?
11, 10, 11, 12, 15, 14
14, 14, 8, 13, 14, 15
12, 8, 11, 17, 15, 9
12, 10, 10, 11, 14, 10
15, 14, 11, 8, 9, 11
Of course, you'd have to meet my requirements too:
Bard: Dexterity 10, Charisma and Intelligence 13
Cleric: Wisdom 10
Fighter: Strength or Dexterity 10
Paladin: Wisdom and Charisma 13; Strength 10
Ranger: Wisdom and Constitution 13; Dexterity 10
Rogue: Dexterity 10
Sorcerer: Charisma and Constitution 13; Dexterity 10
Wizard: Intelligence 13
You can probably guess which classes are more or less common in the campaign, and which ones that people are excited about when they roll one up.
If that's the way you and your players like to play, that's cool. But if I sat at your table and you told me I had to do this bulls*it, I'd get up and leave. No offense, but I like to build my character concepts in my head long before I put them down on paper, and I don't want to be forced to play a class based off of the randomness of the dice. You might as well get the race and class dice (they do exist, a friend of mine have them) and say roll these and that's what you're going to play.
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My method to roll character combine the best of point buy and random rolling: I use cards to generate random and fair characters. All players use the same cards, so no "unbalanced" characters even if random is involved.
(In short: 12 cards numbered 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9; deal 6 stacks; swap any 2 cards; assign to any stats)
(In short: 12 cards numbered 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9; deal 6 stacks; swap any 2 cards; assign to any stats)
Ilbranteloth
Explorer
Some are just more optimized than others. If we're running a campaign where each player has a single character, then they roll up 6 characters and pick one. Then you add your racial modifiers. If you want to be an elf that gets a Strength bonus instead of a Dexterity bonus, it's not going to break anything, we make it work if needed. But as a group we encourage each other to go with what they roll and the (house) rules as they are written.
A character with a 13 Intelligence can be a wizard just as easily as a person with a 16. The one with the higher Intelligence is objectively better, but that doesn't prevent the one with the 13 INT from being a wizard. I'm reasonably Intelligent, but I'll never be Einstien. He was simply born with a greater intelligence than me. Likewise, there are certain athletes that are physically just better than others. They start better, and their training makes them better still. But none of that invalidates me, any more than starting a Wizard with a 13 Intelligence invalidates that character.
As I said, I don't have an issue with optimizing for your class. But if you're using a point buy system, then every wizard will theoretically have the same exact stats. Because that's the most optimized wizard. Yes there are variants, depending on what type of wizard, or if your planning on multi classing. But that's also part of what we're trying to avoid. We're not planning out our character from 1st to 20th level. We're simply creating a character and seeing where it goes.
I've used many, many approaches creating characters over the years. This just happens to be the one that I/we have decided we like best. We can still create characters of the classes we want, but also get to work through making characters that we wouldn't necessarily have considered otherwise. A wizard that also happens to be very strong (like the wizard that started with a 14 INT and a 15 STR), or whatever.
Part of the fun for us is that most of our characters are "ordinary" people that have extraordinary lives. Not because they are better because of their stats, but because they overcome the challenges they meet, and in many cases despite their stats. Because when a challenge arises, you still have a chance to succeed. It might be a 55 or 50% instead of 65 or 70%. But that doesn't matter. All that matters is the circumstance that these particular characters are in, rather than comparing them to the "optimal" character that's not here. If they fail, then they find a different way.
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