I didn't say clumsy. I said very clumsy. That fluff doesn't work with an 8. I cannot play a very clumsy concept with point buy or arrays without a house rule of some sort.
That's getting hung up on the numbers again. I'm happy to conceded the point, if you want to admit to being hung up on the numbers, but given how violently you contested the idea - and how gleefully you accused Ootfa, I think it was, of the same - I suspect you're not willing to go there.
So, if you want to pretend you're not just hung up on the numbers, it remains all relative. If the generation method you're using has a lower bound of 8, that's the worst. You want to be bad at something, you go there. If you're using array, you can't be that bad at two things. If you're using point buy, you can't be that bad at more than 3 things. There's a certain balance imposed on you either way.
That works for some concepts, but not others. Some concepts require stats above 15+racial at first level, or below 8 at first level.
If requirements are that specific, then random fails even more often, since it can't be depended upon to deliver anything specific.
It's funny how you're hung up on the numbers when hypothetically using array or point-buy, but delighted to play whatever you roll when random generation is being evaluated. I'd point out how biased that is but (1) it's obvious and (2) 'bias' doesn't really do it justice.
It's rare to get exactly the points of a point buy or exactly the array, so I will pretty much always have different options, including stats above 15 or below 8.
You actually never have options, you play what you roll. They're not options. The degree of freedom to design/play the character he wants with random-and-arrange is identical to that of standard array.
I'm not conflating anything. I've repeatedly used the word potential.
Nod. But it's quite meaningless when it comes to 'playing what you want.' It doesn't matter what you might have rolled, only what you did roll. You want to play a character with a number of modest stats and roll 3 high and three low, too bad. You want to play a character with an extreme range between his highest and lowest stats and every roll comes out between 14 and 10, too bad.
If the general population (generated by 3d6 in order) can get 18s, but the Olympians (created by point-buy) can only get 15s, then point-buy has absolutely failed to model Olympians!
D&D has pretty well failed a lot of olympians, already. In most editions, even very high level characters all-in on the appropriate skills couldn't touch a lot of olympic records, or even qualify...
But D&D, in general, and especially 5e BA, doesn't do well for modeling the very specific, specialized, intense training involved, since it's not remotely meant for that. But for, y'know, adventuring heroes (or heroic adventurers) in a fantasy story.
Point-buy does relegate you to low mental stats if all your physical stats are high. Unlike rolling or real life where individuals with high physical characteristics are just as likely to have high mental characteristics as anyone else.
Because life isn't fair, but games need to be, yes.
But we don't have a better point-buy system; we have the one we have.
Meh. 5e is presented as a starting point. You can go where you want with it. You want higher-stat PCs in your campaign, you can use an array with higher stats, higher-value point buy, or 5d6 drop the two lowest. Doesn't change the basic characteristics and advantages of each method.
As I posted recently, there are many ways to make rolling more balanced between PCs, but I've yet to see a more realistic point-buy system.
Realism is what it is. I really can't say enough bad things about trying to force realism onto a fantasy game, but I do readily acknowledge that random generation - in order - certainly adds at least a veneer of realism, the more so the more other characteristics outside of the PC's control (race, sex, social class, birth order, etc) are also kept random.
