D&D 5E Point Buy vs Rolling for Stats

[Hussar]

You can just stop right there. Those three words invalidate everything you said after them. Nobody is talking about real life. The False Dichotomy of "real life" and "no realism whatsoever" that you keep trying to use against me is getting tired. Come back and discuss this with me when you understand that there are a multitude of grades of realism and that a person can want more realism(not having control over your stats and higher and lower possibilities), without needing to randomly roll backgrounds.

So, you're definition of realism isn't grounded in reality?

But, you're missing the point. It doesn't really matter where that particular number came from. As soon as you assign a number to a stat, any argument about realism goes out the window. Whether you got that 13 from a random roll, a standard array or a point buy value, the fact that you, the player, decided to assign that number to that stat means that it's no longer grounded in the game world at all.

IOW, if it's unrealistic to point buy your 15 Strength, then it is just as unrealistic to choose a 15 from the six random numbers you rolled and assign it to Strength. When you roll six numbers to generate your character THAT is your array.

The only difference is that your array is potentially different from my array. But, again, there's no reason why. It's blind luck. It's completely divorced from any in game reality. Your character isn't stronger than my character because he worked out more. That's simply a justification you add on at the end. The only reason your character is stronger than mine is blind chance, completely divorced from the game world.

How can something be realistic when it doesn't actually connect to any sort of realism?

 

[Maxperson]

But, you're missing the point. It doesn't really matter where that particular number came from. As soon as you assign a number to a stat, any argument about realism goes out the window. Whether you got that 13 from a random roll, a standard array or a point buy value, the fact that you, the player, decided to assign that number to that stat means that it's no longer grounded in the game world at all.

Incorrect. You're the one missing the point. The point is that realism is graded, not one extreme or the other. Rolling randomly in order has more realism than rolling and placing stats. However, there's still more realism involved with rolling and placing stats because you have a more realistic range of numbers and you had no control over what the numbers were, than say point buy or arrays.

IOW, if it's unrealistic to point buy your 15 Strength, then it is just as unrealistic to choose a 15 from the six random numbers you rolled and assign it to Strength. When you roll six numbers to generate your character THAT is your array.

Point buy is less realistic, since you cannot have less than 8 or more than 15. Nor can point buy achieve the same ranges of numbers.

 

[Wulffolk]

It would be more work than I am willing to do at the moment, but how about a system in which you chose your Race and Class first, and then determined your Ability scores based upon those choices. That way the player would always have Abilities that work for that concept. Then the Sub-Class could offer a choice of Abilty bonuses that reflected the background of the Sub-Class. I would also go so far as to only allow one ASI to be applied to any particular Ability. Not every Fighter should have the same 20 Strength. Not every Wizard should be equally Intelligent.

If everybody was meant to be perfectly equal then we should just get rid of Ability scores altogether and just give classes different proficiency bonuses to each type of roll they could make.

I am personally in favor of rolling Abilities, but if I consider the other side of the spectrum for a moment, then I have to ask myself why bother with Abilities at all. Just assume that everybody will choose to insure that their primary Ability always gets to 20 and give it to them. Then design the game around a world in which every hero is the absolute best at their chosen field. I really don't get this approach. The last thing I want to do is play pre-made characters, and that is basically what you end up with when you use Point-Buy or Array and have any desire to "Optimize". Just look at MMO's, every character played by an experienced player is exactly the same as other characters built for the same role

 

[Lanefan]

It would be more work than I am willing to do at the moment, but how about a system in which you chose your Race and Class first, and then determined your Ability scores based upon those choices.

There was a variant on this, at least for class, way back in the 1e Unearthed Arcana - how many dice you rolled for each stat (taking the top three each time) varied based on what class you were going to be. No rearranging once rolled.

That way the player would always have Abilities that work for that concept. Then the Sub-Class could offer a choice of Abilty bonuses that reflected the background of the Sub-Class. I would also go so far as to only allow one ASI to be applied to any particular Ability. Not every Fighter should have the same 20 Strength. Not every Wizard should be equally Intelligent.

Yeah, the more I look at all this the more I'm wondering if 5e's rather generous ASI's aren't more problem than solution in the long run.

If everybody was meant to be perfectly equal then we should just get rid of Ability scores altogether and just give classes different proficiency bonuses to each type of roll they could make.

You'd need to find another way of mechanically differentiating between races, to make up for the ability variances.

I am personally in favor of rolling Abilities, but if I consider the other side of the spectrum for a moment, then I have to ask myself why bother with Abilities at all. Just assume that everybody will choose to insure that their primary Ability always gets to 20 and give it to them. Then design the game around a world in which every hero is the absolute best at their chosen field. I really don't get this approach. The last thing I want to do is play pre-made characters, and that is basically what you end up with when you use Point-Buy or Array and have any desire to "Optimize". Just look at MMO's, every character played by an experienced player is exactly the same as other characters built for the same role

I hate to say this, as it'll probably open up a can of worms, but maybe one root cause of the sameness problem is the hard-cap at 20? MMOs tend to hard-cap things, leading to what you describe.

What would be the benefits/drawbacks of a system where you don't get ASIs often, if ever, and other stat-altering effects are extremely rare - much like 1e - and then removing the 20-stat hard cap? Open-endedness is the enemy of sameness...

Lanefan

 

[Wulffolk]

One thing that would help is if each class were designed to make use of each Ability for various functions related to the Class. Then there would be no "dump stat", just different ways to be effective with each Class. Determine the benefits of an Ability based on the Class, rather than have them be universal.

 

[Hussar]

Incorrect. You're the one missing the point. The point is that realism is graded, not one extreme or the other. Rolling randomly in order has more realism than rolling and placing stats. However, there's still more realism involved with rolling and placing stats because you have a more realistic range of numbers and you had no control over what the numbers were, than say point buy or arrays.

Point buy is less realistic, since you cannot have less than 8 or more than 15. Nor can point buy achieve the same ranges of numbers.

But, again, the array applies to PC's, not NPC's. I'm pretty sure that if I were to look at NFL players, I would find nary a stat below 8. Same, most likely, for firefighters. In fact, in any extreme profession, which I would include adventurers in, your range of stats are going to be extremely small. The more extreme the profession, the less variance of stats.

Let's not forget, D&D stats are not very granular. You couldn't, for example, really come up with two wildly varying stat blocks for any two NFL quarterbacks. They are all within a fairly small range. None of them are below 8 Int. And, likely, none of them are much more than a 16 Str, really. It's not like yo get 300 pound quarterbacks, by and large.

So, because the stat arrays are ONLY meant for PC's, and all PC's are adventurers, it makes pretty clear sense that their stats would be within a fairly narrow range.

 

[Caliban]

But, again, the array applies to PC's, not NPC's. I'm pretty sure that if I were to look at NFL players, I would find nary a stat below 8. Same, most likely, for firefighters. In fact, in any extreme profession, which I would include adventurers in, your range of stats are going to be extremely small. The more extreme the profession, the less variance of stats.

Let's not forget, D&D stats are not very granular. You couldn't, for example, really come up with two wildly varying stat blocks for any two NFL quarterbacks. They are all within a fairly small range. None of them are below 8 Int. And, likely, none of them are much more than a 16 Str, really. It's not like yo get 300 pound quarterbacks, by and large.

So, because the stat arrays are ONLY meant for PC's, and all PC's are adventurers, it makes pretty clear sense that their stats would be within a fairly narrow range.

Another point: if you are going to compare NFL football players to D&D characters, I kind of doubt that any of them are level 1 commoners. They are all lvl 8+ Athletes with years of experience in highschool, college, and/or semi-professional league Football. Plus constant physical training. They've all had at least one or two stat increases, and are probably variant humans with a feat.

Of course, since they are real-life athletes and not RPG athletes - they have to deal with their physical and mental attributes eventually declining due to age, injury, and chronic concussions. A level of realism I've noticed that no one is suggesting for their D&D characters, despite the supposed desire for realism claimed by some (not all) in favor of rolling for stats.

 

[Maxperson]

But, again, the array applies to PC's, not NPC's. I'm pretty sure that if I were to look at NFL players, I would find nary a stat below 8. Same, most likely, for firefighters. In fact, in any extreme profession, which I would include adventurers in, your range of stats are going to be extremely small. The more extreme the profession, the less variance of stats.

I'm pretty sure you could. Charisma isn't required for firefighting or catching a football, and I've seen plenty of football players who rubbed people the wrong way. In any case, adventurers are not chosen based on stats. Any Tom, Dick or Lowstat can pick up a sword and go out to kill dragons. If there were some organization that selected individuals to be adventurers, you'd have a point.

 

[Hriston]

Speaking to the argument about the range of scores derived from each method, 3-18 was only ever available to adventurers, who were conceived of as 'exceptional' individuals, outside the normal range of human abilities. For the scores of members of the general population, Gygax recommended the 'averaging' method, which produces a limited range of scores (from 6 to 15) before any modifiers for profession and has a very high frequency of 10's and 11's. This normal range should be kept in mind when considering the desirability of scores outside this range for PCs.

The standard array is a stand-in for the most common result of the highest three of 4d6 (the real most common result is a little better than the average, so some rounding down was employed to make it less attractive), and point-buy is all about building variations on the standard array. You could create a point-buy method with a range of scores outside the standard array, but the wider the range allowed the more improbable some of the resulting arrays can get, and the more prone the system is to exploitation and trap-options. Therefore, I think point-buy is best conceived of as an alternative to and approximation of the standard array, rather than something that can be derived directly from the highest three of 4d6.

 

[Hriston]

As to the general argument on both sides of this thread, I think it comes down to the highly subjective issue of immersion, to which I'm quite sympathetic. Proponents of rolling for ability scores don't want this one decision, which generally couldn't possibly be in the control of the character, to be in the control of the player, regardless of what other decisions in the game are similarly given to the player even though they are out of control of the character. This is because such decisions break immersion for these proponents, and to them an immersive game is a priority. Proponents of point-buy, on the other hand, seem comfortable with assuming control over the decisions allowed by point-buy, even though they are not in-character decisions for the most part.