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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arial Black" data-source="post: 7226411" data-attributes="member: 6799649">I have no problem with your dwarf comparison, it's fine as is.I just needed a better fit to examine the 16/16/14/12/12/12 array that was claimed to break the game, and barbarians need all three physical stats while heavy armour means you only need two.The point I was going for was not that there is anything wrong with your program or your example, but to use your program to demonstrate that this game-breaking array makes zero difference in your hell hound scrap! Meaning that better stats do not inevitably result in 20-30% more combat effectiveness, or more 'powerful' characters.When you roll, you get an array at the end. Depending on the exact system, you may or may not arrange those rolls in any order. You may have some control, but not total control of the points you rolled.Let's say you rolled 15/14/15/12/12/12 and fancied a human barbarian. You would add +1 to Str and Con. Your job, as a barbarian, is to be an effective front line fighter. If you were to apply those racial adjustments to other abilities then you would be making an objectively less effective PC for the job role you fill.If you used point-buy, then the same criteria (be as good as I can be in my job role) applies, and you can afford the 15+1/14/15+1 in the physical stats that your role requires. That leaves you two points, which should be put in the same remaining stat.So the end PC in each character creation process is trying to fulfill the same basic job role criteria. The difference between the two methods is that point-buy's total control means that you can make the 'best' allocation of those points every time. This means that there is a 'correct' use of those points, and any other use of those points is deliberately gimping yourself.You cannot play a 'smart' or 'charismatic' barbarian in point-buy, without choosing to make yourself an objectively worse barbarian! The character concepts of 'smart yet effective barbarian' and 'charismatic yet effective barbarian' are forever closed to you, because point-buy forces you to choose between 'effectiveness' and 'ribbon'. And for a barbarian, 'smart/charismatic/' are ribbons for a front line fighter.My whole problem with what you've said on this thread has never been about which method you like. We both have acknowledged that each method has its own advantages and disadvantages. My problem is that when you say that 'point-buy lets me create the concepts I want', it misleads readers into believing that 'point-buy allows players to create whatever concept they want'. It doesn't allow them (or you) to create un-gimped smart/charismatic barbarians. And that's just one out of an infinite number of concepts that point-buy won't let players have.Although I cannot tell you what you personally want, I do note that when you use point-buy you may have to adjust your concept slightly in order to comply with 27 points, and this doesn't bother you; you still count this as 'making the concept I want'. Yet when asked to do the exact same thing and adjust your concept to match your die rolls, then this is beyond the pale!When making that human barbarian with point-buy, you have only four choices:-* be the most stupid and most foolish PC* be the most stupid and most bland PC* be the most foolish and most bland PC* be a gimped barbarian!And that will be true forever! Every time you use point-buy to make a human barbarian, those are the only four choices you will ever have. This is a very far cry from 'point-buy lets you create the concept you want'!Meanwhile, over at the rolling method, any given rolled array will only give a limited, un-gimped set of possibilities; just like point-buy. The difference is that rolling means that every time I roll a human barbarian I'm likely to get a new set of possibilities each time! I'm not limited to cookie-cutter barbarians, or min-maxed barbarian clones with 16/14/16 in their physical scores and two 8s and a 10 in their mental scores. Rolling opens up an infinite idea space of possibilities. Point-buy does not. It fails to live up to the promise that it lets players create the concepts they want.Another, perhaps minor, effect of point-buy: when creating non-barbarian front line warrior-types, point-buy results in Str/Dex of either 16/8 or 8/16. Anything else is gimping yourself. You either wear heavy armour, or light armour. There is no place for medium armour! Heavy armour lets you dump Dex, light armour lets you dump Str, and point-buy actually rewards you for stat-dumping by giving you more points to spend elsewhere.So you have a fighting population of two sets of clones: Str 16/Dex 8 heavy armour users, and Str 8/Dex 16 light armour users.Meanwhile, in the more realistic rolled population of fighting types, there are plenty of combinations of Str and Dex, many of which would benefit from medium armour!I like the realistic population better. If I'm forced to use point-buy then I'll make one or the other of those two clones, because if I don't then I've intentionally gimped myself and the party that is relying on me to do my job.</blockquote>

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