Point buy vs. rolling

[Roland Delacroix]

Point buy. Whenever i play in a game that rolls we inevitably get someone who rolls what would be a 23 point character and another guy guy who rolls a (last game) 56 point character. I could make up an obscure semi roll/semi point system, or supervise all characters stats, or just turn to page 21 in the DMG. I'm inherently lazy too BTW

Another upside is that you can assign a point buy for your players and let them make thier characters on thier own time. 32 points, PHB, 3rd level be ready to play at 6:00 on Sunday. Go to.

 

[Creamsteak]

Sir Osis, I use point buy...

It keeps munchkins from showing up the good players, and it generally makes things much simpler...

I do roll for random NPC's however... I feel they need that organic touch...

 

[Squire James]

IMC, each PC starts with the standard array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) then adds 5 points where they want them. Not "point-buy points"... just add them in. No score is allowed to exceed 18 before racial mods, of course.

This tends to yield characters with 2 great scores (18, 16, ...) or about 4 good scores (16, 14, 14, 14, 10, 9). There's always an odd number in there, and there's almost always clear strengths and weaknesses to each character. It works surprisingly well.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I like point buys. I just don't like d&ds scaling cost point buy.

 

[SableWyvern]

Has anyone tried a hybrid model? For a rough examle/first draft:

I'm a big fan of dice for stats. However, I'll be running a short campaign in a few months where I want the players to be guaranteed a few good stats and no terrible ones. Thus I plan to use a 22 point buy, plus three d4s that can be allocated (in whole dice, and before rolling) to any stats. I'm going to limit the point buy to a max of 16, and a max of 18 after the d4s are added.

 

[gubaru]

I prefer rolling. I'm more of an egalitarian than an equalitarian. But I think I'll try kenjib's method the next time I start a new game.

 

[Ace]

Hmm. That would probably work insofar as making viable paladins and monks. But 40 points make for some pretty superheroic stats in my book. Examples: 16 14 14 14 14 14 or 18 16 14 12 10 10.

Superheroic? No wonder you are a cohort

Those stats are average for a hero, Now I do tend to discourage the 16 prime 14 everything else character as they seem to balanced.

FWIW My standard characters for quicky games are something like this

Fighter 18-12-10-14-17-10
Cleric 12-14-18-12-14-17
Wizard 10-18-10-10-14-14
Rogue 12-14-12-18-`14-15
Sorcerer 12-14-10-12-14-18
Ranger 17-14-16-15-15-10
Paladin 17-14-16-12-14-17
Druid 12-14-18-12-14-15
Barbarian 17-12-12-14-17-10

If I were to use points Isay 40 or so, maybe the 30+2d6 or something.

 

[GuardianLurker]

Another Hybrid

I like the Roll-and-Compare method; it seems like it'd work well.

Here's another possibility for those of you who don't like the point-buy system. For lack of a better name, I'll call it the "Build-as-you-go" Method.

1. Every character starts with a 7 in every ability.

2. Apply racial adjustments.

3. Each player receives a pool of 12d6.

4. Assign an order to the abilities.

5. You roll dice one ability at a time, and once you move on to the next ability, you can't spend any more dice on the previous. You can spend the dice one at a time.

6. Any ability with a result higher than the racial max gets chopped.

Examples :
Human Fighter
Ability Order Str, Con, Dex, Int, Cha, Wis
Rolls :
Str : 7 + 1 + 2 + 1("I wanna fighter!") + 5 + 6("What a waste")
Con : 7 + 4 + 3 + 1
Dex : 7 + 1 + 6
Int : 7 + 5
Cha : 7 + 2
Wis : 7 + (0)

Result :
Str 18, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 12, Cha 9, Wis 7

Elven Rogue
Ability Order Dex, Int, Cha, Con, Str, Wis
Rolls :
Dex : 9 + 3 + 2
Int : 7 + 6 + 6
Cha : 7 + 4 + 3 + 2
Con : 5 + 4 + 6
Str : 7 + 3 + 2
Wis : 7 + 4

Result :
Str 12, Dex 14, Con 15, Int 18, Wis 11, Cha 16

Basically, it guarantees a base (7), and allows players to ensure that the abilities they care about are high, but should still allow plenty of "quirky" characters and rolling.

Thoughts?

 

[Darklone]

How I do it.

Has anyone tried a hybrid model? For a rough examle/first draft:

1. Roll 3d6 for each stat in order and take all scores where they fall - no rearranging or reassigning.
2. Spend 12 points as per point buy rules to increase the rolled stats. You gain no benefit from decreasing a stat below the value of your initial roll.

I combined it usually in a different way. I let the players create 3 chars and give them 3 methods to create them, a rolling, a hybrid and a point buy.

But still I got a char with 3 16s and others with only one 14.

 

[The Allamistako]

My group uses Point-buy. We all decided it would be best, seeing as everyone tended to role charas with not a single stat under 16. And after Marcus refused to play a chara he just rolled (can you belive the guy rolled SIX 18's...), we just went for point buy...

-Alla