Point buy vs. rolling

[Zarrock God of Evil]

I use rolling exclusively as it portrays the fact that we are not all born equal. People are born with different abilities and even though most of us probably cut an average norm, others are simply superiorly gifted from birth.
To add to that - people are brought up in such vastly different ways and with vastly different opportunities that making everyone equally skilled overall seems ludicrous to me. I will never play with point-buy or participate in a game using it....
But then again, I am not a man of compromise....

-Zarrock

 

[Henry]

Our group has used so many different rolling methods that we do not hold to any one method. Each DM has his preference.

We have used point-buy, 4d6 7 times drop lowest die & lowest score, 4d6 7 times, drop lowest die AND choose best of the seven sets, 4d6 drop lowest die (standard), and for one particularly nasty game, 3d6 straight! I usually like the standard 4d6 method, though I still occasionally get some players who feel that their scores are too low.

We still have some holdovers who feel that their characters are failures unless most scores are 15 and up - don't know why, since everyone has had a chance to play the game.

However, I do disagree with people who think that a PC made with any point-buy over 25 is a "superman." I even run a Star Wars game that uses a 36 point-buy for creating PC's, and the characters still have to struggle prolifically against the enemy (Yuuzhan Vong - the first time they met a Voxyn (Jedi-hunting creature) last game it scared their little Corellian Blood stripes off!) In Star Wars this isn't so bad, because there are no magic items to boost your character up to insane levels of Attributes. Even in D&D, 36 point buy will give you all 14's, or at worst it will give you 2 18's, two 10's, and two 8's, or 3 16's and 3 10's - hardly game breaking and still within the realm of challenging.

A 25-point buy will give you 16-14-14-10-9-8 - still game-breaking by some standards - and still good enough for a Monk. (S-14 D-16 C-10 I-9 W-14 CH-8, or the 14 14 11 14 10 10 for those with a well-rounded agenda.)

 

[Psion]

If the players aren't cheating, 32-point buy gives much higher stats on average than straight 3/4d6 no rerolls. The average on 3/4d6 method is 12.5x6, about 27 points, although typically 3 of those points are 'wasted' on odd numbers, hence the DMG recommended 25-point buy, which allows for eg 15 14 14 10 10 10. I use 28-point buy since I allow rerolls on the 3/4d6.

I don't think a straight up comparison of point totals tells the whole story. Not only will you have those odd points as you mentioned, but you might also have points tied up in stats that are less than perfectly optimum for your character. Which I prefer.

 

[BluWolf]

My campaign uses either 4d6 drop the lowest no 1s or a 32 point buy system. Player's choice.

I'm not really concerned with high or low scores, just ensuring the player gets a character he or she wants to play.

I enjoy high adventure games but I adjust to the group.

I'm usually pretty stingy on treasure and magic items so I find ensuring the PCs have above average scores helps keep them around.

As a player I prefer to roll unless I'm just dead set on a particular character concept for a particular campaign.

I have a tendency to play quickish rogues so I force my self to roll stats in order these days to come up with something new each time. It just forces me to branch out once in awhile.

 

[S'mon]

I don't think a straight up comparison of point totals tells the whole story. Not only will you have those odd points as you mentioned, but you might also have points tied up in stats that are less than perfectly optimum for your character. Which I prefer.

I'm not sure I follow you. With rolling you'll only have points tied up in sub-optimal stats if you're not allowed to arrange stats as desired. Even with point buy you may have a single 'wasted' odd point, especially on 25-pt buy.

BTW re sub-optimal stats, I have an undead-hunter cleric PC. He only has WIS 14, but CHA 16 and STR 17 - handy for turning undead & whacking them with Bull's Strength. It depends a lot on the character concept.

 

[Petrosian]

In the game i currently run, which i inherited, we used CHARGEN rolling with one guaranteed reroll and otherwise rerolls per the PHb minimums. Once i took over, at third level, we switched to HIGH AVERAGE for HP (d10 HD gives you 6 HP.)

In the game i am playing in, we used a 32 point buy and use HIG AVERAGE HP.

In the next game i run, we will use a point buy and HAvg hit points as well. (I have not yet decided on the specific point buy yet.)

To me the benefits in balance between PCs, no worries about "remote" design or did they fudge or did they not (penalizing the honest) and making the lucky suspect, and being able to tailor the stats/numbers to the background/character (as opposed to trying to make the character fit the rolls) vastly outweigh the downsides of "similarity" in numbers.

As for the similarity in numbers, since my players take different tracks depending on the character to the whole MAX ONE vs BOOST MAHY thing, I don't see the SAME set of numbers every time.

The issue i have with the current system is it seems to really hammer high end stats. While i can see this for a meat grinder bash 'em all campaign where the 18 strength 18 CON fighter would be far superior to the same guy with more balanced stats... in a game with a variety of challenges and events a difference between a strength of 18 vs 16 (+1 hit/damage) is not worth losing the +3 bonuses you could get by applting those 6 points as +2 to three different stats in the 8-12 range.

 

[Metallian]

Have used random, will use point buy

I had my players roll randomly out of force of habit, but now I wish I hadn't. All of them have obscene stats. My gf even rolled hers legitimately (I watched). She always rolls like that, though.
=(

It's hard enough to gauge their power effectively (given the standards in the DMG and such) since it's a big party, but since nobody has a stat under 11 and everybody has at least one stat of 18 or above, it's *really* difficult.

I think it is kind of odd that a game that bends over backwards to "balance" the classes, races, and levels in the game uses random resolution for two of the most important character qualities in the game (ability scores and hit points). It's like all of that work to create game balance is for nothing! There's an assumption that the averages will work themselves out (and they should! I know my probabilities, dammit!), but I have never seen this happen in practice.

So next time, I'll use point buy. I haven't decided which type of point buy, yet. I will probably also come up with some sort of fixed method of determining hit points per level as well. Randomness (via the d20 & damage rolls) in task resolution is good enough for me, I don't need it in character creation as well, especially not in a game that emphasizes balance so much.

The Metallian

ps - Somebody said they could "never" play in a game with point buy and fixed hit point advancement, but they never said why. Care to elaborate? I'd like to hear the argument for the other side....

 

[Metallian]

Another solution

I actually came up with another solution a while back, but I'm still not sure if I'd like it in practice or not.

I wrote a program that rolls 4d6 and drops the lowest over and over again until it comes up with a set of ability scores with a certain total of ability score modifiers.

So If you plugged in "+0", it would give you 6 10s, or 4 10s a 12 and a 9 or something like that. You could also plug in +5, -2, or +24 if you wanted (good luck rolling that, though...it automatically shuts down after a certain number of rolls in order to keep it from getting out of control trying to roll wildly improbable combos).

That way, you can make sure that all of the ability score sets rolled are balanced with one another (except for the whole "even/odd" thing, perhaps), but they will not necessarily be min/maxed.

Thoughts?

The Metallian

 

[Fenes]

Point buy. Everyone should be on equal footing. The alternative method I have use is "bring your own character, no questions asked" with rebalancing done by the DM through stat-rising of other chars, item distribution, class perks etc.

 

[Fenris]

I use a hybrid system wherein I have made up 12 sets of stats that are all equivelent. The players roll a d12 and I give them the stats and they assign them as they like. Some randomness but I know no one is too overbalanced. I control all of the min/maxing. Some of the sets have 17s &18s but most are well balanced. We have played several campaigns with this system and all of my players are quite satisfied with it. You can then set any level of points and varibility within sets if you like as well.