Point buy vs. rolling

[S'mon]

I have my round-table players roll up PCs using the WoTC MasterTools generator, I frown if they roll more than a few times before accepting a roll, but as it only allows best 3 of 4d6 and you can't easily save prior rolls (and cheating is fairly obvious), I've never seen really excessive stats generated by it.

For my low-level, low-power PBEM game I encourage players to submit PCs using the Mastertools generator, alternatively they can use 28-point point buy, eg 14 14 14 14 10 10 - perfectly decent (in 3e) but not overpowered. I wouldn't allow 32-point (or more!) buy unless I was running a very different kind of game.

As point buy encourages min-maxing, I think 32-point buy creates characters a lot better than the standard best 3 of 4d6.

 

[Ma'varkith]

For my campaign I gave two options:

a) 28-point buy
b) 4d6, drop lowest, arrane as desired, with one "floating reroll" of one die

There was about a 50/50 split between point-buy and rolling. The boint-buy PCs had stats that were mostl middle-of the road, while the rolled characters had one or two good stats and a couple poor ones.

I'll probably stick with this variant.

 

[Jens]

I always use point buy. I even assign fixed HP at every new level. I don't like the different power levels that randomness generates.

I couldn't agree more. Poor rolls can really cripple a character. (Think of a 4th level fighter with +1 from Con and only 20 HPs... not even that unlikely.) The best I can think of would be to give max HPs at 1st level and after that give average HPs, rounded down at even level and up at odd levels.

I think rolling for HPs makes about as much sense as it would to, at character creation, roll a d20 and use that roll instead of the usual '10' for the character's base AC. Think about it - if it should be random how hardy someone is, shouldn't it also be random how difficult he is to hit? Yes, AC varies between characters due to Dex (and various protections, but that's irrelevant here) but HPs vary just as much due to Con. And both values are compared to random rolls (damage rolls and attack rolls, respectively) so it's not like everything would be pre-determined.

Something else: IMX just about everyone re-rolls poor results, so why roll in the first place? I mean, if you roll for HPs, and reroll (say) 1s and 2s on a d10 when rolling HPs, why not just roll d8+2 in the first place? The same goes for anyone with stat-rolling systems with a rule like "reroll 1s and 2s"... why not just use d4+2 instead of d6? The usual "4d6, reroll 1s and 2s, drop lowest" can be simplified to "4d4, drop lowest, add 6". But then some might still want to reroll 1s?

Kenjib,

I like it.

One odd thing, the lower you roll, the more you get to customize. Is that good?

That is good, yes. The more you get to customize, the more efficiently can you make use of the stats. Usually, having a good stat that you use a lot and a poor stat that you rarely use (say, Str and Cha for a fighter) is 'better' than having average stats. The increasing incremental costs of the DMG's point buy method reflect this reasonably well, I think.

 

[hong]

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.

That doesn't seem very superheroic to me. In any case, what do you really want? On the one hand, you said you didn't like point buy because it didn't give good enough stats to play paladins and monks. So I said that's not a problem, just give out more points. Now you seem to be saying that it results in stats that are too good -- but you said yourself that good stats are needed for these classes!

 

[S'mon]

rolling hp

There's no rerolling for hp in the games I'm familiar with; I just got a cleric of mine to 3rd level and rolled a '2' on the d8. Max hp at first level greatly lessens the impact of low rolls at 2nd & 3rd. Although as a player I tend to take the fixed hp (5 for a fighter etc) at 2nd level, and roll from 3rd on.

 

[SableWyvern]

Something else: IMX just about everyone re-rolls poor results, so why roll in the first place? I mean, if you roll for HPs, and reroll (say) 1s and 2s on a d10 when rolling HPs, why not just roll d8+2 in the first place? The same goes for anyone with stat-rolling systems with a rule like "reroll 1s and 2s"... why not just use d4+2 instead of d6? The usual "4d6, reroll 1s and 2s, drop lowest" can be simplified to "4d4, drop lowest, add 6". But then some might still want to reroll 1s?

Another option would be to treat 1s as 2s, or 1s and 2s as 3s. This prevents low-end abilities without increasing the chance of high-end abilities.

 

[Black Omega]

My group has generally done it either way. 32 pt Point buy or you can roll 4d6, drop lowest, no re rolls. Statistics wise, I think this works out roughly equal, on average. In my group most players choose to go for point buy, though.

since I grew up on Hero System instead of DnD, for me point buy is just about the only choice. I never grew up on rolling up characters, so I'm always happier taking control and deciding it all myself.

 

[S'mon]

My group has generally done it either way. 32 pt Point buy or you can roll 4d6, drop lowest, no re rolls. Statistics wise, I think this works out roughly equal, on average. In my group most players choose to go for point buy, though.

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.

 

[novyet]

I use a 25 point buy, it helps cut down on the rolling and rerolling plus I don't have to worry about anyone lying about what they rolled. There's nothing wrong with rolling, but all my groups have moved away from it due to the variations from one character to another. Of course I've had players tell me that they don't like point buy because it can create cookie cutter characters, since you figure out the "best" to spend X amount of points.

Of course YMMV.

 

[Buttercup]

For all of the online games I've played or DMed, we have just distributed a certain number of points.

For the real world game I'll be DMing in a few months, I'm going to modify this concept just a bit. All of the players are busy professionals, and we probably won't have time to play more than once a month for 4 hours. So I don't want to waste precious time at the table generating characters. All of the following will be done via email, before the first session.

First, no stat lower than 8 after racial penalties. Distribute 77 points. Then, write a detailed character biography. For every two of the following points mentioned in the bio, the player will get another stat point:

· Family Background—number of siblings, parents alive or dead, etc.
· Family Social Standing.
· Family or personal enemies.
· A tragedy that occurred in your family or to you personally.
· Greatest fear.
· Personality quirks.
· What your character did before heeding the call to adventure.
· A secret that your fellow players don’t know about you at the start of the adventure.
· Something your character is ashamed of.
· Something your character is particularly proud of.

This will probably create a party of players with very high stats, but I'm ok with that, since they are all role players rather than roll players.

I'm not sure why this subject has created conflict in the past. If a method works for you and your players, cool. If it doesn't, use a different one. We're all different. And that's good.