Point buy

[EyeontheMountain]

Huh... interesting idea... I'll have to experiment with this. Thanks Zog, anyone else tried anything like this?

Unfortunatley, yes, that is how I used to do characters back in 2E and early 3.0. Teh problems I have is that 18s are common as dirt. Every cleric, sorceror and wizard has an 18 in thier priomary stat, and why not? Teh cost for an 18 is very low. Evn with 4d6 drop one 18s are notall that common. And with point buy, even 40+ points, an 18 costs a lot. A +4 18 costs amost as much as two 16s, and a 16 is nearly as expensive as two 14s. So on a +points basis, a high score is a sacrifice. But with the straight assign points, a high score is relatively cost free.


And also dump stats are really really dumped in some cases. The swarf with a 6 charisma on a point buy is bad, but having a 4 or so is a lot worse. Sure this can happen with rolling, but it is not common (unless you roll as badly as I do), but the straight assigning of points seems to exaberate this. To be honestthis is a bit of a pet peeve with me. How can characters with a 4-6 in a stat be heroic?

I use 32 point buy unless I go insane and allow 40.

 

[EyeontheMountain]

Overall, I quite like using auction systems, like that found in Amber Diceless.

For D&D, d20 fantasy or the like, I prefer some kind of point buy or array system. If using anything like standard D&D point buy (which I don't), I guess I'd go for about 30-33...(?)

Could someone explain the auction system?

 

[Thunderfoot]

Point Buy methods are straight from video games - no thanks!

 

[prosfilaes]

Point Buy methods are straight from video games - no thanks!

I doubt it. The Fantasy Trip, in 1980, had a point-buy method for attributes, and I don't know that that was the first. That would predate any video game point-buy systems.

Besides which, why should we care whether the method is from a video game? Shouldn't it matter more whether it's good for the game or not?

 

[Elf Witch]

Another reason I don't like point buy is that I have never seen any PC with a stat lower than an 8. There is no reason to do it because you don't get any benefits by going lower.

With rolling you sometimes get a lower stat like a 7 or gasp a 3 and that can be a role playing challenge.

In our groups if you don't want to roll because you want to gurantee a certain spread of stats for a particular concept then most of our DMs wait to see what the other roll are and then picks a point buy you can use. It is always less than what was rolled. I would say it averages between 28 and 32. It is never higher than 32 though.

 

[Votan]

Another reason I don't like point buy is that I have never seen any PC with a stat lower than an 8. There is no reason to do it because you don't get any benefits by going lower.

With rolling you sometimes get a lower stat like a 7 or gasp a 3 and that can be a role playing challenge.

This depends on a ffew factors. Playing a highly suboptimal character in the same party as a superstar can be very annoying unless you have the right group/DM to make a funny character work. This is even worse if rolled in order.

Example:
Joe: STR 15 DEX 11 CON 3 INT 11 WIS 7 CHA 10

Frank: STR 7 DEX 10 CON 18 INT 10 WIS 13 CHA 11

Both are equally likely with stats rolled in order. Frank is a challenge as it isn't clear what class he will be. But Frank is also viable. He's probably going to be some sort of cleric unless I could figure out a way to build around the 18 CON as a casting trait. Or maybe he could be a atypical rogue.

But Joe fits no role particularily well.

Now consider Lucky Lou
Lou: STR 14 DEX 12 CON 16 INT 16 WIS 13 CHA 17

Even a high levels Frank is going to notice the difference. Joe might as well not be playing in the same party.

Now, if you use the total bonus +1 or a reroll rules it is a bit better but I've had a 12 point buy equivalent character show up. This was not ideal.

 

[Thanee]

There's no point in rolling the dice for chargen unless there's also a chance of dying.

There is... if you roll up a character with 13 as the highest score or a total ability modifier of +1 or less (I think that was it, don't have the book here), then your character dies and you have to roll up a new character.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Elf Witch]

This depends on a ffew factors. Playing a highly suboptimal character in the same party as a superstar can be very annoying unless you have the right group/DM to make a funny character work. This is even worse if rolled in order.

Example:
Joe: STR 15 DEX 11 CON 3 INT 11 WIS 7 CHA 10

Frank: STR 7 DEX 10 CON 18 INT 10 WIS 13 CHA 11

Both are equally likely with stats rolled in order. Frank is a challenge as it isn't clear what class he will be. But Frank is also viable. He's probably going to be some sort of cleric unless I could figure out a way to build around the 18 CON as a casting trait. Or maybe he could be a atypical rogue.

But Joe fits no role particularily well.

Now consider Lucky Lou
Lou: STR 14 DEX 12 CON 16 INT 16 WIS 13 CHA 17

Even a high levels Frank is going to notice the difference. Joe might as well not be playing in the same party.

Now, if you use the total bonus +1 or a reroll rules it is a bit better but I've had a 12 point buy equivalent character show up. This was not ideal.

We get to assign our rolls to what ever stat we want to just like you were doing point buy and if you truly hate your rolls you can use some kind of point buy.

I have said this many times we have had rolls that ran from 58 points to 27 points in the same game and no one whined or felt overshadowed no one felt that their character was subpar and we played these characters for two years.

For my group we love the anticipation of rolling it is a vital fun part of the game. We get togther and we each take turns rolling in front of the DM while the other players cheer us on. When the player who rolled the 58 point character the rest of us were clapping and cheering him and were as thrilled at his rolls as he was.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Hmm, there were and are games out there that allowed various versions of rolling instead of a point buy variant. It doesn't take much to realize the limitations of such methods when you try to use them in multi-player and/or MMORPG. Players would reroll or failing that they'd just scrap the character and start over. I don't think it is just my experience that average rolls tend to be more rare, i.e. above average is the real average. Also rerolls have this tendency to feature in any dice rolling system once the human dynamic is taken into account.

Ha! Back in the day before we wised up and changed the baseline to something more generous, it was a case of endless cops and robbers. Enforced and witnessed rolls versus fudging and new characters. My only remaining issue with rolling is that of how watertight the method is - can Mrs Min and Mr Max coexist, and I'll refuse to play the sidekick.

I've played 25pt buy and the problem I had with it was that our characters only had enough wiggle room to fulfill the archetype. It did make for a great cooperative experience. With the very high point buy equivalents (rolled 33+) I see unusual characters but have noticed poorer cooperation. I'd have to qualify that because that's when I'm the dm and without me playing a pc the group seems a bit more loose.

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Elf Witch all of my friends get a kick out of rolling too. I otoh get my kick out of pouring over the details of my character exercising as much complete control to get everything just right. Accepting that both styles are legit, wouldn't it be fairer for the pointbuy player to have their point buy determined before the rollers rolled?

 

[Elf Witch]

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Elf Witch all of my friends get a kick out of rolling too. I otoh get my kick out of pouring over the details of my character exercising as much complete control to get everything just right. Accepting that both styles are legit, wouldn't it be fairer for the pointbuy player to have their point buy determined before the rollers rolled?

The DMs wait to see what the average rolls are before assigning a point buy. In our games the point buy is never higher than the highest roll. It is one of the advantages of rolling if you are willing to take the chances you get the best chance of a nice reward.

I have only seen point buy chossen a couple of times when someone wanted to make sure they got the stats they needed for a concept.