Point buy

[Pbartender]

An insteresting treatise on the various methods of ability score generation throughout the history of D&D.

It sums up my thoughts on the matter pretty well...

When I use the standard point buy, I uually use something around 30 or 32 points.

Trouble is, I find point buy boring. Most 32 point Fighters will have almost the exact same stats as any other 32 point Fighter, and so on...

I prefer the "Organic" method dice rolling, usually... 4d6 drop the lowest, six times in order. Reroll any one ability score, then you may swap any two ability scores.

On top of that, I let them reroll their set of ability scores over as many times as they like... However, any unused sets of scores must be turned into NPCs by the player.

It gives enough flexibility that you can be good at what you want to be good at, but enough randomness so that you might have to deal with a odd score that you normally wouldn't have assigned to a particular ability.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I detest point buy. Bunch of everyone is equal politically correct crap. So what if Joe the fighter has 2 18s and Sam the ranger has 4 3s? Suck it up and play!

Besides, you lose the joy of getting an 18 or the rare instances of truly powerful characters (or truly crappy characters which can be just as fun to play) with point buy. Woohoo! I got an 18! And 5 10s.

 

[Deadguy]

I detest point buy. Bunch of everyone is equal politically correct crap. So what if Joe the fighter has 2 18s and Sam the ranger has 4 3s? Suck it up and play!

I had a little bet with myself that it would be you who would bring this up. It always appears in any discussion of Point Buy. No, life isn't fair. But this isn't life: it's a game. Would Monopoly be improved if starting money was determined as 4d6 x £50, and getting 4d% pounds each time past Go?

For choices to be meaningful, you need to start from a similar base. Otherwise Sam's job is to stumble along trying to stay alive, whilst Joe gets to do the heroic stuff. I've only gamed with one player who espoused your position, and I note that he wasn't ever the one playing with the subpar character...

 

[Dagger75]

Now I'm confused, you posted twice saying opposite things...strongly.

I use 44 point buy, but stats start at 8, so it's the same as 32.

I was just finishing off the song. My bad.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

An insteresting treatise on the various methods of ability score generation throughout the history of D&D.

It sums up my thoughts on the matter pretty well...

When I use the standard point buy, I uually use something around 30 or 32 points.

Trouble is, I find point buy boring. Most 32 point Fighters will have almost the exact same stats as any other 32 point Fighter, and so on...

You must have very different players from mine, then. In my last campaign, the gunslinger (think archer) had Con 10 and Charisma 14 ... and he was human (not an elf!). We use 28 point buy.

For die-rolled PCs, I saw the following trend for fighters: highest stat into Strength, second highest into Con, third highest into Dex... I think this looks familiar.

 

[Ourph]

When I was still running D&D3x I generally used 28pts for PC groups of 4 or less, 25pts for PC groups of 5 or more.

I once played in a 3.5 game with 40pt buy and found that power level thoroughly unenjoyable.

 

[werk]

I detest point buy. Bunch of everyone is equal politically correct crap. So what if Joe the fighter has 2 18s and Sam the ranger has 4 3s? Suck it up and play!

Sounds like the opinion of someone who has only gotten 2-18s or has never gotten 4-3s.

 

[lukelightning]

Is there any rule that says "once you start making up a character and roll stats you must keep the character?"

If I was rolling stats and got 6, 8, 15, 12, 4, I'd say "he died in birth" and start a new character, rinse, repeat, until I got stats I liked.

 

[Pbartender]

You must have very different players from mine, then. In my last campaign, the gunslinger (think archer) had Con 10 and Charisma 14 ... and he was human (not an elf!). We use 28 point buy.

Well, there's always exceptions...

But Con and Cha on a ranged combatant aren't very telling. I'd expect, though I could be wrong, that he had a 17 in Dexterity, and two more 10s and an 11 left over.

For die-rolled PCs, I saw the following trend for fighters: highest stat into Strength, second highest into Con, third highest into Dex... I think this looks familiar.

Yup, it does... And in general, the trend holds true for any ability score generation method in which you get to choose where all your ability scores end up, whether it's point buy or 4d6 drop the lowest and arrange as desired.

Which why I prefer the "Organic" method which leaves most of the dice-rolled ability scores in order, but allows you to swap a high score into the key ability you want it (or need it) in.

 

[Pbartender]

Is there any rule that says "once you start making up a character and roll stats you must keep the character?"

If I was rolling stats and got 6, 8, 15, 12, 4, I'd say "he died in birth" and start a new character, rinse, repeat, until I got stats I liked.

The official D&D 3.X rule of thumb is: If the sum of your ability modifiers total less than +1, or your highest score is less than 13, you may reroll.

So a 6, 8, 15, 12, 4 is already at a total of -3. Unless you get an 18 for that last ability, you can reroll the whole thing.

Correct me if I'm wrong.