Point buy

[Pbartender]

Reminds of an old Knights of the Dinner Table comic were Bob and El-Ravager rolled over 1000 characters up one weekend before they got the stats they wanted.

Yup... I remember doing that with some of the older D&D computer games. Sitting for hours on end, rerolling random characters until you got that 18/00 Strength for each of your three fighters.

That's the point of the "make it an NPC" rule... It puts a sort of limit on how many times the players are willing to reroll their characters.

 

[diaglo]

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...

and it is almost correct. there is a bit of information left out on the OD&D(1974) stat generation method. but it is close enough.

 

[kigmatzomat]

4d6, reroll 1s, drop 1. Last month I still watched a guy roll up 3 sets of stats with the high stat being 14 and the total modifier of +1. I had one player that managed multiple 6s on a character using that approach.

I'm switching to point buy just because of the karma variation in the players. Obviously one of them just barely missed out being turned into a cockroach.

 

[Uder]

I let the player choose - 28 points, or roll 4d6 seven times and pick the best six scores. I freely switch between nonelite, elite, 28 points, 30+ points and completely random when making NPCs.

 

[Votan]

dice, dice, baby.


3d6 in order

Does that actually work with 3E? In AD&D you tended to have fewer penalties and bonuses due to requiring more extreme scores to get them so having a str 12 Dex 10 Int 8 Wis 9 CON 11 Cha 8 was a perfectly acceptable figher.

In 3E I had 14, 12, 10, 10, 8, 8 as stats the one time that I rolled. In the same group another player had the equivalent of 37 point buy. It was a very annoying experience and taught me to suspect dice methods alot.

I think the elite array is undersold!

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Every campaign does something different. Currently do 5d6 with a 32pt buy safety net. Next time will be ???

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I never trust the 4d6 drop lowest method. I am fairly certain that most players reroll a lot until they get some nice results - unless, off course, their DM watches them closely.
I would probably do the same, or most likely make up a 32 point buy character (secretely) in that case. Yes, that would be cheating, but I don't care in that case. The whole system feals like cheating to me, anyway...

We had one campaign where we made 30 point buy characters, two with 28 point-buy, and otherwise always use 25 point buy. Yes, it easily makes characters with similar ability scores, but due to the other customisation options for D&D characters, they still never come out alike.
And often enough, when I see 4d6-dl characters, it appears to me as if they always have a 18 or 17 in them, and I think that makes them as cookie-cutter as the typical 25 point buy array (which is often close to the elite array).

I think a lot of the high powered super-multiclassing exotic feat combination powergamer monsters that people fear are a direct result of high ability scores caused by generous dice rolling or extreme point buy value. It is so much easier to fulfill feat and skill prerequisites if your have strong ability scores. You can also compensate temporary weaknesses better with them.

On the other hand, I think in regular play, high ability scores might be seriously overrated.
We regularly play published adventures with 25 point buy characters, and don't have any more problems than groups with higher point-buy value characters seem to have. Maybe we need to fight extremely tactically and need to min/max a bit more than others, but in the end, it is still fun and we kill our enemies and take their stuff just like everyone else.

All that said, I would probably prefer 28 point buy, with an occassional glimpse into 32 point buy, just to see how it is to have AWESOME ability scores.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

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...

Lol. Am I that predictable?

I've played both types and everything in between. Sam can still be a fun character to play. I would, however, allow Sam's player to reroll if he rolled COMPLETELY crappy, and had, say: 6,3,3,9,11,4 compared to Joe,s 18, 18, 14, 11, 16, 16.

It's not even the randomness that turns me off point buy. With 3d6, or 4d6 drop lowest, an 18 MEANS something. Plus low stats get played. No one ever plays a 6 charisma unless he's a dwarf or half-orc. No one EVER plays with a 3 in any stat. People miss a lot of fun imo.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

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

Nope. In fact, one of my favorite characters had a 3 intelligence and charisma, and something like a 5 wisdom. I DID make him a fighter, so it didn't hurt that much, but he was a blast to play. He always screwed the party's parley's over by saying the wrong thing, was always setting off traps and generally hovering at 0 hit points due to stupidity more often than not. But he was fun to play!

 

[MarkB]

Although D&D is based largely on random rolls, these days I much prefer point-buy. A bad d20 roll in combat is easy enough to live with, as you'll get to make another one next round, but a bad set of rolls during character creation is something you'll have to live with for months, and that simply sucks. The potential thrill of getting an exceptionally good set of rolls is a fleeting reward, and not nearly sufficient compensation.

Before going to point buy, our group generally used 4d6, rerolling 1s, drop lowest. These days, I use 32 point buy, which is reasonably equivalent.