Point buy

[phoenixgod2000]

No one has mentioned what I use so here it is: Roll 4d6 reroll ones drop the lowest.

It was what we used back in second ed days to get characters of suitably epic character for our game. We used it for our first 3ed game when it first came out and yeah, our characters were powerful, but it wasn't hard to scale up the monsters with better stats and fights weres still pretty fair. what ended up srewing with our game was the magic item distributions which I have since gotten better at

Now I'm a player and I still prefer some method of roll your fate. I love staring at a set of rolls and whispering to them, "what kinda character are you?" to myself. rolling inspires me. I don't always get what I want, but I do always get something fun. My last character, I was thinking about a swashbuckler/bladesinger but I didn't get the stats to make him so I went with a tiefling wizard.

Despite having probably the worst stats in the party--they aren't bad, just not as good as the others--my wizard, through a combinaton of no guts no glory, effective use of scribe scroll, and imagination has saved the party from TPK's seven times!

anyone who says that rolling low stats cripples their character isn't doing something right. Any character with a few positive bonuses can be effective.

More importantly, rolling dice inspires me.

 

[genshou]

This is kind of interesting do your players enjoy it?

They do. A lot of my house rules give them something to look forward to each level (even if their character class doesn't give them anything). Plus it's a lot of fun for both the PCs and NPCs to get stronger and stronger the closer they get to 20th-level. It's kind of neat to watch the players look at their character sheets and say "Hey, remember when that clumsy, stupid Barbarian stumbled into the tavern two years ago? Look at how far he's come. Now he doesn't trip over his own feet anymore."

 

[Elf Witch]

Same thing if you played a fighter/mage or other multiple concepts. You're not going to be the best at either.



A +2 headband of intellect is the same thing regardless of the Int score of the wearer - it's equal. Furthermore, DMs are supposed to control the influx of magic items into their game - that's the whole point of "wealth by level".

Of course a straight class character is better at what they do than a multi class character. Which brings me back to why I don't like low point buys it makes it hard to multi class or play a straight class like monk.

If I played my knight as a straight fighter if I had not been interested in also having her educated and a charismatic leader then a 28 point buy would have made a great kick butt take no names fighter. But since I rolled as well as I did I was able to play a fighter who was very good at fighting but also very good at certin knowledge skills and good at leadership.

In a low magic game the wealth level is of course much lower. Not with keeping with the RAW so if you start with low stats most likely you will be keeping those low stats and +2 can make a diffrence if a PC with an 18 gets one he know has a 20 INT that is +5 to all int rolls and an extra 5 skill points if a PC has a 10 then gets a +2 that makes it a 12 and it becomes a +1 which does not compare to a +5.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Of course a straight class character is better at what they do than a multi class character. Which brings me back to why I don't like low point buys it makes it hard to multi class or play a straight class like monk.

Seems to me the monk is at fault for the latter example

If I played my knight as a straight fighter if I had not been interested in also having her educated and a charismatic leader then a 28 point buy would have made a great kick butt take no names fighter. But since I rolled as well as I did I was able to play a fighter who was very good at fighting but also very good at certin knowledge skills and good at leadership.

No, you only thought you were at the latter. Having a high Charisma has nothing to do with leadership. In the core rules, there's no rules for simulating leadership. Basically, your character might talk nice, and he won't even be that good at that because Diplomacy isn't a class skill for him.

IMO, if there was a leadership class, you would have to spread your stats appropriately. Take a decent Charisma (but you won't be Stonewall Jackson or Rasputin) and take decent physical stats (you won't fight as well as Conan) but you end up with a good combination of abilities. If you're trying to kick as much butt as Conan and be a good leader (with a good leadership class), you're going for a character that's more powerful than DnD standard.

In a low magic game the wealth level is of course much lower. Not with keeping with the RAW so if you start with low stats most likely you will be keeping those low stats and +2 can make a diffrence if a PC with an 18 gets one he know has a 20 INT that is +5 to all int rolls and an extra 5 skill points if a PC has a 10 then gets a +2 that makes it a 12 and it becomes a +1 which does not compare to a +5.

That's a +4 difference regardless of whether you have a magic item or not. If you used point buy, you can at least assign the stats the way you want.

 

[Votan]

IMO, if there was a leadership class, you would have to spread your stats appropriately. Take a decent Charisma (but you won't be Stonewall Jackson or Rasputin) and take decent physical stats (you won't fight as well as Conan) but you end up with a good combination of abilities. If you're trying to kick as much butt as Conan and be a good leader (with a good leadership class), you're going for a character that's more powerful than DnD standard.

In D&D, with class an role based systems, having a character good being really good at two different roles due to fantastic stat rolls is pretty questionable. You are supposed to be weaker of you are trying two different things so that specailists don't feel like second class citizens.

Example:

With rolls you have two fighters:

Greg: STR 14 DEX 12 CON 15 INT 11 WIS 9 CHA 9 [24 point buy equiv]

George: STR 18 DEX 12 CON 17 INT 14 WIS 12 CHA 18 [59 point buy equiv]

It is true that George could use his great stats to pick up a few levels of something like Bard, rogue or cleric to be a leader type (via Diplomacy skills) and could handle the loss of BAB relative to Greg due to his huge strength plus the loss of hit points due to his great constitution. It's true that Greg is a completely playable character in a normal D&D game.

But, honestly, which one is going to be more fun to play?

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I like a point-buy system around 28 points or so.

I am idiosyncratic, perhaps, in that when I create characters in a point-buy game the first thing I do is raise all scores to 10, and proceed from there.

I guess I like my characters to be more "competent with a speciality" than "amazing over here, incredibly terrible over here".

 

[just__al]

Sadly, Point buy is a necessity as I cannot be bothered to deal with Stat envy when somebody rolls waaaay better than the rest of the group.

For a while I did 30 but my latest campaign is 28 and it's just fine. I might eventually go with 25 for a future campaign but I doubt it as I have larger groups which occasionally leads to tougher creatures to keep up with the party's effective level (though I ususally increase the encounter level by increasing opponents) so the extra points can be useful...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I had two levels of the courtier class from Rokugn and the rest were fighter levels. Now this character came into the game at 10 level and was the front line fighter now a con of 12 only gives you a +1 that IMO is rather low for the front line fighter who is just soaking damage. Also I should point out that in this game like most of the games we play was a low magic game that meant no items to boast stats or AC and at best weapons were a +1.

What I am wondering is all this love of point buys at 28-32 has to do with the fact that the party ends up getting stat boosting items which I can see how that could really raise the power curve.

And I can play any character even one with low stats but that does not change the fact that sometimes it is just fun to play a really exceptional character.

Well, if you are also having fewer magic items than indicated by level, a higher point buy makes sense. But if you go by the RAW (including magic item occurence), a 28 point buy character will be viable with "my" array and your class selection. Con 12 isn't a superior constitution score, but can be enough for a fighter. (If I'd play a Elven Fighter, he probably wouldn't have more than Constitution of 12 - after modifiers, for sure).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If you go back to earlier editions, you'd be hard pressed to design Monk, Ranger or Paladin PCs with most "reasonable" point buy systems- those classes almost required an average stat of 14 to be effective...

If you wanted to be a monk, ranger or paladin and you rolled low, you couldn't do it effectively either.

In one regime, you have a chance of playing the monk, ranger, or paladin- slim, yes, but there. In the other, you only had that chance if the DM sets the point buy high enough. If the point buy is too low, you simply have no chance at all.

There was an ancient Olympian competitor nicknamed Beta who earned his nickname by being 2nd best in every event in which he competed- a legendarily well rounded athelete. In modern times, you could look to multi-sport competitors like Jim Thorpe. Unless your point buy is quite high, though, such a build is nigh impossible without making him stupid, impulsive, and misanthropic in the balance.

The guy had lots of levels and lots of skill ranks in various sports skills, and if you ever designed any sports feats he'd have a lot of them, too. This isn't really the place to discuss D20 Modern, or I'd have lots more to say about it.

Then lets just discuss Thorpe's ancient counterpart, the Olympian competitor Beta, whom I also mentioned. There were only a few events in those early Olympics: Boxing, Equestrian events (Chariot racing & Riding), Pankration, Pentathlon (Discus, Javelin, Jump, Running, Wrestling), and seperate Running & Wrestling events. He placed 2nd in across the board.

Did he, in game terms, have skill levels in these events? Certainly. But he also had to be graced with extraordinary physical gifts. And yet we have no evidence that the man was an idiot or misanthrope- but that is precisely the kind of tradeoff that happens with point buy.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

You'd have to reverse engineer the point buy for such an athlete. I.e. work out the likely stats and convert them to point buy. However even such a character would not be modelled by just ability scores, I would expect to see experience level, exceptional feats and athletic skills play a defining part. You could even end up with a competition where the top performers are level 15 and this guy is level 16 with lesser stats. However that would be evading the issue that the point buy total limits the raw modifiers.

Making a naturally gifted character by point buy just requires reverse engineering by the players and dm working in collaboration. It is the issue of collaboration that is the sticking point imo.