Point Buy

[Ryltar]

As a DM, my method of choice is 7 x 3d6, drop lowest roll. This alleviates some of the worst problems players with "too low" stats tend to face, and makes for balanced characters. I agree that 3d6 can be too harsh, but this is a question for another time: can you roleplay your character effectively, even if he sucks in combat and social interaction? I say yes, though the majority of players might disagree. To entirely skip that rather pointless debate, I use the method mentioned above.

 

[takyris]

I prefer point buy -- in a PBP game, I was surrounded by people who had rolled wonderfully, while I had no score higher than 13. Not fun. If other characters get a bonus for doing something intelligently or having a better plan or using magical items, that's one thing. But having somebody get a permanent +2 on something relative to my character because they rolled well once? Not fun. No real roleplaying question to it.

 

[Dungannon]

For PbP, point buy is all I've used as it seems the "fairest" method in that style. For tabletop games, however, I've always used the 4d6-L method. One reason is that one of the house rules is that the DM is present for character generation. I've never had a player complain, and usually they are glad they have a witness when they actually get an 18.

 

[Philip]

I absolutely despise point buy character generation. IMO, it generates characters that tend to have more "balanced out" stats than those just rolling the dice, which makes for a more "realistic" generation method: each character has strenghths and weaknesses, and has to build upon them regarding the choice of race and class.

I once felt as you did, but then switched to point buy and loved it. RPG is for me not about 'forcing' the players to play something they might not be comfortable with, but to let them play something they would like to play.

I had a player that was forced to play a (rolled) Int 6, Cha 17 character, while his natural playing style was more like Int 17 and Cha 6. It was impossible for him, and weird for the others players because he kept breaking out of his 'role' forced upon him by the rolled stats.

When I look back when my players were rolling for stats, I often allowed rerolls, because you can't go out and make a whole party of Wizards when the dice just happen to fall in favor of Intelligence and not in favor of Strength.

Additionally, I think the 24 rolls at the start of a career shouldn't have a 100 times as big an impact as all the subsequent rolls made in the game.

Whether 4d6-L is statistically equivalent to 40 point-buy? Depends on the characters you want. If you like a character with scores between 16 and 18, probably, yeah. If you don't need that kind of ability scores, then it's not.

 

[Seonaid]

I agree that 3d6 can be too harsh, but this is a question for another time: can you roleplay your character effectively, even if he sucks in combat and social interaction? I say yes, though the majority of players might disagree.

I say yes also, and add that if you role-play well, you should level as easily as groups (or individuals) that are entirely combat-oriented. There is the option of giving XP purely for roleplaying.

To be honest, I don't like the freedom of point buy. It makes me nervous that I'm being given the opportunity to completely make my character from scratch. The best part of rolling is the randomness of it. I have never made a character to fit my rolls, and if I ever had a character whose concept didn't quite fit the ability scores, well, that's life. I played her (or him) to the best of my ability given her (or his) limitations and strengths. I understand and respect the drive of some people to play something they cannot be in life (that is, superhuman), but it's never been part of my motivation.

Whenever I've had to do point buy, I always rolled first, then evened out my numbers to match the point buy.

My favorite stat-generation method is 4d6-L, rearrange to suit. I don't like the idea of being stuck with six rolls in a row, though I realize that rearranging can be . . . munchkiny.

Edit: I should add that I have never DM'ed, and can see the point about making it easier to create NPC's. I'm not sure how I would do it when I DM. I'd probably ask the players and take a vote, or something.

 

[francisca]

We're currently using two methods: 4d6, drop lowest and the "more elite" array:

Start with 15,14,13,12,10,8. You have 3 points to assign. if you really want an 18, you can have it.

 

[Spamdrew]

Players love rolling stats. Therefore I found that an interesting way to do it is to have everybody roll up a set of 6 stats using 4D6-L and then put them into a pool and let the players divie them out. Just tell them before the game that if their character dies they have to make a new one using point buy equal to the point buy of their old character to prevent one player taking all the stats.

Spamdrew

 

[Thanee]

I think 4d6 drop lowest is roughly equivalent with 28-32 point buy.

Something like 16 14 14 12 10 8 is pretty common with 4d6 drop lowest.

Of course, if you roll like I do sometimes (last char 18, 17, 17, 15, 12, 10 or 56 PB )...

With PB you have the big advantage to actually get the stats you want (i.e. 18 caster stat is always possible, at least at that PB range, altho an 18 is quite costly).

So I'd say, 32 PB is already better than 4d6 drop lowest (on average).

32 PB really is only at the low end of the high power scale.
5d6 drop two lowest is already quite big, so those two can hardly compare.

Bye
Thanee

 

[nopantsyet]

I had my players do point buy a few times. I don't any particular problems with it. My players like rolling better, so that's what we do. I do like powerful characters, however I like them to also have a mix of scores. So I let them do 4d6-L twice and pick the set they like the best. That provides good protection against useless scores; I have yet to see a bad character come out of that process. Typically the players end up choosing between a set with a higher average score and one with a one or two extraordinary scores. It gives the players a really flexible starting point and the parties tend to be balanced enough.

 

[drothgery]

In my experience, nearly all characters created by actually rolling dice are "better than average" relative to what "should" happen according to probability and statistics, primarily because most DMs will let you re-roll a bad set of scores (or an average set when everyone else rolled a well-above-average set).