Point Buy
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Yair
Community Supporter
Personally, I prefer point-buy for its fairness. In the one campaign we tried to roll we had one monstrously powerful character, and others weak... I like the balanced feeling of it, everyone starting off on par. And I don't mind at all if people minmax in my games, so there...
Ryltar
First Post
Yair said:
See, this is exactly what I can't stand concerning PB
. "Life" isn't fair, or balanced. Why should fantasy be? I see this as an additional challenge to overcome, but not one that makes it impossible for the players to "be" the character of their choice. Randomized stats, but being able to control that randomization by being able to distribute them at will. I think this is neither unfair nor unbalanced, but rather adds to the realism of the game. But I've had more arguments about that than I care to remember 
.
Philip
Explorer
Ryltar said:See, this is exactly what I can't stand concerning PB
Well, if you really want to be more realistic, don't let your players redistribute the scores, otherwise your method is very close to point buy.
Sure it's an extra challenge, but the game already has so much challenges that I don't really care for this one.
Yair
Community Supporter
I suppose we look for different things in a game. I couldn't care less how "realistic" a gamge is. I play it as a game, and as a form of escapism, and would enjoy it less if it wasn't balanced. That's all.Ryltar said:See, this is exactly what I can't stand concerning PB
ForceUser
Explorer
We liked point-buy because it made sure all the players were generally on even footing, but we did develop a problem with it. Certain archtypes consistently emerged the more we allowed players to use this system: fighters inevitably had the 8 Cha, wizards the 8 Str, clerics the 8 Dex. It became annoying as everyone min-maxed their characters and characters with similar archtypes often had identical stats. We decided to try something a little different, a system gleaned from someone on these boards: we called it organic point-buy. Here's how it works:
First the DM determines the point-buy standard he's using for his campaign. We often go with 28 points. A player rolls 3d6 straight down in the order of the stats (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha). He might roll 11, 4, 12, 7, 10, 14. Next, he adds up the points as though he were using the standard point-buy system, adding points back for stats lower than 8. The above stats add up to a total of 10 points already "spent" - 11 (-3), 4 (+4), 12 (-4), 7 (+1), 10 (-2), 14 (-6). This character would then have 18 points left to buy up his stats as he desired, and he also gets a free one-time stat swap, such as trading Str for Cha if he wanted to be a fighter. But now this fighter has an 11 Cha instead of the 8 he'd have had if the player had used normal point buy. The stats are random enough for the DM so that not every character archtype has ideal stats, and flexible enough such that the player can still create a character he wants to play, within limits. Once stats are swapped and bought up, the character applies any racial modifiers as appropriate. If a lucky player rolls a greater than 28-point character on the dice, which is rare but known to happen, he gets to keep his uber stats and gets 4 freebie points to spend on point-buy; all characters always get at least 4 points to spend, even if they're over. In this way a player can always have some ability to tweak his starting stats.
We've been using organic point-buy for almost two years and its worked very well for us. The DMs are happy with the absence of cookie-cutter stats and the players are content to roll and fiddle. A player won't always get ideal stats for his character idea, but that's okay with us because most of us have several character ideas waiting in the wings. We have not encountered a better stat generation system than organic point-buy in our combined 20+ years of 3E experience.
First the DM determines the point-buy standard he's using for his campaign. We often go with 28 points. A player rolls 3d6 straight down in the order of the stats (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha). He might roll 11, 4, 12, 7, 10, 14. Next, he adds up the points as though he were using the standard point-buy system, adding points back for stats lower than 8. The above stats add up to a total of 10 points already "spent" - 11 (-3), 4 (+4), 12 (-4), 7 (+1), 10 (-2), 14 (-6). This character would then have 18 points left to buy up his stats as he desired, and he also gets a free one-time stat swap, such as trading Str for Cha if he wanted to be a fighter. But now this fighter has an 11 Cha instead of the 8 he'd have had if the player had used normal point buy. The stats are random enough for the DM so that not every character archtype has ideal stats, and flexible enough such that the player can still create a character he wants to play, within limits. Once stats are swapped and bought up, the character applies any racial modifiers as appropriate. If a lucky player rolls a greater than 28-point character on the dice, which is rare but known to happen, he gets to keep his uber stats and gets 4 freebie points to spend on point-buy; all characters always get at least 4 points to spend, even if they're over. In this way a player can always have some ability to tweak his starting stats.
We've been using organic point-buy for almost two years and its worked very well for us. The DMs are happy with the absence of cookie-cutter stats and the players are content to roll and fiddle. A player won't always get ideal stats for his character idea, but that's okay with us because most of us have several character ideas waiting in the wings. We have not encountered a better stat generation system than organic point-buy in our combined 20+ years of 3E experience.
Last edited:
ph0rk
Friendship is Magic, and Magic is Heresy.
Ryltar said:
It also allows all player characters to be cut from the same cloth - which is important; no one PC should just be inherently better than any other from the beginning - that isn't fun.
The benefit of pointbuy is that it allows the (intended, in my mind) restrictions of multicalssing pop up. A good many 'builds' are only viable with several very high stats.
The other benefit is it keeps the party's relative power level closer to their actual level, i.e. a 5th level party made with 28 point buy is really pretty much an average level of 5; whereas a 5th level party made with 5d6-L in most cases is more like a 6th or 7th level party.
Exceptionally high stats allows for power creep in other areas, too. For example: in a world where most every PC and NPC has the points to have a con of 18, that fireball at level 5 just isn't what it could be. In the world where 28 point buy is the norm and set hp per hit die are used per the dmg, a barbarian with a 14 con would have a max of 58 hp at level 5, a wizard with a con of 14 only 24. A fireball that hits for an average of 17.5 hp hurts a good bit more, and the classes base hit die actually matter.
IMHO, the base classes are already powerful enough at 1st level to make even 32 point buy a high-power game. It is nice to have the players actually become powerful over time, rather than start out like superheroes.
Try it sometime, you may find you like it.
ThoughtBubble
First Post
Str: 16
Con: 13
Dex: 12
Int: 3
Wis: 5
Cha: 4
This is after racial modifications. This is a character of mine generated 4D6 drop low.
Con: 13
Dex: 12
Int: 3
Wis: 5
Cha: 4
This is after racial modifications. This is a character of mine generated 4D6 drop low.
DaveStebbins
First Post
Mentioned once, but worth repeating, many people play RPGs to get away from the unfairness of life. They don't mind it if bad things happen as along as they believe the game is fair. This is important to many people.Ryltar said:
DaveStebbins
First Post
PB = cookie cutter PCs
Many people have pointed out that using point buy tends to create cookie cutter PCs with pretty much the same stats, even among PCs they create themselves. I think this is fairly understandable. Many people, when considering playing a character of a particular class, know the same archetypes and will end up making similar characters.
I'm not sure this is a problem. If people don't like having characters with similar stats, they're free (perhaps even more free than with random rolls) to change that with their next PC. If you don't like that all your PB PCs tend to have the same stats, but continue to make them up with the same stats, I guess I don't understand.
PB gives you the same choices for making characters that go against type as any other method. I think that if/when players get tired of the archetypes, then they will begin pushing the boundaries and going against type. It also helps if there are PCs in the current group that go against type. Got lots of players that use CHA as a dump stat? All it takes is one high CHA PC who uses it to their advantage (maybe making use of the leadership feat) to make people reconsider their choices when they make their next PC.
I guess my point is that point buy doesn't HAVE to make cookie cutter PCs. I think people just like playing the same group of archetypes.
Many people have pointed out that using point buy tends to create cookie cutter PCs with pretty much the same stats, even among PCs they create themselves. I think this is fairly understandable. Many people, when considering playing a character of a particular class, know the same archetypes and will end up making similar characters.
I'm not sure this is a problem. If people don't like having characters with similar stats, they're free (perhaps even more free than with random rolls) to change that with their next PC. If you don't like that all your PB PCs tend to have the same stats, but continue to make them up with the same stats, I guess I don't understand.
PB gives you the same choices for making characters that go against type as any other method. I think that if/when players get tired of the archetypes, then they will begin pushing the boundaries and going against type. It also helps if there are PCs in the current group that go against type. Got lots of players that use CHA as a dump stat? All it takes is one high CHA PC who uses it to their advantage (maybe making use of the leadership feat) to make people reconsider their choices when they make their next PC.
I guess my point is that point buy doesn't HAVE to make cookie cutter PCs. I think people just like playing the same group of archetypes.
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