point buy

[Dimwhit]

no point buy...no to rolling.

Let the players pick the numbers they want. It allows the players to constructy the character they want.

Now you're my kind of DM! I like that method. Assuming a reasonably mature group of people (I know, it's a stretch), it works fine. Heck, I don't even know what the ability scores are for the other guys in my group. What, does everyone compare scores or something? I've just never cared how good/bad everyone else's scores are. I don't like point buy, personally. Don't mind rolling.

 

[ecliptic]

I was thinking about the bonuses for point buy for doing specific things.

What about using points for other things, such as feats?

I was thinking that a feat is worth about 2 points? An extra 3 skill points worth 1?

 

[Cor Azer]

I was thinking about the bonuses for point buy for doing specific things.

What about using points for other things, such as feats?

I was thinking that a feat is worth about 2 points? An extra 3 skill points worth 1?

I considered something like that for one game, but I ended up throwing it out. Allowing for more feats theoretically can make certain prestige classes available earlier than normal (which, while at the DMs permission, can cause problems for similar feat based progressions). As for skills, it usually works out better to just spend the points to up Intelligence to get bonus skill points each level.

 

[conanb]

My 2 Coppers

Well, i'm running two campaigns right now, one weekly the other monthly. I have one where we did point buy, and the other where they rolled. I'm enjoying both games, and my players are too. So we're all having fun, but from a DM standpoint let me say that I prefer standard point buy over rolling. Let me tell you why.

In the game with rolling, we've got a pretty decent party. The problem is we have one character who came up with a real strong character. This one is also a min-maxer play style. Well that would be ok, except in combat he overshadows the rest of the party by a lot. So in order to keep him challenged in combat, which is what he enjoys most, I have to keep throwing stronger and stronger monsters at him. But I also need to design them so they are still vulnerable to the other players. This isn't so bad, it just requires a lot of prep time for sessions. It also means I can't use anything "Out of the Box" so to speak because it would either decimate the rest of the party or not be challenging to the min-maxer. I also try to balance this with situations that are puzzling or where only diplomacy will get them where they want, thus pulling in some of the other pc's talents.

Now, my other game that is point driven is much more balanced it seems to me. This is a group that doesn't have any "super-stars" on the field so to say. So they have to work as a team to take out the bad guys. This also means I can do a lot less monster-prep for them and more plot work. So I can honestly say that they're game session has a more intriguing and convoluted plot than the first, but that's because if I only have 2 hours to work on them, I'm not taking an hour to retool monster stats to challenge the party and can work for 2 hours on plot and Npc stuff.

So, from a DM standpoint, I prefer standard point buy honestly over rolling. Now if you don't mind retooling monsters to match your party (because if they had all rolled badly, i would have spent the same amount of time probably making sure monsters didn't kill them) then go ahead and roll. But be ready to have to deal with a situation where one player is a going to excel in everything and the others might not come close. So be ready to juggle his star with the other players. But once going down this road, be ready for it. You don't want to punish him for rolling well, so just be ready to adjust your monsters accordingly.

The only other tip I can give, is once the party's been around for awhile, that superstar's name is going to get banded around. The bad guys are going to begin to realize that to really take out that party they need to kill him first. This had led to some interesting battles where said super-star was on verge of death, and the others had to step up their game to save him. Just a tip from gameplay.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I don't really care if its roll or point buy, I just think the point buy in the game sucks. Barring STR which has benefits that assist each other a bit too much a 18 is no better than a 16 than a 16 is better than a 14 or than a 14 is better than a 12 or than a 12 is better than a 10 etc. Increasing the cost has no rule mechanic reason except maybe giving non-human a powerup. I don't feel any need to try to limit characters to some standard bell curve, if they want unusual stats fine they can have them, I don't need to penalize them for it.

 

[Mulkhoran]

Well, since there seems to be a major concern about rolling coming out with some players shorter than the other, just rig the system

Our group uses the following system: 1 free 18, roll 4d6 five times, reroll 1s and pairs of 2s. Roll 2 sets, pick the one you like, arrange at will.

Yes, I know it's d10+8, but it just seems more fun with the whole 4d6 thing. Yes, I know how powerful it is, but all of us that DM are willing to tweak and tuck a bit on the fly.

The system was derived by one of my friends, after an old research project in 1e/2e where he realized that all the published "heroes" of certain settings had *MUCH* higher stats than you'd ever get with the recommended generation methods at the time.

 

[Zappo]

I always use point buy when I have the choice.

• It allows me to build exactly the character I want.
  
• It doesn't require the DM to witness character creation.
  
• It makes every character balanced.
  
• 25 point buy is what the monsters' CR was tested against.
  
• It makes very high stats "special": since you need so many points, few players take an 18.
  
• In my experience, it does not lead to very similar characters any more than rolling does, unless the player is explicitly out for a clone (but then you have deeper problems).

 

[RFisher]

Last time I DM'd D&D, I gave the players the choice to use point-buy. Nobody did.

Instead of a partial-point-based system I'd prefer a fully-point-based system (like GURPS). That way you could trade off low ability scores for being better in other areas or sacrifice in other areas for higher ability scores.

(Of course, many people end up seggregating points used to buy stats in GURPS because they feel the point costs are broken. It'll be interesting to see if the new point costs in 4/e reduces such complaints.)

I've made a stab at making a fully-point-based D&D 3e, but I wasn't happy with anything I came up with. When I tried to discuss it in an online forum, I didn't get any responses beyond insults. (Granted, it wasn't the best forum, though.) And really, it was more of a lark. If I want to play a point-based system there are plenty to choose from. When I play D&D, I don't want to be point-buying.

As for letting the players freely choose: The only problem I have with that is that as a player I know that would never give myself an 18. So, I'd rather roll than pick. As DM, I don't like to use rules I wouldn't want to play under.

 

[chris7476]

Our group uses the following system: 1 free 18, roll 4d6 five times, reroll 1s and pairs of 2s. Roll 2 sets, pick the one you like, arrange at will.

I kind of like this but I do think it's a bit powerful. I might actually use this in the future but I will probably change it to 1 free 18, roll 4d6 6 times, reroll 1's and pick the best 5 for the rest of your stats.

Right now, I use what I call the point pool or linear point-buy. It's a fancy term for just giving the players a bunch of points and letting them put them wherever they want. I play in a 78 point game and I also DM an 81 point game. I also add that you can't have any score below 6 and you can only have 2 18's before racial mods and 1 20 after racial mods.

This is also a higher-powered campaign but I also have the tendency to throw things at the players that I probably shouldn't. I just hate DM'ing low levels (but I also hate starting at high levels too) so at least slightly more powerful characters makes it interesting. I've used this system for multiple campaigns and everyone seems to like it.

Overall, I much prefer some kind of point-buy system. The main issue I have with traditional point-buy though is that it's weighted. You can have a character with all 14's but you can't have a character with a score less than 8 and if you want a 17 or 18, you have sacrifice a LOT. The weighted point-buy also makes playing certain classes very difficult.

 

[Zimri]

I was balancing high stats with low starting wealth (equal to the wealth-by-CR monster table, with PC as a monster of CR = their level). The combination seemed to make PCs who started very weak compared to longer-lived PCs and became unsatisfying at higher levels. PCs suffered from "eggshell w hammer" syndrome, able to dish out huge damage but very vulnerable to slightly tougher encounters. And my group has a big spread of powergameyness; I'm hoping that PB (and now level requalisation - I just levelled all PCs up to the level of the highest PCs) will reduce the disparity in PC abilities.

Fair enough. This world takes all kinds and thats what makes it great. Thank you for answering. In groups where "he hit the critter for more than me" is something people complain about I suppose everyone being roughly equal is to be striven for.

In ours everyone or two has their "thing". Thats why when we gestalted I opted to not take cleric of Ilmater though it made RP sense. I didn't want to step on the clerics toes (seeing as how I am a monk and wisdom is my key stat I would have been doing cleric things better than her). She might not have minded but I would have.