Should point buy be discouraged?

[foolish_mortals]

flumphs,

curious day yesterday, watched a guys review of Advanced Players Guide on youtube and he had a good observation: point buy for abilities lead to min maxing of characters. Which in turn leads to overpowered pcs. He stressed that you do point buy so everyone is treated fairly in the character creation process. Alternatively he said that it would be better to role a 3d6 or a 4d6 to generate characters. Yes, some people would have average characters and there would be the occasional uber character generated but it solved the problem of bland and boring min maxing.

is he right?
foolish_mortals

 

[Elf Witch]

flumphs,

curious day yesterday, watched a guys review of Advanced Players Guide on youtube and he had a good observation: point buy for abilities lead to min maxing of characters. Which in turn leads to overpowered pcs. He stressed that you do point buy so everyone is treated fairly in the character creation process. Alternatively he said that it would be better to role a 3d6 or a 4d6 to generate characters. Yes, some people would have average characters and there would be the occasional uber character generated but it solved the problem of bland and boring min maxing.

is he right?
foolish_mortals

Since I feel the same way I agree with him I really dislike the bland characters point buy usually makes.


That being said I know that some people want to use point buy because they don't want to take a chance on rolling and not getting the stats they need for the concept they want to play.

In my game I offer both options use a 32 point buy or roll and it works just fine it gives everyone the creation method they want.

One of the reasons I like to roll is often I have no idea what I want to play the rolls help me decide it is part of my creative process for making characters.

I dislike point buy for myself so much that I usually let my roommate do it for me I find it such a chore.

 

[WarlockLord]

No.

Because honestly, it's much, much worse for some guy to be a straight up worse character than "min-maxing" their stats, which are honestly not the big things to be worried about min-maxing.

 

[Dannager]

No, he's not right.

Point buy does not create overpowered PCs. If anything, point buy allows the game's designers to actually balance the game around typical ability arrays, which means that the resulting PCs should end up more balanced under point buy, not less.

You know what does create overpowered PCs? Lucky rolling. Though, honestly, not by much. It's far more damaging to the game as a whole for a character to end up with a slew of awful rolls than it is for a character to end up with a slew of amazing ones.

Also, it concerns me that you seem to believe that "bland and boring min-maxing" is a problem. Whether a character is boring or exciting is not determined by the character's ability scores. It's determined by the person playing that character. Ability scores have basically nothing to do with it.

 

[foolish_mortals]

you don't find having every player maxing out certain scores and mining the not so important ones bland and boring? I find the whole idea of everyone following the same strategy one big yawn. I like a little individuality in my players.

that said, I haven't decided if he's right.

foolish_mortals

 

[Elf Witch]

Also, it concerns me that you seem to believe that "bland and boring min-maxing" is a problem. Whether a character is boring or exciting is not determined by the character's ability scores. It's determined by the person playing that character. Ability scores have basically nothing to do with it.

I have to disagree with this. I rolled what would be a 48 point buy character once I made her a fighter. What made her so awesome was because I had such great rolls I was able to give her really decent charisma and intelligence stats.

The only stat that was not really great was t the ten I rolled I put it in dex dex because I envisioned her as plate wearing shield carrying fighter. To get the good intelligence and charisma I didn't have to sacrifice my con or my strength.

Since we were playing in a Kingdom of Kalamar game I took feats from that game that let me use my intelligence modifier to make non class skills class skills. I also took a feat that let me as a noble have a plus to my charisma based skills in a social setting.

She was my idea of a noble who was a knight well educated and versed in social niceties. So she was the face of the party.

She was also a monster in combat.

I have tried to rebuild her using a 32 point buy and it can't be done. If I give her the charisma and intelligence needed to use those feats then she is not good as a fighter. If I make her a good fighter she can't do the other things.

 

[Dannager]

you don't find having every player maxing out certain scores and mining the not so important ones bland and boring?

No. Whether I find a character bland and boring has absolutely nothing to do with its stats. If I walk in on a game of D&D and watch for an hour or two, I'll have an idea of which characters are interesting and which characters are boring, but I probably won't have any idea which were made with point buy and which were rolled up.

 

[Elf Witch]

you don't find having every player maxing out certain scores and mining the not so important ones bland and boring? I find the whole idea of everyone following the same strategy one big yawn. I like a little individuality in my players.

that said, I haven't decided if he's right.

foolish_mortals

I have had so many discussion on just what stat you need to be optimized for different classes that I see this all the time.

 

[Dannager]

I have to disagree with this. I rolled what would be a 48 point buy character once I made her a fighter. What made her so awesome was because I had such great rolls I was able to give her really decent charisma and intelligence stats.

The only stat that was not really great was t the ten I rolled I put it in dex dex because I envisioned her as plate wearing shield carrying fighter. To get the good intelligence and charisma I didn't have to sacrifice my con or my strength.

And you clearly believe that, without the good Intelligence and Charisma scores, your character would not have been interesting, or even as interesting.

Do you believe that is a supportable position? And, if so, what does that say about you, as a player? Would you have found it more difficult to portray your character as interesting if you had lower stats?

Worse, do you imagine that a character with universally mediocre stats is boring, or harder to make interesting? Clearly, you believe that higher ability scores allow you to play a more interesting character, so it should follow that having low ability scores makes it tougher or impossible to do so. That, in itself, sounds like a very good reason to use point buy.

 

[Elf Witch]

And you clearly believe that, without the good Intelligence and Charisma scores, your character would not have been interesting, or even as interesting.

Do you believe that is a supportable position? And, if so, what does that say about you, as a player? Would you have found it more difficult to portray your character as interesting if you had lower stats?

Worse, do you imagine that a character with universally mediocre stats is boring, or harder to make interesting? Clearly, you believe that higher ability scores allow you to play a more interesting character, so it should follow that having low ability scores makes it tougher or impossible to do so. That, in itself, sounds like a very good reason to use point buy.

I didn't say a player with mediocre stats is boring far from it. I play with someone who has a 6 in charisma he plays that 6 wonderfully. It represents both the fact that he is hideously scarred as well aloof and grumpy with strangers.

Here is the fact I am an excellent role player but the game has skill rolls and my DMs look at your stats and takes them into consideration when having NPCs react to them.

So with a 32 point buy if I made my fighter good at fighting which I needed to be since I was the front line fighter I would not have had the requirement charisma score to take the feat that allowed me to add a pluses to my social skills. I also would not have been able to turn those non class skills into class skills because my intelligence would not be high enough.

So I could have rolled played trying to be diplomatic to my hearts desire but I wouldn't have been able to be really good at. I would not have had the knowledge skill royalty and nobility as a class skill so since that can't be used untrained I would have no basic working knowledge of it.

And no she would not have been as interesting as a concept of an intelligent charismatic knight. With those stats I was able to make a fighter who was a terror on the field but I also got to be the face of the party the one who knew how to deal with the royal intrigues that were going on in Kabori's court.

If I had lower stats and I was making a fighter I would have found different ways to make her interesting. The fighter I played before her was basically a 25 point buy so I made a half orc who was the cousin of the party druid who was a human from a barbarian tribe called the Fhokki. She and her cousin were the last survivors of their tribe and had gone on a trail of vengeance until they killed the tribe that killed theirs. They wore finger bones aroung their neck.

I played her as fierce in battle and loyal to her companions but she was not smart and she had no patience for dealing with the mores of society. She died covering an escape for the rest of the party.