Should point buy be discouraged?

[Stalker0]

I didn't fine min-maxing to be near the problem in 3e as it was in 4e. I think it was for the following reasons:

1) 3e is more MAD than 4e. Stats in 3e tended to do more overall for the character than 4e stats do, so playing a more general character has solid mechanical benefits.

2) 13 -> 14, costs 1 pt in 3e point buy, 2 in 4e one. This is a big one because an array of 14's (the +2 stat) is pretty cheap in 3e, but very expensive in 4th. That means if I'm going to put points past a +1 in a stat, I might as well go for the gusto. So I think general characters for more point efficient in 3e than they are in 4th.

 

[Stormonu]

Nearly every modern RPG I've run across outside of D&D has used point buy for generating abilities, to the point that random rolling seems archaic and arbitrary to me now. I feel I have far more power in point buys than in random-rolled stat games.

D&D's fixation with min/max is a sign of a much different problem in the game, one related to the fact there is little to no tradeoffs, handicaps or disadvantages built into the game; more is more is more in the game.

 

[Number48]

I once played in a game where I had a character whose highest stat was 13, and then only because of a racial modifier. It wasn't fun. The mechanics of the game should never entice you into having your own character die. I have also played in games with cheaters. Once the stat is on their sheet, they don't really have to cheat very many D20 rolls.

You can look at a group and see who might be a good character or a bad character and not know the associated stats. But you can look at a group and see who is having fun and who isn't and I bet you'll find a better correlation.

Nobody wants to be the useless guy, or be forced to either cheat or kill himself in order to avoid it. Don't make a game where that happens with frequency.

 

[foolish_mortals]

I don't ever remember seeing a character that had sucko stats from rolling the dice. We have to ask ourselves if it really matters to have super high stats or not. I had a cool dwarf fighter once who had decent stats. Still bit the dust in combat. That's life in dnd though. Made a Paladin after that, kinda nice to change a character every once in awhile.

foolish_mortals

 

[Dannager]

I didn't say a player with mediocre stats is boring far from it.

No, not outright, you certainly didn't.

What you did say is that you were only able to play your interesting character because your character had a lot of exceptional stats. It follows, then, that had your character had less exceptional stats it would have been a less interesting character.

I mean, that's what it boils down to, right? If your character was only interesting because of her high stats (or, let's say, having high stats allowed her to be interesting) then not having high stats would make that character uninteresting, or more difficult to play in an interesting way.

Please do show me where my thinking has gone astray, here.

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.

Right, but the question here is how this all supposedly determines whether your character is interesting or not.

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.

So you believe that your character would be uninteresting if she were not good at being diplomatic?

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.

Right, so your character was only interesting because she had high stats. If your character had not had those high ability scores, she would have been less interesting. It follows, then, that a character without any high ability scores must be less interesting. Wouldn't you agree? That's where this line of thinking is carrying you.

If I had lower stats and I was making a fighter I would have found different ways to make her interesting.

Oh, so high ability scores aren't a requirement for an interesting character? Then why the concern that certain sets of ability scores makes for boring characters?

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.

I'm confused, now. You suddenly seem to be arguing that conventional point-buy characters can be just as interesting as characters that rolled their stats, which was sort of my point all along.

 

[Dannager]

I don't ever remember seeing a character that had sucko stats from rolling the dice.

I do! Lots of them!

 

[Elf Witch]

No, not outright, you certainly didn't.

What you did say is that you were only able to play your interesting character because your character had a lot of exceptional stats. It follows, then, that had your character had less exceptional stats it would have been a less interesting character.

I mean, that's what it boils down to, right? If your character was only interesting because of her high stats (or, let's say, having high stats allowed her to be interesting) then not having high stats would make that character uninteresting, or more difficult to play in an interesting way.

Please do show me where my thinking has gone astray, here.



Right, but the question here is how this all supposedly determines whether your character is interesting or not.



So you believe that your character would be uninteresting if she were not good at being diplomatic?



Right, so your character was only interesting because she had high stats. If your character had not had those high ability scores, she would have been less interesting. It follows, then, that a character without any high ability scores must be less interesting. Wouldn't you agree? That's where this line of thinking is carrying you.



Oh, so high ability scores aren't a requirement for an interesting character? Then why the concern that certain sets of ability scores makes for boring characters?



I'm confused, now. You suddenly seem to be arguing that conventional point-buy characters can be just as interesting as characters that rolled their stats, which was sort of my point all along.

Are you deliberately being obtuse? I said what made this character interesting to me was the ability that her multiple high stats gave her to successful play both a front line fighter and a charismatic face as well have some knowledge skills. Our party did not have a wizard, rogue or bard. The cleric was a half hobgoblin and he didn't want to play a charismatic type face.

If I had tried to play her being all that with much lower stats it would have been very frustrating to accomplish it I would have had to multi class to be able to actually be good at those things in mechanical terms.

I am talking about this one character not every character I have ever played.

My favorite character of all time was my first 3.0 character a sorcerer who I rolled stats for and ended up with what would have been 19 point buy character.

I allow both point buy and rolling in my game and so far I have not had any issues doing so. Even if 5E doe snot support rolling and I want to play it it will be one of the first things I house rule in.

I personally don't like point buy because I prefer a more organic feel to my world where not everyone is the same I feel that rolling stats accomplishes this more. With rolling you might see a wizard built like Conan all buff and strong and a fighter with a genius IQ you don't tend to see that as often with point buys. Because mechanically a fighter does not need to be a genius IQ to do what they are meant to do and wizard does not need to be strong so you rarely see players making those kinds of choices.

Not everybody want this in a game, they want a more balanced kind of group and you know what that is fine and point buy lets you accomplish that. I am not going to say it is badwrongfun way to play. But it is not my preferred way to play.

 

[foolish_mortals]

I hate to say it but elf witches way seems more appealing to me than sitting around and calculating my characters. Makes the process produce some pleasant surprises for me as a player.

foolish_mortals

 

[FireLance]

I think point buy should be discouraged in direct proportion to how prominent (which is distinct from how important) the ability scores are.

If the first thing you tell me about your character is what his ability scores are, then by all means, discourage point buy.

However, if the first thing you tell me about your character are his class, his race, his abilities and what he did in the last game session, then who cares how his ability scores were generated?

 

[Dannager]

Are you deliberately being obtuse?

Not at all.

I said what made this character interesting to me was the ability that her multiple high stats gave her to successful play both a front line fighter and a charismatic face as well have some knowledge skills.

Look, this is how I'm seeing what you're saying.

You disagreed with my assertion that ability scores aren't the determinant of whether a character is interesting or not. Which means that you believe ability scores determine whether a character is interesting or not.

You then went on to illustrate how having high ability scores allowed you to play a character that was more interesting than what that character would have been had you had lower ability scores.

This says, to me, that characters with high ability scores tend to be more interesting than characters with low ability scores. At the same time, you've also told me that being interesting as a character is more difficult with low ability scores.

Note that I'm not using the word "useful". I'm using the word "interesting". Certainly, a character with high ability scores is more useful than a character with low ability scores. But interesting? If a desirable goal of the game is to be able to portray interesting characters, then it strikes me that this is a good argument for a point-buy system, because a rolled-stats system can produce characters with mediocre stats which, according to you, are more difficult to make interesting.

No obtuseness, just trying to understand how you're able to hold a couple of seemingly paradoxical beliefs about ability scores.