Should point buy be discouraged?

[enrious]

Default = baseline.

A baseline is used for adventure/monster design.

 

[Light Knight]

I don't know if it's been said... but you can have rolled stats using point buy. Result equal footing character, randomly generated stats.

22 point buy... Roll 22d6, separate the dice by the number on the dice. Number of dice is the number of points you have towards a stat. There 6 stats with randomly allocated points. To go further old school - numbers go top to bottom, 1's are strength, 2's are con, etc...

Any points that don't distribute evenly, are either deleted (if you really wanted the chance to roll a weak character), or spent as normal to even out your character or help push it in a direction you want to go. Or for more random, roll the remaining points and distribute, continue until there are no more points.

Very interesting, the lowest stat you will have is a 10 in this case I assume?

 

[Elf Witch]

Default = baseline.

A baseline is used for adventure/monster design.

I do not think that there is one right way to generate ability scores.

In 3E the default was rolling which gives the biggest chance of a variety of stat attributes and plenty of excellent modules were able to be written.

Somethings need a default but I don't believe creating stats needs to be one.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

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

Bah. Min-maxing pre-dates point buy, and will still be here long after we move on to something beyond point buy. The only way to completely discourage it is to either remove all measurable statistics from the game, or not play.

 

[Wormwood]

Bah. Min-maxing pre-dates point buy, and will still be here long after we move on to something beyond point buy. The only way to completely discourage it is to either remove all measurable statistics from the game, or not play.

If you give a player a choice, they can choose the optimum.

For example, when variable weapon damage was introduced to D&D, the first character to use a higher-damage weapon can be accused of min-maxing.

The question remaining is: how many choices should be eliminated from the game in order to curb 'min-maxing'.

 

[Herschel]

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.

Here's an interesting tidbit on min/maxing and character creation from the book:

"The range of these abilities is between 3 and 18. The premise of the game is that each player is above average - at least in some respects - and has superior potential. Furthermore, it is usually essential to the character's survival to be exceptional (with a rating of 15 and above) in no fewer than two ability characteristics."


Where is this tidbit from? It was written by one E. Gary Gygax in the original PHB on page 9.

 

[darkwing]

In damage/round or damage/hit or something else? I wouldn't want these to be just aesthetic choices.

Think about it before you ask questions like this. When I say they should be "roughly equivalent in terms of damage" that means that there may/should be circumstances where one build would outperform the other but on the balance they contribute roughly the same damage per encounter. In other words, both builds should be viable and neither one should too often outclass the other. That's not the point though. The point is attribute scores, if too tightly integrated into combat, make this kind of balance that much harder to achieve.

 

[enrious]

I do not think that there is one right way to generate ability scores.

In 3E the default was rolling which gives the biggest chance of a variety of stat attributes and plenty of excellent modules were able to be written.

Somethings need a default but I don't believe creating stats needs to be one.

I missed the part where rolling and point buy statistically give the same spread of stats?

 

[SSquirrel]

Sample conversation:

"So how does your fighter have 18s in Str, Con, Dex and Int?"
"I rolled lucky!"
"You do remember we were all supposed to roll up here today right?"
"My dice got hot at home, I can't help it"

Point buy solves gamer cheating, b/c it's really easy to do the math and see that a point combination is impossible. I used to game w/a friend who would work herself up about playing a very specific character leading into a game. Then she would roll stats and find herself unable to play it. Then she would either make something else, whining the entire time and probably for a few sessions after or she would end up sulking and not playing at all. Yeah, I don't game w/her anymore for several reasons.

Point buy saves me from that too. She can work up exactly the character she wants, within strict limits. There was never any point buy in RIFTS and that certainly produced enough min/maxing to last a lifetime I can't roll for crap. My Daggermaster Rogue would frequently only need a 4 or better on a charge, sometimes I could hit my target so long as I didn't roll a 1. I miss WAY more than I should. My wife can roll multiple 20s every session and if we actually roll 4d6 drop lowest....she can roll one of those 3 18 characters legit in front of the DM. Meanwhile 2 of us got lucky to have a 16 and only 3 numbers are double digits.

Point buy gives a certain understood level for the game. I tend to min/max, freely admit it. My rolls suck too badly to not pick up every bonus to hit I can finagle. I have other friends who don't want any single digits and will happily knock down that prime stat a bit and spread the love around, b/c they don't want any low defenses and want to be all around good. Point buy doesn't promote min-maxing, it promotes being able to shape your character more closely to what you want. I actually was pretty against point buy in D&D prior to 4E, but I'm happy with it these days.

Obviously, YMMV.

 

[Hassassin]

Again I bring up why do we need a default? I really feel that defaults imply this is the best way to do something. The recommend way.

Firstly, a default is in my opinion needed for convention games and so that new players don't have to make yet another choice when they start playing.

All the "default options" should still be balanced - i.e. generate on average about equally powerful characters. The fact that something isn't a default makes it no more difficult for experienced groups to use it.