The minuses of pluses, the pluses of minuses.

[DamnedChoir]

The way I've seen elves, it never really made much sense to give them -2 Con, except if you want to balance things. Especially at 1st level, an Elven Wizard just...cannot survive unless he's constantly hiding and never ever lets a monster see him. Who's gonna blow a 14 on Con for an Elven Wizard so he can get a 12, and thus a 1d4+1? More likely you're looking at 4, or even /three/ hit points. A single Unarmed attack from a peasant could put him down.

Not very heroic.

I like the idea that Elves are quick, wise, and sharp now. It makes much more sense, it grooves with my mental image. They're not weak, in a way, they're better than humans, but they lack human flexibility. (I'm hoping humans still get extra feats and skills...or maybe they can swap out abilities more easily?)

All this doomsaying about how the pure plusses will cause power-creep...people /are/ aware this is a new edition, not the old one, right? You barely know the system.

Edit: Clerics are rubbish? What fresh new hell is this lie from?

 

[Ahglock]

The way I've seen elves, it never really made much sense to give them -2 Con, except if you want to balance things.

All this doomsaying about how the pure plusses will cause power-creep...people /are/ aware this is a new edition, not the old one, right? You barely know the system.

Edit: Clerics are rubbish? What fresh new hell is this lie from?

Yeah the idea of a really long lived race with a low con seemed counter intuitive to me.

Well the power creep thing is kind of true, but its power creep in a vacuum so I don't think its too important yet.

As for clerics it fits for me I've always viewed there nature loving ways as very spiritual, and that is just one aspect of there personality that came across as spiritual a lot of other things did as well.

 

[Shortman McLeod]

Don't worry, you'll still be able to generate a low ability score to put in CON if you find that kind of challenge fun.
I'd rather the save-the-princess, kill-all-the-orcs, fin-the-lost-artefact kind of challenge, so I'm happier now

I bet you play with all 18's, eh?

 

[Ahglock]

Was that necessary, I think you blew out my nasty snark fuses.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Edit: Argh, nevermind. I might have been misreading someone's intent in an earlier post...

 

[frankthedm]

Is this just speculation? I would actually think it's more likely Humans will get fixed bonuses, which would be cool for a change.

Humans are supposed to be the baseline that other creature's ability scores are modified from. If a human has a set bonus, then who is the baseline?

Now superior strains of human, like the bloodline of Númenór or another flavor of Übermensch, would be modified over the human baseline like any demihuman. Since heroic humans were supposed to be flexible, the floating bonus, which i have seen in houserules before, makes a good deal of sense.

 

[am181d]

Is "no penalties" more or less desirable when we're talking about point buy?

 

[FireLance]

Is "no penalties" more or less desirable when we're talking about point buy?

I don't see how the presence or absence of penalties would make a difference to point buy.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Actually, with Point Buy ability mods are a distinct advantage. Say, for example, you want to create a character with good DEX and poor STR. And, let's say a 32 point buy. The other stats will be vanilla just for the sake of keeping the argument focused:

No modifier Human:
08 STR - 0 points
18 DEX - 16 points
12 CON - 4 points
12 INT - 4 points
12 WIS - 4 points
12 CHA - 4 points

Now, let's make thesame character with the 3E halfling, with its -2 STR and +2 DEX:
08 STR - 2 points (10 - 2)
18 DEX - 10 points (16 + 2)
12 CON - 4 points
12 INT - 4 points
12 WIS - 4 points
12 CHA - 4 points

Notice that by picking a race according to a preconceived notion of dump stats and goodstats you can actually gain an extra four points over the human? That's not insignificant or unusual in games that normally sport at least one 18 (as most 32 point buy games do, IME).

As an aside, this uses a 3E model, which has positive and negative modifiers. In 4E, where negatives may or may not ever be part of the game, the dynamics of this argumentmay change.

 

[Woas]

Yeah, having bonuses can effect point buy. Like Nonlethal Force showed, you can buy a stat up to 16 and then, assuming that is the +2 stat for the race, bump it up to 18 for a "free" 6 points (since buying 17 and 18 are each 3 points a piece).
And then buying back the penalty stat is "easier" since you are buying those points 1 for 1.

Although this is only a problem if you apply stat bonus/penalty AFTER point buy. If you adjust the base stats (assuming a +2/-2 race: 10,8,8,8,8,6) before buying anything the bonus doesn't count for 6 extra points but only 2 and evens the field a bit.