Whacked out attribute point buy

[Drawmack]

actually we are attempting to use discrete mathematics and statistics to arrive at a formula we can then use to write a program.

 

[ichabod]

Seasong: you said you were trying for a better simulation of 4d6 drop low, and disagreed with me when I said it didn't simulate 4d6 drop low. From that I assumed you were looking for an accurate simulation of 4d6 drop low. Sorry if you were offended by my criticisms of your system based on that assumption. How about we rack it up to a miscommunication and move on?

To whoever mentioned probabilities given the reroll conditions, I found this site, which appears to have figured it out already.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

To whoever mentioned probabilities given the reroll conditions, I found this site, which appears to have figured it out already.

'Twas I. Thanks for looking that up. John Kim is generally a pretty on-the-ball guy, so I'm inclined to trust his figures.

 

[Pbartender]

Seasong and everyone else:

You've made one very gross assumption... That WotC's point buy system was intended to model the 4d6 drop the lowest mechanic, or some other probability curve.

It doesn't. It wasn't meant to.

It is based entirely on one easily remembered rule of thumb...

To increase your ability by one point, you must spend a number of points equal to your current ability bonus, with a minimum of one point spent.

That's it. Pretty simple, eh?

For ability scores 9-14 it only takes one point to increase your ability by one point. To increase from 14 to 15, or 15 to 16 it costs 2 points. To increase from 16 to 17, or 17 to 18 it costs 3.

When mix/maxing a character's ability modifiers, it has always been most advantageous to take no scores higher than 14, because you are getting the most bonuses overall for the points spent.

 

[seasong]

PBartender: Is that published somewhere?

Yeah, forest for the trees. It was so close to the probability totals, I had to play with it. I'm better now.

 

[Inez Hull]

Pish, a thread on maths and stats - that's so dorky you'd think you guys were D&D players or something............

 

[Pbartender]

PBartender: Is that published somewhere?

No not really, but if you look carefully you can see a lot of those little patterns...

For gaining levels: To gain a new level, you need to gain experience equal to your current level multiplied by 1000.

For bonus spells/day from high ability: Take the relevant ability modifier. Whatever your ability bonus is, you get one bonus spell for that level and every level lower. For every four points of ability bonus, you start over... at +5 you get two 1st level spells, at +9 you get three 1st level spells, at +13 you get four 1st level spells.

Base cost of magic armor in gp: Total magic bonus squared.

Base cost of magic weapons in gp: As magic armor multiplied by two.

Yeah, forest for the trees. It was so close to the probability totals, I had to play with it. I'm better now.

I think they'd learned the lesson from previous editions that arbitrary charts are no fun.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Seasong,

Have you considered the general problem which race adjustments provide in a point-buy scenario with differing values for different attribute scores?

The problem is that all races except Orcs can finesse an extra 4 points *after* paying off their disadvantage in the straight WotC method (!). Pay your Dex up to 16, get the 2 bonus points for being an elf (saving yourself 6 points compared to the human with an 18 Dex), and then pay off your 2 point disadvantage to Con and have 4 extra points to play around with !

In a standard point buy world I don't think I'd ever want to be a human...

 

[seasong]

Hey Plane Sailing! That's at least one good reason to use the 56 points 1:1 system - no extra points, at least.

Although really... the same applies to 4d6/low, if you are allowed to arrange the attributes the way you want, you can bump your average up to around 13.5 or 14 on most average rolls.

 

[Malin Genie]

I like the idea behind it.

In practice if I were to use it I think it would exacerbate my tendency to create characters with no extreme attributes; all 12s with one 14 is quite viable under the Seasong28 system.

However, bear in mind that the more a system 'penalises' high costs the greater the value of racial bonuses and Feats like Spellcasting Prodigy. I tend to use racial bonuses not to get 18s or 20s but to get 16s and free up double the points to spend elsewhere - under your system I would get triple the points.