What is the best way to generate balanced d20 characters?

[Yair]

I strongly dislike throwing dice. The one time I tried it as an adult didn't pan out at all: we had one "sper character" and all the rest were "meh" characters. Not good.

I usually use the point buy from the DMG, as apparently do all, with 28 or 32 points.

For my latest campaign I'm going with a "plain points" system of 75 points, spread them as you like (between 3 and 18). The idea is that we are all experienced adult players, and I won't tell you how to play - if you want to pick two 18s and have very low other stats, go for it! It's your game just as much as mine...
I don't know how it will work out in practice, we haven't had our first session yet.

 

[Darkness]

Then they give the players 25 to 32 points to spend.

Or a little more. I've quite a few people say they use 33+ points.

Me, I use 36.

 

[reanjr]

I use:

3: -25
4: -20
5: -16
6: -12
7: -9
8: -6
9: -4
10: -2
11: -1
12: 0
13: 2
14: 4
15: 7
16: 10
17: 14
18: 18

Must add up to 0. Once you start tweaking it, it gives you nice 3d6-like scores. And as it adds up to 0 (easy to remember), it has the added benefit of giving you sort of a baseline to start with.

 

[reanjr]

I strongly dislike throwing dice. The one time I tried it as an adult didn't pan out at all: we had one "sper character" and all the rest were "meh" characters. Not good.

I usually use the point buy from the DMG, as apparently do all, with 28 or 32 points.

For my latest campaign I'm going with a "plain points" system of 75 points, spread them as you like (between 3 and 18). The idea is that we are all experienced adult players, and I won't tell you how to play - if you want to pick two 18s and have very low other stats, go for it! It's your game just as much as mine...
I don't know how it will work out in practice, we haven't had our first session yet.

I used to do that, though I usually used 70. Works out pretty well.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I tend to give my players 32 points to spend on attributes for D&D, and 28 for D20 Modern (unless it's Rifts D20, and then it's 32). I've also had good luck with a standard array, but the players prefer the point buy method.

Kane

 

[Aus_Snow]

I am *personally* not in favour of standard point-buy a la DMG, as I prefer that my players have the potential of rolling, or choosing, stats below 8 for their PCs. YMMV of course, but there have been some great chracters with a stat or two of 3-7, in certain campaigns so far - actually, including two current ones, off the top of my head.

On the other hand, that chart listed by reanjr, or something in a similar vein at least, seems workable to me. You've got the full range of 3-18, as the rest of the game system was (arguably) designed for. And it seems in this case that stats tend to average 12 or so --- not a bad thing, because I imagine the "4d6, drop lowest die" method averages about teh same . . . ?

The array system mentioned, which I thought was the elite array, not standard (?), wouldn't appeal to me or my players either.

If I ever was to decree the use of DMG point buy for a new campaign, I'd set the points higher than 32, certainly. Maybe it's just the way people roll around ehre, but I know that 32 points wouldn't buy them anything even close to what they're used to rolling.

Perhaps just giving a "modifiers total" might work, like say +4 (even numbers only, I suppose.)

 

[monboesen]

For my next campaign I have decided to use standard point buy, but only with 23 points. When they have been allocated the players roll 6 random stat increases (roll 6d6; every 1 increases Str by 1, every 2 increases Dex by 1 and so on).

Introduces some randomness (not all fighters will be the Cha 8 kind) but allows players to have good scores where they really want them. As it at the least is comparable to a 29 point buy (and almost always more than that) the disadvantage of less control is ofset by higher but more random scores.

You can easily adjust it to your liking by changing the amount of points to buy scores and the number of random increases.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I am *personally* not in favour of standard point-buy a la DMG, as I prefer that my players have the potential of rolling, or choosing, stats below 8 for their PCs. YMMV of course, but there have been some great chracters with a stat or two of 3-7, in certain campaigns so far - actually, including two current ones, off the top of my head.

It's not a major change to allow players to choose a stat lower than 8 with 1-for-1 tradeoff-- so they could have a score of 6 in one ability score and two extra points to spend elsewhere. I wouldn't allow them to gain more points for lower scores, despite the fact that it represents an even bigger penalty; this would encourage excessive stat dumping.

 

[Odhanan]

If balance is your concern, badash, then the point buy system explained by BiggusGeekus is the way to go. 30 points is a nice, rounded medium.

Good luck with your new campaign.
Odh

 

[S'mon]

NB Point buy is much more 'efficient' than a rolled character of similar points cost, ie 32PB is much better, almost always, than rolled stats that would have a 32pt cost if bought.

I've used 35 pts in a high-powered game, that worked pretty well. I've played with 32 pts, suitable for a tough campaign, and 28 pts, suitable for a standard campaign. I think 25 pts is a bit low.

I suggest starting with a moderate PB (say 28) and letting PCs add 1 pt every 2 levels instead of 4, as an Inherent bonus (max +5 to any one stat). This seems to work well.