What is the least amount of Point Buy you'd play with?

[IronWolf]

Higher stats allow for more heroic action potential.

It is heroic to tell the party that, as the fighter, you are going to hold the gate and let everyone run underneath, then try and get underneath yourself. However, the rules tell us if this fighter does not have enough strength, his heroism will fail.

However as a *party* of adventurers they can *still* be heroic when the party wizard suggests propping the gate to allow the fighter easy passage underneath. A little teamwork can easily lead to heroic acts.

 

[Technik4]

That's also true. But I imagine it would get old rerolling characters only to suffer heroic sacrifice because of low stat possibilities.

I agree that low stats can be fun and the game can be played as written. I simply believe that giving heroes higher scores in abilities they don't use directly results in more character options (more skill points, more feat access, easier to take on a challenging MAD class, etc) without necessarily turning up the power level of the game ('oh, now I have to give the monsters and NPCs higher stats').

Technik

 

[Crothian]

That's also true. But I imagine it would get old rerolling characters only to suffer heroic sacrifice because of low stat possibilities.

But think how great it will feel when one of those characters does make it. It is not as fun to know that my character has a good chance to win. The times I remember are when the underdog beat the odds and made it through dispite thier limitations. It gets old playing Hecules beating up goblins all the time.

 

[Technik4]

The times I remember are when the underdog beat the odds and made it through dispite thier limitations.

Can't you be the underdog with higher stats?

Technik

 

[Crothian]

Can't you be the underdog with higher stats?

Technik

Not as easily, and not as much. Unless the DM is rewritting the MM and all the NPCs with similiar higher stats to compensate whicxh seems to defeat the purpose of the higher stats to begin with.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I voted 25 points though I prefer 28-32 points.

I've built characters on 22 points (a cohort for Living Greyhawk) but I don't like the way lower point buys (like 22 points or less) force characters to really really dump "non-essential" stats to be effective. The ranger/rogue cohort I made had 12 str, 15 dex, 14 con, 10 int, 10 wis, 8 cha which is enough to be a marginally effective melee rogue. Drop those stats any lower, though and in order to be an effective combatant, she needs to have an 8 int and an 8 wis as well. (Her strength can't go down because she needs to be able to carry a chain shirt, rapier, and a couple other things and still be at light load; dex can't go down because she needs AC and to be able to hit things, and con can't really go down because rogues need all the hit points they can get). I don't like my characters to be so one-dimensional.

Also, I suspect that the extremely low point buys would screw up some of the game's balance. At low point buys, stat increases like rage are more significant. Also, spellcasters have a lot fewer effective options--if you've an 11 int for your wizard, you'll never get 2nd level spells and your DCs are 11--13 if you have greater spell focus. Since that means your foes will usually have a 50% chance of saving on their weakest save, if you use spells with saves, you have a 50% chance that your 2/day ability that's supposed to make you special does nothing. At that point, spells without saving throws like magic missile or true strike look even more appealing than they do in normal D&D.

 

[Technik4]

Unless the DM is rewritting the MM and all the NPCs with similiar higher stats to compensate whicxh seems to defeat the purpose of the higher stats to begin with.

Disagree entirely. There are a million different circumstances that can make an easy encounter difficult or turn mundane tanking/blowing stuff up into 'heroic combat'. Also, some modules are just mean (ever play Speaker in Dreams? I *hope* you didnt try with 25 pt buy characters, because I dont know how many 36 pt buys my players re-rolled, but it was over 10).

Technik

 

[ThirdWizard]

Not as easily, and not as much. Unless the DM is rewritting the MM and all the NPCs with similiar higher stats to compensate whicxh seems to defeat the purpose of the higher stats to begin with.

I know for a fact you're far more imaginative than that. Figuring out ways to challenge characters can take many forms which arn't as straightforward as number comparisons.

 

[Crothian]

Disagree entirely. There are a million different circumstances that can make an easy encounter difficult or turn mundane tanking/blowing stuff up into 'heroic combat'. Also, some modules are just mean (ever play Speaker in Dreams? I *hope* you didnt try with 25 pt buy characters, because I dont know how many 36 pt buys my players re-rolled, but it was over 10).

Technik

It doesn't matter what then encounter is, 25 point buys will be a bigger underdog theyn the 36 point buy.

And I ran Speaker in Dreams. They played 25 point characters, with low magic (no wizards or clerics). I did not change the module at all and they completed it with thought and creativity, we had some fun encounters. It really isn't that bad of a module.

 

[Crothian]

I know for a fact you're far more imaginative than that. Figuring out ways to challenge characters can take many forms which arn't as straightforward as number comparisons.

challenging the players was not the point. The point was that higher point buy characters will have an easier time unless the DM increases the power of all creatures equally. If that is done, then the high stats of the players become average stats in this case.