What's the big deal with point buy?

[Aus_Snow]

I'm sure at some point it is, but the game isn't designed to do that. I say that because there is a completely lack of rules that say what is worth ecl+1. All they have are examples of things that are the different ecls.

[emphasis mine]

Hence the question!

The Hobgoblin is almost an illustration of what I personally believe to be the case in D&D, though. *Almost*.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Part of my reason for dropping ability "scores" in favor of the modifiers.

Seriously? I mean this as an honest request so as to not derail this pretty cool thread ... but could you start a new thread describing how this has effected your game? I'd love to speak more on this subject and how you think it has/hasn't affected your game. Things like:

- How do you handle ability score adjustments ever four levels?
- How your players reacted. Where they used to the original system? Did it take a long time to adjust?
- How do you do things like Tomes and Manuals that give ability score boost?

And anything else you can speak from experience. Personally, I think this idea is cool. I just think it would take a bit or reworking to make some sections of the rules work.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

So now they just have descending stats in order of importance?

I normally agree with what you have to say, Crothian, but I think here you missed his point. Yes, you comment is probably right. They do have them as a descending order of importance. But the difference is that a 12 and a 13 are now the same value. This is huge for point-buyers, but has little application for rollers or "just pick 'em" folks like yourself.

 

[Tolen Mar]

what your DM dosent trust you when you say you rolled 18 18 18 18 18 17 at home before the game session ?

Hehe...talk to my GM who watched me roll 4 18's, a 16, and a 14 in front of him... My rolls away from his sight are likely to be a bit more down to earth (after all, what are the odds of it happening again. He'd nerf me for sure if I claimed that).

 

[Crothian]

I normally agree with what you have to say, Crothian, but I think here you missed his point. Yes, you comment is probably right. They do have them as a descending order of importance. But the difference is that a 12 and a 13 are now the same value. This is huge for point-buyers, but has little application for rollers or "just pick 'em" folks like yourself.

It was meant as a funny. Nellisir got rid of the odd/even problem but didn't comment on the descending in order of importance. So, in is still there or so the funny goes...right out of this thread....

 

[Crothian]

Seriously?

It is what True 20 does. I don't know if he does it the same way but having played True 20 it works well.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Seriously. What is the big deal?

1. It prevents cheating so long as the DM actually still verifies the numbers rather than simply assuming that everyone DID adhere to the limitations it suggests. 'Tis sad but true that some gamers find it compelling to "cheat" even when the entire exercise is non-competitive.
2. It prevents whining about "He's got TWO 17's! I want another one!", though again it is because gamers fail to grasp some of the fundamental concept of "non-competitive" play. To give them their due they are encouraged in this by a game company that for 6 years has vastly over-emphasized rules in all things and payed little more than lip service to actual exercise of imagination. [Yeah, that's harsh but that's how I see it.]
3. It does provide a modicum of levelled playing field (though definitely nothing like what it is routinely given credit for.)
4. While your character will never be eggregiously outclassing other PC's at the games' inception your character will also be assured of never being notably less than average in any way as well. Looked at another way; it promotes a pervasive blandness to character "design".
5. It has long since ceased to be chic to take pride and enjoyment in having fun with a character suggested by unusual, random results, rather than one that is studiously, mathematically, and antiseptically engineered to provide properly packaged fun.

Point-buy is NOT a great evil, but it's no more flawless than random rolls. I'll use it if that's what the DM wants but it is not my preference. I try to keep my distaste for point-buy in line with the hyperbole in its favor. I do consider it less conducive to active imagination and roleplaying than taking random rolls. But that's just me.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I won't play in a game that forces rolled stats for the same reason I won't play in a campaign starting at first level and often won't play in a game with significant multiclassing restrictions: I come to the table with a character concept and do not expect to have to trust to luck, or worse yet time, to get to the point where I'm playing the character I want.

Where I come to the table to play, and sometimes the characterization just makes itself up as I go along. It's called being chaotic...

I'm just not that hung up on playing *that* character *now*...I can wait, and a better idea might well rear its ugly head in the meantime...

Lanefan

Fair enough; I always test as LN on online alignment tests.

When I played my first game of HERO, I realized everything I despised about AD&D and what I still disliked in 3.x D&D; when I played my first game of SilCore, I realized that playing a character that interested me and fit the genre did not preclude generating a character in less than four hours. Then along came Mutants & Masterminds and demonstrated that I could get almost as much flexibility as in HERO in a timeframe similar to SilCore.

I could never go back to not even having control over my character's basic abilities.

That's because balance is much more complicated then this. Many times one is trying to compaire apples and oranges to determi8ne if things are balanced. I'm just saying you have to look at everything and not just one minor area for balance.

Balance is certainly more complicated than this. But D&D's designers feel a simple +2 to two stats is worth an entire level (see goblin, hob). As silly as the hobbie's LA is, D&D's ability scores can easily increase a 1st-level character's effective level to 2nd or 3rd level. Even at higher levels, that amounts to an immense difference in character ability.

Which is fine.

I have no problem with telling players to assign the scores they want, assuming they're good players. I have no problem with allowing them any class, race, feat, spell or item ever published provided the same thing. But that's because I trust them to play well, and thus don't care about balance - not because I think it's actually balanced.

With players I didn't know or trust, I'd use point buy, because anything else is balanced, if at all, only by similar fortune in rolls - and then it's really not much different from point buy, anyway.

 

[RFisher]

(Disclaimer: I didn't read the whole thread. Sorry.)

I completely agree with airwalkrr's original post.

However: I had a player once waste a whole session because he thought every set of ability scores he rolled were horribly low. The truth was that they were all decent. Some of the existing PCs had worse scores, but he couldn't see that. Everyone else had lived by the "only reroll if you qualify as 'hopeless'" rule, but he couldn't.

If I was ever in that situation again, I'd offer to let the player use point-buy.

(Although, I think I did make that offer several times, but it never seemed to be heard...)

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I allow players the choice between rolling and point buy.

Next campaign I intend to allow folks to roll, and if they do not get a character that they like they can do a 28 point buy character.

Mind you, lately I have been running Spycraft, which uses 36 pints in character generation*.

Point buy makes it easier to balance player characters against each other, and allows the GM to customize NPCs as needed.

The Auld Grump
*EDIT* Those be hard drinkin' super spies matey! Mayhap I meant points thar...