What's the big deal with point buy?

[wayne62682]

I like the idea that I can have a concept for a character and then build him without having to roll the dice umpteen times to get what I wanted in the first place.

QFT.

Maybe my views are a bit biased, I'll admit, since I play in a group where nobody thinks about the group overall and instead plays whatever they want/enjoy playing e.g. we always have someone who will play a spellcaster, no matter what the group needs, because it's the only thing this person has fun playing (they will get bored of the campaign otherwise), so it's all about doing something better than someone else because there is no "niche to fill" so to speak, although I'm the one who usually plays whatever the group seems to be lacking....

 

[ThirdWizard]

What you notably fail to mention is whether the 18-laden character survived any longer in the game than the others; if it didn't, then your point kinda falls flat...

That assumption ignores the fact that D&D is a team game.

 

[wayne62682]

That assumption ignores the fact that D&D is a team game.

That's an opinion, not a fact.. sad to say.. D&D is only a team game if the players want it to be.

 

[ThirdWizard]

That's an opinion, not a fact.. sad to say.. D&D is only a team game if the players want it to be.

Not at all. He was making the claim that the most powerful people live the longest. I'm pointing out that this isn't true. The most powerful person could easily die first and it not be their fault at all. Even if the party isn't playing "as a team" one PC's actions still affect all the others, even if they don't want it to.

 

[Cor Azer]

By what definition of "not good enough"? The written definition of at least total +1 mod and a score of at least X (I don't recall what that number is right now)?

Well, that was sort of my point... (lowsy lack of irony tag)

Many (but yes, certainly not all) pro-rollers include various rules to let players roll multiple times, choosing the best set, or re-rolling completely... if you're going to do all that, why not just use point-buy?

As I've said, I allow both. Those players of mine who still roll more-or-less say it's just because they love chucking dice, for whatever reason.

Although I must admit, I'm starting to ponder more-and-more of using Crothian's "pick'em as you wish"... since the game will be tailored to fit the party anyways, if they all want super-characters, they'll have super-foes.

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

That's a generalization. I certainly don't let players roll multiple times unless it's a "hopeless character" as defined by the Players Handbook. The PCs also have a choice of point buy (25 points), but if they choose to roll, they don't get to fall back to the point buy method if they roll badly. Bad rolls challenge players to optimize their characters better, and some of the results can be very impressive.

 

[airwalkrr]

See, I have a real problem buying this. Most damage? Best AC? Most HP's?

Are the other three PC's wizards?

The other PCs are a Healer, Druid, and Monk.

The healer has a d6 HD and 15 Con. She has about 15 hp less than the fighter. Her AC sucks because she only gets non-metal armor (and for that matter the player has invested no resources in AC, leather armor only so AC 12). I think the reason why she does not deal much damage is obvious.

The druid has a d8 HD and 12 Con base (14 with amulet of health). She has about as many hp as the healer, which is to be expected. Her AC is not impressive as she is limited to druid armor or the natural armor of her wild shape. Rarely higher than 20. She and her animal companion probably equal the dwarf in damage, more if enemies are bunched close enough for a flame strike.

The monk has a Con of 8 and fewer hp than anyone else in the party for that reason. Of course, as anyone who has seen high level monks in play, he rarely takes damage thanks to improved evasion, high saves, and respectable AC. He gets a chance to shine on occassion, usually when fighting stunnable enemies and his damage approximates the dwarf's with Iron Fist, but he is more of the group's trickster, being agile and able to get into spots the rest of the group cannot (lacking a mage means flying is the sole domain of the wild shaping druid so being able to climb, balance, tumble, jump, and swim is valuable in this group).

It also doesn't hurt that the dwarf has rolled very well for hp of late.

The cleric, with the much higher stats, SHOULD be better at all three of those. He should have a better AC, he should do more damage and he should have more hp's. If he doesn't, then what's wrong with him?

Assuming an archetypal cleric, he would not necessarily be better at all of those. For one, the fighter has six extra fighting feats to improve his damage and attack bonus, not to mention his AC (there are numerous feats that do this as well). Second, the fighter has a higher BAB by 3 points at 12th level. Third, the cleric can only rival the fighter in fighting prowess IF he is allowed time to cast prep spells such as divine favor, divine power, righteous might, etc. That usually takes a round or two, and meanwhile, the fighter is beating away. Wise clerics will spend their time aiding the group with helpful spells, not trying to deal damage. Spells that allow a cleric to fight should be reserved as a last resort.

However, it still boils down to the fact that your Dwarf with the poor Cha is leading. He's not playing the character that's on the paper. IIRC, he had a 6 Cha. This guy should be absolutely loathesome. Take a look through your MM and see what gets a 6 Cha. THAT'S how horrid your dwarf is.

You have a very narrowly defined definition of Charisma. I have already explained that the player of the dwarf roleplays the Charisma 6 well. He is gruff, rude, and never very friendly. When he tells people to do things, it is usually because he is able to leverage them by virtue of his importance to the group, not because he is a polarizing personality. He may not be a natural leader, but circumstances dictate that his position is vital to the group, and the wise character (Wis 12) is cognizant of that. Not to mention he has the Leadership feat, which I will point out to you has no Cha prerequisite. Now we could argue till we are blue in the face whether or not it SHOULD have one, but it doesn't, so obviously WotC does not correlate leadership potential with Charisma any more than the leadership chart indicates. Low Charisma characters can still be leaders. They will not be as inspiring as high Charisma characters and they will not attract as many followers, but that does not mean they are bad or ineffective leaders necessarily. He's playing the character written on the paper to a T, thank you.

Yes, if you are playing the only wizard in the party, you have your niche and you are contributing. However, you are still lagging far behind everyone else because of poor stats. Your save DC's are measurably worse, you have no hp's, and, at higher levels, the party has to carry you because you can't cast higher level spells.

WTF? I wasn't lagging far behind everyone. I had 8th level spells thank you, and they were nice. My save DCs being measurably worse belied the fact that I was the only person casting fireball. Fireball with save DC 20 is better than no fireball. And I wasn't crying my eyes out that the save DC wasn't 21 (which is what it would have been if I had been able to buy an 18 as opposed to a 15). I never worried much about the hp barrier. False life and a good cleric (shugenja actually) took care of that problem. Nobody ever had to carry me. There are ways of increasing ability scores besides getting them at 1st level you know. Ability score boosts and magic items come to mind.

As I said, I've seen the flipside of this. In a 2e game, the DM allowed one of the players to play an ogre with a 20 str and 20 Con. We figured it out that his damage and hit bonuses as well as his hit points were actually on par with a character THREE levels higher than the rest of us. He completely dominated the game. He could easily destroy anything that was a serious threat to the rest of us. If he sneezed, monsters died. If the rest of us got anywhere near something that could threaten him, we died.

Guess what, ogres in 3e have a HUGE LA and HD to boot. Not to mention AD&D characters weren't even capable of such high Str and Con without wish. An AD&D comparison means absolutely nothing in the context of this argument.

I accept that rolling works for you. I reject the idea that point buy is for powergamers to twink their characters. I like the idea that I can have a concept for a character and then build him without having to roll the dice umpteen times to get what I wanted in the first place.

Point buy favors powergamers. That is undisputable. Truth is, the game favors powergamers. And the more randomness you take out of the game, the more powergamers claim the upper hand. Point buy is not JUST for powergamers, but it certainly lets them min/max a lot more than random ability score generation does.

 

[Lanefan]

Not at all. He was making the claim that the most powerful people live the longest. I'm pointing out that this isn't true. The most powerful person could easily die first and it not be their fault at all. Even if the party isn't playing "as a team" one PC's actions still affect all the others, even if they don't want it to.

Actually, I was making quite the opposite claim: that high or low stats don't necessarily have any bearing on how long the PC survives and-or remains useful. That said, and as others have mentioned, a lot depends on the player; some players are better at running low-stat characters than others...

All this said, there's also a perfectly valid argument to be made that for much of the time, stats are just there to serve the game mechanics, and the character's personality come out of how it is role-played, e.g. the Dwarf fighter example noted elsewhere here.

Lanefan

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I really do believe that much of the criticism leveled that 3e characters are so powerful stems from die rolled characters. It makes sense that a party with 35-40 point characters is going to steamroll standard encounters - they are equivalent to a level higher.

I would tend to disagree for a couple of reasons. First, a properly perceptive DM will realized it if the PC's are really so power inflated that they steamroll encounters and will simply adjust. Second, the complaint is seldom that random rolls create an entire party that is overpowered, but that one character is more powerful than another and as mentioned before, even with identical stats one character WILL be different than another based simply on player choices and play style if not basics of class and race. 1st level wizards are pathetic compared to 1st level fighters of the same stat values in terms of raw, immediate power. My perception of the criticism that 3E characters are so powerful would be because they are now nearly universally DESIGNED. They are planned, calculated, even engineered to be VERY good at what the player wants the character to do. This is in shocking contrast to Ye Olde Dayes when ability scores themselves were irrelvant unless at LEAST 15 or higher and some people still could be found to use generation methods that the player did not have "creative control" over, i.e., stats recorded in order as rolled.
[quoteThe game, IME, just works a lot better with point buy.[/quote]I, on the other hand find no inherent superiority in point buy. If you like it, use it and don't let me tell you different (not that I would, as my comments are never that PB is inferior, only that it is not inherently superior, nor without drawbacks, and of course it's not MY preference).

Not that die roll generation is bad. I used it for a long time and I understand the attraction. However, I've found that point buy just works so much better for me, that I would never go back to random generation.

I've tried PB and methods like it as far back as 1E. I've found that because I can create characters with any and all ability score generation methods, and can fathom no reason that other players would be unable to do likewise, that the method of character generation I prefer is one that fosters, even demands greater creativity from players. And that means a method that is random, and which also does not allow the player complete freedom to arrange the scores. Scores are random so that characters ARE of different power levels and capabilities as this, too, is a matter of creativity (how you play a character that lacks inherent strengths as well as how an inherently powerful character interacts with other PC's and NPC's. Arrangement of the random scores as the player wants is also limited so that players are prompted, even required to play characters that DON'T rely on always eliminating the most likely flaws and always enhancing the most common strengths.

Characters that are always designed and planned tend to irk me. A player who has already decided his characters development from inception to retirement is often (not always) signalling to me that he has no interest in seeing his character develop as a result of the events that unfold in my campaign, but only according to their pre-concieved plans. If anything the campaign is likely to be only an irritation to such a player because it can only result in delay, and interference with the intended course of the characters fruition.

Not sure I'm really arguing anything here now so much as just trying to mention a few things that people might want to think about for their future games.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

The only downside that I see to Point Buy is that especially with the low ones (although I don't believe that crap about the game being balanced at 25 points) it forces you to essentially spend ALL of your attribute bonuses on your primary stat.. assuming that you have only one.

Honestly, I think a lot of that is simply because we STILL have this deep-seated need, largely inherited from earlier editions that you MUST ALWAYS have a high primary stat or your character is hopelessly outclassed. A character like a monk does indeed need several equally decent scores to be as powerful as say an equivalent level fighter. Excuse me for waxing rhetorical - but why do we feel that a monk DOES need to be as powerful as any other character? Why can't we just take the monk for what it IS and enjoy making of it what we can? Why can't we just take the ability scores that we happen to randomly get and enjoy making of it what we can? 3E was supposed to be about providing choices and tools, not providing rights and privileges. Okay, maybe that's pushing it.

I'm pretty sure that's the way I and others in my group played back in our 1E days and even most of our 2E days - to take what we got and enjoy making something of it (or just trying), rather than to plan out what we want and then expect it. We craved those high scores because it was ONLY the high scores that provided bonuses and the character generation methods that were invented were obsessed with how to get those high scores. When 3E eliminated the need for the high scores by allowing anything above average to provide bonuses I'd have thought that we'd start to be satisfied with lower average scores. In the Olde Dayes we looked forward to those occasional characters with great stats, and were happy to see SOMEbody get them even if we were jealous that it wasn't us. Now we see complaints that it isn't even fair if someone gets higher stats than anyone else. Not that there wasn't always some poor wanker who was never satisfied unless HE had it all over everyone else (and maybe not even then). But 3E hasn't changed some things at all has it? Interesting...

I swear I'm becoming more of a cranky old Luddite all the time.