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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 3080902" data-attributes="member: 32740">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.</blockquote>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).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.[/QUOTE]

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