A few replies to your comments. First, I'll admit my sample was pretty screwy and unscientific. It was built of three of my Living Greyhawk characters and a dozen or so others whose stats I could more or less remember from playing in their groups or helping them construct their characters.
The emphasis on physical over mental stats is not surprising considering that I appear to have remembered mostly fighters, clerics, and fighter/clerics. I've played with a number of sorcerors bards, rogues, and wizards but don't remember their stats.
That most of them were human is not surprising--in most 3e campaigns I've played in--point buy or otherwise, human has been the most popular race. (The only one without a human was an underwater campaign that didn't have humans as a playable race). The lack of elves and halflings was more because I don't remember any of their stats than because I don't play with many (although halfling is a less popular choice than other races; I think I'd rate the popularity of races: Human-Elf-Dwarf-Half orc-halfling-Half-elf-Gnome).
Similarly, that very few stats were under 8 is not surprising either. Even in non-point buy games I've played, very few characters ended up with 6's and 7's. While I've seen a good deal more 11s and 13s in non point buy games, the number of 6s and 7s isn't much higher.
By the same token, the emphasis on constitution is as much a function of D&D 3e as it is a function of point buy. Most players think of constitution as their second most important stat, if not their most important.
The same is true of moderate to low int scores for clerics, monks, and paladins. I've yet to see a campaign point, buy or otherwise, where any of these classes emphasized int.
For that matter, it's true of point spreads in general. If someone rolls 18 15 14 9 7 8, they're quite unlikely to play a monk or a paladin. They'll most likely play a fighter (leaving them in that order), barbarian, or wizard (trading the 18 and the 9). On the other hand, if someone rolls 15, 13, 14, 9, 13, 17 they're more likely to decide to play a paladin or a monk. In the same way, any character who rolls 9, 7, 10, 18, 11, 13 is likely to play a wizard or a cleric. (Probably cleric). D&D 3e encourages certain character classes to have certain attributes and that is not only reflected in point buy games but in rolled games as well. The difference is that in point buy games, people can play any character they want and in rolled games, the luck of the dice limits what's available to them.
The fact that the examples came from a 28 point system also exacerbated the issues you pointed out. Systems with more points encourage both higher power and allow for spending stat points less efficiently. My 32 point buy fighter/barbarian had 12's in int and wisdom. That's less likely to be the case with a 28 point buy character.
Celebrim said:
Most telling to me is this comment:
"But the characters themselves weren't too similar. He was focussed on reach weapon combat and my character was designed to smash things up with a Tralian hammer"
Clearly, character creation got off on if not on the wrong foot, then at least not on the foot that I'd want to start it on.
This is a thread about the mechanics of character generation. What do you expect me to say? "But his character was a Ying Hir tribesman driven by bloodlust to seek employment in the city of Coryan while my character was a young man who had recently discovered that the blood of the gods flowed in his veins and who felt his ancestor's rage come over him when he looked upon injustice." It sounds pretty but what's at issue is whether the character's mechanical similarity is as close as the stats would indicate--whether or not they were cut with the same cookie cutter. In that case, the fact that one character had EWP: Tralian Hammer, maxed out intimidate and had cross class ranks in sense motive and the other character had combat reflexes and dodge (or something else like that) and lots of wilderness lore is much more relevant than their dissimilar backstories.
If it's the word designed that you're taking issue with, you shouldn't. Whether you design the mechanics of a character first and come up with a backstory to fit them or write a backstory and design the mechanics of the character to fit it, there's an element of mechanical design that enters into character creation. If someone told me he was a Real Roleplayer because his barbarian who lived in the hills and fought trolls with his greatsword had one feat: skill focus basketweaving, I'd think he was a moron. The character ought to have power attack, weapon focus: greatsword, toughness, or dodge and mobility with that backstory and skillset. In other words, he ought to be
designed to fight large creatures with reach and lots of hit points.
That sums up many of my feeling on the subject very nicely.
