Whats your opinion on the Point Buy System

[Ravener]

Alternate system

This was the topic that made me decide to register. I have to strongly agree with Celebrim and Murrdox that the point buy system creates "cookie-cutter" characters. Boring characters that either have one 18 and a bunch of mundane stats, or min/maxxed characters with a bunch of 14s. And, unless the player does not know what he or she is doing, all stats are invariably even-numbered.

Here is the system I use. It's not for the faint of heart, but I think stats (and randomness) are very important, and therefore worth some planning and extra die-rolling.

Every stat gets a base minimum of 3d6. In addition, you get a pool of 9d6 (or 6d6, or 12d6, depending on the power level of the campaign). Before you roll anything, you can allocate each of these nine dice to one of the six ability scores. Once you have allocated all nine dice, roll once for each ability, keeping the highest three.

Example, fighter:
Strength, 6d6 (three extra)
Constitution, 5d6 (two extra)
Dexterity, 4d6 (one extra)
Intelligence, 3d6
Wisdom, 5d6 (two extra)
Charisma, 4d6 (one extra)

Trust me, even 9d6 does not guarantee an 18, nor does 3d6 guarantee a crappy score. And you must take each set as a whole, so in the example above, you could end up with 17/9/15/13/10/17, and then have to decide if the high three stats balance the low Con. (I usually allow players to roll three sets, and choose between them.)

It's the best of all worlds, because it avoids cookie-cutter stats, it limits min/maxing, and it keeps things random. By keeping it random, it can take the character in a new direction. Maybe the player likes the idea of a charismatic, but relatively frail, Elric-like warrior.

Feedback, please.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Re: Alternate system

Feedback, please.

Well, it's very Method V.

Except that Method V had an extra 21d6, and they were automatically assigned depending on your character class.

Method V used to generate some scary numbers.

-Hyp.

 

[Murrdox]

That's a rather interesting system... I kinda like that idea.

 

[Celebrim]

Upon thinking about the advantage of a random distribution in inspiring creative characters, I thought perhaps one fix to the would be combine the point buy system with a random roll on a table that gave you a set of rules to follow. The more restrictive the rules, the more 'bonus points' you would be awarded to spend.

As a quick example:

2 No two numbers above 16, +2 pts.
3 No 18's, +0 pts.
4 No numbers above 15, +4 pts.
5 At least one 8 or lower, +2 pts.
6 No three numbers greater than 14, +1 pts.
7 Three numbers must be odd, +1 pts.
8 No numbers less than 11, +1 pts.
9 ....
....

And so forth. A little playing with the numbers would be necessary to determine what made for interesting rules, but the above gives the idea.

 

[Steverooo]

 

 

[zorlag]

-

30:ish point buy works best for general gaming (30-36). That gives player possiblity of taking one or two high stats or few pretty good. And those paladins and monks and psions won't feel so shafted. I think new edition of 3E should be balanced as PB was the standard method of creating character, not 3d6 as it is now (at least seemingly).

Z.

 

[dpdx]

I like point buy the way it is, but IMC, two things are important:

DM must assign enough points. For me, I won't make a player gen a PC with any less than 28, and usually like to go 30. And if I'm playing in a game with 25 point-buy PCs, I like to make sure that things like Manual of Gainful Exercise, etc., will be in the campaign and readily available for enough loot. To me, it defeats the purpose to not have heroic characters, and my definition of heroic isn't satisfied with only one decent stat.

However, that's where my other issue comes into play - players can't be allowed to min/max without heavy consequences in-game. I don't have any hard and fast rules about this, but I'd ask a player to tweak his character if it was 18-10-10-10-10-10.

That being said, we (those of us in my group that DM) usually have players roll 3 sets of 4d6 drop lowest, with rerolls for any set that comes out net bonuses <0, and pick the line. That hasn't failed to give everyone decent abilities so far, which in turn makes me feel like I don't have to pull any punches as a DM. My group seemed to like it that way, and made them feel like they were earning the xp, and not levelling too fast.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

I hate point buy systems for stats or limits on stats. I feel it fails to reflect the genetic diversity of a population.

If someone gets lucky and roles good stats, I see it as no different than a person being born with a plethora of advantages such as high physical strength, intelligence, and other traits associated with stats.

Even when I play GURPS, i place no limits on the points spent on stats and advantages and disadvantages.

I feel as though many of the players who like to play gritty forget that some of us want to be truly powerful and heroic figures, and high stats help represent such things.

I also feel that many gamers feel it is more realistic when a person has some kind of weakness statwise, and that just doesn't hold up with my experience. I have met many athletes and weightlifters who lack neither intelligence, wisdom, or charisma, and the limitations imposed on them in a game often present a false picture of a real human being who would excel at something like adventuring.

Most adventurers would be the hardiest stock of human, and adventurers who lacked or were average in almost any of the D&D statistics would end up dead long before they became great.

Last time I ran a D&D point buy campaign, I gave each of my players 68 points I believe. That gave them a rather good set of stats.

Though 68 points is epic heroic stats in my opinion in the mold of Launcelot or Aragorn, I would say most human beings who survived as adventurers would exceed 32 points, though they might not possess a single 18, they would probably have good average stats across the board.

This is how I like stats to be, but I represent a minority opinion. I also represent a minority in that I can run an extremely challenging and good game even though my players have extraordinary stats.

In my experience, the biggest campaign killer is magic items. Stats rarely have an impact at higher levels unless they receive serious magical enhancement.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

But wizards and sorcerers are usually pretty well protected (or at least, in a good party they will be). Sure, sometimes there may be no way to stop an attack on them, but in those rare cases, they can deal with the problem by casting Shield, or Invisibility, or Stoneskin, or even Dimension Door or something similar.

Sure, they are protected, but it usually only takes one archer or damage spell and they're out of the fight. Stoneskin will only result in you getting knocked to -12 instead of -22 then, shield doesn't make you invincible, invisibility is common enough that the enemy often has counter-measurements. In the worst case, the arcanist will find himself in an antimagic field. When you get down to it, some constitution and dexterity can save your life (and it has saved many wizards so far - and lack of it has surely doomed many).

You must consider that you have to start small, and at 1st level, everything will down you if you only have 4 hp!

 

[Archer]

Re: Re

Last time I ran a D&D point buy campaign, I gave each of my players 68 points I believe. That gave them a rather good set of stats.

68 pt buy is far beyond heroic, its 18,18,16,16,16,14. Stats are universally so high there is little difference between characters. Realistically you'd have to extend the pt buy chart to 20 or 22 following the point cost progression +4,+4,+5,+5

The only problem with pt buy is as someone pointed out there is an archetype character of each class for each level of pt buy. Most people will choose that archetype character.

I also exclusively use pt buy and I use 32 pts.