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<blockquote data-quote="Tiberius" data-source="post: 835533" data-attributes="member: 1376">I do it in no small part because I find nothing joyous in randomness, and indeed hate it, especially when it comes to stats.&nbsp; I use point buy (or most recently, standard array) for a couple of reasons.&nbsp; Primary among these is for the fun of the players.&nbsp; Sure, it can be enjoyable to have a character who rolls up a character with 18, 18, 18, 17, 15, 13 (which I have had happen in my first 3e campaign), but what about the other players, who might have a top stat of 14?&nbsp; Such an ubercharacter is unbalancing, and can cause the death of the others due to the inevitable &quot;arms race&quot; that develops in an attempt to challenge him.&nbsp; Better, in my opinion, to have the characters start with a finite pool and design the character they want rather than risk abominiations like the (admittedly extreme) example above.I also like the idea of ensuring the characters have weaknesses.&nbsp; One of my players disagrees with me on this (as he thinks that a) the PCs are automatically heroes and b) that heroes are supermen by default), but I prefer stories that involve less perfect or more normal characters.&nbsp; While the story of seven great heroes doing battle with a dark god for the fate of an empire is cool, I find the stories about humble monks defending their monestaries against all-but-impossible odds, triumphing (or not) by virtue of their skills and overcoming their weaknesses rather more compelling.&nbsp; By using the standard array, a character is guaranteed to have a medium to high score (14 to 17, depending on racial boni) and a low to average score (6 to 10, again depending on racial modifiers).&nbsp; These build into the character weaknesses, which can become story/character building fodder.&nbsp; At the very least, it can provide some offset for their strengths, to ensure they are vulnerable in some way.-Tiberius</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tiberius, post: 835533, member: 1376"] I do it in no small part because I find nothing joyous in randomness, and indeed hate it, especially when it comes to stats. I use point buy (or most recently, standard array) for a couple of reasons. Primary among these is for the fun of the players. Sure, it can be enjoyable to have a character who rolls up a character with 18, 18, 18, 17, 15, 13 (which I have had happen in my first 3e campaign), but what about the other players, who might have a top stat of 14? Such an ubercharacter is unbalancing, and can cause the death of the others due to the inevitable "arms race" that develops in an attempt to challenge him. Better, in my opinion, to have the characters start with a finite pool and design the character they want rather than risk abominiations like the (admittedly extreme) example above. I also like the idea of ensuring the characters have weaknesses. One of my players disagrees with me on this (as he thinks that a) the PCs are automatically heroes and b) that heroes are supermen by default), but I prefer stories that involve less perfect or more normal characters. While the story of seven great heroes doing battle with a dark god for the fate of an empire is cool, I find the stories about humble monks defending their monestaries against all-but-impossible odds, triumphing (or not) by virtue of their skills and overcoming their weaknesses rather more compelling. By using the standard array, a character is guaranteed to have a medium to high score (14 to 17, depending on racial boni) and a low to average score (6 to 10, again depending on racial modifiers). These build into the character weaknesses, which can become story/character building fodder. At the very least, it can provide some offset for their strengths, to ensure they are vulnerable in some way. -Tiberius [/QUOTE]

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