you drew the short end of the stick

[Crothian]

To be fair, Crothian started 3 of the 4.

And, boy I need something better to do on a friday night

Technik

2 out of 3, one of the links is to this very thread!!

 

[Crothian]

Crothian:

There is a difference (vast, imo) between telling someone to make a character using 36 point buy and making a character using 16,15,14,13,12,11. Just because those numbers add up to that many points does not mean they are always equal - the point buyer can adjust his scores to his liking, the arrayer is stuck and can only arrange.

Technik

right, one is a straight jacket the other is not. But coming up with two close arrays that happen to be far apart point buy wise is not hthe best way to judge them.

 

[Mark]

To be fair, Crothian started 3 of the 4.

And, boy I need something better to do on a friday night

Technik

I didn't realize there were already four (with three by himself). Guess you gotta start a couple more to catch up, though we all know that in a post-war, the non-crothians always wind up taking a dirt nap.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I voted yes for the singular reason that these sort of differences in abilities crop up with 4d6dl all the time.

Also within our gaming group I'm the resident power-gamer so I'd have no problem being second fiddle.

Finally, there are some cool character concepts that demand that your character be worse across the board to the senior heroes. I'm sure I could cobble something together to make my sidekick fun to play.

(I think that the question presented is not true to the spirit of Technik's theory and the poll is going to simply follow that crooked line.)

 

[Darkness]

Heh. It's funny. While I'm very unlikely to agree to play in 25-point game (or anything below 32, really), I might decide to play a 25-point character in a 36-point game.

In fact, I have done similar things before. E.g., in a WoD game. The other PCs were a Malkavian and a Corax. My character was a human student. A kind of (but not very) wealthy one, but he had few useful skills besides some social ones (he was nowhere near a social monster, though).

I was the face of the group and got us in many places. My use in combat was distracting a few opponents for a turn or two (and getting kicked into the dirt for my troubles ) until our combat monster - i.e., the Corax - got around to slaughtering them.


Though if it's a mindless hack-n-slash game where the party needs all power they can get, I'd rather play a min/maxed uber-character than a weaker-than-average one.

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

I'm not so sure I would do this in a D&D game. It would really depend upon the game and the rest of the group.

But I do occasionally like to play the 'useless' character. It is rather freeing, really. No one expects anything of you, so you can just wisecrack and set others up.

Is there any wonder I'd rather GM than play?

 

[Greylock]

Being held to ALWAYS being the 25 point guy, come hell or high water? Meh. No.

 

[Technik4]

Being held to ALWAYS being the 25 point guy, come hell or high water? Meh. No.

I've noticed people who start polls after discussing things with me tend to skew them one way or another. What if, instead of being the only one stuck in this position, every player had a choice? You could make a 25-pt buy char and then, if she perishes, a character using a 36 point array.

Technik

 

[SWBaxter]

So, would you play a 25 point buy character in a game of 36 point buy characters?

I have played much weaker characters - in terms of stats - than the rest of the group quite successfully in the past, but always using random rolling methods (I am either very unlucky or naively honest about what I rolled, I suspect the latter). I probably wouldn't play such a character in a point buy campaign, mostly because I can't imagine a healthy group dynamic that would result in one player being given fewer points.

 

[Technik4]

right, one is a straight jacket the other is not. But coming up with two close arrays that happen to be far apart point buy wise is not hthe best way to judge them.

Why not? As someone said in the other thread, if you create a ceiling while giving a lot of flexibiltity, you keep the power curve down. A lower power curve implies characters balanced without needing to tweak the MM or NPCs in modules (which is what this boils down to, at least in part).

Do you think a character with all 14s is high on the power curve? (It ties in because, as was pointed out in a different thread, all 14s can be made using 36 pt buy - Nyah! Mark).

Technik