I greatly prefer rolling stats to point buy both as a DM and as a player. As a DM, however, I tend to use extremely generous rolling methods and do include the option of point buy (my own PB system though) to fall back on after the rolls are made just in case they are sub-par. With the high-powered rolling methods I use, though, no player has yet had to use the less generous fallback. I guess I like the PCs to have high stats when I DM, but I also like the stats to be not completely under player control and don't care as much for balance, so long as everybody is pretty high-powered. Different folks might, of course, have different preferences.
For NPCs: I always point buy the stats. For PCs, I MUCH prefer to roll the dice.
I also take short cuts with less important NPCs. For major villains (and allies and other NPCs), however, I use the same generous rolling method that I allow the PCs to use (and give them other benefits, just like I give to PCs). Muhahahahaha! :D
One other observation:
To just lay out the overall parameters of what is possible, if you had an array of (18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18) that would be equal to 102 point buy in the Pathfinder system.
To go in the other direction, getting (3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3) is a bit harder. You can't go below 7 in the point buy system, but if you extrapolate out, assuming each score below 7 is another -4 point buy points, then it would result in a -40 point buy.
So 102 to -40 is the potential for rolling.
If you went with the idea that every +10 worth of Attribute bonuses equaled another CR, then if you compared a 102 point buy to a 15 point buy you'd have:
15 point buy (+7 attribute bonuses) versus 102 point buy (+24 attribute bonuses) = +17 point difference. If you were to round to the nearest CR that would make these 1st level characters roughly like CR 3 creatures. If you wanted to just get a point buy to roughly be equal to CR 2 in comparison to the standard 15 point buy, then you'd have a pool of 55 points.
CR 1: 15
CR 2: 55
CR 3: 102Of course all of that is just roughly approximations, more for getting some sense of power than being a very reliable set of numbers.
May I ask for your methodology in assigning CR 2 at approximately 55 point buy and CR 3 at 102 point buy? I am not saying you are necessarily wrong, but I would like to see how you got to those numbers.
Even if the set rolled with the 4d6 isn't as good as one hoped, our group still likes it better for the fact that it feels less confined and restricted. Some of us start having panic attacks as our points start to run out when allocating them. Plus, I hate the look and attitude my player's give me when I even bring up wanting to use point-buy lol. It is rather funny watching their posture slump and a look of defeat draw upon their faces haha...
I prefer rolling - leave it to the gods and their mystical ways!
Lately I have been using a card generation for stats. Two suites of cards, #s 4-9, shuffle well and have the players draw two for each stat. Do not return the card to the deck, keep pulling until all cards are gone. Gets about a +7 average of combined ability scores bonuses and keeps it somewhat random.
May I ask for your methodology in assigning CR 2 at approximately 55 point buy and CR 3 at 102 point buy? I am not saying you are necessarily wrong, but I would like to see how you got to those numbers.First I went through all of the iterations of point buy at the various levels, particularly the 15 point buy. What I came away with from that was that the most optimal spread at that point buy yielded a total of 7 bonus points from Abilities.
So that is the baseline, having a net of +7 points from attributes is what the system is intended to build itself around.
Next, I just work out the differential between various bonus points ratings compared to the 15 point buy. I didn't show the math in my earlier post, but 55 point buy should be a differential of +10 for the 55 point buy.
Now how I'm going about giving a metric for CR, that's coming from a wonderful document that I've been using for a couple of years now. It was made by Scurvy_Platypus over on ENworld. He went through the 3.5 system, broke everything down into their specific parts and then rebuilt the whole system based on values. The intent was to fix the CR system based off of the actual mechanics of the game.
Unfortunately my membership has lapsed at ENworld and so the search function doesn't work for me, but if you dug around in his postings you'd find the pdf.
Anyway, basically he measured out that, on a benchmark scale, a +1 bonus from ab ability is roughly equal to 10% of a CR. Thus, every +10 worth of attribute bonuses would be equivalent to +1 CR.
Of course, these are benchmarks, just to help reduce the eyeballing that one might have to do.
Basically, if you were to make an NPC to fight your party, and instead of starting with the Elite Array you decided to make this particular NPC "Super Elite" by giving him a 55 point buy spread, or even go the whole way and give them all 18's to represent the perfected humanoid, then you should probably jack up the CR by +1 or +2 respectively.
Likewise,...
Thanks for the elaboration on the methodology. I do have the pdf you mentioned - I used to hang out on ENWorld boards too. The three posters have indeed done a good job with the document.
When playing PbP, we always go with point buy, but when playing at the table, we use an alternate method I first read about on EnWorld:
You take a common deck of card and pick out black card four through nine, so you have a total of 12 cards. Shuffle these, and put them in six piles of two cards each. These are your stats, and you may place them however you want.
It has the randomness of the dice, but still keeps someone from being completely gimped or overpowered; if you draw 8 somewhere, the rest of your rolls will have a decently high average, and in the same spirit, if you roll an 18 you won't get anything above 16 for the others - and should you get both an 18 and a 16, nothing else can get over 14.
Sometimes, when we want a little more randomness, we put in an additional nine as well as a three, shuffle, and discard the top two cards before getting the stats.
When playing PbP, we always go with point buy, but when playing at the table, we use an alternate method I first read about on EnWorld:
You take a common deck of card and pick out black card four through nine, so you have a total of 12 cards. Shuffle these, and put them in six piles of two cards each. These are your stats, and you may place them however you want.
It has the randomness of the dice, but still keeps someone from being completely gimped or overpowered; if you draw 8 somewhere, the rest of your rolls will have a decently high average, and in the same spirit, if you roll an 18 you won't get anything above 16 for the others - and should you get both an 18 and a 16, nothing else can get over 14.
Sometimes, when we want a little more randomness, we put in an additional nine as well as a three, shuffle, and discard the top two cards before getting the stats.
I've been posting a method very similar to this every now and then when the topic is appropriate.
I've been posting a method very similar to this every now and then when the topic is appropriate.
Care to link/explain it? :D
Most of the table top games I run I just let the players pick the stats they want. Whatever suits the concept they have in mind is usually fine. I've had a player with five 16s for a character (Bard/Monk) and it wasn't a big deal at all.
For online games I favor randomization just because it seems more organic. I usually roll first and then try to figure out what kind of character fits the stats best. I find point buy to be a little too mechanical and encourages me to think more about min-maxing.
Care to link/explain it? :D
I've been posting a method very similar to this every now and then when the topic is appropriate.
It's basically the same.
You take 4-9 of two suits and shuffle them separately.
Lay out one suit face up on the ability scores of your choice, then draw from the other suit randomly to create six pairs. Total them for your scores.
Or:
Completely random, as in the prior method. Optionally, once determining the pairs, assign them to scores instead of being fixed in order.
You take a common deck of card and pick out black card four through nine, so you have a total of 12 cards. Shuffle these, and put them in six piles of two cards each. These are your stats, and you may place them however you want.
It has the randomness of the dice, but still keeps someone from being completely gimped or overpowered; if you draw 8 somewhere, the rest of your rolls will have a decently high average, and in the same spirit, if you roll an 18 you won't get anything above 16 for the others - and should you get both an 18 and a 16, nothing else can get over 14.
Sometimes, when we want a little more randomness, we put in an additional nine as well as a three, shuffle, and discard the top two cards before getting the stats.
Hahaha! I just posted the exact same stat gen two posts above you! you did a much better job explaining it though! I got it from en world too, probably the same thread.
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stat generation has always been one of the most exiting and interesting parts of the game for me. i am always trying different methods out. this discussion gave me inspiration for a new method i will try in my next campaign.
i will create a series of stat pair cards,
each card will have on it two stats, an even stat and and odd stat.
there will be three categories of cards good average and poor.
the overall modifier for each pair of stats on cards within a category will be the same ie:
+4 for good
+2 for average
+1 for poor
each player will choose one card from each category (npcs get 2 average and 1 poor)
a possible array could for example look like the following:
good 18,11
average 12,13
poor 9,14
or
good 14,15
average 17,8
poor 7, 16
or
good 17,12
average 15,10
poor 14,9
thoughts?
(edit) i made the following chart i will use: each player rolls 1 d6 in each column and takes the corresponding stat pair so for the example 1 above the player would have rolled (1,6,3)
18,11 - 18,7 - 16,7
17,12 - 17,8 - 15,8
17,12 - 16,9 - 14,9
16,13 - 15,10 - 13,10
16,13 - 14,11 - 13,10
15,14 - 13,12 - 12,11
I do three sets of 4d6, drop the lowest, place where you want. Of course this has had the usual problems of the player coming in with specially blessed dice, the player who can't roll to save his life, and the player who saddles herself with a stat dumped to 7 just because there was an 18 in that line and she'd never played with 18 in a stat before. I just go with it. But if you're gonna have a 7 in charisma I'm gonna make you play it.
Reading this thread, I have an idea for how I think I'll handle our next generation of characters (Keeping in mind that my campaign has 5 PCs).
Roll nine sets of 4d6. Use GM discretion to remove the best set (to eliminate the natural superstar).
Then have the players draft (order should be determined before any dice are rolled). First draft must take the set as rolled. Second draft can swap two scores. Third draft can swap two scores and add 1 point to any score. Fourth, gets a swap and 2 points to distribute. Fifth, a swap plus 3 points to distribute.
Sounds like this would keep some of the fun of variability but still removes most of the possibility of game-harming outliers. Plus I think the drafting would be a fun process in itself.
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The problem, Willy, is you are going even further on the min-max chart. A character with 18-18-16-11-7-7 will make any SAD character amazing (fighters dump Int/Chr and some Wis, wizards dump str/chr and some wis... you get the idea). The point buy system makes 18 expensive for a reason... specialists are simply more powerful at life. It's not hard playing that 20 int / 20 dex / 14 con elf wizard with a trait to make diplomacy a class skill so their dumped chr can be ignored.
Point buy is less exciting and certainly stops super sets of stats. Its fair, but you don't get superheroes.
Spoken like someone who has never played in a game with a 42 point buy. ;-)
Or who has never played a game of Champions, for that matter. ;-)
As I've shoveled out heaps of snow in the driveway I've been thinking today about how the different character creation methods compare to each other, that is...
4d6 (drop lowest)
3.5 Point Buy
Pathfinder Point BuyGoing in from out of the cold and Googling I come up with 4d6, on average, yields 13's across the board. I thought, "Hmm... how unimpressive."
Back to the OPs original points -
When you use the 4d6 drop lowest method, you're not going to get 13s across the board. The mean value is roughly 12.25 and the standard deviation is about 2.85.
So, if you only look at the mean, you'd probably get something like:
13,13,12,12,12,12
which is a 14 point buy. Of course, in practice, we need to also consider the standard deviation. We know that roughly 68% of the time you'll get values within one standard deviation which gives the range [9.4, 15.1]. This also means that the other 32% of the time your result should fall outside of this range. That's fortunately very close to 2 out of the 6 rolls. Since you're almost equally likely to end up above as you will below the mean, that means you'll probably get a result of 9 and 16. For the other four values, if they're all different, you'd probably get 11,12,13,14 since they're the most common rolls. If two of the four are the same then you will have probably rolled 12,13,13,14 which gives you one of the two arrays:
16,14,13,12,11,9
16,14,13,13,12,9
which have point buys of 20 and 22 respectively and are very close to what you would get using the "high fantasy" point buy of 20.
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The issue is not the stats; the average is closer to 24 points, but deviations will have tables with 10 to 45 points. I've been on both sides; one is manageable as long as the other isn't there, but the high is ironically worse than too low (yet much less likely to be re-rolled). If I was to do this, I'd say all rolls below 15 or over 30 points get rerolled, simple. The extra points would be justifiable by less optimized point allocation.
But honestly, rolling takes a session and leads to imbalance. Set stats or point buy just makes more time sense.
The higher level you go the less the stats matter though.
Okay, this thread is a necro, but why not.
...
Uses spray water bottle at Kiraes face...
That's an interesting point... imagine tiering classes based on their MAD natures or their perceived power levels - Wizards, Clerics and Druids get 15 point buys but Monks, Rogues and Fighters get 20. It won't change the outcome at level 17+ but mike make a difference in the middling levels.
So how would you stop a player from starting out in a martial class and taking all levels afterwards as a caster? Multiclassing normally hurts casters badly, but those five extra ability score points would make a one level dip at 1st level just about worth it.
I prefer a point buy, I think 20 is good number. If everybody wanted to roll I would probably have each player roller 4d6 drop the lowest and then each player can pick any array rolled by any other player.
If you as player like some randomness in your stats buy the gm is doing point buy you can always provide your own randomness.
For ex. Before spending any points pick two abilities at random, one gets 1d6 points spent on and one gets 1d4 points spent on it.
or another example. Spend your all your points except for 5 pick two random abilities besides your highest and lowest or you could exclude your two highest. One of the abilities gets 3 points and one gets 2.
There are so many ways you can "roll" abilities as either a Player or DM.
No matter how stats are generated as a GM and player I really like the house rule of a point buy point each level and a bonus 1 every 4 instead of an ability increase every 4.
My local group uses 4d6, re-roll 1's, drop low, roll two sets, pick best, place as you wish. DM has right's to allow a third set if the first two are too far below the rest of the group.
It can make for some pretty high stats, but dice being dice...who knows?
I prefer rolling to point buy.
While the mechanical, logic oriented part of me likes point buy....life never makes you the way you want, hence the randomness being my chosen type.
With point buy I end up falling into the same ruts over and over again, so that my characters end up having very similar ability scores depending on their role. This is most apparent in the scores I chose to dump.
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My group usually rolls 4d6 drop lowest, reroll ones, which results in very high arrays. But we do reroll or adjust arrays that are too high or too low compared to the other players - one player in my current game rerolled an array that included two 18s and a 16, and another rerolled at least twice when he kept getting arrays like 8, 10, 10, 12, 12, 13, 14.
I'm considering for the next one having everyone including me roll an array and then letting each player pick which rolled array they like best. That gives everyone fair access to the same stat options while also letting players decide whether they want the SAD or MAD array (eg 18 and middling stats vs all good stats but nothing above 16).
That's an interesting point... imagine tiering classes based on their MAD natures or their perceived power levels - Wizards, Clerics and Druids get 15 point buys but Monks, Rogues and Fighters get 20. It won't change the outcome at level 17+ but mike make a difference in the middling levels.
The problem with this is that if someone wants to multiclass, they are encouraged to take the low-tier class first to obtain a high point buy. Or in some cases, even dip a low-tier class for the point buy, then switch entirely to the high-tier class.
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I've been running with 5d6 drop two for the most part. When I stat characters, I do my best never to have a score less than 10. The only way I'm comfortable with a single digit score is if the DM doesn't make me play it way out of proportions.
What is 'way out of proportion'. Can you give a couple examples?
Just wondering.
I've long been a fan of rolled stats. Unfortunately, I've noticed that it can result in one or two overpowered characters with everyone else suffering as a result. The Runelords game I ran had the bard/priestess with poor stats, so I upped her stats as a result. I've recently been giving other foes the Advanced Template to be able to compete because the high stats proved... a bit much.
Of course, part of that is a half-orc Barbarian who started with a 19 Strength and used two-handed weapons with Power Attack! ^^;;
The one system I saw which I rather liked was having everyone roll 3d6 six times, and then taking the one set of 3d6 and let everyone use those stats. I might do that... or I might offer players a choice to roll the dice - either they can do a 20-point build, or the 4d6 method with no rerolls. If they do really horribly then they could do a 15-point build instead.
After all, there is the chance of doing well. But there's also the chance of having horrid stats or stats that just aren't exactly viable (like all 13s). Giving them the fall-back option would let them customize a character afterward without worrying about it.
(I do know that if anyone dies in my games and they don't have Raise Dead, I'll be having new characters using 25-point builds for the two campaigns I'm currently running.)
The characters that my players talk about most fondly were rolled: 4d6 (drop the lowest) rolled 7 times (drop the lowest)
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I like to roll stats. We usually use 4d6 drop lowest(sometimes re-roll ones once) but I dont like it when some people (usually me) rolls really bad, so I have often suggested that we let everyone roll but use the best roll(s) as templets for everyone to choose from. This keeps the characters closer stat wise.
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What's all this 4d6 wimp garbage?
Your not properly rolling up a character with dice unless it's 3d6 straight down the line!
I actually do appreciate the challenge in running the character that you roll, forcing you to actually role play something as in coming up with the personality for those rolls as part of the game instead of what we have now which is a bunch of whiny players who have premade character ideas and demand the game fit their needs perfectly because god forbid should they not be in control of every aspect of their character.
instead of what we have now which is a bunch of whiny players who have premade character ideas and demand the game fit their needs perfectly because god forbid should they not be in control of every aspect of their character.
Yeah! Who are these kids these days, wanting to have fun when they play the game? Back in my day, we didn't have fun playing the game and we liked it!
instead of what we have now which is a bunch of whiny players who have premade character ideas and demand the game fit their needs perfectly because god forbid should they not be in control of every aspect of their character.Yeah! Who are these kids these days, wanting to have fun when they play the game? Back in my day, we didn't have fun playing the game and we liked it!
That's not it at all, it's about actually playing the game and having fun regardless of what's going on. Insinuating that having complete control over every aspect of the game is the only way to have fun is a complete fallacy.
I'm not saying you should play that way every time, but a lot of newer players I'm seeing simply have a ridiculous list of demands from me as a DM that I simply do not feel they are entitled to.
Insinuating that having complete control over every aspect of the game is the only way to have fun is a complete fallacy.
You're absolutely right. As a DM, you shouldn't expect to have complete control over every aspect of the game. You should be willing to adjust things for the desires of your players. If a player's character concept doesn't perfectly fit your campaign, then you should be willing to tweak your campaign.
Insinuating that having complete control over every aspect of the game is the only way to have fun is a complete fallacy.You're absolutely right. As a DM, you shouldn't expect to have complete control over every aspect of the game. You should be willing to adjust things for the desires of your players. If a player's character concept doesn't perfectly fit your campaign, then you should be willing to tweak your campaign.
Gimme a break, when the player agrees to play in a game they are agreeing to let the GM have control of their character. If your concept doesn't fit what the GM said was allowed, find another concept or you can find another GM.
Gimme a break, when the player agrees to play in a game they are agreeing to let the GM have control of their character. If your concept does fit what the GM said was allowed, find another concept or you can find another GM.
Gimme a break, when a DM agrees to run a game, they are agreeing to let the players choose what characters to play. If your campaign concept does not fit the characters the players choose, find another concept or you can find another group of players.
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In my experience, excluding running pre-published modules, no one finalizes their ideas first. The DM has an idea for a campaign, the players have ideas for characters. People talk about their ideas with each other and there's some tweaking on both sides to make things fit. But no one presents their finished idea which everyone else then has to conform to. In my experience DMing, this has led to better campaigns. Tweaking things to make the characters my players want to play important in the campaign makes things more fun for everyone.
Even for pre-published modules, you can still tweak them to fit characters.
Gimme a break, when the player agrees to play in a game they are agreeing to let the GM have control of their character. If your concept does fit what the GM said was allowed, find another concept or you can find another GM.Gimme a break, when a DM agrees to run a game, they are agreeing to let the players choose what characters to play. If your campaign concept does not fit the characters the players choose, find another concept or you can find another group of players.
I guess it just comes down to whether you are willing to throw a fit and force your GM to accept a concept. I wouldn't do that. I am both creative and mature enough to give the GM the benefit of the doubt. The GM probably has a good reason to limit some concepts. Seems egotistical of a player to tell the GM, I don't care about the story you are telling, I just want to play this concept.
I guess it just comes down to whether you are willing to throw a fit and force your GM to accept a concept. I wouldn't do that. I am both creative and mature enough to give the GM the benefit of the doubt. The GM probably has a good reason to limit some concepts. Seems egotistical of a player to tell the GM, I don't care about the story you are telling, I just want to play this concept.
I guess it just comes down to whether you are willing to throw a fit and force your players to accept a concept. I wouldn't do that. I am both creative and mature enough to give the players the benefit of the doubt. The players probably have good reasons to want to play certain characters. Seems egotistical of a GM to tell the players, I don't care about the characters you want to play, I just want to tell this story.
C'mon, bro, this is really easy. Do you have any arguments that cannot be immediately and lazily turned around like this?
I guess it just comes down to whether you are willing to throw a fit and force your GM to accept a concept. I wouldn't do that. I am both creative and mature enough to give the GM the benefit of the doubt. The GM probably has a good reason to limit some concepts. Seems egotistical of a player to tell the GM, I don't care about the story you are telling, I just want to play this concept.
I guess it just comes down to whether you are willing to throw a fit and force your players to accept a concept. I wouldn't do that. I am both creative and mature enough to give the players the benefit of the doubt. The players probably have good reasons to want to play certain characters. Seems egotistical of a GM to tell the players, I don't care about the characters you want to play, I just want to tell this story.
C'mon, bro, this is really easy. Do you have any arguments that cannot be immediately and lazily turned around like this?
Gee, thanks for the personal insult, this will be my last response to you. If you don't get it, i'm not wasting my time on you.
The main issue is that it seems that there is a belief that you and your desires are the most important thing in the games. It is a co-operative effort of a group. The group hears an idea from a person willing to take the time and effort to run the game. They buy into that idea or not. If you buy into the idea, you are buying into the stated limitations as well. If you then come back with a "concept" that doesn't fit the campaign then it is that individual player that is the problem. That one individual player then has the option to change concepts or find a different campaign and GM who will allow that concept.