Point buys are a bad way to balance a game. I have come to the opinion that a 25 point buy is actually better because it actualizes more builds, while not making any class significantly over powered (maybe cleric or druid, but it doesn't help wizard that much). The extra points usually go into secondary stats to make the characters more versatile.
I may be showing my age here, but I honestly prefer rolling for stats than point buys. Point buys are great because they make organized play possible, but if I don't have to use them, I don't. They're a great tool for video games and for games where the players don't know each other, but with a human GM with appropriate discretion and players who know each other, they're unnecessary.
Specifically I dislike how point buys distort what classes or character types people are encouraged to play. Sure, even if you roll stats you can say "I only have one good stat, so I should play a Wizard or something that only needs one good stat" but point buy systems encourage you to choose to play that Wizard because you can pump the one relevant stat even higher. You never find yourself in the situation "I have a bunch of pretty good stats, so I can be a good Paladin" you have to make a conscious tradeoff instead.
Something I've played around with for character gen is looking at the classic 4d6 drop 1 approach, rolling 24 d6 on average would result in 4 6s, 4 5s, 4 4s, 4 3s, 4 2s, 4 1s. Drop the low six (all of the 1s, half of the twos) and construct six stats each using three numbers each from the set {6,6,6,6,5,5,5,5,5,4,4,4,4,3,3,3,3,2,2}. It on average results in high powered characters, but high stats make players happy and it's easier to fix in the long run than low stats.
I mean, it's only a matter of time before the Wizard takes over, so why not let the other classes be a little comparatively powerful at low levels.
The problem with rolling is that you can do it until you end up with characters equivalent to 40-50 point buy.
And caster SADness is a little overstated. A caster needs to go first more than most classes, so will want dex even more for a good initiative. A caster has a low hit die and low fort save, so will want constitution to not die or be disabled by things like poison gasses.
Really the only thing a SAD caster can dump that a martial can't is strength and maybe wisdom. Meanwhile, the martial could dump int and charisma where most SAD casters need at least one of those.
The unchained rogue is one of the better off SAD classes, since it doesn't even need strength.
The solution to rolling is simply "have the GM approve everyone's stats". Saying "that's too low/high, try again" or simply having the GM hand out arrays (either a set of arrays to choose from, or something like what the new campaign I'm going to be in next is doing "submit your concept and backstory to the GM first, then the GM tells you your traits and stat block to go along with it")
I think one of the reasons I don't enjoy point buy is that I *hate* dumping a stat in order to make another stat better. Like if I roll a low wisdom or a low charisma, I'm fine with RPing that. But I hate the whole notion that "If I drop my CHA down to 7 I can bump my WIS and my DEX to 12 each." There's something that just bothers me about "to play a better fighter, you have to also be a less charismatic fighter".
Point buy systems are just too "gamey" for me, honestly. If they work for you, great (in full disclosure they work best in the sorts of games I almost never play, so that biases me), I just don't care for them.
To me it feels too crappy as a GM to reject someone's stats because they are too good. You can't even be sure they didn't roll that in their first try, because it is always technically possible, even if not probable. And since everyone is rolling, another player may roll and try to use a stat array that's well below average. So then you have a mismatched party where in order to challenge player A, you have to add things that will likely kill player B.
I've been running the RotRL for a year and a half (just starting book 3) with 4 to 6 players (dependaing on their availability) and it has been absolutely no problem.
1) Starting stats: I gave them 25 point buy, but no stat above 17 (prior to racial mods) and none under 8. Worked great.
2) Leveling: my plays love adding up xp, so we stuck with that. They reached 3rd about right on schedule, then stayed about 1 or 1.5 levels below the recommended, without any tricky calculations on my part. It has worked fine.
3) Loot: I toss in occasional extra minor loot, but my players use lots of potions, so most of the extra loot just gets drunk. No problems here.
4) Mooks: I systematically include extra mooks for nearly every encounter. It makes for more dynamic combats and solves the action economy dilemma for boss fights. The hardest thing is keeping spellcasters out of combat for a couple rounds so they can cast their spells, this rarely works out for them. <g> But the players are having a great time laying the hammer down on enemy spellcasters.
The biggest problem with 6 players is that it slows everything down. One of the most important tasks of a DM is keeping things moving along and having effective pacing between combats and social/skill situations. This is harder with 6 players. On the bright side, you'll inevitably have a guy missing from most sessions, reducing the trouble factor of 6+ PCs.
Best advice is limiting or banning extra critters like animal companions, eidelons and such. Give druids and rangers something else instead of their companion. There are archetypes for this.
Don't do 10-point buy. Do 15 or 20 with hard upper limits. Don't do rolled stats, because somebody will get all kinds of awesome while somebody else gets screwed bad. I played a 13 strength fighter in a D&D campaign for 5 years, and hated it. On the other hand, my character was the only one who never died in 5 years. Go figure.
Now this forum is starting to confuse me .-. Like a lot of people on forum seem to complain that APs are too easy, yet you guys make it sound like its really easy to make APs unwinnable just by not changing stuff for six players <_<
I have found that most AP encounters are fairly easy. Unless you have weird dice luck (which is oddly common), the players should not have much trouble with them. This is especially true of encounters where the players can really unload, and be fairly sure they won't face more that day. This is not a bad thing, as players generally want to be successful, not get killed every session. The bosses on the other hand, can be real character killers. The power of these encounters isn't always obvious if you are just glancing at the stat block, so check out the messageboards to see where groups had trouble or PCs died.
The problem with point buys is that you can have a very high point buy, and still make a totally unbalanced character. Nothing about a 25 point buy prevents you from dropping you Charisma and Intelligence down to 7, in the same way that you can still have a 20 Int with a 10 point buy. If you want balanced characters who can participate in a variety of situations, you need to limit maximum (and perhaps minimum) ability scores. Preventing ability score imbalance from the start will make the game fun for everyone and prevent one class from dominating the game.
Finally, Wealth By Level is a vague guide, and if you are a level up or down, it won't really matter too much. Just remember, it is MUCH easier to hand out treasure then it is to take it back!
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Okay, just to ask, why should I increase loot just to hit Wealth by level average? <_< Is that something expected in normal situations?
If you follow the treasure values of the creatures added in, wealth should mostly handle itself. For example, if you add in an extra orc to an encounter that orc comes with +260 gp worth of gear which will naturally increase the treasure of the adventure without you needing to manually add in extra treasures.
And partly because wealth has always been a form of experience progression in D&D. In older editions it directly translated to +XP and level advancement, in the newer editions it serves as an additional measure of overall power and options. Characters need wealth to do things like buy spells, weapons, armor, magical doodads, etc.
Like I'm not adding loot to enemies if players ignore sidequests written in APs, why would I add loot just so everyone has equal amount of money? Heck, players might not even bother with looting things to sell things. In my experience, people get really bored with writing down all loot, so they only take interesting or useful stuff along with golds in pockets.
Which is why I just suggested increasing the XP budget of encounters by +25% for each extra player (+50% in your 6 player party) and including the treasure that goes alongside the extra challenges. That should keep things moving well enough.
And I'm kinda trying to avoid the "If you have six players and 25 point buy, maybe that reason why AP designed for 4 players and 15 points is too easy" thing that designers keep getting annoyed about in threads complaining about AP difficulty :'D Like if I'm trying to keep things balanced, I kinda feel like going directly against that means I'm doing something wrong
I would strongly suggest forgetting the point buy conversation entirely. It's a waste of time when it comes to discussing how to balance characters against the things they will face in a D&D session. There is far less difference between 10 and 25 point buy than magic items and additional characters provide.
All 10pt buy does is force all your players into playing a Wizard or Synthesist summoner. You are punishing anyone stupid enough to play a martial.
No one should ever allow synthesist in a point buy. Even at 40 point buy they wreck the system.
No one should ever allow synthesist in a point buy.
To me it feels too crappy as a GM to reject someone's stats because they are too good.
The funny thing to me is that these are kind of the same thing- "Please do not do X it breaks my game."
Synthesist is kind of more broken in most games than "really good stats", but I honestly find "some players are going to play good classes in an optimized fashion" and "some players are going to play fairly weak classes in a fashion that is more interested in flavor and theme than power" to be a far stickier wicket than "some characters are going to have better stats." Heck, if the people with the thematic and suboptimal characters (Dwarf Spy Rogue, Changeling Sensate Fighter!) have really good stats and the RAGELANCEPOUNCE barb and the Synthesist have less good stats, that kind of helps fix the imbalance.
Now I kind of want to run a campaign where everybody makes terribly optimized but narratively interesting choices for characters and has great stats.
No one should ever allow synthesist in a point buy.To me it feels too crappy as a GM to reject someone's stats because they are too good.The funny thing to me is that these are kind of the same thing- "Please do not do X it breaks my game."
The main difference is that one is personal and one is general. "You can't use those stats" vs "No one can play a X".
Like, better way to balance would be improving encounters, but I don't trust my sense when it comes to balancing, so for next best thing, how does 10 point buy work in that regard?
Boost the CR by +1 by adding more creatures.
10 point buy is not a good idea.
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Limiting stats to their after racial values feels bad to me. A race that's good at a thing should be good at a thing. You may as well limit stats to 14 before racial adjustments.Well, given that half the races have floating +2, I don't feel like it matters much anymore. I also like that PCs have the option to have two 16's if they want to without dropping anything below 10.
14 Before, or 16 after, doesn't really matter much, but I think there would be less whining from players if you avoid using the word 14 when talking about maximum stats!
Arggh, so this is where this keeps coming from. There are some races where an 'after racials' limit just kills the flavor. Goblins for example have a +4 to dexterity. Does it really make sense that they can't get above 16 dexterity? This just kills the flavor of some races.
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So the OP likes XP and doesn't want to switch to a No-XP system. Fine. And he doesn't trust his ability to enhance encounters and still keep them balanced and fair. Fine.
Try this:
Don't change a thing. Use 15-point-buy. Let them play what they want (I still advise not picking companion classes like summoner or druid just because 6 players is already a strain on play time and companions only make it worse). Don't raise the CRs, don't add enemies, don't edit anything in any encounter.
This wasn't sarcasm.
What will happen? At level 1, things will be fairly easy. 6 heroes to handle the encounters that were designed for 4 heroes. But when they divide the XP by 6, everybody will get less XP. And when they divide the loot by 6, everybody will get less loot.
Eventually they will fall behind. And it won't take long. For example, by the time they have a total of 36,000 xp, a 4-man group would each have 9,000 and be level four, but a 6-man group will each have only 6,000 xp and still just barely be level three.
Not only will they be consistently a level behind the expected level for each encounter, but they'll also only have about 2/3 the amount of wealth they should have.
Being a level behind with 2/3 the normal wealth should mean that future encounters, by the time they're in book 2, will all be perfectly challenging.
I say "should" because nothing is perfect, but you get the idea.
In case you're wondering, I've done it. I am doing it now (with 5 players). It works very well, and takes NO time from me to edit the encounters.
So the OP likes XP and doesn't want to switch to a No-XP system. Fine. And he doesn't trust his ability to enhance encounters and still keep them balanced and fair. Fine.
Try this:
Don't change a thing. Use 15-point-buy. Let them play what they want (I still advise not picking companion classes like summoner or druid just because 6 players is already a strain on play time and companions only make it worse). Don't raise the CRs, don't add enemies, don't edit anything in any encounter.
This wasn't sarcasm.
What will happen? At level 1, things will be fairly easy. 6 heroes to handle the encounters that were designed for 4 heroes. But when they divide the XP by 6, everybody will get less XP. And when they divide the loot by 6, everybody will get less loot.
Eventually they will fall behind. And it won't take long. For example, by the time they have a total of 36,000 xp, a 4-man group would each have 9,000 and be level four, but a 6-man group will each have only 6,000 xp and still just barely be level three.
Not only will they be consistently a level behind the expected level for each encounter, but they'll also only have about 2/3 the amount of wealth they should have.
Being a level behind with 2/3 the normal wealth should mean that future encounters, by the time they're in book 2, will all be perfectly challenging.
I say "should" because nothing is perfect, but you get the idea.
In case you're wondering, I've done it. I am doing it now (with 5 players). It works very well, and takes NO time from me to edit the encounters.
I will second this.
We ran this way through Way of the Wicked, and everything worked out fine.
Encounters were challenging, but not "every encounter is a death trap!" so, every character got his or her turn to shine, and we never thought that we would TPK unless the encounter was one where we *should* have that fear.
I started running Iron Gods adjusting for party size of six via templates and increased encounters.
It was a ton of work.
Around book 4 I stopped adjusting encounters entirely.
Now they are on the final two fights, and everything is AS hard as it should be.
They had a really rough time with one sub boss (I killed on party member twice and another five times in one encounter), but considering the nature of the boss (the mortal conduit of a god's power on the Material Plane), this was appropriate.
other encounters ranged from rough but winable to "Haha, we're level 16, noobs! *heavily metamagiced fireball*".
In the end, it isn't a bad way to operate.
Nobody listened me when I said one level behind isn't really option for me, huh xD
Anyway, thanks for advice, I guess I just go with adding few more enemies now and then or get less lazy and start using templates sometimes
Just increasing the numbers of each encounter by +50% of each type of enemy should do the trick.