15 point buy, why does it appeal to you?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Alright so I wasn't sure what to name this thread, but here goes.

Recently I was invited to play in a game of Rise of the Runelords in a new group with one of my existing friends, who mainly wanted me to join as I've played through most of the first parts of the AP and knew what to help him with. However things reached a snag when we got there and it
was explained during character creation that it was 15 point buy.

Now I've used point buy, but I almost can't imagine anything lower than 25. I asked the DM why he'd settled on that and politely explained that the game might not be for me. This launched into a discussion among all the other players (besides my friend) about why this was silly and made me really sound like some sort of power gamer. I wanted to come and share my own opinion on the matter as the topic was rather interesting to me, and I'd like to hear the thoughts of others on the topic in hopes of maybe coming around to the idea of playing in the game since despite the outcome, they did express hope I would reconsider.

Now I won't deny a certain preference for powerful characters, but it is less to do with power gaming and just what I'm coming to find from other forum posts is a vastly different mindset about the game. To me 15 point buy represents "unheroic" characters, average, normal, everyday people who happen to be thrust into a fantastic adventure. They usually have some manner of negative modifier or two, something that has always been a big deterrent to me, and some people seem to very much enjoy roleplaying these types of characters.

I however just never understood the appeal, after all the game is about fantasy and heroes aren't average people most of the time. 15 point buy feels...strange. The massive weaknesses in the character feel less like 'flaws' and more like plain old hindrances on the game. I don't often have any stat below a 12, mainly because I always imagined the heroes of the story are all just better then the rest in everyday aspects.

Hopefully I can bring myself to give it a try and not feel so discouraged by it all, but I know that hearing out some supporters for 15 point buy (other than a select few people) would be a good idea before I give it a go. Conversely they also said they may be open to giving a higher point buy an attempt if I chose to DM the game instead since I have more experience with 'higher power' games. So if anyone has similar thoughts to my own or just good explanations in support of higher point buys I would love to hear them as well! I know I can have a pretty hard time actually talking to new groups so points to remember are good to have.


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See this thread and this older thread.


UnArcaneElection wrote:

See this thread and this older thread.

Ah thank you for some references. I think I say the later a few months ago, though I hadn't checked the Advice boards as of yet (silly I know, just little time in the day to look around them all).


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For me, I enjoy 15 point buy because of what it represents in the game. A 15 point buy represents someone who is above average, and really capable. Someone who can BE a hero, but still has flaws. After all, an elite array for an NPC is based on a 15 point buy (15,14,13,12,10,9) while the 'average joe' array used for anyone who started with NPC classes is only a 3-point buy (13,12,11,10,9,8). A 15 point buy helps to ground the game in it's surrounding reality, and I think the best heroes start from the ground up, at least for me. Starting out a little humble makes getting really strong later on all the more rewarding. It's been stated that the best-of-the-best here on earth (marines, olympic athletes, etc) who are the people that would have PC classes, only ever reach level 6, and would be statted with the elite array. This means an olympic athlete, for example (say, human rogue 6) might have a Dex or Strength of 16 and the other at 12, or maybe for a better balance, a Strength/Dex of 15 and the other at 13.

The point is, a lower point buy feels like it helps ground things in reality, which is what I look for in my fantasy. It's nice to be able to quantify what is seen in game with realism, so that the heroic deeds, like shooting a fireball thanks to your sheer mental strength, or carving through several people thanks to incredible martial skill, really feels amazing. Personally, the game gets boring when the norm is extreme skill, at least at first. I don't want to start out as a hero, I want to BECOME one.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their point of view, but this is simply my view. 20 point buys are fine too, especially for a higher power game featuring even more extraordinary individuals. I don't think I'd ever want to play a serious game set to a 25-point buy.

Silver Crusade

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Personally with a 15 point buy, apart from grounding the character in the setting as stated above, I feel that it helps the system not get too overpowered too quickly. More specifically to the OP, I can't help but wonder why a 15 point buy would feel "unheroic" to you? With that kind of stat array you're already leagues above normal people, and that's not even taking into consideration the magic item buffs you'll be getting later down the line. The way I see it with 15 points available you can make a character that either excels in his field, or is generally decent at everything, which for me is enough. Plus, I like my games to be a little bit more difficult in general.

Anyway, I think everything that can be said was probably already said better in those other threads, but I agree with Nargemn that I would never be able to take a 25 point buy game seriously. I agree that it's important to make the player characters exceptional in some way, but I don't think the best way to do so is by making them inherently superior to their peers in the setting from the start.


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Thanks for the input Nargemn and Daniel. I guess part of it probably stems from the fact that I come from a background of 4d6 drop lowest, and some DMs even had Reroll 1s as a rule. The 4d6 drop low has been our mainstay for most of the years I played 3.5, and our groups never really had 'bad' rolls. We usually ended up with rolls like 17, 16, 16, 14, 15, 12. To me this is pretty much normal and what all our characters looked like. It certainly didn't keep us from dying, but it always felt...I guess heroic would just be the only word for it.

For me 15 point buy feels like I'm more or less just an NPC. It's what they were statted with and most of our games played under the assumption that the players were 'the big deal' around the city. NPCs were mostly normal people, since they were important enough to be written out in the first place,but weren't good enough to be the heros, where as normal joes didn't even get statted out. They had all 10s or if they were particularly inept at something they had a couple negative mods. Negative represented "absolutely terrible" at something for most of our groups. Like if you had an 8 intelligence you were bordering on a mental disorder. I do know this isn't how a lot of people had it though.

One major thing I can point toward the trend though, is that we would almost NEVER use any form of item that boosted a stat of any kind. My groups tended to consist of people with similar thoughts to my own in this regard, in that aside from the necessary pluses to armor and weapons, we wanted our characters to be expressed primarily through class and actual personal stats. On the rare occasion a stat boosting item did appear it was usually something the bad guy wore to make up for some weakness, or as a "mythical creation meant to bridge the gaps of mortal achievement" kind of deal. So the stats we had and the +1 from every 4 levels was it. That was your stats for good unless something bad happened to them.


A Hero with 15 point-buy is for me uninterresting, really 15 points is 14 in three stats, a TWF cannot be made without dumping one or two stats, due to the high requirements of feats...
And on AP, you have NPC opponents with 30 PB (Caleb Voltario in Carrion Crown/WOW has 30 PB, Skreed Gorewillow in GiantSlayer BOBH has 28 PB ) and there are not bosses eveak peons you have to face are 15 PB (Cultits in the WOW have a 16 PB), 15 PB is considering the PC as peons, No they are heroes so they should have Heroes PB at least...


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Yondu wrote:

A Hero with 15 point-buy is for me uninterresting, really 15 points is 14 in three stats, a TWF cannot be made without dumping one or two stats, due to the high requirements of feats...

And on AP, you have NPC opponents with 30 PB (Caleb Voltario in Carrion Crown/WOW has 30 PB, Skreed Gorewillow in GiantSlayer BOBH has 28 PB ) and there are not bosses eveak peons you have to face are 15 PB (Cultits in the WOW have a 16 PB), 15 PB is considering the PC as peons, No they are heroes so they should have Heroes PB at least...

You are flat out incorrect.

Level 1 you can easily start with a Dex of 16 using 15point buy (14+2racial).

By level 6 your Dexterity would have been raised by +1 at level 4. This now qualifies you for Improved Two-Weapon Fighting.

By level 11 your Dexterity is now naturally an 18 (14+2race+2level). A +2 Belt of Incredible Dexterity will qualify you for Greater Two-Weapon Fighting. Alternately, you can increase your Dexterity to 19 at level 12 and get the feat at level 13.

In short, 15point buy is completely workable for a TWF build.

Pathfinder APs are based on 15point buy as the standard.
Of course, if you like to power game your way through things then, yes, you will want a higher point buy. But frankly, that just makes life harder for your GM because now he has to ramp up the encounters to match your higher point buy power creep.


Gauss wrote:
Yondu wrote:

A Hero with 15 point-buy is for me uninterresting, really 15 points is 14 in three stats, a TWF cannot be made without dumping one or two stats, due to the high requirements of feats...

And on AP, you have NPC opponents with 30 PB (Caleb Voltario in Carrion Crown/WOW has 30 PB, Skreed Gorewillow in GiantSlayer BOBH has 28 PB ) and there are not bosses eveak peons you have to face are 15 PB (Cultits in the WOW have a 16 PB), 15 PB is considering the PC as peons, No they are heroes so they should have Heroes PB at least...

You are flat out incorrect.

Level 1 you can easily start with a Dex of 16 using 15point buy (14+2racial).

By level 6 your Dexterity would have been raised by +1 at level 4. This now qualifies you for Improved Two-Weapon Fighting.

By level 11 your Dexterity is now naturally an 18 (14+2race+2level). A +2 Belt of Incredible Dexterity will qualify you for Greater Two-Weapon Fighting. Alternately, you can increase your Dexterity to 19 at level 12 and get the feat at level 13.

In short, 15point buy is completely workable for a TWF build.

Pathfinder APs are based on 15point buy as the standard.
Of course, if you like to power game your way through things then, yes, you will want a higher point buy. But frankly, that just makes life harder for your GM because now he has to ramp up the encounters to match your higher point buy power creep.

5 more points in point buy is hardly a huge ramp of encounters and power game hardly?

But I totes suggest you guys go visit the thread unarcane posted a lot of good info people have posted about point buy. (and also maybe because I started it I might be why I'm encouraging you to do so.)

Liberty's Edge

15 point-buy is not necessarily non-heroic. It's pretty easily doable to make heroic and impressive with that as long as you're willing to dump a stat.

Which makes them flawed heroes, but not unimpressive.

Remember, everyone with a PC Class is fairly impressive to start with, and precious few of those have more than one stat at 16+...something a PC can do easily.

It does limit your classes and capabilities somewhat (and I prefer higher point-buy myself to reduce the need to dump stats), but 15 point-buy is totally workable.

Now, if you specifically don't want to deal with the mechanical (and possibly thematic) consequences of low stats, that's very doable. I mean, let's examine one build designed to minimize those costs:

Half-Orc Empiricist Investigator with Student of Philosophy, Fate's Favored and Sacred Tattoo:

Str 16 (14+2) Dex 12 Con 12 Int 16 Wis 10 Cha 7

Feat: Medium Armor Proficiency

That gives you +3 Fort, +5 Ref, +4 Will Saves, solid AC, a perfectly good melee offense and, starting at 2nd level, for every purpose except for feinting and Perform effectively no stat less that 12.

You can do even better on the 'stat compensation' game by taking the Conversion Inquisition on an Inquisitor, or dumping Wis on a Bard and taking the right Versatile Performance. Or dumping Dex on certain kinds of Oracle.

Really, compensation of that sort is very doable.


Gauss wrote:
Yondu wrote:

A Hero with 15 point-buy is for me uninterresting, really 15 points is 14 in three stats, a TWF cannot be made without dumping one or two stats, due to the high requirements of feats...

And on AP, you have NPC opponents with 30 PB (Caleb Voltario in Carrion Crown/WOW has 30 PB, Skreed Gorewillow in GiantSlayer BOBH has 28 PB ) and there are not bosses eveak peons you have to face are 15 PB (Cultits in the WOW have a 16 PB), 15 PB is considering the PC as peons, No they are heroes so they should have Heroes PB at least...

You are flat out incorrect.

Level 1 you can easily start with a Dex of 16 using 15point buy (14+2racial).

By level 6 your Dexterity would have been raised by +1 at level 4. This now qualifies you for Improved Two-Weapon Fighting.

By level 11 your Dexterity is now naturally an 18 (14+2race+2level). A +2 Belt of Incredible Dexterity will qualify you for Greater Two-Weapon Fighting. Alternately, you can increase your Dexterity to 19 at level 12 and get the feat at level 13.

In short, 15point buy is completely workable for a TWF build.

Pathfinder APs are based on 15point buy as the standard.
Of course, if you like to power game your way through things then, yes, you will want a higher point buy. But frankly, that just makes life harder for your GM because now he has to ramp up the encounters to match your higher point buy power creep.

The Wizard's going to have his 20 int with 15, 20 or 25 pointbuy. The latter two just give non SAD classes a minor leg up.


Although our group uses 20 point buy, I like the feel of 15 point buy, and it's very appropriate for the setting of Rise of the Runelords.

Particularly if you're not used to it, I think you may end up surprised at how much depth there is in characters that can't do it all by themselves - it really makes you lean harder on your teammates.

It's also notable that it's the assumption for RotR.

Consider an array like the following:

16, 14, 14, 12, 12, 10, 7

There, that's not so bad, is it? Your character will have a deep flaw somewhere, but you can also start with an 18 and a 16 after racial adjustments very easily.

Or for a more balanced approach:

15, 14, 14, 12, 12, 10, 9 - you'll have your 18 at 4th level, and your bad stat isn't so "crippling".

I actually really enjoy - and have always enjoyed - playing characters with one low score. Gives 'em character ;)

One thing is for sure - our group got used to having Stat arrays like the one you mentioned. We used that method for a decade, at least. After playing with much lower stats, we actually ended up finding a more enjoyable game.

I say give it a go. I think you'll end up being surprised.

Dark Archive

Personally, PFS has made me accustomed to 20 pointbuy as a happy medium. That 16/14/14/12/10/8 array can work wonders with just about anything.

When it comes to 15 point buy? I consider it just fine, but that's because I accept the fact that it changes the game. Something that needs multiple attributes ( like the Monk) suffers a lot, but I'd look at building something that only relies on one or two stats (like a Wizard or a Kineticist) to feel like I'm good where it counts. You'll find that with some careful building, you can still be very effective even with a few 12s, 10s, or even 8s on your sheet. Don't let the low numbers fool you into thinking a given character is weak.

When in doubt, you can always play a pet class. That way your sense of power is far less reliant on your stats. Summoner works wonders (you could build a functional Summoner off of a 0 point buy as a Dwarf) but considering the mindset of the group, Unchained Summoner might work better.

Edit: the more that I think about it, the more I want to try a 15 point game. Could be a nice change of pace.


I prefer 20 points. 15 points is definitely too low but I find 25 just pushes over into the slightly too good range. Playing PFS has made me prefer the middle range.

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I've played with 15 PB for a while now. It's really not bad. You can make pretty much any class you want with it - myths about MAD classes being unplayable are just that, myths. I'd be willing to play a CRB-only monk at 10 PB. It would be an interesting challenge.

It does require more teamwork to overcome obstacles, but that's not a bad thing. Teamwork is a force multiplier.

Considering that APs are written with 15 PB in mind, it also makes me feel like I'm playing at the intended difficulty, as opposed to "easy mode."

You might prefer more points, and there's nothing wrong with that. But there's nothing wrong with preferring fewer points either. My POV is that if the character can survive and contribute to an AP as written, you have enough points. By that metric I've seen rolled characters who would have a 7 PB be fine.

Heck, you can build most concepts effectively just with the 15 14 13 12 10 8 default spread.


OK I've heard all what you said on 15 points buy, the balance, the challenge, how it is OP to have a 25 PB character.
Let's face the reality of figures :
I want to have a fighter in heavy armor making manoeuvers, I need 13 in intelligence so 3 points less, I have 12 points to add in physical attributes, I have two choices putting the remaining points in related characteritics, which make me a bad manoeuver fighter due to Strength or Dexterity of a Garden Snail...I want to make a monk, with meditation, so I need to have at least, 13 in wisdom, even more to more options, so the same issue to split my 12 points in other stats if I want Stunning Fist, I have to put more points in Dexterity...
If you are MAD with a 15 PB, you don't have many options on your character.
As PB encourage to have standarized characters, especially on MAD Classes, a 15 is even more a point as you are forced to dump to have something usable in play.


I find it widens the power gap between PCs the lower the point buy is. Overall a lower point buy just hurts more martial oriented characters far more than casters. It also leads to less variety since you end up being pretty limited in overall options.

There's not much difference in a 15 or 25 pb for a Wizard, but a laughably huge difference for a Monk or say, a thrown weapons Fighter.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

Yondu wrote:

OK I've heard all what you said on 15 points buy, the balance, the challenge, how it is OP to have a 25 PB character.

Let's face the reality of figures :
I want to have a fighter in heavy armor making manoeuvers, I need 13 in intelligence so 3 points less, I have 12 points to add in physical attributes, I have two choices putting the remaining points in related characteritics, which make me a bad manoeuver fighter due to Strength or Dexterity of a Garden Snail...I want to make a monk, with meditation, so I need to have at least, 13 in wisdom, even more to more options, so the same issue to split my 12 points in other stats if I want Stunning Fist, I have to put more points in Dexterity...
If you are MAD with a 15 PB, you don't have many options on your character.
As PB encourage to have standarized characters, especially on MAD Classes, a 15 is even more a point as you are forced to dump to have something usable in play.

15 PB human fighter I played all the way through Carrion Crown:

S16(18) D12 C12 I13 W8 CH10
By the 5th adventure the GM thought he was a bit OP. He was taking out CR-appropriate foes in a single round of full attacks.

Monk is a little trickier, you'd probably want to dump Int and Cha if you really need the other stats.
Could maybe go:
S14 D15 C10 I8 W15 Ch8...before racials.
Though I admit I haven't tried such a build.


Naoki00 wrote:

Thanks for the input Nargemn and Daniel. I guess part of it probably stems from the fact that I come from a background of 4d6 drop lowest, and some DMs even had Reroll 1s as a rule. The 4d6 drop low has been our mainstay for most of the years I played 3.5, and our groups never really had 'bad' rolls. We usually ended up with rolls like 17, 16, 16, 14, 15, 12. To me this is pretty much normal and what all our characters looked like. It certainly didn't keep us from dying, but it always felt...I guess heroic would just be the only word for it.

Let me guess. You guys rolled your stats at home when no one was looking right?


Yondu wrote:

OK I've heard all what you said on 15 points buy, the balance, the challenge, how it is OP to have a 25 PB character.

Let's face the reality of figures :
I want to have a fighter in heavy armor making manoeuvers, I need 13 in intelligence so 3 points less, I have 12 points to add in physical attributes, I have two choices putting the remaining points in related characteritics, which make me a bad manoeuver fighter due to Strength or Dexterity of a Garden Snail...I want to make a monk, with meditation, so I need to have at least, 13 in wisdom, even more to more options, so the same issue to split my 12 points in other stats if I want Stunning Fist, I have to put more points in Dexterity...
If you are MAD with a 15 PB, you don't have many options on your character.
As PB encourage to have standarized characters, especially on MAD Classes, a 15 is even more a point as you are forced to dump to have something usable in play.

Actually, there is a feat now that lets you skip the 13 int.

As for having to dump stats, I don't see anything wrong with that. It creates characters with flaws.

The Exchange

As a potential tool to reduce the effectiveness of full casters by giving them a smaller point buy.


GeneticDrift wrote:
As a potential tool to reduce the effectiveness of full casters by giving them a smaller point buy.

I'd just like to point out that that's exactly what it doesn't do. My sorcerer can still have a 20 charisma, even if she needs to dump every other stat to do so.

On the other hand, you've completely crippled the ranger and the paladin that she relies on to keep the bad guys from eating her face.


john locke 111 wrote:
Yondu wrote:

OK I've heard all what you said on 15 points buy, the balance, the challenge, how it is OP to have a 25 PB character.

Let's face the reality of figures :
I want to have a fighter in heavy armor making manoeuvers, I need 13 in intelligence so 3 points less, I have 12 points to add in physical attributes, I have two choices putting the remaining points in related characteritics, which make me a bad manoeuver fighter due to Strength or Dexterity of a Garden Snail...I want to make a monk, with meditation, so I need to have at least, 13 in wisdom, even more to more options, so the same issue to split my 12 points in other stats if I want Stunning Fist, I have to put more points in Dexterity...
If you are MAD with a 15 PB, you don't have many options on your character.
As PB encourage to have standarized characters, especially on MAD Classes, a 15 is even more a point as you are forced to dump to have something usable in play.

Actually, there is a feat now that lets you skip the 13 int.

As for having to dump stats, I don't see anything wrong with that. It creates characters with flaws.

The main problem, tbqh, is that the "flaw" is usually "low Charisma". If the attributes were a tad more balanced so that it was possible to say, dump DEX, CON, or WIS without feeling like you were shooting yourself in the foot, it'd be a bit better.

That said: TC, your problem is that you are going from 25, which is an upper extreme of point buy, to 15. So you are going from what could be considered slightly overpowered character to slightly underpowered characters (whether or not they're actually overpowered or underpowered is debatable, my point is simply that there's two degrees of difference here). And yeah, the rolls you're used to, you must have been quite lucky because they are unrealistically high, which is going to make it further difficult to get used to a more realistic point buy.

15 point buy is playable, it just makes it very unpleasant to be a MAD class. I myself am a strong believer in 20 point buy. It helps the characters that need it the most. But make no doubt, the game functions at 15 point buy and it's not worth, say, quitting the game over.

Scarab Sages

We went from 25, to 20, to 15, and then back to 20.

15 was fine if you carefully selected class and race. But for other things was a little tough especially for MAD classes. So we went back to 20 with minimum of 8 pre-racial adjustments.

Though even at 15 the martial characters had little problem, and the game is playable. 25 was just too hard on the DM to make sure encounters are challenging (esp with 6 PCs).

We also changed hp from 75% of total per level (which we used for years) to 50%, now that we use retraining rules to increase hp.


ryric wrote:


15 PB human fighter I played all the way through Carrion Crown:
S16(18) D12 C12 I13 W8 CH10
By the 5th adventure the GM thought he was a bit OP. He was taking out CR-appropriate foes in a single round of full attacks.

That Fighter, for example, would leave me very nervous. 8 Wisdom instead of 12 Wisdom means you're 10% more likely to fail a will save (or get ambushed). And Fighters for a long time didn't have the greatest will, so that 10% is killer. Iron Will can cancel out the penalty, but I'd rather have Iron Will help to cancel out Fighter's natural save deficit.

And considering Will saves result in teammates being attacked, it's not just a "weakness", it's a liability. Like, I wouldn't want to party with someone like that in Pathfinder's world. I consider it an actual responsibility to create characters with higher will than that.

And this is an example of a supposedly successful character. If the GM lets you get away with characters with such a glaring weakness, more power to you. But it'd make me nervous. Very nervous.

(Now that a Fighter has Advanced Weapon Training to turn Bravery into general Will bonus, I might be willing to consider a character like this, but it's still very borderline for me).


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Point buy is a tool of the magocracy. As noted upthread, 15 PB is more than enough to make your wizard or cleric into a god, whereas 25 PB is barely enough to make a competent martial. The problem isn't with the number of points; it lies in the martial/caster discrepancy that's built into nearly every aspect of the game from the ground up.

If you wanted to even that out in terms of stats, start with a relatively narrow array (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15) and don't let racial bonuses apply to one's primary casting stat.


If you're specifically aiming to even out the martial/caster disparity via point buy, give full casters 15 PB, pure martials 25 PB, and everyone else 20 PB. Of course, you might have to rule out multiclassing out of your category.


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In answer to the OP, I come from a 1e background, in which a 15 usually gave you a +1 bonus, scaling to +4 at 18. In 3e terms, that means a 12 is, to me, exactly equal to the 15 I used to expect. If a roll or buy a 14, that's equivalent to what used to require a 16. From that perspective, 25 PB in 3e is like using the 9d6 method from the 1e Unearthed Arcana that we all used to make fun of.


Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:
If you're specifically aiming to even out the martial/caster disparity via point buy, give full casters 15 PB, pure martials 25 PB, and everyone else 20 PB. Of course, you might have to rule out multiclassing out of your category.

As noted, that still favors the wizard.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

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PK the Dragon wrote:
ryric wrote:


15 PB human fighter I played all the way through Carrion Crown:
S16(18) D12 C12 I13 W8 CH10
By the 5th adventure the GM thought he was a bit OP. He was taking out CR-appropriate foes in a single round of full attacks.

That Fighter, for example, would leave me very nervous. 8 Wisdom instead of 12 Wisdom means you're 10% more likely to fail a will save (or get ambushed). And Fighters for a long time didn't have the greatest will, so that 10% is killer. Iron Will can cancel out the penalty, but I'd rather have Iron Will help to cancel out Fighter's natural save deficit.

And considering Will saves result in teammates being attacked, it's not just a "weakness", it's a liability. Like, I wouldn't want to party with someone like that in Pathfinder's world. I consider it an actual responsibility to create characters with higher will than that.

And this is an example of a supposedly successful character. If the GM lets you get away with characters with such a glaring weakness, more power to you. But it'd make me nervous. Very nervous.

(Now that a Fighter has Advanced Weapon Training to turn Bravery into general Will bonus, I might be willing to consider a character like this, but it's still very borderline for me).

Again, I see people say things like this but in my experience they really aren't borne out in play. Turning against the party basically requires Dominate, which generally means you're already higher level and have a multitude of ways to deal with such thing. Heck, dominate is shut down by a 1st level spell.

The real big risks of a low Will save are being put to sleep, confused, or held. And those are a calculated risk I'm taking with a low Wisdom. but if the enemy is spending his turn hitting me with a hold person, that's a turn that the party cleric and sorcerer can spend lighting him up. Team game. (Our Carrion Crown party was fighter, sorcerer, cleric, summoner, all 15 PB)

These tips may not work for your or your game style. Personally I'm nervous about trying a character with a Con penalty, but someday I should just to see if it's as bad as I fear. I believe in testing ideas with experiment, and my experiments have shown me that both 15 PB and bad Will saves aren't that big of a deal.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:
If you're specifically aiming to even out the martial/caster disparity via point buy, give full casters 15 PB, pure martials 25 PB, and everyone else 20 PB. Of course, you might have to rule out multiclassing out of your category.
As noted, that still favors the wizard.

Low point buys always do. The very last time I ran PF I handed out 16, 16, 16, 16, 13, 10 as an array, WITHOUT adjusting encounters and tons of fun was had by all.

@ OP: sounds like you have a golden opportunity to whet your teeth as a GM. If you like high pointbuys then use one [or an array that ammounts to a high PB] and go to town.

My one word of advice- do not be discouraged when the party wins easily most of the time. The more legitimate danger the more likely you risk TPK. Instead find your fun in using enemy abilities as tactically as you can, in the smiles and laughter of your players, and in their sighs of relief when the occassional desperate battle that DOES pop up finally comes to an end.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
Point buy is a tool of the magocracy. As noted upthread, 15 PB is more than enough to make your wizard or cleric into a god, whereas 25 PB is barely enough to make a competent martial. The problem isn't with the number of points; it lies in the martial/caster discrepancy that's built into nearly every aspect of the game from the ground up.

What do you mean by "competent"?

Is "competent" for a martial supposed to mean "has a somewhat comparable breadth of narrative options to a caster"?

Or is "can solo a CR appropriate encounter in a hail of arrows or raging pounce(s)" enough to qualify as at least "competent" for the purposes of this evaluation?


ryric wrote:


Again, I see people say things like this but in my experience they really aren't borne out in play. Turning against the party basically requires Dominate, which generally means you're already higher level and have a multitude of ways to deal with such thing. Heck, dominate is shut down by a 1st level spell.

The real big risks of a low Will save are being put to sleep, confused, or held. And those are a calculated risk I'm taking with a low Wisdom. but if the enemy is spending his turn hitting me with a hold person, that's a turn that the party cleric and sorcerer can spend lighting him up. Team game. (Our Carrion Crown party was fighter, sorcerer, cleric, summoner, all 15 PB)

These tips may not work for your...

Yeah, I've got a very different character creation style. In general, I don't like to assume my allies are spellcasters, or that they are competent. I mean, that's harsh, so what I really MEAN is, I don't like to force other people to optimize more to make up for my own weaknesses. That puts an unnecessary burden on others, and makes my character *reliant* on the others- which isn't particularly heroic to me.

That said, I can see why that party would work. It's basically the dream team of 15 point buy, lol. All it's missing is a Druid with an animal companion. And hey, it's impressive that the GM somehow considered you OP with two full casters and a summoner in that team, so congrats, you must have either been playing really well, the casters really badly, or he has a weakness for large damage numbers. Either way, good job standing out there.


Dump stats annoy me on an aesthetic level. Just the idea that a fighter might be able to hit harder by virtue of being less charming or less intelligent seems wrong.

Rather than 15 PB I would rather do 20 or 25 with no bonus points for stats below 10. If I want people to be playing flawed characters, I'd rather give them an array with an 8 in there than let people benefit from dumping stats. This way lies min-maxing.

"I am below average at something" ought to be a roleplaying point about your character, not "I dumped Charisma for more good stats, but I'm going to RP a perfectly charming person because I will argue at length that RPing your stats is bad."


It's not that RPing your stats is bad, it's that playing in a game where certain abilities require certain attributes and forcing players to conform to the default stories those requireme ts generate that is bad.

Don't let the stats write your character for you. The aforementioned 8 Charisma is a -1 to any attempt at charismatic things, that's the game system doing its work under the hood. Whether the body is a hot pink coupe, a camo jeep, a fiery black and red roadster, or a green suv.


I just can't see the fact that a character with a Charisma of 8 who is 5% less likely to make a friend than someone of average Charisma who has devoted the exact same amount of time and energy to social skills as something that need not be represented somewhere in who that character is.

Empirically, a first level character with 8 charisma, diplomacy as a class skill, and 1 rank in diplomacy is less apt at diplomacy than a first level character with 10 charisma, diplomacy as a class skill, and 1 rank in diplomacy. In the reality of the game world, I feel that requires some kind of explanation on my part.


claymade wrote:
Is "competent" for a martial supposed to mean "has a somewhat comparable breadth of narrative options to a caster"?

I would love it if that were exactly the case. Unfortunately, that's never going to happen in a straight PF game, so no sense even discussing it here.

claymade wrote:
Or is "can solo a CR appropriate encounter in a hail of arrows or raging pounce(s)" enough to qualify as at least "competent" for the purposes of this evaluation?

A martial guy should be able to do that with mooks, sure. With equal-CR martial combatants, 50/50 -- he dies or they do. And you can hit that benchmark with a reasonable PB. But that's not all he should be able to do, so that he pretty much has to sit out any encounters that don't involve a mundane opponent walking up to him and offering to trade blows Queensberry-style.

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PK the Dragon wrote:


Yeah, I've got a very different character creation style. In general, I don't like to assume my allies are spellcasters, or that they are competent. I mean, that's harsh, so what I really MEAN is, I don't like to force other people to optimize more to make up for my own weaknesses. That puts an unnecessary burden on others, and makes my character *reliant* on the others- which isn't particularly heroic to me.

This actually touches on one of the cornerstones of successful play with lower PB, at least in my experience. You need to create a team of adventurers, not a bunch of random people who happen to be together. I would not have made a fighter if the team hadn't needed some sort of frontliner, and we already had arcane and divine casting covered.

Usually I have two or three character ideas for any given campaign, and I find out what the other players are thinking about playing before deciding. That way we can have a team that works well together. Our groups also generally don't have the issue of one character hogging the spotlight, for similar reasons.

One of the reasons I assume that PFS goes with 20 PB is that characters need to be more self-reliant when you're thrown together with other random adventurers.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
A martial guy should be able to do that with mooks, sure. With equal-CR martial combatants, 50/50 -- he dies or they do. And you can hit that benchmark with a reasonable PB. But that's not all he should be able to do, so that he pretty much has to sit out any encounters that don't involve a mundane opponent walking up to him and offering to trade blows Queensberry-style.

So I still don't understand enough of what you mean by "competent" to tell if I even disagree with you or not.

Because if by "competent" you mean the benchmarks above, and by "reasonable" you mean the 25 PB you were saying earlier was "barely enough" to make a "competent" martial, then in my experience a well built martial can hit around those kind of thresholds with way less than 25 PB.

Conversely, if all you're saying is just "the martial-caster disparity is a thing that exists", then... sure, whatever. If someone with decent system mastery builds a caster designed to overshadow the martials, then yeah, the caster will probably be able to do it. I agree that's a legit issue that can be talked about. (Though preferably not in this thread, since it's not terribly on-topic.)

So if by "competent" you mean "can contribute effectively--without relying on help from party members--in a situation designed to push a well-optimized non-support full-caster to their uttermost limits, along all axes" then I could understand that. No serious disagreement.

But for me, if you can take a class/PB combination into a module and have it contribute meaningfully to a majority of the encounters therein, it meets the base standard of being at least what I would consider "competent".

And I have absolutely seen martials do that on less than 25 PB, so I don't see how it's necessary to being "competent" in that sense.


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I think the best question to ask is, "Why not a 25 point buy?" It won't break anything (A smart Wizard is a smart Wizard lol) and it makes the weaker classes stronger, + it promotes diversity.

A good example of this is the difference between 15 and 25 when making a Monk is feeling forced to playing a Sensei or Zen Archer to even keep up, as opposed to being able to play a Drunken Master Dwarf with Fast Drinker (18 con pre req) and still be a threat.

I suppose it depends on the table at the end of the day, but I prefer the allowance of more niche and clandestine builds.


The very last time I ran PF I handed out 16, 16, 16, 16, 13, 10 as an array, WITHOUT adjusting encounters and tons of fun was had by all.


Are attributes really that important in the end?


Envall wrote:

Are attributes really that important in the end?

In many cases yes they matter. And its usually in fairly subtle ways. Having more points for con so your fort is higher or wisdom for your will save, etc etc. It means you don't have to make as many difficult choices as to where to take from to increase your chances at whatever your thing is. And it makes a huge difference for MAD characters.

To the OP, one thing to keep in mind is that the game is actually balanced around that set of stats you find 'unheroic'. 15 point buy is the default assumption of the Rise of the Runelords and all other APs. And that is worth noting.

Personally I have gone a different route, because I like the idea of making characters more well rounded and not have every non sorcerer/bard be a socialially innept misfit (Dumping Charisma), while not making it even easier for SAD characters. I do a 25 point buy, but cap on Ability scores after racial bonus at 17 at level 1. I have found it keeps the success rates about where it is supposed to be (at low levels, at high levels everything else starts to matter a lot more) and means you can make more well rounded characters if that's what you are looking for.


claymade wrote:
Kirth Gersen wrote:
A martial guy should be able to do that with mooks, sure. With equal-CR martial combatants, 50/50 -- he dies or they do. And you can hit that benchmark with a reasonable PB. But that's not all he should be able to do, so that he pretty much has to sit out any encounters that don't involve a mundane opponent walking up to him and offering to trade blows Queensberry-style.
So I still don't understand enough of what you mean by "competent" to tell if I even disagree with you or not.

Let me try and clarify that killing equivalent opponents in an equal fight is indeed attainable at lower PB. But when I have to identify the enemy's weaknesses and can't afford to buy Knowledge ranks, or talk my way past someone and not only can't afford Diplomacy but also had to tank Cha to boot, or have to climb out of a pit and realized all my skill ranks went into Perception to keep me from getting surprised -- the game grinds to a halt for me. So I've sacrificed my ability to even meaningfully participate in many scenarios, in order to be competent in one limited area. That's something that a higher point-buy can help ameliorate.

My buddy's caster doesn't need higher point-buy to be good at all of those things and more, but let's gloss over that for now. And if my archer's enemy is standing behind a wall of force, higher stats still aren't doing me any good. But that -- as you correctly point out -- is still an issue, but a separate one.


Wow this blew up pretty quick, thanks a lot guys, there are a lot of good thoughts here already to consider, especially with those other two forums to read through.

johnlocke90 wrote:
Naoki00 wrote:

Thanks for the input Nargemn and Daniel. I guess part of it probably stems from the fact that I come from a background of 4d6 drop lowest, and some DMs even had Reroll 1s as a rule. The 4d6 drop low has been our mainstay for most of the years I played 3.5, and our groups never really had 'bad' rolls. We usually ended up with rolls like 17, 16, 16, 14, 15, 12. To me this is pretty much normal and what all our characters looked like. It certainly didn't keep us from dying, but it always felt...I guess heroic would just be the only word for it.

Let me guess. You guys rolled your stats at home when no one was looking right?

Oh lord no. You roll your dice on the table, in front of everyone, you get to touch them when you roll and when you pick up the lowest die and thats it. We've all just had way better luck rolling than some people seem to I guess. We had one guy who rolled a three 2s once, but he didn't last past the first encounter so we barely counted it.

One thing I do agree on is the difference between martials and casters stats and how important more numbers are with the latter.

kyrt-ryder: I am hoping to try and DM for them yes, it's the most likely outcome considering their current DM admitted this morning that he hadn't read as far into the book as he should have. But I do have to ask why you would worry about things being to easy? I'm aware the first books aren't all that challenging in some parts, but I wouldn't say having positive social stats to go along with the combat ones would provide all that much difference (or at least it hasn't in my own experience).

On the character flaw aspect of things I would like to pose a question. Instead of hindering the likelihood of a character's lifespan continuing with outright lower stats, is it that different to just play a flawed character regardless of stats? Like roleplay them as having flaws, personal issues, lack of knowledge on subjects, etc. That's how we've always done it, with lower stats representing lower outright potential as a being.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
claymade wrote:
Kirth Gersen wrote:
A martial guy should be able to do that with mooks, sure. With equal-CR martial combatants, 50/50 -- he dies or they do. And you can hit that benchmark with a reasonable PB. But that's not all he should be able to do, so that he pretty much has to sit out any encounters that don't involve a mundane opponent walking up to him and offering to trade blows Queensberry-style.
So I still don't understand enough of what you mean by "competent" to tell if I even disagree with you or not.

Let me try and clarify that killing equivalent opponents in an equal fight is indeed attainable at lower PB. But when I have to identify the enemy's weaknesses and can't afford to buy Knowledge ranks, or talk my way past someone and not only can't afford Diplomacy but also had to tank Cha to boot, or have to climb out of a pit and realized all my skill ranks went into Perception to keep me from getting surprised -- the game grinds to a halt for me. So I've sacrificed my ability to even meaningfully participate in many scenarios, in order to be competent in one limited area. That's something that a higher point-buy can help ameliorate.

My buddy's caster doesn't need higher point-buy to be good at all of those things and more, but let's gloss over that for now. And if my archer's enemy is standing behind a wall of force, higher stats still aren't doing me any good. But that -- as you correctly point out -- is still an issue, but a separate one.

I think you've perfectly illustrated the way I feel about the concept of dumping stats like Int/Wis/Cha!


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Naoki00 wrote:
kyrt-ryder: I am hoping to try and DM for them yes, it's the most likely outcome considering their current DM admitted this morning that he hadn't read as far into the book as he should have. But I do have to ask why you would worry about things being to easy?

I don't worry about things being too easy, but that's a rabbit hole many new GMs fall into [and a few never climb out of it.] There's a competitive streak inherent to gamers and it's easy to find yourself trying to make your party 'earn' their victories, to make them sweat for their progress.

That sort of mindset leads to investing immense amounts of time 'powering up' the opposition to 'match' the party... and then the party takes longer to fight the boosted enemies, loses more resources to them and makes less forward progress than expected, and people complain that as the game reaches higher levels combat slows down >_<

Quote:
I'm aware the first books aren't all that challenging in some parts, but I wouldn't say having positive social stats to go along with the combat ones would provide all that much difference (or at least it hasn't in my own experience).

My comments weren't about the Point Buy. My comments were general GMing advice.


kyrt-ryder wrote:
Naoki00 wrote:
kyrt-ryder: I am hoping to try and DM for them yes, it's the most likely outcome considering their current DM admitted this morning that he hadn't read as far into the book as he should have. But I do have to ask why you would worry about things being to easy?

I don't worry about things being too easy, but that's a rabbit hole many new GMs fall into [and a few never climb out of it.] There's a competitive streak inherent to gamers and it's easy to find yourself trying to make your party 'earn' their victories, to make them sweat for their progress.

That sort of mindset leads to investing immense amounts of time 'powering up' the opposition to 'match' the party... and then the party takes longer to fight the boosted enemies, loses more resources to them and makes less forward progress than expected, and people complain that as the game reaches higher levels combat slows down >_<

Quote:
I'm aware the first books aren't all that challenging in some parts, but I wouldn't say having positive social stats to go along with the combat ones would provide all that much difference (or at least it hasn't in my own experience).
My comments weren't about the Point Buy. My comments were general GMing advice.

My mistake then! I misconstrued your meaning there. I do appreciate the advice, and I don't plan on going too far into enforcing challenge outright. That will come when they are facing smarter opponents or they think they can be overconfident. We've had too many barbarian's die because they got too cocky.


I think that a +1 here or there doesn't make that big of a difference (this stuff is easy for the GM to adjust for if it's too much or too little). Where attributes do matter is two fold, the first is hit points. If your Con isn't high enough and you're a front-liner, then you're liable to die and dying isn't fun.

Where they're really agonizing for some players is when they don't plan their entire 20 levels in advance simply taking what looks good here and there, and while you can retrain feats and skill points or even class levels, you cannot retrain attributes. So if you decide that you need combat expertise for some feat chain you want to get, and you left your INT at 10 at character generation, the headband that lets you take the feat you want is 16000 GP. If you do plan for some feat chain that requires attributes beyond what you'd normally take, then you're stuck with being worse at what you prefer to do before those feats come online.

This is why I prefer high point buys. The players have an extra +1 CL, +1 to hit or damage, etc. is easy to fix without the players even noticing. When they can't do what they want because of choices made at character generation, that's a different issue (even if they do handwave away whatever the problem is, I still can't fix it before they get annoyed.)

Shadow Lodge Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8

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I start players with a 15 PB, but I give them more points as they level (1 per level) instead of doing the +1 to a stat every 4 levels thing.

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