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Your GM is wrong, and the race points only count for use in the Race Builder, it has nothing to do with point buy for attributes.
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Claxon is correct. Race Points and Point Buy for attributes have nothing to do with each other.
I suggest he looks at the NPC section page451.
Heroic NPCs (NPCs with a PC class) have stats of: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8 which totals up to a 15 point buy. There is no adjustment for race in that rule.
On page 455 is an example Elf (10 race points) with PC classes.
His ability scores are:
13, 18 (15+1lvl+2race), 12 (14-2race), 14 (12+2race), 10, 8 = 15 point buy.
Alternately, he can look at ANY of the Paizo pregens and calculate the point buy for each and he will see that none of them lose attribute point buy points due to race point buy.
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Some people in home games have done hybrid systems where you significantly more than 15 points (e.g. 30) and have to devote some to your race and the rest to stats. I've heard these can be moderately successful, but they're not in the rules. "5 point buy" is really not enough to build many different characters with and you really ought to let the players play humans if they want (unless there's some narrative reason why not.)
The "Race Points" rule for Advanced Race Guide is basically a guideline for balancing the power levels of custom races. That's it. If you want to create a race of rabbit people or whatever, you can write down what racial traits you think they should have, consult the chart to see how many points that is and that will tell you how much you need to tweak it.
That Humans are 9 RP and Dwarves are 11 does not actually mean that Dwarves are more powerful as a race than Humans. Dwarves have a lot of class features that cost race points that are unlikely to come up much, which is much less useful in practice than a feat, bonus skills, and being able to put your stat bonus wherever.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/basics-ability-scores/ability-scores
15 point buy means you select your race (and any associated bonuses or penalties associated with that race), then you add or subtract from your base 10 abilities until you have spent your 15 points, then you adjust for the racials.
The race builder points are for creating a custom race, and do not accurately reflect the existing races, they can be used by GMs to determine if a race will be allowed or not (Drow Noble is a good example of an overpowered race).
Humans are not worth "10 points" they are worth +2 bonus points to a single attribute on top of the 15 points granted by the points buy.
Much as an Elf Grants bonus +2 DEX and +2 INT, as well as a penalty -2 to CON. (Still a net +2 bonus).
At any rate, he can make you use the standard races that don't use the race point system, or he can give you extra points to buy a race
but at any rate, Claxon had it rate, the point buy system is aimed only at buying ability points and is supposed to be race neutral, since the basic races are all equal.
I have considered this, but I would use a higher figure. for a game balanced around core races I'd use 10+the point buy I had decided on. Let's say 25 points. You could play a human with 15 point buy; a kobold with a 20 point buy; an Aasimar with a 10 point buy; or a Svirfneblin with a 1 point buy.
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After a while of playing pathfinder, our GM decided to start a new story and are making us use the point buy system
He is however saying that we have to purchase races with this system so that by using the 15 point system so that if you want to play a human you have to pay 10 points for playing as a human, and have 5 points left for adjusting your ability scores.
I however do not find anything in the rules which support this.
It's called Rule Zero.
Whether you abide by this or quit his game is up to you.
He claimed it was part of the rules though, so when I did not find it I decided to ask.
He said he wants to run a game where we are either have to pick a weak race with lots of negatives, or a more expensive race and not get as much ability modifying.
He wants a 10-point buy. He may not know that's what he wants, but that's what he wants.
Whether you want to play in that game or vote with your feet is as Drahliana said.
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After a while of playing pathfinder, our GM decided to start a new story and are making us use the point buy system
He is however saying that we have to purchase races with this system so that by using the 15 point system so that if you want to play a human you have to pay 10 points for playing as a human, and have 5 points left for adjusting your ability scores.
I however do not find anything in the rules which support this.
It's called Rule Zero.
Whether you abide by this or quit his game is up to you.
It may be formally within Rule 0
but it contravenes rule 0 00 Don't be a dickOr it may be a simple misunderstanding of the rules on his part.
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The Advanced Race Builder rules are a dangerous tool in the hands of those with limited understanding.
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The Advanced Race Builder rules are a dangerous tool in the hands of those with limited understanding.
Also in the hands of those with great understanding and little self-control.
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He said he wants to run a game where we are either have to pick a weak race with lots of negatives, or a more expensive race and not get as much ability modifying.
I've played with a GM like that. He ran a setting sadistic to the players, but he was a good GM with a well developed setting. If this guy is actually a good GM, it can be worth having weak characters.
if you gota mere 15 points to cover both racial creation points and ability assignment points (basically paying 10 to play a human and getting a VERY substandard 5 pt buy for your abilities), your character will be desperately weak, by default I'd run as per Lady-J's advice. If you know the guy and trust him, give it a try but I don't think it will last very long.
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Tell him he can play with his concept, but that the available points aren't high enough to calculate it that way. Given that the standard rule is that you get 15 points for stats & the GM decides which races you are & aren't allowed to use, the human should get 15 points to use, making your total pool of points worth 25.
So a Kobold (5RP) would get 20 points to work with, & the Svirfneblin (24RP) would get 1, that's how I would calculate it if I were to use this system, no need to run away from this GM if he's willing to work it like this.
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Is the GM limiting the players on the types of racial traits they can take? Like the standard, advanced, or monstrous?
Honestly, with no cap on those other than a 15pt buy, I think you can actually bring some pretty OP character options. Especially if the party works together in character creation.
And for the record, being a Race, like human, at least in subtype, doesn't require taking the full 9 RP race in the race creator. You just need to take the Humanoid quality and select human for your subtype. And subtype is all you need for feat prerequisites.
So, if dead set on being human, you can use the race creator like this:
Human
Humanoid (human) 0 RP
Medium Size 0 RP
Normal Speed (30ft) 0 RP
Human Heritage (+2 any ability score) 0 RP
Standard Language Options 0 RP
Static Bonus Feat (since your race is for just your character anyway) 2 RP
Skilled 4 RP
Total: 6 RP race.
That's basically the same human you'd play in a normal game. And that's with only minorly taking advantage of the race builder. I could also go with:
Human
Humanoid (human) 0 RP
Medium Size 0 RP
Slow Speed (20ft, but never slowed by armor or encumberance) -1 RP
Human Heritage (+2 any ability score) 0 RP
Standard Language Options 0 RP
Movement Trait: Fast (+10ft to the above base speed) 1 RP
Total: 0 RP race.
Now I'm spending nothing on RP, but I have the dwarven speed ability without dwarven speed. And that's still, barely taking advantage of the race creator.
So, can you make awesome characters with this GM's character build: yes, very easily.
I didn't get the impression that they could create races
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Claxon is correct. Race Points and Point Buy for attributes have nothing to do with each other.
I suggest he looks at the NPC section page451.
Heroic NPCs (NPCs with a PC class) have stats of: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8 which totals up to a 15 point buy. There is no adjustment for race in that rule.On page 455 is an example Elf (10 race points) with PC classes.
His ability scores are:
13, 18 (15+1lvl+2race), 12 (14-2race), 14 (12+2race), 10, 8 = 15 point buy.Alternately, he can look at ANY of the Paizo pregens and calculate the point buy for each and he will see that none of them lose attribute point buy points due to race point buy.
Note any LEVEL 1 Pregens... some of the pregen's do some rather odd stat building to reach their lvl 4-7 stat blocks. Which leaves them with lower stats than they could have had.
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I didn't get the impression that they could create races
Yeah, could be reading it wrong. Does seem like requiring players to pay attribute points for races would imply access to creating races via the race builder.
Still, I'll admit, I do kinda like the idea of having a combined attribute and race point buy system, assuming you were allowing the PCs to create races, of course. And having a low point buy, like 10 or 15pts, does make sense if you are going to do it this way, since otherwise you end up with really OP Race creations.
And really, with a 15pt buy, it assumes you have 10s in every attribute. If you knock those all to 7s, you actually have 39pts to work with. So if Race points equal attribute buy points, you could really end up with some very interesting character options. Limited, but it would allow you to make just about any character concept.
That said, as created by Paizo, I don't think most of the races are worth their Race points. So I don't think this is balanced as an option if you aren't allowing the players to make their own races. Especially if they are custom races for that character alone.
yeah, race points are wonk. Gnoll, +2 to con and str, and +2 natural armor and dark vision comes in at 6 points and is a barbarian's dream. This will be a much stronger barbarian than a dwarf barbarian because all of it's racial features are going to it and it will have the higher point buy to work with.
If allowing custom races unrestricted this way then say goodbye to any sense of balance. Allowing custom races allows for working the system to get a better deal than normally available because the races are meant to be generic. As Murdock points out you can build a race that is effectively a core race for cheaper/better than the core race.
Still, I'll admit, I do kinda like the idea of having a combined attribute and race point buy system, assuming you were allowing the PCs to create races, of course. And having a low point buy, like 10 or 15pts, does make sense if you are going to do it this way, since otherwise you end up with really OP Race creations.
Umbral Reiver made this suggestion a few years back and I have taken it to heart. It allows me to limit the rarer races by giving the players a cost to pay. In keeping my campaign's backstory, Elves are both better than CORE and cost more to play. Several of the races in my campaign are long established as both powerful and rare, yet still available. The players are all (well, almost all) wargamers used to bidding for positions. They actually improved on my original plan.
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Hans Hansen 433's situation doesn't involve building new races, it involves his DM wanting to make races more balanced by giving 'weaker' races such as Kobolds more points to work with, & 'stronger' races such as Svirfneblin less points to work with.
Unless I'm reading the question wrong, but I'm pretty sure I read it right given that Hans Hansen 433 wrote:
"He said he wants to run a game where we are either have to pick a weak race with lots of negatives, or a more expensive race and not get as much ability modifying."
The DM is just being stingy with points, Humans should get 15 points, not 5.
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I was also wondering that^, but I didn't bother to ask.
I would definitely drop.
From the difficulty, to the long drive, it isn't worth it.
This honestly seems like it's not going to be a very long-lived campaign, so I wouldn't get too invested in it if you do bother to sign up.
Like you could certainly run a 5 point buy campaign, and you could certainly run a "PCs run into monsters at levels where they can't handle them" (the idea then being that the PCs would find some other alternative to "fighting"), but doing both at once is going to require a delicate balance I have no confidence that this random stranger can manage.
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I am considering dropping out, since he is making things excessively difficult and I no longer live close enough to join the games on short notice. It takes me 2 hours just to travel, and he told us 5 minutes ago that there will be a character workshop today. (sorry if this is off topic.)
I would not travel 2 hours for a game that I wasn't 100% in love with.
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Well, do you like the GM as a person? Like the other players? Is it a group that would be fun, even if the game itself is lacking?
As for character builds, as long as the entire party has lacking stats, you can make it work, but teamwork will be very important. Yeah, it will be tough to make broken characters, but you can work around this. It will be a group effort to get past enemies, and you'll want to be able to flee some encounters.
As for the point buy, sounds like the GM is set on a 5pt buy for core races. I'd either accept the 5pt buy for a core race, or select non-core race with a lower RP cost. I would also consider a higher RP race if it's attribute bonuses aided my character class.
For character suggestions, since the GM is imposing a very low attribute option, I'd look into character options that focus on having another creature do battle. A summoner with eidolon, druid with animal companion, and so forth, those will all be much more powerful due to them not having such low starting stats. Caster characters will be largely dependent on having a starting racial bonus to their casting stat.