Sudokori's page

My past Dm was my firends big brother and favoritism wasn't as much blatant, just kinda annoying when his character would occasionally get fudged rolls and slightly better loot. It wasn't bad, just kind of annoying

I once had a wish in a AD&D 1st edition game. I thought about it for a while, and came to the conclusion that no matter how carefully worded I put the wish into it would either f!*% up royally or result in a total party kill. So you know what I did?

DM: so what's your wish?
Me: let me think
Dm: ready yet?
Me: you know that BBEG we are supposed to fight?
Dm: yeah
Me: I wish his torso to be teleported one foot in front of my sword (which was drawn and pointed outwards)
Dm: @#¥%$

Ended up killing the BBEG right then and there. But for some reason My alignment was changed from lawfull neutral to neutral evil.

My DM has always ruled that for every level up you roll 2 appropriate dice and take the better of the two. If a guy has rolled maximum hp 3 levels in a row we make him take the average of his next hit points roll instead of the better roll.

This way there is only a 1/16 chance that you'll have either a 1 or 2 as your hit points for that level and it really works. Gives average hp and enemies can still kill players but maybe that's just my dm.

Dont know how to do quoting but in response to Rixxen's and everyone else's posts about point buy vs rolling the main thing isn't stats, it's the player.

What more useful to a party? A guy who used point buy to make a (extremely) generic "ME SMASH MONSTER" type fighter with 18 STR or the guy who rolled a 18 and made the basically same character?
What's better for the party? A thief who's highest stat is 16 and nothing else higher than a 10 who is resourceful and creative enough to end a encounter quickly with minimum casualties, or the guy with a total modifier count of +8 who does nothing but steal from other players and runs away from any fighting?

All of this hullabaloo is based off of the fact that most players think that the only way thier character can contribute is if their stats are good enough, and if they roll low that they think thier character is better off getting killed and rolling again. But that's not true. All characters can fail, stat modifiers just make it 5% less likely to fail in specific situations.

I do have one thing against using point buy. In a campaign that I have been in there was this one guy who usually died about once every other session. He played a ranger and every time he died he would use the EXACT SAME STATS on every new ranger he made. When I asked him why he doesn't change them after the fifth time he died his response was "no, this is the most efficient point buy array and I'll be less effective if I put any less points into (certain stat)". The DM got annoyed with him and said "okay the world has run out of carbon copies of your ranger, you now have to roll for stats, no changing which stat gets what roll." He ended up rolling a fighter and ended up going for SIX WHOLE SESSIONS without dying, but that was because he fell in a poisoned pit trap which had a like DC 10 reflex save to not fall in and we were unable to get him out due to bad rolls and combat.

Most games I've played in I have always opted to use the system of 4d6 drop lowest. It has on occasion given me some pretty bad characters but it doesn't really matter. DnD is not a game where if you roll bad character stats you're gonna be f+*$ed for the entire campaign, use ingenuity and you can end up with a guy that is functionally better than that guy who has 2 18's.

Point buy basically over complicates the simple rolling system. Spend 3 minutes rolling a character or spend 20 minutes wondering how to distribute stat points. I have played a 30 point buy campaign and it was very generic. EVERY character had the exact same stats, just in a different order. So everyone was equal and everyone was very generic. Characters were great in one stat, good in one stat, and everything else was above average or average. It really wasn't even realistic. A priest spending all of his days in a church praying and giving blessings, then having average strength despite lack of physical activity would be kinda weird.

Most of all point buy is bland! Oh your 4th wizard died? Just use the same stats like the last 3 ones you used. And nobody is going to have anything exceptional.

All of those people saying point buy is SOOOOO much better than rolling obviously has never had the joy of playing unique characters and just wants something that they can easily replace and keep going. And complaining about always rolling 10's? Big whoop! I mean seriously if you're crying about not getting high enough stats then either re-roll by tossing the dice differently or just stop playing games that can ever disappoint you, you big baby. Disappointment is part of life, so play your character differently and maybe that one bad stat you have won't be a problem (low intelligence and average wisdom? Use logic instead of facts. High charisma and low strength? Try to find a way to be diplomatic).