Point Buy System


3.5/d20/OGL


Ok, these are my questions...

1. Could someone please explain the point buy system in a bit more detail for me. I get the underlying idea, but I am not sure I understand the specifics. (~grins~ Well, what can I say. I am from the old "roll 4d6 and take the highest 3" days in 1st edition.)

2. If you use the point buy system, how do you use it? Also, what would you go with? 24, 28, 30, 32?

3. If you do not use the point buy system, why not?

The reason is that I will be running 3.5 edition for the first time and I want to (pretend to) be fair to my players.

Thanks in advance,

Kevin

The Exchange

I forget what all of the numbers are, so I can't really help with that, but I don't typically use it in my campaigns.

Personally, I like the "random" element a bit more, though I do calculate the point buy of the PCs after they've rolled their dice to make sure it's in a good range (otherwise I tell them to reroll their dice). I usually say anything about 30, sometimes about 35, is good. I don't have a maximum because, if the dice roll well, I don't want to take that away from the player.

Grand Lodge

Sharoth wrote:

Ok, these are my questions...

1. Could someone please explain the point buy system in a bit more detail for me. I get the underlying idea, but I am not sure I understand the specifics. (~grins~ Well, what can I say. I am from the old "roll 4d6 and take the highest 3" days in 1st edition.)

2. If you use the point buy system, how do you use it? Also, what would you go with? 24, 28, 30, 32?

3. If you do not use the point buy system, why not?

The reason is that I will be running 3.5 edition for the first time and I want to (pretend to) be fair to my players.

Thanks in advance,

Kevin

We used to do the "roll 3d6 8 times and take the six best" system, but now overwhelmingly embrace the point buy system, simply because it makes it more or less impossible to cheat during character creation and, more importantly, it gives everybody an equal starting point. It also puts a end to those annoying characters who were great just because the owner happened to be lucky with the dice; of course, this strikes both ways - I once played a first edition Ranger with 16 as the lowest stat... However, now we all feel that the point buy is fairer in the long term that rolling stats.

The mechanics are fairly straightforward - if your baseline is 8, each stat increase costs 1 until you reach 14, before then becoming progressively more expensive. Thus, the best score for most starting level characters will be a 15 (which costs 8 points).

Personally, I use a 16-point buy scheme with the baseline being 10. This is actually a bit better than a 28-point buy (it makes it easier to get a starting 16 or, potentially, two), but to me, the more important thing is that it also eliminates the problem of very low stats - in particular, I'm sick of dwarven Fighters with CHA 6 or barely-sentient wild elves with both INT and CHA 6...

Otherwise, my experience is that 24 points is a bit on the low side, while 28-point buys fits most campaigns. Of course, this would depend a lot on your campaign style - a combat-heavy campaign will require better stats than a less lethal style of playing.


One thing you'll notice if you use point buy is no one gets odd numbered stats. Or at least it's one thing I've noticed in my group(s). Also, it's a little easier to min/max when you have complete control over what your stats are. Personaly though I've seen too many gamers cheat, and seen too many cases of one guy rolling crap while another rolls amazing, so I just deal with the few flaws point buy has. In my AOW campaign I gave everyone 32 points, though I don't pull punches when it comes to character death, and put the party up against encounters beyond their ability from time to time in the (probably wrong) assumption that they will learn to run away.

The Exchange

I prefer to use the point-buy system for my campaigns, because it puts all the PCs on an equal footing. That is the overriding advantage of the system. However, you do find that you get "specialist" characters with one or two very high stats and others being low - the classic would be the half-orc with STR 20 and INT and CHA of 6. So it is a boon to the dreaded power-gamer.....


Check out the first page of Chapter Six: Characters of the DMG (pg 169 in 3.5) As a DM and as a player my preference is definately point-buy over any roll method. As a dm it makes it impossible for players to cheat their scores, eliminates ability score jealousy and gives the ability to fine tune a character. It does allow a player to make all his/her scores even, but I've never undertood why we need two numbers for one bonus. My newest preference is 28 points which makes it easy to stat NPCs (10, 10, 12, 12, 14, 16) and is closest to the 12.5 assumed average of a rolled character. I don't like the idea of any more points than 28 because I feel it makes non-basic classes too appealing (monks, paladin, ranger etc...). As a player I like the point buy system because, well let's just say that my name in Iroquis means 's@$~ for luck'.


Fraust wrote:
One thing you'll notice if you use point buy is no one gets odd numbered stats. Or at least it's one thing I've noticed in my group(s). Also, it's a little easier to min/max when you have complete control over what your stats are. Personaly though I've seen too many gamers cheat, and seen too many cases of one guy rolling crap while another rolls amazing, so I just deal with the few flaws point buy has. In my AOW campaign I gave everyone 32 points, though I don't pull punches when it comes to character death, and put the party up against encounters beyond their ability from time to time in the (probably wrong) assumption that they will learn to run away.

Actually I generally try and have 3 or so uneven attributes. If all your attributes are even your actually hurting your long term potential. You get a bonus attribute point every 4 levels so it would be nice to use this to actually improve your character. Furthermore consider that under the current system it only costs 1 for every increase in the attribute up to 15 but 2 points to get to 16. So putting 3 attributes to 15 means having an extra 6 points to spend on other attributes. You'll still get your 16 in each of these attributes but you'll have to wait until level 12 before the final one is bumped to 16. Some attributes are better for this then others. No point in waiting to get your intelligence up - you get more skill points the higher you are Con on the other hand can be set at 15 as bonus hps are backward compatible. You'll get all the extra hps per level in a lump sum once you boost the attribute. Same deal applies to putting a attribute at 17 instead of 18.

Basically in a long term campaign I want my character to be the best he can be at 12th level and I get significantly better all around if I go with some uneven attributes at game start.


Aubrey the Malformed wrote:
I prefer to use the point-buy system for my campaigns, because it puts all the PCs on an equal footing. That is the overriding advantage of the system. However, you do find that you get "specialist" characters with one or two very high stats and others being low - the classic would be the half-orc with STR 20 and INT and CHA of 6. So it is a boon to the dreaded power-gamer.....

This is true but the player is being penalized by paying extra for those initially very high stats. I'd generally rather have a somewhat more balanced character - of course I might be exploiting dump stats in a desperate attempt to get all my more useful stats to at least reasonable levels. One downside is once your player decides to go with a wisdom and intelligence if 8 it no longer seems like much more of a penalty to reduce those to 6 ... or 4. I mean if your going to be stupid might as well go whole hog.


Does no one love the joy of rolling up a new character, feeling the dice rolling in your palm, the electric timgle of possibilities before you? The different karmic rituals to give yourself the best chance of rolling up the next Elminster, or Drizzt, or Conan? None of those characters were made using a point-based system, I assure you.

There are plenty of advantages to using the point-buy system. Everyone starts out on an even playing field, they get the stats exactly where they want them, and people who don't min/max usually end up with nice, above-average and well-rounded characters. And it's true that a character's memorability should lie more in their deeds than with their stats. It also allows a DM yet more tailoring ability. If you're going to run an extremely high amount of combat, you may wish to let your characters have more points for survivability.

But there's a special kind of tingle when you look down at your dice and see those sixes. When your non-gaming friend walks by and says, "Wow, that's a nice Yahtzee score...", and you begin spinning the possibilites in your head, imagining this new character in epic levels, with a stat that ranks with some of the most popular characters in D&D history...well, that's the reason I always let 'em roll. I watch each roll for honesty's sake, and occasionally show mercy for extremely poorly-rolled characters. But I know I have fond memories of my best-rolled characters that went on to great things in their respective campaigns.

The Exchange

Rob Gustafson wrote:

Does no one love the joy of rolling up a new character, feeling the dice rolling in your palm, the electric timgle of possibilities before you? The different karmic rituals to give yourself the best chance of rolling up the next Elminster, or Drizzt, or Conan? None of those characters were made using a point-based system, I assure you.

There are plenty of advantages to using the point-buy system. Everyone starts out on an even playing field, they get the stats exactly where they want them, and people who don't min/max usually end up with nice, above-average and well-rounded characters. And it's true that a character's memorability should lie more in their deeds than with their stats. It also allows a DM yet more tailoring ability. If you're going to run an extremely high amount of combat, you may wish to let your characters have more points for survivability.

But there's a special kind of tingle when you look down at your dice and see those sixes. When your non-gaming friend walks by and says, "Wow, that's a nice Yahtzee score...", and you begin spinning the possibilites in your head, imagining this new character in epic levels, with a stat that ranks with some of the most popular characters in D&D history...well, that's the reason I always let 'em roll. I watch each roll for honesty's sake, and occasionally show mercy for extremely poorly-rolled characters. But I know I have fond memories of my best-rolled characters that went on to great things in their respective campaigns.

I'm with you Rob, I love rolling for my character. If I get a 6, that is a great roleplaying opportunity. I hate people playing an illiterate barbarian with a 10 in intelligence who says "Ugh, me smash little manthing!" I want the flaws, I want to say "Hell Yeah!" when I roll an 18, I want my character to be different from everyone elses.

I will allow re-rolling if the stats don't give at least a +2 total bonus (or more if the campaign will be more deadly) and I let them put em where they want. Whatever happened to the "take 2 points off of a score to add 1 to another" rule.
I find point buy to be a boring way to bring a character into existance and will not use it in my games. I had to make a character using point buy and it took many levels to actually feel that the character had any personality. I couldn't get into the role because I didn't feel a personal attachment to the character, he was just a set of pre-determined stats in my head even though I adjusted the stats. No sir, I don't like it a bit.

FH


One system I've seen which sounds good, although I've not had chance to use it is as follows:

Assuming you have 6 players, each player rolls 1 stat, using 4d6 drop lowest. This gives an array of 6 stats (with fewer players, some people roll more than one stat, or the DM rolls stats to make up the numbers. If you have more than 6 players, send some on to a less well-endowed group).

Once an array of stats is generated, everyone votes "Yes" or "No", with the DM casting the deciding vote in the event of a tie. If the vote is "No", roll a new set of stats the same way. If "Yes", everyone creates a character using that array of stats.

The advantages of this method is that it keeps the PCs on a par with one another, and injects a bit of randomness into generation. The disadvantage is that two characters may end up with exactly the same arrangement of stats, which may not be a good thing. (Also, someone needs to keep a note of the array, in case new characters must be generated.)

----------------------------------------------------------

As regards the roll vs. point buy debate, I'm in the point buy camp. It really sucks to be the one guy who rolls bad stats, especially if one person also rolls really well. Plus, cheating on stat rolls (or even unintentionally rolling in a non-random manner) is far too easy, and point buy eliminates it entirely.

The disadvantages of point buy are that characters of a given class all start to look exactly the same, and players tend to min-max for optimum effect (all even stats, or no score over 14 for the highest average overall, or Charisma and/or Intelligence used as a 'dump stat').

Methods that try to combine some sort of point buy with some sort of randomness tend to offer the disadvantages of both methods, and the advantages of neither IMO, so I avoid them like the plague.

As for the 'magic number' for point-buy: I've most commonly used 25 points in the past, but am now swayed by the benefits of 28 points, so will be using that in the future.

Sovereign Court

My DM uses a method that I really like...roll for each stat, and then roll 1d6 and you get to add that many points throughout your stats. That way, you get the randomness of rolling along with just a little bit of tweaking to reduce the chances of having a stat block that really handicaps the character in relation to the rest of the party.


Rob Gustafson wrote:
Does no one love the joy of rolling up a new character, feeling the dice rolling in your palm, the electric timgle of possibilities before you? The different karmic rituals to give yourself the best chance of rolling up the next Elminster, or Drizzt, or Conan? None of those characters were made using a point-based system, I assure you.

I can tell that you've never been cursed by foul luck. Let me paint you a picture: I've used the rolling method under many DMs and rolling does have a certain gut appeal. But here's how it works with me; for every Elminster/Drizzt that I manage to roll, I get 10 Joe Shmoe wanna-be heroes. Now having a character with an average score of 10-11 is fine...in a low powered campaign. But when all your buddies roll up Elminsters and Drizzts game after game, just wait and see how long it takes you to become jaded. Not intending to be condescending, but can you not see how rolling can be a downer for a lot of folks?

The Exchange

I guess the reason that I like rolling stats better is because it's more like real life. After all, if a group of people decided to get together and start adventuring in real life (aside from the fact that this doesn't exactly happen in the real world), they certainly wouldn't all be on an equal playing field. One may have really good "stats" and the other would have really crappy. So, I guess it makes the game seem more real when the party is, to some extent, unbalanced as well.

So yea, a player will occassionally have the unluck of rolling some low stats and they'll hvae to live with that for the game (I've never had anyone complain considering I let them all have decently high stats to begin with.. 30 point buy and over, as it were). But, probability states that that player will also occassionally roll those really high stats (i once rolled four 18s, and I was totally thrilled). *shrug* I guess in the long run I like that rolling stats is completely random, even from the perspective of a player.


Not into the point buy systems myself. I understand its need in specific situations, but it's not something I do - I like the visceral feel of the dice rolling out of my hand and dancing across the table. For the record, my dice rolling for stats is:
1.) Roll 4d6, reroll ones, drop the lowest.
2.) Repeat for a total of six times, writing down the results in a column.
3.) Repeat for a total of three sets of six
4.) Choose the best out of each "line."

Voila, stats. Generally this results in a couple of higher end stats and mostly mid to average (average being 10) stats.

Liberty's Edge

We use the point buy system for most of our longer running campaigns, having characters that are balanced might lessen realism some but it also helps make encounters more fair, as while it can be fun to RP a character with more then his share of flaws it does stop being so fun after a while. After all how many times is it amusing to hear one of the more lucky party members tell you to take the goblin while they go after the troll?

That being said there is an air of realism involved in not knowing just how powerful your character is going to be before you start rolling. Every so often my group runs one where we don't even pick where stats go, just roll 4d6(or 3d6 if we are feeling particularly masochistic) straight down the line and make a character with what you've got. Your characters might not all end up being super heroic type of adventurers, but they do end up having character. This method also leads people to play alot of things they never would have thought of before.


Our group uses a roll method (4d6, best 3, reroll 1s), though I have used a point buy method before; 84 points to distribute among stats, minimum stat of 3, max 18 before racial adjustments. Using this, a person could end up with 3 18s and 3 10s, or all 14s if they wanted.

I don't like the 'standard' point buy of 25 points, or the 'elite array', because I feel it's less than heroic. I'd probably go with 32 points, if I used the method in the book.


My group has used many different ways to roll stats.

One that we liked that had some randomness was simple...

25 point buy. Then roll 3d6 for each stat in order. Keep the point buy or the roll whichever is higher. Some players play it safe and get the stats they need, the others risk it get one good stat and hope for the best.

For my Age of Worms game we have tried something else. 25 point buy, but no stat increase every four levels. Instead every level you get points to use in the stat buy. The stats are not any higher, on average they may be, but if you want to change your character during the campaign it is easier. For example, you are playing a fighter with an average wisdom. He sees the light and wants to become a cleric. Normally he could not do it. With this system he can increase his wisdom easily enough (it will never be real high) to be a cleric.
Here is a link (I hope it works) that shows how the system works.

http://www.guildportal.com/Guild.aspx?GuildID=61885&ForumID=288192& TabID=537859&TopicID=1887078


Shane Leahy wrote:


Here is a link (I hope it works) that shows how the system works.

http://www.guildportal.com/Guild.aspx?GuildID=61885&ForumID=288192& TabID=537859&TopicID=1887078

The page I get says: "The tab page specified in the URL (after Tab=) was not a valid number or has extra characters after it without a dividing ampersand. Click here to go to the guild home page."


Shane Leahy wrote:
25 point buy. Then roll 3d6 for each stat in order. Keep the point buy or the roll whichever is higher. Some players play it safe and get the stats they need, the others risk it get one good stat and hope for the best.

I'm missing something. If you keep the point-buy or the roll, whichever is higher, and you do this for each stat, how would you have anything to lose? I'm getting the message from your post that some "play it safe" and don't roll for a stat. But if they always get the higher of the two, why would they do this? Do you mean they generate a point-buy set and a 3d6-per-ability set and keep the set they prefer?

The Exchange

Tarlane wrote:
Every so often my group runs one where we don't even pick where stats go, just roll 4d6(or 3d6 if we are feeling particularly masochistic) straight down the line and make a character with what you've got. Your characters might not all end up being super heroic type of adventurers, but they do end up having character. This method also leads people to play alot of things they never would have thought of before.

Hmm, I really like this idea. I'm going to have to steal it now ;).

Also, I agree that the point buy may make more sense for the longer campaigns. To be honest, I guess the reason I've never considered that is that I've never really run a long campaign before. Being new to GMing, I usually run small adventures and typically allow my players to write new characters for each one if they so choose so they get a chance to try out a variety of things. I'll keep point buy in mind for when I run something much longer :).


Dravick wrote:
Shane Leahy wrote:


Here is a link (I hope it works) that shows how the system works.

http://www.guildportal.com/Guild.aspx?GuildID=61885&ForumID=288192& TabID=537859&TopicID=1887078

The page I get says: "The tab page specified in the URL (after Tab=) was not a valid number or has extra characters after it without a dividing ampersand. Click here to go to the guild home page."

Just take out the space in the URL.

-LB


PhysChic wrote:
I guess the reason that I like rolling stats better is because it's more like real life.

See, this is something I just don't get. D&D isn't real; it's a game that's supposed to be fun. And being the one player with substandard stats, or having the whole group become the sidekicks for the one character with superhuman stats just doesn't strike me as being very fun.

This is different from rolling low numbers at any other time in the game (except hit point rolls) - every other roll has consequences that are essentially over in an instant. If you roll low, it doesn't matter because next round you get another shot at it. But a low set of rolls for stats mean you're stuck with a substandard character for 8 months. (Unless, of course, your DM lets you reroll until you get an 'acceptable' set, but then it's not really random, is it?)


I've used the 4d6 method for all of my games so far, but I'm starting to like the point buy method. It just really does stink for the one guy that gets really bad stats. Case in point, my AOW campaign's gnome wizard has one 16, one 14, and everything else is below ten. He spends just about every combat cowering in the back, often forfeiting his turn for fear of destroying his character. That last part is a flaw of his playing, but at the root is stat envy. It's less "realistic" for everyone to start on the same page, but it's the character that's heroic not the numbers, right? If I feel as a DM that I want the characters' stats to be a cut above everybody else in the campaign, I can always hand out a few more points at character creation. Low stats don't at all mean that a character is useless, but being the only guy at the table with crummy stats is no fun at all. And how often does a DM create a villain and say,"Hmmm, I think this guy would have more role-playing opportunities if I lowered some of his stats"?


By playing it safe, I mean that they will get the stats they need and not put anything too low. Get their 12s and 14s, maybe with a 15 in a prime stat. Others will say screw it, get the 18 and hope they roll higher then the 8 on the other stats.

What we liked about it is that it created some organic characters. Someone may have a fighter that ends up with a 15 Intelligence.


Shane Leahy wrote:
By playing it safe, I mean that they will get the stats they need and not put anything too low. Get their 12s and 14s, maybe with a 15 in a prime stat. Others will say screw it, get the 18 and hope they roll higher then the 8 on the other stats.

You realise that that scheme actually favours players who spend all their points in two attributes, and leave the rest at 8? The lower a score is, the greater the likelihood of rolling better.


Delericho wrote:

You realise that that scheme actually favours players who spend all their points in two attributes, and leave the rest at 8? The lower a score is, the greater the likelihood of rolling better.

In play though I don't see that happening...Not many would want to risk have that 8. Never did work out the odds though...


Shane Leahy wrote:
Delericho wrote:

You realise that that scheme actually favours players who spend all their points in two attributes, and leave the rest at 8? The lower a score is, the greater the likelihood of rolling better.

In play though I don't see that happening...Not many would want to risk have that 8. Never did work out the odds though...

Oh, so your players are the type that refuse to have stat penalties. I love those players...so easy to manipulate! I myself would spend the points on that one 18 and take my chances with the other 5 stats.

The Exchange

Delericho wrote:
this is something I just don't get. D&D isn't real;

I understand that it's not real, but most of the things that went into the way the game works (aside from the fact that, yes, there are different races and magic does exist) is so that it feels as "real" as possible.

Of course, I guess the thing to keep in mind is that I don't really have to deal with a character with substandard stats based on the fact that I make sure each person has at least a 30 point buy. To be honest, I've also never had a character who has ridiculously high stats, either.

It seems that some of you have chosen to use point buy mainly to avoid the possibility that the player cheats as he/she rolls up her stats. I guess I'm just not used to that kind of dishonesty . When I've had a GM who has occassionally dealt with trust issues, he literally sat there and watched as we rolled our stats and then let us do everything else on our own.

Another thing I'm not quite sure I understand is why stats are so much different than hp. I mean, both originally required the player to roll to determine their value. With the point buy method, the GM can certainly ensure that all players start out on an equal playing field regarding their stats. By higher levels, though, you may end up having a "sub-par" character simply because the player rolled absolutely horribly each time he levelled. Should we employ a point buy method on hp as well?

I'm not trying to be argumentative here. On the contrary, I know I'm still very new to the game and am just trying to understand how everyone has developed this perspective against rolling stats because it's one of the things that I like about the game.


PhysChic wrote:
It seems that some of you have chosen to use point buy mainly to avoid the possibility that the player cheats as he/she rolls up her stats.

I once watched a player (in a game I wasn't running) roll a character with a 17 and three 18's. The player in question, having rolled the '17' proceeded to pick up the dice and 'roll' them such that they barely bounced. This gave the first 18. He then repeated this for a further two 18's, and indeed for the remainder of his stats.

Was the player cheating? Or did he just not realise that the rolls after the 17 weren't very random, and claim it as good luck?

PhysChic wrote:
Another thing I'm not quite sure I understand is why stats are so much different than hp. I mean, both originally required the player to roll to determine their value. With the point buy method, the GM can certainly ensure that all players start out on an equal playing field regarding their stats. By higher levels, though, you may end up having a "sub-par" character simply because the player rolled absolutely horribly each time he levelled. Should we employ a point buy method on hp as well?

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I certainly use fixed hit points per level. Having never rolled better than a '1' for hit points (for a PC) since 3e arrived, I hate rolling hit points with a passion.


PhysChic wrote:
Another thing I'm not quite sure I understand is why stats are so much different than hp. I mean, both originally required the player to roll to determine their value. With the point buy method, the GM can certainly ensure that all players start out on an equal playing field regarding their stats. By higher levels, though, you may end up having a "sub-par" character simply because the player rolled absolutely horribly each time he levelled. Should we employ a point buy method on hp as well?

Geez I KNOW I'm going to draw flak on this one...but personally I wholeheartly agree that "rolling for hit points" is totally unfair, and as a result I don't allow it.

Like Delericho, we used a fixed hit points per level based on class (modified by Constitution)...absolutely NO rolling.
This may certainly contradinct classic roleplaying (and belive me I know I've been playing for over 20 years)...and its not eveyone's cup of tea, so I'm not proposing everyone use it...but it has been my experience that "rolling for hit points" is the worst thing you can do for MANY reasons (fairness....realism....continuity of the setting....not to mention jealousy and hurt feelings even if they hide them from players....etc..) so when we switched to 3.X we stopped "rolling for hit points".
"Now ducking for cover from the imminent flaming barrage"!

The Exchange

Ragnarock Raider wrote:

Geez I KNOW I'm going to draw flak on this one...but personally I wholeheartly agree that "rolling for hit points" is totally unfair, and as a result I don't allow it.

Like Delericho, we used a fixed hit points per level based on class (modified by Constitution)...absolutely NO rolling.
This may certainly contradinct classic roleplaying (and belive me I know I've been playing for over 20 years)...and its not eveyone's cup of tea, so I'm not proposing everyone use it...but it has been my experience that "rolling for hit points" is the worst thing you can do for MANY reasons (fairness....realism....continuity of the setting....not to mention jealousy and hurt feelings even if they hide them from players....etc..) so when we switched to 3.X we stopped "rolling for hit points".
"Now ducking for cover from the imminent flaming barrage"!

No, I completely understand, even though I don't particularly agree. It's incredibly difficult to balance when characters should definitely roll because that's "how DnD works" and make things set because "that's what's fair." And perhaps some of that balance depends on the players and the GM. The fact that we all have seemingly different systems just points to the fact that we all realize the inherent problems with the "traditional die-roll" systems and are seeking to make the game as fun, balanced, realistic, etc. as possible without overdoing any one of those aspects at the cost of the others. As long as the house rules that you create for all of these are something that everyone in your group can agree with, I can't see anything wrong with using a different system (I know my group prefers rolling to "equality," so I don't think it's something I'll end up using).


PhysChic wrote:


Another thing I'm not quite sure I understand is why stats are so much different than hp. I mean, both originally required the player to roll to determine their value. With the point buy method, the GM can certainly ensure that all players start out on an equal playing field regarding their stats. By higher levels, though, you may end up having a "sub-par" character simply because the player rolled absolutely horribly each time he levelled. Should we employ a point buy method on hp as well?

HP are not different from stats. As a DM I always have my players use average hp per level (even levels=half, odd levels=half plus 1). Full HP for 1st of course. As an aside, what was the point of random hp to begin with? It's not even like you can say that random hp is 'more realistic' because hp is such an abstract and fantastic stat.


I've had too many players get overshadowed by other players with multiple 18s and "high HP rolls". I use point-buy (DMG standard, 28 points) mainly to even things out and secondly - I don't have to watch over my players. It's not because I felt they were cheating, I just didn't need to be the hawk-like overseer of my player's character creation.

My actual house rule is player choice:
1. 4d6, drop lowest, place were wanted.
2. 28 point-buy as per DMG
Player chooses stat generation system and sticks with results. They usually go with point-buy... especailly after the first 4d6 roll ends up a 5 (in which I remark "great roll for Axis and Allies!")


Not to fond of point buy, I prefer to hand out a standard array at the start of any campaign. I just completed a high power campaign where I let players use a 18,16,15,14,13,12 array. Of course, whats good for the PC's is also good for the DM, all recurring villians and major NPC's used the same array. For HP, I used the Living Greyhawk model of 1/2 HD +1 per level, max HP for first level. This tended to balance the high abilities. For the new campaign, (AoW), I lowered the abilities (15,14,13,13,12,11) but am letting the players have max HP each level.


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.

Grand Lodge

If we do rolling what we do is make up a grid of rolls 4d6 drop the lowest. The grid has six columns and six rows, each spot has a roll in it. Then each player can select any row or column going up, down, across or backwards as their set of scores with no swapping of order.
This usually allows any general idea to work out, but you might not get the optimal arrangement of scores with the numbers you have.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Replying to a post from May 2006 8 years later, there's a tiny chance those you are replying to will even notice this thread has had new traffic after nearly a decade.

Besides, there were much more recent threads on this subject you could have replied in.

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