Having played for 25 years I have done character generation in a multitude of ways. I 'rolled' the all 18 character when I was 12. Sure I did. "I swear dude, it was the most amazing thing you ever saw. All 18s!" *high five* I rolled for real and actually played a character with a high score of 12 in 1e. He also had a 3 and a 4. And 1 hp. He was a magic user. That didn't last long as you can imagine.
My first experience with point buy was with 3e which I didn't play for long. I like the idea but not the implementation.
What I do now is allow my players 72 points that they can arrange any way they want (max before racial adj. is 18) Most of them end up somewhere very near the elite array. After so many years of min maxing (both from my players and having done it myself in various forms) I find that this method allows customization but leaves the power level at about the right balance for my game. If the player really wants a couple of 18s and is willing to play a few 6s or 8s for it, then fine. It should also be noted however that the skill point system we use is based on abilities and not RAW. You get the ones assigned by class, but the others (as it seems makes more sense to me) are tied to specific abilities.
Overall, my players are pretty mature and don't abuse this system and seem to enjoy it. If I have someone who really wants to roll, then I will let them but only with me watching. If the rolls are really out of line, then we revert to this.
Sorry for rambling. It must be sleepytime.
I like rolling stats. I like my players to roll stats. Its gotta be done in front of me, not around me, not behind me not in a closet nearby. I let a player keep his three eightteen character that he rolled and was witnessed by his wife... I just used the same stats for the gnollish ranger leader of the warband they encountered. He became very "concerned" about this. Accused me of cheating he did. Point buy is cool if ya got lots a players, just simplify how the scores are bought. I hear tell 4th ed is going to just use modifiers instead of scores... but that ain't D&D. 3-18 or it's crap.
My 2 CP.
Various things.
Uhm, while I understand each individual point, I think, your overall coherency is waning.
The room mate analogy didn't have a thing to do with sports- it was another analogy of rolling vs. point buy.
You see point buy as Nazi-isitc? I see rolling as sending you on a trip without a spare tire. You might come out okay, you might be screwed.
And, yes, role-playing is far more important to me than having to cope with low stats inhibiting my very compotency in the game. I do like challenges. If you will recall a post I made earlier in the thread, I said that I'm the kind of guy that gets nostalgiac about 2nd level and how rough it was, and the thrills and excitement it brings. But, in my experience, having crappy stats turns that challenge into a frustrating grind.
I sympathize with my player in wanting to have "heroic" stats (although I seem to differ with him in my ideas of what that means and how to get him). I do like playing Joe Schmoe who becomes the greatest warrior or archmage or something, but my definition of Joe Schmoe is being 1st or 2nd level, not having a 13 as a high score.
This is going to come off sounded more offended than I really am, but here goes:
And I honestly don't think that there is anything "wrong" with me wanting to have a character that matches the one I dreamt up, rather than having to rely on the dice. Say I want to play a mighty paladin... but I roll terrible. Now, I could still try and play a paladin, but I would either have a high chance of failing miserably at most challenges, or the DM would have to "nerf" them for me (relative to the other players, who rolled high in this example), which I don't want, either. And the other option is not playing the paladin. What if I roll low again next time? In truth, I have terrible luck with rolls (see some examples in my previous posts). So, do I never get to play what I want, just because some hunk of plastic?
That sounds really fun.
Why do I get the feeling that this thread is running in circles now, with the same points and counter points being thrown up over and over again?
Why do I get the feeling this thread is running in circles now...
I think we covered the subject pretty well. What more can be said?
Oh yeah, point buy sucks (just joking)!
Thanks for the debate Saern and everyone else.
My pleasure. :)
What I do now is allow my players 72 points that they can arrange any way they want (max before racial adj. is 18)
I allow a re-roll if the total ability scores is under 70. 70 total points equals a net gain of +5 in ability bonuses. I have a few players, all old school gamers, who don't care about that and will play a character with total ability score lesss than 70. If a player wishes and asks, I will let them use 70 points to buy thier ability scores (such a bitter taste in my mouth). But, remind them that is the minimum total ability score they can achieve. Still, some choose that option. I thik it works for them better than the randomness of rolling the dice.
I CAST RESSURECT THREAD!!!
So, Sexi Golem is back in town and he and I are both running summer games. It's just him, me, and the friend discussed earlier in this thread. During character generation, I told Sexi I had already made calculations on my character based on a 32-point buy, and wondered if that was okay with him or if he'd like me to roll or something for the stats. He said the point-buy was fine with him, so I went with it.
Now, my friend comes over and he's running a bit late and hasn't rolled the stats yet. Sexi tells him he can roll like normal, or do point buy. I mention I went with point buy and rather liked it. I walked out of the room, and when I came back, low and behold he's using point buy!
Not only that, but after the game he stuck around to make the character for my campaign, and I also said he could use point buy or roll. I thought about saying if you roll and don't like it, you have to use 28 point buy, but I decided to be lenient to try and get him on-board. He rolled two sets, on mediocre and one pretty craptacular, and then he said he'd just use point buy! Not only that, but after having made his stats and seeing them as being pretty good, he actually said "point buy really isn't so bad." I smiled inside and went on overseeing his character creation.
He seems to realize that 32 point allows you diversity and enough points to get all the stats you want/need. Not only that, but you get the stats you want/need. No hoping for a +3 modifier or better- you want it? Buy it!
So, now it looks like I won't have a problem trying to get him (and hopefully other players) to use 32 point buy in future games. Just thought I'd post here and let everyone know what developed in the end.
I'm all for point-buy if only due to my lifetime rotten luck with dice rolling (anyone who's gamed with me in my 25+ years of D&D will attest to this) despite the ever-growing pile of dice that I buy in hopes of finding the Holy Grail of dice sets (something my fellow gamers can also attest to.) However...
When I DM, I use 12+1d6, 12+1d6, 6+2d6, 6+2d6, 3d6, and 3d6.
...I really like this system. It seems to combine the best of both worlds in that it sort-of "fixes" a couple of attributes while completely randomizing others. I may have to stow this away for a future character-rolling session. Thanks for the cool tip, Azhrei!
- Chris Shadowens
What I do now is allow my players 72 points that they can arrange any way they want (max before racial adj. is 18)
Just querying this, does each stat increase (whether going to a '1' or an '18') cost 1 point every time, or is it akin to the Stat Buy where it all costs 1 point up until the higher ability score wherein you pay 2 points when going to 15/16 and 3 points for 17/18?
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I missed this discussion entirely earlier, and the topic is near and dear to my heart.
I love random character generation, because I find it helps stimulate creativity. Contrary to most people's beliefs, I feel that limitations create more creativity than complete artistic freedom does.
On the other hand, I feel that having a balanced party is important in D&D. Bear in mind that I freely admit to enjoying the tactical combat part of the game equally to the roleplay aspect. If you can't really contribute, it really isn't as fun. So if one character outshines the others, everyone else contributes less and has less fun. Point buy takes care of this.
So what I like is a balanced randomizing system.
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Check out my article in Dragon 346 for a system of generating stats using a 3DA deck like a Tarot reading. It essentially randomly distributes a point-buy array. Also, you can use the reading to generate background ideas as well.
Or here's a quick and dirty version:
Select your point buy level (how many points per character)
Roll that many d6's
Group the dice by number and count how many of each number you have.
The number of 1's you roll is how many points go into STR. The number of 2's is how many points go into DEX. The number of 3's is how many points go into CON. Etc.
Use these points to determine your stats just like you bought them with point buy. If you have any excess points in a stat, reassign them to the highest other stat (or as you see fit).
For more freedom, rearrange the scores as you like.
I actually got the inspiration to write the article from an earlier similar argument on these boards. My group was constantly switching between random and point-buy before that and arguing over which is better. Now we have unanimously agreed to use the Three Dragon readings for all characters.
Craig Shackleton
The Rambling Scribe
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There was another proposed method for "randomized point buy" that gives every character the same power base but distributes it differently. I think it was Fake Healer who originally suggested it, but I may be wrong.
In brief, you roll as many d6s as you have points, and group the results together. Thus, if you have 32 point buy and roll five of 1 through 4 and six 5s and 6s, your ability array will consist of four 13s and two 14s. If you manage to roll sixteen 1s, you'll have an 18 somewhere. I believe that excess rolls that fall short of the minimum for the next point are rerolled -- for example, if you roll fifteen 1s you'll have to reroll two of them because the jump from a 17 to an 18 requires three points.
If you're up for something more complex, there's always the card reading method that was laid out in one issue of Dragon -- it's intended for use with the Three Dragon Ante cards, but included suggested equivalents for standard playing cards. That one takes longer but gives you a similar element of randomness and also gives you something to build your character off of it you want to explain why he has such and thus for his abilities.
And now I see this post that I missed on my first read-through!
An argument for point buy:
to keep your players from whinning about thier louzy ability scores they rolled in front of you.
After all these years of gaming, I feel like I've finally sort of given up on the point-buy vs rolling debate. I don't really care how the players arrive at their ability scores as long as they don't cheat (and even that is because I refuse to play with unethical people, not because I care what their scores are).
These days I give my players two options:
1) You can take 75 points and divide them up however you want them. (75 was chosen semi-arbitrarily and in my experience tends to produce slightly overpowered characters. This is good in my game, since I run some tough stuff from time to time.
2) You can roll your own dice (4d6, drop the lowest, arrange the scores however you want). But you're stuck with whatever you get, with no do-overs.
I tell them their choices up front and they get to deal with the results. So far, there haven't been any complaints. I feel this is primarily due to the 3.5 rules' ability to produce powerful characters almost in spite of stat scores. Let's face it - a 15th level fighter with the right feats and magic items can do some pretty righteous damage even if his strength is only 12.
Correction: My wife has just reminded me there was one complaint. I played once with a "serious gamer" (read: complete jerk) who insisted that anything other than rolling straight 3d6's wasn't "real D&D". I let him use the old 1e method, and he rolled craptastically (2 4's and 2 5's, I think). He then proceeded to play a LN cleric as CE and wanted to argue about why his superiors got mad at him. He complained constantly about his scores and everything else, and I'm still not sure if he died because of his crappy rolling or because the other players "accidentally" let it happen. Either way, it was a good thing.
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My gaming group has always considered 15 to be the equivalent of an Olympic athelete. Stas above that are generally, in our opinion, unheard of, and thus extraordinary.
Once you get that mindset in place, then point buy starts to look really good. My usual build rarely has a stat much over 14, and so I'm pretty good all-around. One of the guys almost always takes an 18 (he likes to be extraordinary, but he takes a hit somewhere else.
What I'm trying to get at is that we've used point buy for a while now, and while some of us miss the thrill of rolling a truly extraordinary character, we figure we're plenty heroic, as compared to the common man.
As for how to convince a die-hard die roller... I don't think you can. You just get to lay out the campaign's ground rules, and hope that he values your friendship as much as you do. Otherwise, let him roll.
In the great grand scheme of things, the system is really starting to down-play the importance of stats, anyway. By mid-level, a character with straight 9's isn't all that much worse off than a person with straight 14's. Straight 18's - well... it takes a few more levels to negate that advantage, but in the end, stats don't amount to all that much , anymore.
Just an opinion (in a wandering sort of way)
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For what it's worth, I agree with Stunty the Dwarf. After many years of gaming with all of the inherent min-maxing that goes on, it took awhile before I could accept a proper scaling of ability scores relative to one another. If you think about 10 to 11 being "average", with scores of 15 being Olympic level, I think it really puts things in perspective. It also makes those rarely rolled scores of 16 to 18 feel very special (and thus, only godlike beings have multiple scores in that range). If you can step back and bring the respective power level of your game down a notch (or two) it can balance out the misperception that certain scores are too weak, not high enough, etc.
A decent example of this is embodied in the Star Wars RPG to some extent (yes...there are some NPCs with insane stats there too). For example, I really like the Quinlan Vos character from the comic books (muscular, resourceful, intuitive, charismatic, tough, a true "adventurer" type) and yet, his single highest stat is a 15 (due to a racial modification).
So, really....it comes down to what your players are happiest with. Point Buy ensures that there are no truly horrible scores (and in fact, ensures several quite good scores), but lacks that random quality that dice rolling has. It's all a matter of perspective as to how "good" the character is and what his relative abilities are. Point Buy doesn't seem so evil if you think about ability scores this way.
Point buy: because in the end, it's a cooperative game; in such, fairness trumps realism.
All I have to say on the matter, as others have said it better sooner.
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I mean, if you're a dwarf fighter with 10 Charisma, how many Diplomacy checks are you going to be making? Would it really be any less if that score was an 8? Or a 6? All that ammounts to is the intensity with which you roleplay a certain deficit. Again, I personally find this to add depth to a character and think it's fun.
Yep one of my major compaints against d20. Fighters do not work as heroic knights in Camelot. In fact they also cannot be used in an army as lookouts. They don't have the skills normally associated with heroic fighters.
If I want a combat machine that is able to sit in the halls of kings, lead great armies and maybe just maybe keep watch at night... well it isn't a Fighter. To do so, I must either multiclass or take some other class altogether, usually a magic using one, or one of the weird specialized "core" classes intoduced in those "Complete" books (that are really just prestige classes with 20 levels).
I would prefer a point buy system for abilities (no more dice rolling at all for stats), and choose the class skills based upon your vision of your character. Feats are just fine now as is magic. But the skills still need some lovin'.
If I want a combat machine that is able to sit in the halls of kings, lead great armies and maybe just maybe keep watch at night... well it isn't a Fighter. To do so, I must either multiclass or take some other class altogether, usually a magic using one, or one of the weird specialized "core" classes intoduced in those "Complete" books (that are really just prestige classes with 20 levels).
I would prefer a point buy system for abilities (no more dice rolling at all for stats), and choose the class skills based upon your vision of your character. Feats are just fine now as is magic. But the skills still need some lovin'.
Maybe this was in 3.0, (I can't remember the EXACT referrence), but there was a feat that was super useful for humans. It was called Versatility. It allowed you to pick any two class skills and add them to your class list (if taken at first level it allowd you access to them all the way). I remember EVERY single one of us took it and added spot and listen to our class skills (this way even if we didn't pump skill points into them EVERY level, we kept them pretty high). Our DM seriously used those two almost a hundred times an adventure.
This allows for the sort of customization of class skill list without total revamping them or getting really "weird" (or non stereotypical) calss skill lists.Even if this feat no longer exists, we use it in our games as we all like it and it doesn't seem overpowered (trade a feat for a slight increase to class skills list). But we only allow it once per character.
According to the RAW, clerics make the best lookouts, and are the rogue's worst nightmare (with lots of skill points in them AND high wisdom).
Hope that helps, be safe all.