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Good afternoon folks. Long time lurker here; small time poster. One thing that has been on my mind lately is point buy and how stats make folks feel average/epic.
I will start by saying I like point buy because it keeps the PCs on an even field. I think 20 point buy is the right one for me.I understand that wiz/sorc come ahead vs. paladin/monk but thats not what I want to talk about. Having a 20 at level 1-3 in any stat seems too good to me. I do have a player in my group though who would beg to differ. That is where I would like to start with the discussion.
Folks often post indicating they feel 15 pt buy is average but never expand on that idea. I would like to hear more about why you may think 15/20 pt buy is average? I would also like to know why people think 25/30 pt is epic? If you use a 30 pt buy do you have to then adjust skill checks and monster levels to provide challenge? Or is part of being epic mean mopping the floor with the adventures?
I would love to hear what people think of stat numbers in relation to ability. Do you feel that a 6 in intelligence means average if not retarded? I have never felt obligated to play this way. I certainly wouldn't play Int as a strength but I wouldn't feel it necessary to be stupid either. Charisma is another; a low score doesn't mean ugly to me it just means the character does not have a forceful presence. What do yall think?
I would love to hear what people think of stat numbers in relation to ability. Do you feel that a 6 in intelligence means average if not retarded? I have never felt obligated to play this way. I certainly wouldn't play Int as a strength but I wouldn't feel it necessary to be stupid either. Charisma is another; a low score doesn't mean ugly to me it just means the character does not have a forceful presence. What do yall think?
I consider Int scores to be IQ scores, generally.
10 Int is 90-100 IQ, 13 is 130 IQ. 18 is 180 IQ.
I also play all of my low-cha characters as either shy or verbally abrasive. I also like to roll on the table of shame they put up at Kobold Quarterly a bit ago to get character quirks.
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I would love to hear what people think of stat numbers in relation to ability. Do you feel that a 6 in intelligence means average if not retarded? I have never felt obligated to play this way. I certainly wouldn't play Int as a strength but I wouldn't feel it necessary to be stupid either. Charisma is another; a low score doesn't mean ugly to me it just means the character does not have a forceful presence. What do yall think?I consider Int scores to be IQ scores, generally.
10 Int is 90-100 IQ, 13 is 130 IQ. 18 is 180 IQ.
I also play all of my low-cha characters as either shy or verbally abrasive. I also like to roll on the table of shame they put up at Kobold Quarterly a bit ago to get character quirks.
The table of shame is hilarious thanks for the link!
Hey, I just did this math in another thread. :)
The standard roll on 4d6-drop is roughly 12.25. Six of these is the basis of the original 25-point buy in 3.5; with the Pathfinder point buy it's closer to 13 points, but 15 is a cleaner number and creates the same standard array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8).
However, six times the average single roll is not the best representation of the average set of six rolls, because 4d6-drop is weighted high: you have a 1-in-1296 chance of rolling a 3, but a 1-in-62 chance of an 18. With this taken into account, the equivalent point buy is about 19. Since "unusable" stats are generally re-rolled, it's best to round up on point buy, so 20 is fine.
For my part: I once ran a whole campaign where players had to use the standard array. Oh, the grumbling! But after we started, it played out just fine. I prefer lower base attributes for two reasons: first, it makes you really feel you've earned your victories; and second, a +1 bonus doesn't feel weak.
My current favorite scheme is the 3.5 Organic roll with a mulligan: 4d6-drop, assigned in order. Then optionally re-roll one attribute of your choice (keep best result). Then optionally switch the places of one pair of attributes. If you don't like the outcome, you can take the standard array assigned as you please.
Regarding IQ vs. Int -- my favorite way of looking at it is a compared-frequency chart: the probability that a person has a given IQ matches up to the probability of rolling the equivalent Intelligence on 3d6. (Not 4d6; non-elites are the majority of the populace.) This gave a rather low cap pre-Pathfinder, but now that you can reasonably say "one in six humans puts their +2 into Intelligence" and model it up to 20, the chart comes out pretty nice.
Unfortunately I have no idea where I put that chart, or which thread it was in. ;) I remember that 20 Int was roughly 150 IQ, though.
Charisma is all about self-confidence, IMO.
The way I look at Int>IQ is 10+Modifier*10. So 18 would be 140, 9 would be 90, 7 would be 80. It fits more with the actual bell curve, 18 or so being genius, 7 or lower being mentally handicapped.
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The way I look at Int>IQ is 10+Modifier*10. So 18 would be 140, 9 would be 90, 7 would be 80. It fits more with the actual bell curve, 18 or so being genius, 7 or lower being mentally handicapped.
This would put me at roughly an 18-19... O.O
I tend not to penalize low stats too much, but they bring themselves up. A low int score monk in my party has very few skills relative to most monks and is annoyed at his inability to meet the prereqs for combat expertise.
A druid in the group is annoyed every time their is an angry animal, since they can't really use wild empathy well enough to matter (it's the feeling of a missed opportunity).
We don't have any characters with low wisdom at the moment, but these characters tend to be extremely foolish (when I play them, anyway). It is also a cause for low will save, which is a big enough punishment in and of itself.
The way I look at Int>IQ is 10+Modifier*10. So 18 would be 140, 9 would be 90, 7 would be 80. It fits more with the actual bell curve, 18 or so being genius, 7 or lower being mentally handicapped.This would put me at roughly an 18-19... O.O
Yeah. Me to, roughly, depending on the test. Maybe even 20, but then I figure I'm about a 4th level expert :) 18 is supposed to be the border between high natural ability and superhuman, and I think that describes genius level IQ. I think 18 dex or str probably represents the bare essentials for being a professional athelete as well, maybe even 18 con for being an endurance runner or mountain climber. Ya know.
If I were to stat myself out I'd probably be 11, 12, 10, 18, 15, 11. That's only 18 point buy, if I'm a human and put my 4th level stat bump in int :)
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The way I look at Int>IQ is 10+Modifier*10. So 18 would be 140, 9 would be 90, 7 would be 80. It fits more with the actual bell curve, 18 or so being genius, 7 or lower being mentally handicapped.This would put me at roughly an 18-19... O.OYeah. Me to, roughly, depending on the test. Maybe even 20, but then I figure I'm about a 4th level expert :) 18 is supposed to be the border between high natural ability and superhuman, and I think that describes genius level IQ. I think 18 dex or str probably represents the bare essentials for being a professional athelete as well, maybe even 18 con for being an endurance runner or mountain climber. Ya know.
If I were to stat myself out I'd probably be 11, 12, 10, 18, 15, 11. That's only 18 point buy, if I'm a human and put my 4th level stat bump in int :)
As my profile indicates, I was once statted out (by some friends of mine at college) as 13,17,13,14,12,14. That's already a 31 point buy. Upping that 14 to an 18 would increase that by 12 to a 43 point buy. That's just a bit much. To be fair you'd probably have to lower that entire original set by 2, then change the int for 11,15,11,18,10,12, which is exactly what you have, but arranged differently.
I have always treated every 2 as 1 standard deviation away from average. In this case, IQ tests have a 30 point standard deviation, so a 12 would be 130, 14 = 160, 16 = 190, 18 = 220.
Someone used a random number generator to generate thousands of stat blocks and threw out ones that the game says you should (non-positive total I believe). He said the average of the remaining was a 21 point buy.
I personally do not like point buy because I see extremes in my player's characters and too many of them look the same. Reducing points, I find only makes characters more vulnerable and one dimmentional. With rolling, at least every character wont have a 20 (which I saw even with 15 point buy). I find, with rolling, you will see characters in the 20-30 point range who do not look as powerful as 20 point buy because the numbers are not distributed in the most favorable way.
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I personally do not like point buy because I see extremes in my player's characters and too many of them look the same. Reducing points, I find only makes characters more vulnerable and one dimmentional. With rolling, at least every character wont have a 20 (which I saw even with 15 point buy). I find, with rolling, you will see characters in the 20-30 point range who do not look as powerful as 20 point buy because the numbers are not distributed in the most favorable way.
I used to think the same way. I got way too tired of one player rolling superman while another rolled aqua-man. When a player rolls well it tends to work out as a 20 point buy on average. The point buy method just tends to be more even between players which I prefer.
Could you elaborate on how a rolled character with essentially a 20 pt buy looks less powerful? I can sort of picture it. My group doesn't really dump. Of five I only have one player who feels 20 pt buy is not enough. He even gets more whiny when I tell him he cant take any stats below an 8.
I hear "players all look the same" and "cookie cutter" alot with pt buy. However the stats just set up some of the challenge. I have never looked at a character as bland based solely on their ability stats. Whether a character is average or epic really depends on how the character is played by the gamer IME.
As for INT = IQ, I [i]used[i/] to consider that Intelligence, as an attribute, was a measure of your IQ. But in order to measure it on a scale, you need a low and high value. 3 and 18, with 10-11 being in the middle, used to be a good indicator of how to measure INT as IQ before 3E D&D. With the new (well, lets say post AD&D) system, INT can easily go beyond 18. So were do you put the high reference? 20? 25? 30? Very soon, either all wizard are supra-geniuses or your 10-11 average is VERY low...
Long story short, I drop the R-P based in INT when I adopted 3E. Its a measure of how quick you learn, not how much you know. Its a measure of how good you are at being a wizard, the same way that high Wisdom is a measure of how cool the gods think you are. Too often have I been disgusted at the behaviour of a character that supposedly have a high "wisdom". Clearly, wisdom (the stat) has nothing to do with the "wisdom" I'd use in any other context. Same goes for Intelligence... and Charisma while we're at it...
'findel
Stat interpretation is an opportunity for RP. A low CHA character might be devastatingly attractive, just incredibly obnoxious. A low DEX character might be nimble, just jinxed.
I'd never draw a direct correlation between INT and IQ, strictly because INT (I think) is supposed to cover a much wider spectrum of talent than IQ does.
i think that my stats are best show in my profile (take a peek)
I personally do not like point buy because I see extremes in my player's characters and too many of them look the same. Reducing points, I find only makes characters more vulnerable and one dimmentional. With rolling, at least every character wont have a 20 (which I saw even with 15 point buy). I find, with rolling, you will see characters in the 20-30 point range who do not look as powerful as 20 point buy because the numbers are not distributed in the most favorable way.I used to think the same way. I got way too tired of one player rolling superman while another rolled aqua-man. When a player rolls well it tends to work out as a 20 point buy on average. The point buy method just tends to be more even between players which I prefer.
Could you elaborate on how a rolled character with essentially a 20 pt buy looks less powerful? I can sort of picture it. My group doesn't really dump. Of five I only have one player who feels 20 pt buy is not enough. He even gets more whiny when I tell him he cant take any stats below an 8.
I hear "players all look the same" and "cookie cutter" alot with pt buy. However the stats just set up some of the challenge. I have never looked at a character as bland based solely on their ability stats. Whether a character is average or epic really depends on how the character is played by the gamer IME.
I told 1 of my players to make a character, but I hadn't decided on point buy or rolling. He made a 25 point human druid. 20,16,12,10,10,7. I told him to make the same character with 20 point buy, since that was what I was considering. 20,16,13,8,7,7. I asked him what he would do for a 15 point character. 20,16,10,7,7,7. The character would be equally powerful in his primary focus and didn't lose anything significant to him droping down to a 15 except some con. I decided to have him roll. 17,15,14,13,13,8. 25 point buy, but overall weaker than the 15 point buy for his character in his primary stats. As a result, the character is more ballanced, has higher overall stats, but is lower in his 2 primary stats. He is more points but easier to deal with. It is also more fun to play the character because he doesn't feel like he sacrificed the stats he wanted for flavor for the stats he needed mechanicly, since there was no choice and the dice decided.
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The Point buy system IMO creates non-heroic characters. The whole point of D+D is that the characters are heroic not average.
Both of my D+D groups used 4d6 reroll 1's to generate characters
we felt that that gave us a good scores for all of our stats generaly the lowest stat we had was an 11.
Personaly I don't see any use for a 15 point buy at all that would generate characters that are subpar and non heroic. The 20 point buy
is ok but I would use a 25 or 30 point buy if using a point buy system.
I will admit I like higher powered games. The Lower point buys might be good for lower powered games but I really don't like low powered games.
As my friend Ryan said the only reason for Living realms/greyhawk or PFS is to introduce players to one another so they can form there own groups.
Getting back to the point the only real reason for the point buy system
reguardless of the number of points that is set is to force all the characters to be equal. I have to say life is not equal so why should are games be forced to be equal? The point of the game is for a group of people to get together and have fun. Not obsess on a characters stats.
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The Point buy system IMO creates non-heroic characters. The whole point of D+D is that the characters are heroic not average.
Both of my D+D groups used 4d6 reroll 1's to generate characters
we felt that that gave us a good scores for all of our stats generaly the lowest stat we had was an 11.Getting back to the point the only real reason for the point buy system
reguardless of the number of points that is set is to force all the characters to be equal. I have to say life is not equal so why should are games be forced to be equal? The point of the game is for a group of people to get together and have fun. Not obsess on a characters stats.
This is not my experience at all. My recent campaign I asked everyone to use 20 point buy. One character wanted to roll for old times sake. I told him he could use 4D6 drop lowest. His best roll was 13 with several in the 6-9 range.
So should he roll again? Or should he play at a severe disadvantage. This character would be failing saves and skill checks others would have no difficulty at. I agree the point is to get together and have fun but would you have fun in this scenario?
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The Point buy system IMO creates non-heroic characters. The whole point of D+D is that the characters are heroic not average.
Both of my D+D groups used 4d6 reroll 1's to generate characters
we felt that that gave us a good scores for all of our stats generaly the lowest stat we had was an 11.
+1, is that how you folks say 'Agreed?'
I use PB for Con games, or if all of them like it.
I really prefer rolling, and that with everyone in the same room,so that nobody whines about suspicious stats. Also, the Exclamations of 'Oooohhh!!!!' when someone gets a 6 or an 18 are awesome.
-Uriel
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I told 1 of my players to make a character, but I hadn't decided on point buy or rolling. He made a 25 point human druid. 20,16,12,10,10,7. I told him to make the same character with 20 point buy, since that was what I was considering. 20,16,13,8,7,7. I asked him what he would do for a 15 point character. 20,16,10,7,7,7. The character would be equally powerful in his primary focus and didn't lose anything significant to him droping down to a 15 except some con. I decided to have him roll. 17,15,14,13,13,8. 25 point buy, but overall weaker than the 15 point buy for his character in his primary stats. As a result, the...
I personally do not like point buy because I see extremes in my player's characters and too many of them look the same. Reducing points, I find only makes characters more vulnerable and one dimmentional. With rolling, at least every character wont have a 20 (which I saw even with 15 point buy). I find, with rolling, you will see characters in the 20-30 point range who do not look as powerful as 20 point buy because the numbers are not distributed in the most favorable way.I used to think the same way. I got way too tired of one player rolling superman while another rolled aqua-man. When a player rolls well it tends to work out as a 20 point buy on average. The point buy method just tends to be more even between players which I prefer.
Could you elaborate on how a rolled character with essentially a 20 pt buy looks less powerful? I can sort of picture it. My group doesn't really dump. Of five I only have one player who feels 20 pt buy is not enough. He even gets more whiny when I tell him he cant take any stats below an 8.
I hear "players all look the same" and "cookie cutter" alot with pt buy. However the stats just set up some of the challenge. I have never looked at a character as bland based solely on their ability stats. Whether a character is average or epic really depends on how the character is played by the gamer IME.
I agree I like the rolled stats better in the above. In fact I take it one step further and make 8 the lowest in my pt buys. I guess the folks in my group tend not go for broke on the primary taking other stats to the basement. Our games have too many challenges in quite a variety that dumping leaves you quite vulnerable.
How did your other characters in the game turn out? I guess ol' Pan has had too many bad experiences with rolling in terms of the entire group that I have come to the conclusion to abandon the practice.
I hear "players all look the same" and "cookie cutter" alot with pt buy. However the stats just set up some of the challenge. I have never looked at a character as bland based solely on their ability stats. Whether a character is average or epic really depends on how the character is played by the gamer IME.I told 1 of my players to make a character, but I hadn't decided on point buy or rolling. He made a 25 point human druid. 20,16,12,10,10,7. I told him to make the same character with 20 point buy, since that was what I was considering. 20,16,13,8,7,7. I asked him what he would do for a 15 point character. 20,16,10,7,7,7. The character would be equally powerful in his primary focus and didn't lose anything significant to him droping down to a 15 except some con.
This is a player expectation issue. Some players get into the mindset of "I need a 20 in my highest ability score at 1st level" when using point buy. I always shake my head when I see a character with three 7's, as that's usually an indication that they're overly focused.
Instead of 20, 16, 10, 7, 7, 7 using 15-point buy, an 18, 14, 12, 10, 10, 8 array gives almost the exact same bonuses as the 25-point buy above (+4/+2 instead of +5/+3 on the two highest scores and -1 instead of -2 on the lowest). Seriously, there are enough ways to get +1 bonuses for your primary focus that the difference is IMO negligible.
If you feel that players are abusing the point buy option to reduce scores below 10, then you can always limit that option: 15-point buy, only one score can be reduced below 10; 20-point buy, no scores reduced below 10; etc.
The Point buy system IMO creates non-heroic characters. The whole point of D+D is that the characters are heroic not average.
Both of my D+D groups used 4d6 reroll 1's to generate characters
we felt that that gave us a good scores for all of our stats generaly the lowest stat we had was an 11.Personaly I don't see any use for a 15 point buy at all that would generate characters that are subpar and non heroic. The 20 point buy
is ok but I would use a 25 or 30 point buy if using a point buy system.
4d6, reroll 1's is roughly equivalent to a 20-point buy. The minimum possible score is 6 (1 in 625 chance) and the maximum is 18 (17 in 625 chance), with an average around 13 IIRC. The main difference is that point buy heavily weights the ability scores to the average, while rolling has much more variation.
Remember that average monsters/NPCs have ability scores of 11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 10 or 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 (before racial adjustments). A 15-point buy is already "above average" or "heroic" (i.e., Heroic NPCs have ability scores of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8, which is basically a 15-point buy).
in response to OP's question, in SSAP, we're running a 20 point buy and all rules and items from Pathfinder sources. I made a Tiefling rogue with above average CON, we have a dedicated healer AND a paladin, and my PC _still_ goes down in every combat with more than 4 enemies. AAAnd, to set that off, our *cough* illustrious GM decided that we were all sooo optimized and burning through the AP challenges that he withheld our leveling before the boss encounter and proceeded to buff all the skeletons as well as the boss making them into monsters capable of reducing the paladin to less than half hit points in a single hit.
20 point buy with "core" rules (as with 3.5 we tend to run rather heavy on the splat) does _not_ feel epic. It feels like everything is still the will of the die.
In my husband's Kingmaker AP, we run 25 point buy and use 3.5 spells and items. _That_ my friends is epic. When the APG came out I voluntarily toned my cleric down exceedingly lots (no longer a priest class, since it wasn't available in the archetypes section) keeping only the quicken channeling feat because without it... the way my group plays, the fighter wouldn't last more than a few rounds in the heavy combat scenarios. My husband spends _hours_ altering the AP challenges to meet the demands of our group, there's been several occasions where we met monsters and he simply fade to blacked the combat because there was no reason to even assume we could be harmed by the things he didn't take the time to optimize.
25 point buy with 3.5 errata geared towards completing an AP is quite broken.
I honestly wouldn't mind it if we got the standard NPC array to work with for our next AP. At least that way if the dice decide to dump my rogue or bard on their butt in front of the final boss as I'm attempting to tumble around it, I can't look at the 18 I've sunk into DEX and think that I've failed. Then again, I also wouldn't mind if we played iconics, either. The witch's two humongous talents provide the crux of an argument that large breasts should equal bonuses to diplomacy checks when speaking with interested NPCs.
I generally try not to attach the "mental" skills with the actual character in question until they reach tragically low levels. A character with low wisdom could simply be very trusting and naive. Likewise a character with low intellect isn't dumb, they're just not as skilled or well rounded as others.
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in response to OP's question, in SSAP, we're running a 20 point buy and all rules and items from Pathfinder sources. I made a Tiefling rogue with above average CON, we have a dedicated healer AND a paladin, and my PC _still_ goes down in every combat with more than 4 enemies. AAAnd, to set that off, our *cough* illustrious GM decided that we were all sooo optimized and burning through the AP challenges that he withheld our leveling before the boss encounter and proceeded to buff all the skeletons as well as the boss making them into monsters capable of reducing the paladin to less than half hit points in a single hit.
20 point buy with "core" rules (as with 3.5 we tend to run rather heavy on the splat) does _not_ feel epic. It feels like everything is still the will of the die.
In my husband's Kingmaker AP, we run 25 point buy and use 3.5 spells and items. _That_ my friends is epic. When the APG came out I voluntarily toned my cleric down exceedingly lots (no longer a priest class, since it wasn't available in the archetypes section) keeping only the quicken channeling feat because without it... the way my group plays, the fighter wouldn't last more than a few rounds in the heavy combat scenarios. My husband spends _hours_ altering the AP challenges to meet the demands of our group, there's been several occasions where we met monsters and he simply fade to blacked the combat because there was no reason to even assume we could be harmed by the things he didn't take the time to optimize.
25 point buy with 3.5 errata geared towards completing an AP is quite broken.
Thanks for sharing this is what I was hoping to hear. I believe the APs are built for 20 point buy so I can see having to adjust them for a 25 point 3.5 geared group.
oh and " The witch's two humongous talents provide the crux of an argument that large breasts should equal bonuses to diplomacy checks when speaking with interested NPCs."
Yeah there's a trait in the APG for that