PF is already like this to a large degree, the game does favor the players, but it's just an issue of turning the dial further into the PCs direction.But the game wasn't designed to have the dial turned like that. It offers "high fantasy" and "epic fantasy" -- but the dial can't really support turning any farther ("mega fantasy", "super mega fantasy"?) without really changing how the whole game works. There's no "little fix" method for this.
I think you could keep turning that dial all the way back around and then some. So long as you don't have to adjust encounters.
If players want a 42 point buy, hell, even a 62 point buy so they can storm dungeons and kick down doors like super-mega-bad-a** that should work just fine and I can even understand that. Even if that play style is not my cuppa, I can see where they're coming from.What I really don't get is arbitrarily increasing your players power level, then trying to redesign every monster and npc to provide an equivalent challenge. What's the point of being a bad a** if everything is still just as hard?
One of the key things for myself, and I know I'm quite different about this than many other players, is that I DO NOT want to feel challenged. I specifically want to act within a fantasy world with effortless grace. . .I appreciate your honesty, Mok. I don't think you are quite as alone as you think, but I think few people would be willing to come out and admit (or are even self-aware enough to realize) that they prefer the game set on "Easy" mode. I hope you don't object to my portraying it that way, but it seemed the obvious analogy to what you describe. . .
I don't think Mok is alone, or even in a small minority. (Aside from his ability to recognize what he wants and articulate it, that is.) My gaming experience is probably not as deep in anyone system or setting as many people's, but my experience is very broad, and I've seen many players throughout all types of games and gaming groups, who really do want to play a game on easy mode. Frequently they'll build powered-up characters, and they'll say they want to face challenges, but what they really want to face is impressive looking odds, and win every time.
A few players want a 50% or 75% win rate, most players of D&D/PF want a 95% win rate in my experience, and a fair number want a 100% win rate.
P.S. Steve Trifecta! I'm a Steve too.
Frequently they'll build powered-up characters, and they'll say they want to face challenges, but what they really want to face is impressive looking odds, and win every time.
A few players want a 50% or 75% win rate, most players of D&D/PF want a 95% win rate in my experience, and a fair number want a 100% win rate.
Sort of like this. I want a certain level of "truth in advertising;" if I say my character is an accomplished safe-cracking thief, but my Disable Device check for picking locks still has me failing 50% of the time, can my claim still stand? Similar to my Dark Heresy situation earlier, if a Guard stacked to be a sniper standing just outside of Point-Blank Range still misses with a little less than a third of his shots in good circumstances, how is that satisfying?
Also, most equate "win rate" to "combat encounters won." If you lose a combat encounter, you are generally dead... although you have the means to fix that, a lot of people play at levels where death is a serious obstacle to overcome, if not "roll up a new character" territory.
The groups I play with we use either 3d6 place to taste, or 3d6 for each stat in order.Just like inflating point buy can wreck the baseline game, super low stats can do the same thing. Just like the baseline game, if the GM wants to tweak the game to make it work, it can work. Just don't assume that it'll work in a baseline game.
Hey, some people think it's fun to play with super low stats (:
You know I hear this argument alot...
Funny how we played without CRs and APLs and with random generated stats all those years ago and never once broke the game.If you think random rolls is unbalancing I dread to hear what you think of rotating in 1st level chars to an already established party...
Oldest running group I played in we did this.
I started in that game with a 1st level wizard...
The party consisted of the following (excluding my Wiz)
- 20th level Paladin
- 17th level Gnome Illusionist
- 15th level Dwarf Fighter
- 12th level Elf Ranger
- 10th level Halfling Thief
- 7th level Half-elf Bard
- 5th level Human Cleric
- 3rd level Human Bard
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I played in a beginners game for a year or so, regular Friday nights. Towards the end, due to players not always showing, we had a range of levels, 1st through 7th.
I saw a player join as a 1st level Warlock, only to die when the 5th level Wizard made the mistake of including him in the radius of his fireball. The player left and never came back.
I don't much care for drastic level disparity.
Removed a post - please be respectful of other people's opinions and play styles.
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15 point buy = CR
20 point buy = +1 CR
25 point buy = +2 CR
30 point buy = +3 CR
40 point buy = +4 CR
Generaly speaking you incress the CR by +1. For every 5 points of stat buy you start with. With maxing your primary stats with 30 points it realy dose not change till you past 40 points where you are good at every thing.
What I really don't get is arbitrarily increasing your players power level, then trying to redesign every monster and npc to provide an equivalent challenge. What's the point of being a bad a** if everything is still just as hard?
I can go hack my Diablo I game to gain god mode items with crazy stats. I suppose that's possible with D&D/PF too.
It's when someone says, "this is boring" that you have to ask yourself. . . what do I do to make it unboring?
One option is to up the challenge (i.e. CR) of encounters. But where does it stop? What constitutes challenging? More CR? Now you have to balance the higher CRs needed versus 62 point buy characters versus mechanics they would expect at a given level. Blah blah blah. . . same issue you bring up.
Another option is to abandon game concepts. A game with no combat certainly has a different set of challenges. What if the game requires crazy player knowledge. What if you can only get past a certain point if you know JRR Tolkien's elvish? What if you must perform a calculus integral to live? That could be a pretty intense game (and study tool!).
There's also the possibility that people simply don't think the god mode game is boring. Maybe they just want to say they fought a big ol' dragon and whooped him. To each his own, I guess. . .
But when it comes to baseline PF, the game assumes there will be challenging encounters. The designer modules are full of them. The 3.X system on which PF was based expects them. So challenge is, by definition, an integral part of the PF/3.X game line.
If you think random rolls is unbalancing I dread to hear what you think of rotating in 1st level chars to an already established party...
That was the 3.X method I believe. A brand-new player should always be a 1st level character. Something like that.
Unless the GM knows exactly what he's doing, it sounds like a recipe for supreme boredom.
I don't think I ever did that to anyone. At worst I started a new player at the average party level.
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My two cents as a GM I have had great frustration with stats when one char (through the roll method) gets insane stats sometimes other players get stat envy and the characters tend to creep toward optimized superhroes instead of charachters struggling to overcome obsticles. I detest this type of gameplay it reminds me of video games. You don't have to play at my GM'ed table but if you do these are my rules point buy 25 pretty good, mundane items may be bought no prob magical items will be found or rarely encountered in large communities or by fluke in a small ones.
I tend to use Adventure paths and as such the encounters are pretty well completed in such a manner that the math works. Challenging fun, good stories. Sometimes characters die it keeps the players thinking.. playing rather than watching their stat beast kill everything. If you just want to "win" maybe this will explain my feelings
When people ask my players if they won their game last night they usually answer "we never win, we learn survive and overcome challenges before facing new ones". To win would be to end the game, this is not a game with a static beginning and end its and adventure you have fun going through creating storylines and defeating great challenges together. As GM I want all my player to have fun while I have fun as well creating an epic story together, a story with heartbreak, challenges and great celebrations.
A 42 point superhero in my style of table creates nothing but a swath of death to the inevitable end without challenge or thought. So if you brought me a character like that I would politely say no. If you argued a lot I would either suggest another GM or just tell you that you 'won the game, here read the AP you killed everything good job'. I know it seems harsh, maybe I am but my job isn't to make sure A player has fun it is to make sure everyone has fun (me included).
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From my own analysis this doesn't sound right. Point buy stats don't have a very big effect on the game because there is a cap of 18. If there was an option to get beyond 20 with normal character creation then high point buys would start to make the CR go crazy, but merely being competent at several things while being under the cap doesn't make things really go off the rail.15 point buy = CR
20 point buy = +1 CR
25 point buy = +2 CR
30 point buy = +3 CR
40 point buy = +4 CRGeneraly speaking you incress the CR by +1. For every 5 points of stat buy you start with. With maxing your primary stats with 30 points it realy dose not change till you past 40 points where you are good at every thing.
I'm sorry Mok but I tend to agree with Calagnar here and as I run AP's i would basically have to rewrite every encounter...not fun.
You know I hear this argument alot...
Funny how we played without CRs and APLs and with random generated stats all those years ago and never once broke the game.
This is true, but to be perfectly fair, the reason that 3d6 in order worked is because of two key differences in the way stats worked in earlier editions:
1) The bonuses and penalties used to be on the bell curve, and now they are linear.
Back in the old days, you would usually see little difference (and sometimes none at all depending on class) if your roll was in the statistically most likely range (between around 8 and 13, which covers well over half of all possible rolls). Then once you got to the high scores, you received significant bonuses for every +1 (but of course the high scores were super-rare, since you would only see an '18' 1 in every 216 rolls, for instance).
But now, there is an enormous difference between 8 and 13. For a Wizard's Constitution, for instance, a 13 Con Wizard will have on average double the HP of the 8 Con Wizard (average 3.5 per level after first, rather than 1.75).
2) Stat items used to usually set your stats, whereas now they give you another linear boost.
Back in earlier editions with 3d6 in order, you weren't very likely to have an 18 in your main stat. You might even play a Fighting Man with 9 Strength. Sure, you wouldn't be great, but you'd be about the same as one with 13 Strength (see point 1 above). Of course, the Fighting Man with 15 strength was a good amount better, and it isn't all that unlikely to roll a 15 or better. But then, if you found a girdle of ogre strength, you would just have your Strength set to 18, and all of the Fighting Men would be not only awesome, but equally awesome.
In 3.X, if you find a Belt of Strength +4, say, the 9 Strength Fighter is still terrible, and the 15 Strength Fighter pulls even farther ahead of the others, rather than being equalized.
These two factors make the stat rolling method a whole lot more relevant than in previous editions. Is a small gain in point buy worth as much as, say, in calagnar's example where you get 1 higher CR for every 5 point buy? That clearly isn't the case--monsters only gain 1 CR for the advanced template which gives +4 to all stats and natural armor. But something like Chris Mortika's analysis is more in line--obviously applying a level adjustment is devastating at lower levels, like in Chris's example of a level 1 character adventuring with level 3 allies, but for a non-casting class, it really starts looking like a viable option around level 8 or so. Being a level 6 martial or rogue character with 46 point buy in a party of level 8s who have 15 or 20 point buy will allow you to remain relevant due to your higher stats, and you won't die off quickly either--by this point you probably have a hit point total on par with your allies due to the ability to take an increased Con.
I played in a beginners game for a year or so, regular Friday nights. Towards the end, due to players not always showing, we had a range of levels, 1st through 7th.
I saw a player join as a 1st level Warlock, only to die when the 5th level Wizard made the mistake of including him in the radius of his fireball. The player left and never came back.
I don't much care for drastic level disparity.
yeah that is a hazard of varying levels... (and dare I say it? stupid player decisions.)
We tended to do a lot more RP than combat centric ones.
But the combats were deadly as all get out when they did happen.
We used to rate adventures and GMs by lethality.
1 to 100 scale system.
A 25 meant that there was a rough 25% chance of death.
I tend to GM between the 50 and 75 rating.
And actively sought out the 75 to 80 rated GMs. (I always did like it challenging.)
I have only ever played with one GM who rated a 100.
You did not play his games to survive but to go out in a blaze of glory. Because every death in his games were unique and spectacular.
Killer GM or not his games were always good for a decent laugh.
I remember the last time I played with him I had a Fighter/Cleric make it through the entire delve only to die by having the crushing weight of the now dead dragon land on him (I made the poor choice of being under him hacking away at his legs...). And since every one else was in negative HP and guess who the last surviving cleric was... LOL!
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I didn't much care about the warlock dying, honestly. The player only ever played that one character. Chaotic Evil Fey Warlock. Even when his sheet read Lawful Good Cleric of Pelor. It was nice to see him get served.
The DM of that game would have probably been a 75-80 on your scale. The problem was, he softballed it by saving the characters whenever they went into negatives. If you're going to throw challenges like that, let the challenge mean something, darn it...
One of this biggest problems I have with high stats is that they devalue many other aspects of the game.
When you're looking over the list of feats, you see that many of them offer you a +1 bonus or something along those lines. If you have a character with the elite array, then that +1 bonus to your AC or your ability to hit with your sword can be pretty important.
The same thing holds true with class abilities. I was reading about some of the challenge benefits for the cavalier, and realized that many of those bonuses start to seem inconsequential when everyone's caught up in ability modifier inflation.
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1 to 100 scale system.
A 25 meant that there was a rough 25% chance of death.
I tend to GM between the 50 and 75 rating.
And actively sought out the 75 to 80 rated GMs. (I always did like it challenging.)
I have only ever played with one GM who rated a 100.
You did not play his games to survive but to go out in a blaze of glory. Because every death in his games were unique and spectacular.
Killer GM or not his games were always good for a decent laugh.
I remember the last time I played with him I had a Fighter/Cleric make it through the entire delve only to die by having the crushing weight of the now dead dragon land on him (I made the poor choice of being under him hacking away at his legs...). And since every one else was in negative HP and guess who the last surviving cleric was... LOL!
As long as everyone's laughing and having fun what a great way to die hehe. Did you suffocate or crush death.. One of my players almost TPKed his group when he set a barn he was in on fire via fireball.. they had to do con checks due to smoke inhalation and two characters were physically dragged out of the building by the cleric/fighter, the players still talk about this encounter quite a bit due to it's total stupidity near death experience.
later the same Wiz did accidentally kill one of his companions with another errant fire spell.. again it was kind of funny. It did help them kill a BBG though.
A well thought out analysis.
Which I will concede that the numbers do change things to a point.
But even in the current design I do not believe the numbers make as big a difference as statistics show.Mainly because when someone starts quoting statistics all I ever hear is my old Stats 101 prof's day one speech.
There once were three Statisticians who decided to go deer hunting during bow season. They were enjoying their early morning outing when they spotted the fabled thirty point buck. Nervous that they might frighten it away; they each slowly readied their bows. The first one took aim, and fired. He missed; his shot flying wide, ten feet to the left. The second one shook his head, steadied his shaking hands, drew his bow back, aimed, and let loose. He missed; his shot flying wide, ten feet to the right. The third one started jumping up and down excitedly shouting, "we got him, we got him!"
I'm sorry Mok but I tend to agree with Calagnar here and as I run AP's i would basically have to rewrite every encounter...not fun.
This is probably a big cause of disparity. I've never run a published adventure, nor been in one. All games I've been in or run have been customized adventures to fit with character backstory or devised beforehand.
When designing one's own adventure, you're already doing a lot of statistical legwork. After you've devised a villain, chosen their spell list, given them equipment, statted out their minions- it seems trivial to change their HP to max, throw on a template or include a small mob of nameless NPC lackeys with minimal gear. You start to get a better feel for what challenges the PC group, what clues they aren't picking up on, etc, and modify your encounters appropriately, and it doesn't seem like as much work as it would modifying a published adventure.
From my philosophical point of view, the story is the main goal of playing. Encounters naturally come out of the story, and how challenging they should be (or at least appear) depends on how people are feeling about it. Epic climactic encounters can be made such regardless of what your stats are. Encounters that aren't there for the story, ones designed to just provide XP or wealth to "get you to an appropriate level," are just random throw-away encounters. I don't feel bad steamrolling those, nor has any group I've been in (save one I didn't stay in long).
I don't know how often this is noticed, but higher point buys permit larger battles more easily. Yes, the party can defeat the great masses of bad guys more easily but that's the point. You can include similar-CR creatures in large numbers instead of being restricted to CR -3 or -4 creatures to have a 'fair' horde to fight.
I used to be uncertain of my handle on the ruleset. I gave characters an 18, 16, 14, 11, 9, 7 array, and added constitution score to hitpoints. This was to create a safety buffer of sorts, and avoid TPK.
The game was nowhere near the challenge it should have been.
Now we use 20 point buy, and Pathfinder.
I'm sorry Mok but I tend to agree with Calagnar here and as I run AP's i would basically have to rewrite every encounter...not fun.This is probably a big cause of disparity. I've never run a published adventure, nor been in one. All games I've been in or run have been customized adventures to fit with character backstory or devised beforehand.
When designing one's own adventure, you're already doing a lot of statistical legwork. After you've devised a villain, chosen their spell list, given them equipment, statted out their minions- it seems trivial to change their HP to max, throw on a template or include a small mob of nameless NPC lackeys with minimal gear. You start to get a better feel for what challenges the PC group, what clues they aren't picking up on, etc, and modify your encounters appropriately, and it doesn't seem like as much work as it would modifying a published adventure.
From my philosophical point of view, the story is the main goal of playing. Encounters naturally come out of the story, and how challenging they should be (or at least appear) depends on how people are feeling about it. Epic climactic encounters can be made such regardless of what your stats are. Encounters that aren't there for the story, ones designed to just provide XP or wealth to "get you to an appropriate level," are just random throw-away encounters. I don't feel bad steamrolling those, nor has any group I've been in (save one I didn't stay in long).
Well said! I agree wholeheartedly.
A well thought out analysis.Which I will concede that the numbers do change things to a point.
But even in the current design I do not believe the numbers make as big a difference as statistics show.Mainly because when someone starts quoting statistics all I ever hear is my old Stats 101 prof's day one speech.
There once were three Statisticians who decided to go deer hunting during bow season. They were enjoying their early morning outing when they spotted the fabled thirty point buck. Nervous that they might frighten it away; they each slowly readied their bows. The first one took aim, and fired. He missed; his shot flying wide, ten feet to the left. The second one shook his head, steadied his shaking hands, drew his bow back, aimed, and let loose. He missed; his shot flying wide, ten feet to the right. The third one started jumping up and down excitedly shouting, "we got him, we got him!"
I think the numbers make a big difference, but it's certainly true that for homebrewed adventures, or with effort by the GM to modify pre-written adventures, you can still have great games no matter what you do (and our group always plays with rolling, so I'm not trying to come down here only in favor of point buy).
To give a concrete example--I was once involved in an online living world in 3.5, and there was an elf with 6 Con. He decided to be a Cleric/Wizard. I don't know how exactly, but he managed to live to level 6, and he made a +2 Con item, bringing him to 8 Con. This gave him a grand total of 19 hit points. I warned him "If you're ever in any of my games, I'm afraid I'm going to kill you with a stray shot." And that's exactly what happened--the living world also had variance in party level (not as much as your example above, but there was often a range of 2ish levels), so a BBEG Cleric used a 9d6 Flame Strike, aimed at some other characters but happening to hit the elf, and sure enough, she rolled 30 damage (slightly below average). The elf failed his Reflex save and died instantly. From full health to dead, and the roll was below average. The 9th-level cleric foe was not even a particularly tough one for his party, and none of the other characters were hurt much by the spell. If he had possessed even 10 Con to start, he would have been much better off--he would have had another 12 hit points and would have still been conscious after the blast. 12 Con would have been even better
I guess the lesson is--the damage coming his way was a minor blip for the rest of the group, but it outright killed him, and the only real difference was his atrocious Con score.
Now, I agree those characters are rare--it was the only PC I've seen in my 3.X career with 6 Con or lower because our group has always rolled first and then chosen which roll went to each stat--but it's a legitimate concern for using any method of rolling stats in order for 3.X and getting unlucky.
I'm sure there's workarounds for it though. I guess the best answer is that those characters die and then you roll up a new one?
Alot of people turn to roleplaying games as a means to escape. To forget about all the bills, reports due, qoutas, etc... all that real life crap that weighs down on us.
I dont want to sit down at a table to play so one struggling to make ends meet, constantly being run over by my boss because SH*T rolls down hill. I want to be a HERO.
Im not saying all 18s here but really I want to feel like a hero.
My current group has made comments to me like "powergamer" or "Min-maxing" and it kinds of irritates me. Should I intentionally build a swordsman that is just so-so? Really how could of a movie would Conan have been if he got his ars kicked every scene (wait he did in a lot of scenes, but that's not my point). Conan was a bad-ass warrior. If I'm gonig to make a character that is supposed to be a bad ass warrior Im not going to go with Str: 14, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 10.
No I want 18 Str, 14 Dex, 16 Con, and aleast respectable mental stats too.
Most of us have played "Joe-average" since birth. When I play roleplaying games I want to be more than just "Joe-average". I want to be the guy that can face 20 castle guards single handed if I had to.
I think alot of us look to get different things out of RPGs so there is not right or wrong answer here.
Conan?? CONAN?? have you WATCHED the movie? that guy is dumb as stones!
His stats would have been:
Str 17
Dex 12
Con 16
Int 8
wis 8
Chr 10
thats a 15 point build with the human +2 going for str.
He wasnt super dextrous, and the other guy with the hammer in the movie was stronger than him, and in the second movie Conan the destroyer, Wilt Chamberlain was stronger than him too.
So Id say 17 str does the ticket... boom Conan for a 15 point build.
Have you read the books? Conan comes off more like a strength-focused rogue. He's highly skilled and able.
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As a GM who regularly runs APs, my PCs are given the following array to assign as they will (applying racial mods afterwards of course):
17, 15, 13, 11, 10, 9 (23 points according to the Point Buy Method) - Somewhere between Epic Fantasy and High Fantasy. The only adjustments I've made is to add more monsters to account for 6 party members.
My party constantly feels challenged against tougher foes, and they stomp all over weaker foes. This is generally the mix that I like.
Let me give you an example from last night's game (where my fellow GM uses this same stat generation method):
The party was in a crypt which had a demon bound within it. We were all level 4 and coming to "the scary door" we each quaffed our potions of Protection from Evil, used a whole bunch of our buff spells and kicked down the door.
Well I'll be damned if it there was a crypt full of zombies between us and BBEG - and we were on the clock those potions only had 10 rounds on them. So we decided to charge through the zombies playing Mailbox Hockey with the zombies. Every strike killed a zombie. We were bad-ass heroes.
Then we entered the demon room. Whatever this thing was, it had a mess of natural attacks and some crazy defenses (even causing a confusion effect on some of the weaker willed members). Our Magus was brought down to below 0 HP (but being a half-orc he was still standing, teeth gritted and flail swinging). Well our Inquisitor healed him back up, and in one full-round attack full of critical hits and spell-strikey goodness he brought the demon low. It was a massive moment and every party member cheered.
What was my point?
Oh yeah. Everyone has fun their own way, I just wanted to share a cool story from last night's game.
Have you read the books? Conan comes off more like a strength-focused rogue. He's highly skilled and able.
yea skilled does mean smart or wise.
Conan is strong mainly because of early life experiences.
I used to read the comic extensively, and Ive read a few books. Not many.
He's called Conan the Barbarian, but I don't think he's really the barbarian characters class.
He's more of a Rogue with some fighter or ranger levels.
But you could make him decent with a barb/rogue mix too.
Give anyone a few levels of rogue and they come off 'skilled' lots of points to spend.
Depending on the era of Conans life the book you refer to is in, Some of them he's a might bit older.
It would be fun to see Arnold Schwarzenegger do a "Conan the King" now that he is "old and sodded".
But think of Conan adding some wisdom at 4th level and again at 8th (now he's "normal") then getting a boost to mental stats for middle aged. and poof you've got the older more experienced Conan.
Now that I think of it, Conan doesn't "rage" in the books, but he seems to go a little loopy int he comics, so maybe barbarian could fit better than fighter. He just doesn't rage much, probably because he has more rogue levels.
But anyway, you can still get "quite" a character with only a 15 point build.
Pick a fantasy character who is strong, smart, wise and agile?
Who is that??
Something maybe like batman:
Str 14 (5)
Dex 16 (10)
Con 12 (2)
Int 16 (5 with +2 human)
Wis 14 (5)
Chr 15 (7)
34 points, so he's really up there (but Batman IS a superhero, so bad example)
Fafrhd wasnt smart, Grey mouser wasn't strong....
Gandalf wasnt particularly strong, Legolas wasn't strong,
It's really hard to pick a fantasy example of a hero that "had it all"
Can any one think of one off the top of his/her head?
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After reading so many threads, even creating ones, that involve something to do with point buy, I've realized the array spread that I want for my characters.
18, 16, 14, 14, 13, 12
It comes out to a 42 point buy.
Well I dont have an issue with that stat array. However 42 point buy sounds ridiculous. I can already imagine some players with three stats at 7, lol.
I do want to say there is a reason Batman sells much better than Superman. Batman is human and Superman is really, really, boring.
After reading so many threads, even creating ones, that involve something to do with point buy, I've realized the array spread that I want for my characters.
18, 16, 14, 14, 13, 12
It comes out to a 42 point buy.
Well I dont have an issue with that stat array. However 42 point buy sounds ridiculous. I can already imagine some players with three stats at 7, lol.
I do want to say there is a reason Batman sells much better than Superman. Batman is human and Superman is really, really, boring.
agreed. I'm a batman and spiderman fan.
Superman would be an outsider anyway with a CR along the lines of Angels or whatever. His stats would be stupid and THEN he would have character levels of I dunno, paladin?
34 point buy still puts Batman in superhero land.
Spiderman well I don't know where his strength and Dex would be, but it's obviously not his starting stats anyway because he was 'altered'.
He was pretty much 'commoner' material, likely a 15 point buy as well until he got a super belt of physical perfectness.
How would that play out?
Str 10
Dex 12
con 10
Int 17
wis 10
chr 10
add belt of physical perfectness and get
Str 18
Dex 20
con 18
int 17
wis 10
chr 10
hmm doesnt quite do it in the dex or str department, there really is no way to make spiderman in pathfinder.
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I think the 'problem' with wanting to use Conan or Batman or James Bond or some other 'arbitrarily better at everything than everyone else' characters from media as examples of 'heroes,' is that they are almost always designed as solo characters, not members of a team or unit of complementary characters, who must pool their skills together to overcome the adversity-du-jour.
A D&D character, except in an actual solo game, shouldn't have to be good at everything. That's what the other characters are for. Less James Bond, more A-Team.
To paraphrase Syndome / Dash, "If everyone is special, then nobody is special." We end up with a Harrison Bergeron in reverse, where everybody is arbitarily awesome, and so the characters that *should* be freakishly strong or smart or dextrous are just 'even more special than everybody else.'
I'm a huge fan of power-gaming, and love playing Superhero games like V&V, GURPS Supers, Aberrant and M&M, where my character can blast a half-dozen faceless thugs down without any challenge whatsoever, but where the big bad guy at the end is going to be every bit as cool and powerful and impressive as my character.
Just as 4e introduced it's own version of mooks, called 'minions,' IIRC, I'd try and scratch that itch as a GM by introducing some relatively hapless / easily steamrollered encounters on the way to the Big Magic Action. If the 3rd level party runs into a half-dozen kobolds attacking a farmstead, or some 1st level brigands holding up a stagecoach, it can allow them to show off their 'uberness' without me giving them super high attributes. Not every encounter has to be a CR appropriate challenge, or serve as anything other than a feelgood 'look how tough we've become!' reminder, in between the more challenging encounters, allowing for players who want to get to revel in their character's increased abilities to get to stretch their wings and enjoy that sort of thing.
To make it even more satisfying, re-introduce an encounter with some sort of creature (or even specific group of individuals) that proved to be a brutal challenge at low levels, to sort of drive it home that the characters can now utterly stomp all over the sorts of foes that used to be a scary challenge.
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I'm sorry Mok but I tend to agree with Calagnar here and as I run AP's i would basically have to rewrite every encounter...not fun.From my own analysis this doesn't sound right. Point buy stats don't have a very big effect on the game because there is a cap of 18. If there was an option to get beyond 20 with normal character creation then high point buys would start to make the CR go crazy, but merely being competent at several things while being under the cap doesn't make things really go off the rail.15 point buy = CR
20 point buy = +1 CR
25 point buy = +2 CR
30 point buy = +3 CR
40 point buy = +4 CRGeneraly speaking you incress the CR by +1. For every 5 points of stat buy you start with. With maxing your primary stats with 30 points it realy dose not change till you past 40 points where you are good at every thing.
My charters are why my group now uses a 15 point buy. 25 Point buys brake the game more then you know. Try runing just 15 point buys some time and you will notice a huge difrence in power.
where would you put the extra points in batman?
He Does have weaknesses, he's not "super strong", i suppose he could have more constitution since he seems to live through alot, and he could have more charisma too...
But batman has been around since what 1928? he has had alot of time to level up!
The point to "arbitrary" heroes to a rules constraint comparison is "I need 42 points to feel like my character is a 'hero'"
The word 'hero' conjures up an image of something, usually based on a concept, Jack Sparrow.... Perseus, whatever.
Personally I think needing high point buy is stemming from a game where PC classes have been spammed too much.
If there are tons of these PC classes of all higher level than you running around out there, then yea you need the stats to feel special.
DnD/Pathfinder has ruined that a bit, back in 1e players were special because there were not "fighters" in every city.
Now most badguys have PC levels.
It does take some of the zip out of your salsa.
IF you play in a world where you do a 15 point buy to make your "Conan", then "Thulsa Doom" needs to be a warrior/adept.
IF you play in a world with 30 plus point buys, he's going to be a fighter/cleric with an elite stat array and your just not going to feel any more special than before, but at 17th level the game breaks down and isnt worth playing.
the 15 point buy world where there are few and far between PC classes outside of the PCs and major major npcs, the game can go all the way to 20th level and EVERYthing seems more special.
It's all relative really.
Having a strength so high you have a +5 attack and damage at first level is, well I dunno, not very fun, unless you like the "I win" mentality 100 percent of them time, later on those stats aren't going to be so ground breaking, but you will have tacked on level progression and christmas tree magic items to keep them "uber" to the point of arm wrestling with fire giants and winning.
I put that clearly in the SUPERhero category, which there isn't anything wrong with that if you are looking to play hercules.
I am pretty sure that is officially a Mulligan.Ah, great stories about stat-generation...
One adventure we were using the standard method (4d6 drop 1). I proceeded to roll in my usual horrible habit (7,9,10,11,11,13).
Depends on the game, players, and GM.
The groups I play with we use either 3d6 place to taste, or 3d6 for each stat in order. And you play what you roll.
I don't know about Pathfinder, but Mulligan is a rule in the 3.5 PHB when rolling dice. He gets a DOUBLE Mulligan by those rules - he has a cumulative negative modifier AND his highest score is a 13.
Batman is a M&M character not a D&D character ;)
Str-20 Dex-22 Con-20 Int-25 Wis-20 Cha-20 seems to be about average for Batgod stat-lines in the various M&M write ups :D
Anyway getting back to the original post I too prefer heroic stat arrays although mine are actually a bit toned down in comparison.
16,15,14,13,12,10 is my preferred. Basically that gives a +4 in the favored stat after racial modifiers. Technically it's a 27 point buy array but because there are no dump stats the actual power level of the build is probably closer to a 20-point buy in terms of actual play. Characters have some heroic stats and some slightly above average stats. Because 18 becomes the effective cap for most races this actually results in less distortions in play based on 20s in casting stats. It also helps out MAD classes significantly without overly empowering SAD casters.
Most elite NPCs would get the elite array and named NPCs get the slightly above average array. Extras get average.
That means the PCs are a step or two above elite which is befitting a hero of legend.
I don't know about Pathfinder, but Mulligan is a rule in the 3.5 PHB when rolling dice. He gets a DOUBLE Mulligan by those rules - he has a cumulative negative modifier AND his highest score is a 13.I am pretty sure that is officially a Mulligan.Ah, great stories about stat-generation...
One adventure we were using the standard method (4d6 drop 1). I proceeded to roll in my usual horrible habit (7,9,10,11,11,13).
Depends on the game, players, and GM.
The groups I play with we use either 3d6 place to taste, or 3d6 for each stat in order. And you play what you roll.
so the rules are etched in stone not written on paper in ink?
Like I said it all depends on the game, the players and the GM as to weather that would apply or not.
True True, MAD classes would be totally gimped with a 15 point buy (15 point monk makes me shiver)
Generically speaking, Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard, all doable with 15 points.
Monk, Gunslinger, Inquisitor...yuck.
I don't know about Pathfinder, but Mulligan is a rule in the 3.5 PHB when rolling dice. He gets a DOUBLE Mulligan by those rules - he has a cumulative negative modifier AND his highest score is a 13.I am pretty sure that is officially a Mulligan.Ah, great stories about stat-generation...
One adventure we were using the standard method (4d6 drop 1). I proceeded to roll in my usual horrible habit (7,9,10,11,11,13).
Depends on the game, players, and GM.
The groups I play with we use either 3d6 place to taste, or 3d6 for each stat in order. And you play what you roll.
so the rules are etched in stone not written on paper in ink?
Like I said it all depends on the game, the players and the GM as to weather that would apply or not.
So can I then repeatedly kill myself until I get actually playable stats instead?
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My charters are why my group now uses a 15 point buy. 25 Point buys brake the game more then you know. Try running just 15 point buys some time and you will notice a huge difrence in power.
Some of my players would revolt at a 15 point buy. Therefore, I compromised at 25 point max build. We were rolling stats at first.. ext but it just started to go crazy. Soon we will be switching over to organized play and a 20 point buy. Therefore, we will also continue to get well written (short) scenarios via Pathfinder. Everyone will be on even ground and Yaaay NO Whine with the cheese. I like cheese and I like wine but not Whine.
I have a family and two jobs I really don't have the time; and my wife would probably shoot me if I spent any more time creating and editing scenarios to make them challenging 'again' to any (I want to be Batman) super powered players. The reason I like Pathfinder AP's and the Society is that the balance is built in.. Sure I tweak things here and there as a GM you have to occasionally but I don't want to rewrite every scenario front to back to make it appropriate when it would have been awesome left alone if the players had 20 point stat appropriate builds.|
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So can I then repeatedly kill myself until I get actually playable stats instead?
If you simply took a point buy system here 'hey no problem'. Decent fair stats, and you can play the char you want easily.. seems to be an easy solution to me. Perhaps ask your GM to adopt a point buy system and run your existing character into a fumbled dagger whislt tripping into a ravine while doing a back flip and performing the Pathfinder version of Rent the musical.
PF is already like this to a large degree, the game does favor the players, but it's just an issue of turning the dial further into the PCs direction.But the game wasn't designed to have the dial turned like that. It offers "high fantasy" and "epic fantasy" -- but the dial can't really support turning any farther ("mega fantasy", "super mega fantasy"?) without really changing how the whole game works. There's no "little fix" method for this.I think you could keep turning that dial all the way back around and then some. So long as you don't have to adjust encounters.
If players want a 42 point buy, hell, even a 62 point buy so they can storm dungeons and kick down doors like super-mega-bad-a** that should work just fine and I can even understand that. Even if that play style is not my cuppa, I can see where they're coming from.What I really don't get is arbitrarily increasing your players power level, then trying to redesign every monster and npc to provide an equivalent challenge. What's the point of being a bad a** if everything is still just as hard?
TL;DR the whole thread...
I don't think it has anything to do with the challenge level in the minds of the players. If the DM is doing his job, the players never know what the DM is doing, only what their characters are exposed to. I think it's psychological. In the minds of the players with the 42-point buy, they are prepared for everything because their stats tell them that they are superior. They WILL kick in that door, they WILL strangle that troll bare-handed, they WILL resist that wizard's next spell...
It detaches them from the fear of their "weaknesses" because even their lowest stat is a positive modifier. It took me a while to realize it because I thought MY group was spoiled when they all complained about having to do a 15-pt buy, but when I saw that they were reluctant to act outside of anything relating to their favored attributes, I realized it was all in their heads.
So, you're right. There's not difference in the game play, but in the attitudes of the players, and the psychology of the game play. I think that alone is worth the extra work that goes into encounter design (what, adding +1 or +2 to everything your monsters do?).
That's my two cents, anyway.
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Every one hase the style of play. I as a DM and the other DMs at my table. Have come to the point where it's easyer to manage. All NPC's monsters and what not with out haven to change all there stat blocks. Lets take for example given a monster a +2 to str so that menas i need to cange his to hit, damage, CMB, CMD, and some skills. Or even better if i give a monster +2 Dex I have to cange his initive, AC, and skills. There is no easy why to adjust CR. With out rewriting stat blocks. I spent 3 to 4 hr a weak reworking stat blocks to monster. With a 15 point buy I don't have to wast my time redoing stat blocks. Thes leaves me more time for every thing else.
True True, MAD classes would be totally gimped with a 15 point buy (15 point monk makes me shiver)
Generically speaking, Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard, all doable with 15 points.Monk, Gunslinger, Inquisitor...yuck.
Inquisitors are perfectly fine under 15 points. Monks are hard, Gunslingers I don't know enough about.
Every other class is also doable, unless you suffer from the "20 or bust!" syndrome some people have.