Not to disagree, but if your best stat is a 11, then the 9s will just look that much better. (1E had this whole section about "hopeless characters")
If your best score is an 18, your 10 will look weak by comparison. And if you make enough checks with that 10, your performance will prove it to be your weakness.
But a 10 is average. Not for a PC, but average within a world (obviously any high powered settings change this).
Anyway, I completely understand the intent behind restricting stat dumping. I just don't agree with that particular execution.
But a 10 is average. Not for a PC, but average within a world (obviously any high powered settings change this).And? If Superman has a 10, is that not his weakness?
As long as no-one said anything about kryptonite.
And? If Superman has a 10, is that not his weakness?
Lex Luther outsmarts Superman all the time (and let's be honest, we all know it that Int would be Superman's dump stat).
And as was already said, kryptonite is used against him as well.
Anyway, you're using a different baseline for weakness than I am. You are comparing a weakness to a strength within a character. I am comparing it to a setting as a whole.
If Fighter A has high offense but normal defense, but Fighter B has high offense but low defense, then defense is both of their weaknesses. But it's clear which one is actually a weakness that can be exploited. Fighter A has a defense you would expect him to have. Fighter B actually is weaker than a given character of his make and model should have.
Late to the party, but I guess I might as well mention my preferred method. When I'm DM, I tell players to distribute 80 points among their attributes in any way they like, with a max of 18 and minimum of 3 before racial bonuses are added. I like this point buy method because it treats attributes as linear, which they are, instead of curved.
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3d6 per Ability Score. Assigned in the order rolled. Bwahahahaha
Seriously though. Does anybody ever do that anymore?
On occasion, yes. Every few months I offer a 1e game for those interested. Back in the 1980s, we would determine which "class" to play based off the rolls in order that way. So If I happened to land a high score in wisdom I played the cleric, a high strength then I played a fighter etc. This is still fun and efficient when playing AD&D 1e/OSRIC.
I have been using D4+D6+8 the average is 13 and the minimum is 10.
alternatively i use 3d6+6 minus low die. the average is 14 or 15 but you have a chance to get as low as 8 which your stuck with if you use that method.
After all the responses to this question, I have to admit I'm questioning if our group wants to continue with the 15 point buy or even the current random rolling techniques since the 15 point buy and the "traditional" roll 4d6, drop lowest six times, both seem to be well on the lower end of stat generation compared to other folks.
If you do this, remember that CR ratings and creature and NPC stats are based on 15 point buy assumptions.
Remember to boost your challenges accordingly if you change. I used 15 point buy first because I wanted to use the "Standard." I plan to use higher point buy next time to give the character building more flexibility but I will probably either make fights harder or make stat boosting items harder to come by.
And I believe Pathfinder Society play uses 20 point buy as well, correct?
I think it does. My limited knowledge of them says their scenarios can be pretty tough, though.
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Dumb question - but when folks use a "point buy" system, is there a base number they are starting with. Exactly which point buy system would have been used for the PCs provided in the back of Kingmaker? I'm thinking to run the AP soon, and I want to dial my typical power levels down to what's presented in the Ezren, Valeros, etc. stats for Level 1.
After all the responses to this question, I have to admit I'm questioning if our group wants to continue with the 15 point buy or even the current random rolling techniques since the 15 point buy and the "traditional" roll 4d6, drop lowest six times, both seem to be well on the lower end of stat generation compared to other folks.If you do this, remember that CR ratings and creature and NPC stats are based on 15 point buy assumptions.
Remember to boost your challenges accordingly if you change. I used 15 point buy first because I wanted to use the "Standard." I plan to use higher point buy next time to give the character building more flexibility but I will probably either make fights harder or make stat boosting items harder to come by.
The easiest way I've found to do this is to up the HP of creatures. I do this for both 5 instead of 4 players, and big stat builds. Seems to work pretty well.
I have been using D4+D6+8 the average is 13 and the minimum is 10.
alternatively i use 3d6+6 minus low die. the average is 14 or 15 but you have a chance to get as low as 8 which your stuck with if you use that method.
Point buy Statistics on those: (5th percentile, 50th percentile, 95th percentile)
1d4+1d6+8: 20, 36, 54
3d6 keep 2 +6: 24, 43, 63
Well, I broached this with my group and they want to stick with our current method (15 point buy or 4d6 drop 1, rolled six times and assigned as desired).
I went back and recalculated my witch's high roll using the dice as above, and it came out as a 34 point buy.
That's one tough witch!
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I let people pick their own stats, and I charge $1 per stat point. Thus an 18 STR costs $18.
WHAT? Hey, I got to support my [far-future wargame involving space elves] habit somehow. j/k
In seriousness, I tend to use a 20-point buy or a standard array (16/14/13/12/11/10). After reading this thread, I may start using some different dice-roll methods.
What does a 15 point buy system mean?
I probably know this already and will say, "duh" to myself for asking...
Point buy is a system of generating stats. The way it works is to buy a certain score, you spend a certain amount of points (it isn't always a 1-for-1 trade). Every stat starts at 10. You can also sell stats back, lowering a stat below 10, to gain more points to spend on other stats. A "15 point buy" means that it is a point buy stat generation, with 15 points to spend. It's Standard fantasy, as per the Rulebook, but PFS uses 20 point buy.
I use 25 point buy in the games I GM, because I think a higher point buy allows for MAD concepts (monk, certain fighter builds, etc.) to raise their bar a little closer to full casters.
If you want to read up on it, it's in the Core Rulebook or here.
It's a pretty common method of stat generation, and allows for greater character customization (though also for more min-maxing).
The group I recently started playing with had a unique method. Each player (5 of us) rolled 4d6 once. The GM rolled the last 4d6. This produced the array all of us used. The idea was that sometimes when you roll 4d6 some players are super uber and others suck. This way we all had analogous stats. I think our array ended up between 20-25 points.
In high school, I remember using a rather thorny roll system.
3d6 per stat, in order.
You can reroll any number of dice.
Generally produced characters of maybe 20-point buy strength?
Of course, there was the time Andy rolled 6-2-2 for a stat, and rerolled both of the twos. I probably don't need to tell you what happened.
My favored method of generating stats is the Organic Method from 3.5e D&D.
There are pros and cons to most systems. Organic is good because it does the best I think at eliminating the optimizers ability to "game the system".
Point Buy is the worst. Why? Because it maximizes the mileage optimizers get by gaming the system. It is the optimizer dream method since they can always start with a 20, no need to rely on fickle chance. It is fair (not good) at eliminating imbalance between characters stats, because some people are uncomfortable buying stats down while others eagerly do so. That creates imbalance. If you FIX point buy by eliminating stat buy downs then it considerably improves the system by nearly eliminating stat imbalance between players and capping the points optimizers can use to game the system.
4d6 drop is a good method but optimizers will still shuffle the low score to the unimportant stats and it is notorious for imbalance between player stats since even though most people get similar score sets there is often a lucky guy who has really good scores and an unlucky guy who has a rather lack luster set of scores doomed to mediocrity.
Since organic takes away control over where your stats end up you end up with much more unusual stat sets like a strong wizard or a charismatic barbarian. This does wonders at stopping optimizers. And while there is STILL stat imbalance, un-optimal placement tends to water down the advantages of better scores. And the gifting of a reroll is usually sufficient to fix that one guys unlucky set of scores.
But if you're going to go that far, why not set the scores exactly where the GM wants the power level? Just go with standard array, or some variant on such. I've rolled both extremes with predictable results on the campaign... just take the dice out if you want everyone @ the same level.
Well the GM liked the randomness of dice but did not want one character to have a could lucky roles and overshadow the party or have someone who by comparison to the rest of the party was suboptimal. By rolling for the campaign standard array it also prevented the inevitable picking the optimized build for such and such point buy.
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Well, optimizers do shuffle stats to the right stats, dice hardly eliminate that. It only makes things interesting in the sense you could do extremes; I did the 10 character analysis and my ranges were from 3 to 60 points, with 25ish being median (4d6, reroll if there was no stat above 14 method, in a different thread with the same concept).
I don't miss dice because A) it too much determines your life fate B) Makes the game less fun if you're on either extreme (well, I enjoyed being extremely low once, but my high-stat high-hp roll guy just overwhelemed the table; never quite to the point where I retired him, but was very close several times). Plus, you lose that time drain of a "character creation" session.
If I had to pick a dicing method, I'd probably do the 4d6 organic like Aranna said; mostly because it does make unusual combinations on characters (if you're going to roll, might as well do it this route). Have VERY pre-planned "reroll" criteria so nobody can whine their way out of a bad set; this was part of our methodology that led us to make 5 or 6 guys (we joked about the "town champion" rolling method).
Otherwise dicing and point buy have the same min-max potential, but with dice you're more likely going to have difficulty setting the right level for encounters (average will be 25 or so, and some guys will just be insane or too squishy).
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4d6 drop is a good method but optimizers will still shuffle the low score to the unimportant stats and it is notorious for imbalance between player stats since even though most people get similar score sets there is often a lucky guy who has really good scores and an unlucky guy who has a rather lack luster set of scores doomed to mediocrity.Since organic takes away control over where your stats end up you end up with much more unusual stat sets like a strong wizard or a charismatic barbarian. This does wonders at stopping optimizers. And while there is STILL stat imbalance, un-optimal placement tends to water down the advantages of better scores. And the gifting of a reroll is usually sufficient to fix that one guys unlucky set of scores.
I'm on record as preferring point buy, more for game balance and for getting the character you want to play than for opimization concerns.
I'd really hate your method-- I've been the unlucky one on the dice more than a few times, and the organic method also sort of decides your character for you. No matter what you say otherwise-- if you roll a character with an Intelligence of 10 (or even maybe 11 or 12), you are not going to be able to play an even half-way decent Int-based caster. Unless you get good stats in all areas, you are kind-of going to be stuck playing to your strengths at least a little bit, though it also lets you be strong in some other areas as well (depending on your rolls) than you might have been if you'd bought your stats from points (some classes are unplayable with a weak primary stat). If you have mediocre rolls-- your character is going to be rather mediocre, and as I've already stated in this thread-- I'm not interested in playing Joe Average the mediocre kind-of-hero.
To each their own though.
Aranna, do you make your players decide their class before or after rolling?
Because optimizers will look at the stats and pick the class that best suits those stats.
Just like actual people would consider their own strengths and weaknesses and pick a career which they are good at?
I like rolling, because it defeats certain optimization techniques, not because it defeats optimizers. I don't want to defeat optimizers, I want them to have a good time playing the game, just like everybody else. It's hard for me to tell my players (or myself!) that they should not make good strategic choices when building their characters, or punish them because they are smart enough to do that well. Yet, I recognize that those very choices can make the game less diverse. Optimization with point-buy tends to lead characters into a relatively small number of character builds and concepts, compared to the range of what is possible. By taking away that level of control, the players don't need to purposefully make bad decisions; however, the optimum path for the ability scores they have may be different than what they would have been able to do with a point-buy.
I don't like every barbarian having a 7 int... But neither do I like banning the entire lower half of the ability score range. We think of a dwarf with 5 cha as being incredibly ugly and unlikeable, the bottom of the barrel, but in the world implied by the game rules (with 3d6 being the standard for non-PCs), approximately 1 in 236 dwarves has a 1 cha!
I do agree that intra-party variation makes it difficult for the GM to design encounters, and can lead to discontent on the part of the players who rolled low and have to try really hard to remain alive/relevant. That's why I was thinking about having players roll scores, but be limited to sets within a certain point-buy range. That way, players get randomized strengths and weaknesses, can't intentionally and universally dump stats (but still sometimes have very low stats, which is fun), yet the party power level stays relatively balanced... Assuming the point-buy system is an accurate reflection of the advantages accrued by given scores, which I am not convinced of.
As a player, I like to roll a random race, then roll my stats in order, using whatever method the rest of the table is using. It's like being born into the game world; nobody gets to choose their own race or ability scores. After that, the character's decisions start, and so do mine. Sometimes, my highest score gets a racial penalty, which rarely happens in hand-crafted characters. Just like above though... For every dwarf in the game world who has a 1 cha, there's also one that has a 16; PCs are much more likely to have the 16.
It's not for everyone, but I like it. The most obvious downside is that if the entire party does it, one or more important roles can be missing. I think that can also lead to interesting gameplay, where players need to rethink the standard tactics, but it can again lead to difficulty in balancing encounters, since the CR system and published modules assume a typical party make-up. Things have gotten more flexible since the APG base classes and all the archetypes; it's now easier to fill a role with a different ability score.
The problem with that is, the optimizers are still optimizing, but the non-optimizers are getting shafted from what they may have wanted to play and being forced to play something different, thanks to their die rolls. So I don't think it's actually fixing what Aranna thinks it fixes.
The only way to completely fix the discrepancy between optimizers' characters and non-optimizers' characters is to hand out pregens. Every level. Even then, the optimizers are likely to be better at tactics, so they will still be more effective in actual gameplay.
Not disagreeing, just saying.
Has anyone here heard of the card method? I actually got it from another thread like this. You shuffle 18 cards (4 sixes, 4 fives, 3 fours, 3 threes, 2 twos, and 2 aces) and pull and sort them into 6 stacks of 3. These are your stats. You can choose to add 2 to any of the two stats (granted that it doesn't go over 18).
So... is there a sense that the word "optimizer" applies to anyone who uses a point buy system and ends up with a 20 in their main attribute at level 1?
Since converting to Pathfinder, I've always had my players use 2d6+6 if rolling for stats. I used to do 4d6, drop lowest, reroll 1s, back when I was playing 3.5 (and Star Wars Saga Edition for that matter), but the moment I saw the 2d6+6 method, I knew that was my new method of choice.
If I'd prefer using point buy, 20 points is my preference. Back in 3.5, I'd always use 32 points, and in SWSE I generally stuck to 28 (since that was the 'standard' for the Dawn of Defiance campaign more than anything else, but it also helped that every 4 levels you could increase two ability scores by +1 each instead of just the one), but in the new point buy, 20 seems about right to me. I'm not a big fan of dump stats, though, so I remove the option to lower abilities to 7, 8 is the lowest I'll let you go.
Depends. Is it a 20 Cha on a Ranger?
Since charisma is not the "main attribute" of a ranger, that would not fit my example, so isn't what I'm asking about.
I've used several different methods over the last 20+ years.
4d6 drop lowest.
9 + d6 and 5 pts to put any where.
6 + 4d4 drop the lowest.
However, I recently made my players use 15 pt buy and I am a huge fan. I can see why they use it at PFS. Not sure I will ever go back.
The Elite Array or 15 point buy is the norm for adventure design. Not sure which thread that was pointed out in but it was one of the many stat threads.
Aranna, do you make your players decide their class before or after rolling?
Because optimizers will look at the stats and pick the class that best suits those stats.
They pick after. And yes I guess it could be seen as optimizing to select a class that best fits your stats... But isn't it refreshing to see a variety of characters? Rather than the same player always playing a cookie cutter wizard with identical stats, race, and build.
The problem with that is, the optimizers are still optimizing, but the non-optimizers are getting shafted from what they may have wanted to play and being forced to play something different, thanks to their die rolls. So I don't think it's actually fixing what Aranna thinks it fixes.
There is a stat swap in Organic. You can switch one stat. This is enough to allow a person dead set on playing a cleric to swap a good score into her wisdom stat.
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Have you had what I call "Paranoia Effect". In the paranoia game you had clones so that when you died (and you frequently did) you could simply drop right back into the action as the same character. Point Buy can and in many cases does turn Pathfinder into Paranoia.
"Opps, Jax Raven died as he fell into the clever trap. Alas do not fear! Jax Raven II steps from the shadows to join your team."
Have you had what I call "Paranoia Effect". In the paranoia game you had clones so that when you died (and you frequently did) you could simply drop right back into the action as the same character. Point Buy can and in many cases does turn Pathfinder into Paranoia.
"Opps, Jax Raven died as he fell into the clever trap. Alas do not fear! Jax Raven II steps from the shadows to join your team."
So basically point buy = comedic D&D game with a killer DM
Interesting...
:p
You are deliberately missing the point Ion Raven.
Hmmm... Ion, are you are related to Jax Raven? ;)