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If your Ranger/Wizard looks exactly like every other Ranger/Wizard, either you are ONLY looking at his stats, or you aren't roleplaying him any different.No see my wizard's name is Gabdalf not Gandalf and his robes are are ecru, not white
totally different
oh yeah his beard is also totally longer
My wizard's name is Kurik Grandhelm, and he can recite his dwarven genealogy for twenty-six generations on his fathers side and thirty-two on his mothers.
The wizard is predictable, int highest to accomplish his class features, then his left over points go into the stats that bump his saves.
Wizards are smart. They need to be smart to be wizards. Why is that a surprise?
Sure you can rp that character, my point is so is everyone else that is playing a PB wizard. What if you wanted to be a magician oozing charisma?
Then buy a higher Charisma. A 12 puts you at above average at minimal cost. The very same issue exists in rolled stats anyway; if you put a higher roll into Charisma that's a roll you aren't putting into a different attribute that would make for a more effective wizard. The cost still exists, it's just not quantified as "points".
The ranger can't cast his 4th lvl spells, and what if you envisioned him as an expert tactician or a prince bread and raised for leadership but banished from his home?
Actually, he can. A +2 Wis item puts him at 14 Wisdom, enough to cast any of his spells, and because he's a spellcaster he can make it himself with Craft Wondrous Item.
See above about buying higher stats and rolling. Charisma is irrelevant for being a tactician though, that's more about combat experience, knowledge, Intelligence, and Wisdom.
Your ranger looks exactly like every other ranger every other PB game is running, again you can RP that and be the most descriptive guy at the table, but it's going to be the Tarantino version of a B movie.
Wrong. His attributes look like many other rangers, but attributes are a jumping off point for what your character is capable of, and do not and never will fully define your character.
Don't feel like I'm picking on you particular, but I spotted a lot of mis-information that I felt I needed to point out.
So why is it a bad thing for a player to want 18's in their stats? Seems like this mentality of "if you have high stats you must be a min max player." If a character is really smart, but feeble, he is more likely to be a wizard, thus when you buy stats out makes sense that is what you buy.
The stats say a lot more about the character than people seem to think. Higher numbers don't scare me, and they shouldn't scare you either. So what if your wizard player wants a 20 starting INT? Does that make them a bad player? Yall are just haters it seems.
if you want you can also tell me I am biting on your swag or copping your mad hooks or just straight gleaming your cube
I mean if you are into that sort of thing
dawg
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I've never really understood people's problem with higher stats. It's generally a +/-1 or 2 at most, which really only matters for the first 3 levels or so. An 18 in charisma for a class that doesn't use it doesn't help it in any tangible way, especially if they're not investing in skills based around it, just like an 18 strength on a caster that doesn't ever plan on using it just says "Look at how much I can carry!"
I'm a proponent of the point buy because I know people who would cheat during dice rolling and because I like a more balanced character construction. And I have people who would buy down a stat to roleplay a certain idea (which isn't necessary, but it does help sync them into the mindset that they're going for).
Rolling for stats seems to be the way of the old guard, and I'll admit I've had some run rolling a nice set of stats (thankfully for a monk, who sorely needed them), but I've often seen people who role and get poor stats complaining throughout the entire game about how "unfair" it was that I started well while they didn't, even with my lacking class.
Either way is an acceptable way to play the game, but from my experiences, point buy has been a way to keep people honest, and allow them more freedom over generating their characters, which has been appreciated at my table.
The wizard is predictable, int highest to accomplish his class features, then his left over points go into the stats that bump his saves. Sure you can rp that character, my point is so is everyone else that is playing a PB wizard. What if you wanted to be a magician oozing charisma?
The ranger can't cast his 4th lvl spells, and what if you envisioned him as an expert tactician or a prince bread and raised for leadership but banished from his home? Your ranger looks exactly like every other ranger every other PB game is running, again you can RP that and be the most descriptive guy at the table, but it's going to be the Tarantino version of a B movie.
All of these are your choice. If you want to play a Charismatic wizard, put points in Charisma. Not complicated.
Never mind the fact that your stat allocation, in no way, affects your RP of the character, his background, quirks, foibles, likes, dislikes, and so forth. Even if two characters are mechanically identical down to the last detail, they will have different personalities, and that's what RP is about.
Biggest problem w/ PB is this is a dice game. The whole mechanic of the game is based around the sanctity of dice rolls, but that mechanic isn't good enough to trust to character creation? So the mechanics aren't sound enough for the very first thing you do?
Character creation and playing the game are completely unrelated. There is no connection here. False correlation, 5 yard penalty, loss of down.
I think you are trying too hard to defend the point buy system, how much 'control' does a player not have with those stats and how many options does he lose?
the point is to have the decent stats you need to be an effective character, and still have positive modifiers leftover, sorry if you disagree.When I play, and when I GM, my players rarely want negative stats, but if one of them wanted to play a 'flawed' character I would not be opposed to it. But mandating a flaw to be effective is not flavorful, It gets annoying when you are playing a 15 point buy and my paladin cannot afford enough ranks to be a decent party face or take feats that require an INT of 13 because I really needed a +2 to my CHA.
Higher point buys naturally are easier to play and less constrictive, but lower point buys that are set as standard in the CRB make it impossible to spread your stats out and have anything more than a +1 or +2 in you most important stats.
I have no issues with Point Buy. It works out much like an array.
Having a character with +1 or +2 stat bonus isn't a bad thing. It plays a lot better actually. When you go higher point buy you have to boost the monsters equally so having +3 and +4 isn't any better when all our the encounters now get +2 on everything. All that has happened is thing have scaled up. A +3 is equivalent to the +1 and the +4 is equivalent to the +2. Nothing changes for the player but the GM has more work to do.
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Again I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying your style isn't good enough to replace all other styles and would like to know why it can't accommodate other styles? Why can't players choose how to make their character? Again if point buy is so superior, why is it afraid of dice rollers?
You talk about strawman arguments and then present this? I'll admit to only skimming this thread when it first arose, but some examples of people saying this would really help right about now.
On the ranger, a headband of wisdom is only 4k to get you to 14.
Again I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying your style isn't good enough to replace all other styles and would like to know why it can't accommodate other styles? Why can't players choose how to make their character? Again if point buy is so superior, why is it afraid of dice rollers?You talk about strawman arguments and then present this? I'll admit to only skimming this thread when it first arose, but some examples of people saying this would really help right about now.
On the ranger, a headband of wisdom is only 4k to get you to 14.
Or two level-up statbumps.
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Yes I agree this is an RP game but you miss my point that the mechanic is a dice game, dice decide if our play is successful, if you have a good DM you will get bonuses to rolls based on great RP, but the decide still decide.
I got your point. I just don't agree with it.
The difference is, one die roll in game play is generally not crippling. Yeah, you missed this time, but you can roll better next time. A bad stat is something you're stuck with, permanently, for the duration of the character's life. This should be a decision you make, not something the dice drop in front of you like a cat with a dead bird.
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I also didn't get what you were saying when you quoted me? Examples of ppl saying what?
This.
I'm still waiting to hear why I can't roll stats in a PB game?
Why is my dice rolling super powered?
But your magic items aren't?
You're asking me for justifications of positions I have not put forth. You should ask the people that actually believe those ideas why, not me.
Tri0- relying on magic items is not something we do in our games. You can't go to the mall of magic and pick out what you want.
Yes, and that is your own choice. It is not a fault of the game system. MY ranger in MY games has ten levels to go find a settlement with a +2 Wisdom headband available for him, or find it in a dungeon, or get a crafter to make it for him (or make it himself).
The only problem (and it isn't really a problem) I see with point buy is that it tends to make unrealistic characters. Fighters are massively strong with a mighty constitution but have the intelligence and charisma of a brick. Likewise, wizards are all intelligence and will, but extremely scrawny and catch colds far too easily. Rolling for stats may produce differing power levels within a party but at least they seem more realistic.
For note I normally go with a 4D6-L method but my next campaign will be using a 15pt point buy.
I prefer point buy. The main reason is I can make character anytime, no need to wait for GM to witness my rolls as well I can take the character to another GMs game and I don't have to explain that I rolled these awesome stats with the other GM watching. Nothing worse than rolling great stats and not being allowed to play it.
Next is I'm normally the GM, stats that rolled tend vary too much. Either really high or really low or mix in between. This means more work for me as GM and really I don't have all that much time to modify adventures published or self created. So point buy is standard that works really well. Players tend to not like it but it's more a matter of the point buy amount. I let my players run game in God mode from time to and let them make 50 pt buy character or I let them all roll a set of stats and the highest one is the stat array everyone uses, this has come up with normal and super powered characters. But in the end if I want to run balanced game that is normal pt buy, I find 15 too low though. I go 20 or 25 as I find 15 punishes the MAD classes too much. 20 I find works best.
One possibility I considered:
roll 3d6, in order. Any roll below 7 becomes a 7. These are the minimum stats for your character. You can, if your point value is less than 25, spend points to get the value up to 25.
For example, I just rolled:
str 14, dex 11, con 3 (becomes 7), int 12 wis 10, cha 13
which is 7 points. I now get 18 more points to increase the values of my stats.
Alternatively, you can just use 20 point buy, building however you want.
Sort of a best of both worlds concept.
wait am I a PBer or a dice roller?
I go both ways.
Now that is just greedy
I'm completely happy with you doing whatever you want to, in your game
I'm completely happy with you doing whatever you want to, in your gameYou have proved my point. Dice rolling is more accommodating than PB.
I'm pretty sure that's not the point he was trying to make.
There is a DM that has a youtube channel I watch. I disagree with what he says about dice rolling, but he sounds like an awesome DM and actually house rules a PB system where you roll 7d4 to see how many points you get. Now that I would be happy to go along with. How do the PBers feel about that?
Not for me. I don't think any part of character creation or advancement should be randomized.
I'm completely happy with you doing whatever you want, in your game
what does that imply? you can play like that when not playing with me is how I read. PB isn't wrong, but telling ppl how to play is the only wrong way to play, which PB is assuming dice rolling is wrong by disallowing it. I would have no problem w/ PB ppl could just say I prefer it for myself, so I'm going to use it for ME, and not concern themselves with how someone else prefers to generate a character.
The DM decides how characters are created. That's how it works. If the DM says points, then it's points. If the DM says roll, then it's roll. In either case, if a player don't like it, they can take a hike.
I have played this game and it's predecessors, back to the time of the mid 80s red box days and up until a year and a half or two years ago rolled stats or was allowed all 18s or some variation. When point buy was introduced as THE mechanic for 4.0, I had serious misgivings. Now, playing an AP for the first time after 25ish years of gaming, I find I like to do things as close to the way the rulebooks intend (point buy in this case) and after seeing gimmicky over or under powered games/characters fizzle/break a few hundred times I'm ready at this point in my gaming career for some stability. Namely in the form of point buy. At this time specifically 20 seems good, looking a year down the road I may want to go to 15 for a challenge. I have played the GOD mode characters, fun for a while but I lost perspective and it got stale. Having the freedom to create what I want and not be over powered is refreshing for me. So, while I used to roll stats I often didn't like the character limitations the rolls produced. That is no longer an issue, I make whatever I want within the guidelines provided by the paizo rulebooks and show up at the table ready to go, my Gm quickly skims the character nods hands the sheet to me and its go time. I am a fan of "skip the dumb S&(*t, on to the fun!"My self a long time stat roller has found contentment and happiness in the FREEDOM of point buy, oddly enough. People talking about rolling stats and the reasoning behind it sounds like table talk co gamers and I were having fifteen years ago, when the 2nd ed players option line of books came out and point buy was new. Oh well to each their own, I just don't see rolling stats anymore unless it's for a retro night(after all 2nd ed recently got reprinted :)...tempting in that circumstance alone for me.
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PB isn't threatening to us, the way dice rolling is threatening to PB.Who has said this? Who has felt threatened?
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: 5 strawmen defeated