Need more info. How many players? Are you running it out of the magazines in 3.5 flat out? Are you converting to Pathfinder? What feel are you going for?
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I had been running it in 3.5 with a 4d6, drop lowest, reroll any 1s method of generation.
When I converted to Pathfinder, I looked at my existing PCs and totalled up how many points they were worth. It was around 50.
We had a large (7-player) party of experienced players with essentially 50 point buy. In the upper levels they still had difficulty with some encounters. I did not do much to beef up the monsters other than the hit point and feat gain that comes with Pathfinderizing them.
I would recommend not less than 25 point buy.
I'm playing in a Pathfinder-converted Savage Tide with 6 PCs. We're about to fight the boss at the top of the plateau at 14th level. We used 15 point buy. Our characters are wickedly powerful, regardless. (Though we'll see after this final encounter, I suppose.) I might chalk it up to a generous wealth system and itemcrafting characters, or our use of hero points, or maybe just the power of level 11+ characters in general, but I daresay that the encounter balance tends to favor us.
We have had about seven deaths or hero-point averted "deaths", starting from the Battle of Farshore. I think those were more due to tactical failures and general perils of high-level play rather than low stats. Our DM has a tendency to spruce up encounters, as well. He has told me that he usually just adds the advanced template to standard monsters, and he often completely rebuilds bosses or adds new, personally crafted minions to the fights.
I don't want to turn this into one of those threads, but I think there may be too much emphasis placed on starting ability scores.
My guys rolled two sets of 4d6 (reroll 1s) and it they weren't happy with either set, had the option to change to 25 point buy. We're running it Pathfinder.
I've got 6 PCs and they're pretty well off (running about 120% wealth by level), so starting stats for us are pretty irrelevant.
Any named NPC, I've rebuilt... and significant foe I've boosted (usually through the advanced template), anything minor I've left as is, but boosted the numbers
Worked out alright so far :)
With 4 or 5 players, a 25 point buy should be fine. Some of the encounters in STAP are particularly nasty at times.