Character Gen, 8,10,12,14,16,18... assign them as you will?

[KA-BOOM!]

We're considering setting down as a group and turning out a uniform code of house rules. We have a long list of things we're going to discuss and first up is character generation. We have an interesting proposal, to give each player 8, 10, 12, 14,16, & 18 and are allowed to assign them as they will.

I both like and fear this idea. I like it because it allows players to actually have that 19 Dex at BAB +11 for two weapon fighting and still have a decent strength. I fear the idea because I see things getting out of hand when we start getting out +1's. Does anyone have suggestions?

[Helaman]

Thats a 32pt base build before racial adjustments.
To play devils advocate:

Quote:

I like it because it allows players to actually have that 19 Dex at BAB +11 for two weapon fighting and still have a decent strength. I fear the idea because I see things getting out of hand when we start getting out +1's. Does anyone have suggestions?

At 11th level (or BAB +11) the character should have wealth enough (and have had 2 stat increases with a 3rd coming next level) to enhance their strength some - a sound investment for a two weapon Melee class.

That said, some people like high stat games - thats cool too, the object is to let you have fun. But, having said that, it will let you out strip any of the Adventure Paths incredibly quickly and they will need some 'buffing' if the characters are to be challenged.

I suggest either a 15 or 20pt base build as part of house rules or the 15,14,13,12,10,8 standard array.

If there is concerns that you guys are too powerful with that then its about re-setting expectations of what is 'baseline' for your games - for instance if normal people have a stat array of 13,12,11,10,9,8 let them fight the town bully in a fist fight or a bunch of guys in a barroom fight... they should come out convincingly as a win and get a feel that they really are a step above the rest.

It just depends on what your group wants.

[KA-BOOM!]

The concern is finding a balance in stats where you can actually take things like Greater Two weapon fighting and still have a strength high enough to actually do more than 1 Die + 2 (with a +1 enchanted weapon.) a lot of things in this game, when dealing with point builds, end up locking you out of other just on requirements alone. I get the idea that you only have so many resources, and maybe I'm spoiled from Shadowrun 4's character generation, but there are a lot of builds that you just can't front the stats for on a 20pt build let alone a 15.

[Alaryth]

My group has been using a similar array for long time with good results. Really MAD characters like monk and ninja are valid and fun classes. But is also truth that my game party usually dodge the more overpowered options. We have never seen the really famous issues with casters making other characters obsoletes. The only class I have seen problematic with high array are the Barbarian.

Edit: Is also truth that when we use APs, many times we increase the maths of the enemies a little, and for homebrew we use as standard APL+1.

[Aioran]

I don't follow this. . . at +11 BAB you should easily have enough money to boost your dex to get GTWF. That's 82000g minimum. Besides, you can do TWF builds easy with a Ranger. As to the stat array... it's reasonable.

[Selgard]

My personal concern is the 8. Not because of uberpoweredness or anything- its just because I never make characters with under 10 in their stats.

It bugs me.
If I were in your group I'd ask for an alternative to ditch the 8.
(I don't enforce my bug on anyone else. Its my own personal pet peeve for my own personal characters.)

-S

[KA-BOOM!]

We do not consider Items to grant permanent bonuses nor do they count for feats because if you loos the item then there goes your score boost and your entire build can go straight out the window. I loose my headband, my Dex mod plummets from a 19 to a 16. Even if we did see them in the RAW way, we don't trust them. Right now we're looking at a 25 point build or the static list already mentioned.

[DrDeth]

Selgard wrote:

My personal concern is the 8. Not because of uberpoweredness or anything- its just because I never make characters with under 10 in their stats.

It bugs me.
If I were in your group I'd ask for an alternative to ditch the 8.
(I don't enforce my bug on anyone else. Its my own personal pet peeve for my own personal characters.)

Bugs me too, PC’s are supposed to be heroes.

A 25 pt build with no extra points for dumping comes out about right.

My version of the array would be 10, 11, 12, 14,16, & 17.

31 pts, tho.

[EWHM]

I've done a fair amount of games with
16,16,14,12,12,10
That's technically 29 points, but it's a seriously non-optimized array. For SAD classes its about equivalent to a hyperoptimized 20 point. But as you might guess, it's a nice array for a MAD character.
Plus you don't have to deal with 20s at first level.

I'd also suggest using the option where instead of getting +1 to a stat every 4 levels, you get +1 build point (i.e. 1/4 of enough to go from 18->19, or enough to go from 10->11) per level. You'll find that it helps with the balance between SAD and MAD classes quite a bit.

[+5 Toaster]

I adjusted point buy to increase the cost of higher level scores alot, and decreased lower level scores a little. I also only allow dumping to 8. of course I also got rid of stat penalties so that affects point buy somewhat as well. Here is how my group does it.
8, +2 points
9, +1 point
10, o points
11, -1 points
12, -2 points
13, -3 points
14, -4 points
15, -5 points
16, -10 points
17, -15 points
18, -25 points
they're still being adjusted as we go, but over all it has helped a great deal. I have been contemplating dropping 18s to a 20 point cost, but I will save that test for my next campaign.

[DragGon7601]

EWHM wrote:

I'd also suggest using the option where instead of getting +1 to a stat every 4 levels, you get +1 build point (i.e. 1/4 of enough to go from 18->19, or enough to go from 10->11) per level. You'll find that it helps with the balance between SAD and MAD classes quite a bit.

I like this idea, going to have to try and convince my group to give it a try. What base do you start with? 15, 20, 25?