So, a discussion arose when one of our players rolled 5 16s and a 17 when making his character. Clearly, a 60 point buy-in value had to be vetoed, but we started talking about a modification of they current system of buy-ins vs. simple rolling.
We thought it would be an interesting idea if everybody rolled their characters up proper, and then depending on either what your point-buy-in total is or what your total among ability modifiers is, you either get extra feats (if you're too low) or you have to take negative feats (if you're too high). Negative feats could be things like "Blind in One Eye" or "Schizophrenic" or "Obscenely Old (and frail)".
Is there precedent for this? And where might I go to find a chart? Or, alternatively, what do you guys think are some good Negative Feats and how much should they cost? Clearly some should cost more than others.
I feel like the option to roll and point buy should both be allowed. This provides a bit of a boost to those who are lucky and a safety net to those who aren't. Plus, any DM can change the stats of who the party ends up facing to make them more of a threat to someone who rolls that damn high.
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I cheerfully admit, I've never understood the fascination rolling stats has for people. Having played D&D since it was considered to be contemporary narrative instead of historical fantasy, I remember all the problems that rolling caused.
But my puzzlement is doubled when someone says "oh, I want everyone to roll stats, but then I want to nerf the people who roll well and buff the people who roll badly, so that everyone ends up at the same power level." That, to me, is like turning your air conditioner on to full and then lighting the wood-burning stove because your house is too cold.
I'm also not a fan of ad-hoc "disadvantage" systems, which is what these "negative feats" amount to. I've seen too much abuses even of well-designed, well-balanced, and well-integrated DA systems. The Champions playtesters spent a tremendous amount of time trying to make sure everything balanced against itself, and they still admitted that the DA system was the area most open to abuse by power gamers. An untested house-rule system by nonprofessional designers is likely to rip your campaign apart.
The basic problem is that the "value" of a feat or a disadvantage is extremely hard to determine in isolation as it's totally situational. Blind-in-one-eye can be crippling to an archer and bad for a melee specialist, but it has almost no effect on a caster or on the party face. Obscenely old can actually be a positive benefit to a caster because of the stat bonuses from age; think of Dumbledore.
Just use point buy. Solves all your problems.
If you want a random system with not as unequal outcome, consider going with the card system instead. Take cards 4 to 9 of hearts and diamonds from a regular deck, mix them up and split them into six pairs facedown. Then look at them; those are your stats.
Keeps the randomness but prevents stats from being miles apart. Also much easier to balance than DA systems.
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If you want a random system with not as unequal outcome, consider going with the card system instead. Take cards 4 to 9 of hearts and diamonds from a regular deck, mix them up and split them into six pairs facedown. Then look at them; those are your stats.
Keeps the randomness but prevents stats from being miles apart. Also much easier to balance than DA systems.
Hmmm, lets say the cards fell in pairs, that would give you an array of 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8.
That's the equivalent of a 32-point buy.
Interesting....!
Well, i find it quite meaningless to translate everything into point buy values since those arent really objectively well-balanced; giving one person that array and one person a 32pt buy would result in differently powered characters. Note too that that is one of the rarest aräsrays possible from the system.
But of course, it is a more highpowered system than the heroic array. Its also easy to cusrimize for lower power by say dropping a 8 for a 3.
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So, a discussion arose when one of our players rolled 5 16s and a 17 when making his character. Clearly, a 60 point buy-in value had to be vetoed, but we started talking about a modification of they current system of buy-ins vs. simple rolling.
That's not so clear to me. If you use rolling as your method to determine ability scores, then it's implied that you'll actually use what is rolled, if I rolled well and you decided to punish me for it, it would not make me a happy camper.
one of the rarest aräsrays possible.What's that? Is it Scandanavian?
hahaha, it's how it looks when you try to write arrays on a mobile phone with swedish (so yeah scandinavian) keyboard layout. So yeah it should be "one of the rarest arrays possible"
So what does 'aräsrays' mean?
nothing. the "ä" is next to the backspace, so I must have written something wrong, backspaced it and accidently hit the "ä". Happens a lot but I usually manage to catch it before posting.
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So what does 'aräsrays' mean?nothing. the "ä" is next to the backspace, so I must have written something wrong, backspaced it and accidently hit the "ä". Happens a lot but I usually manage to catch it before posting.
I think we'll find them in the next printing of the Bestiary, in the same section as the Gazebo.